Menopause: Why midlife isn’t a crisis, it’s a chrysalis

It’s the time of year where menopause takes centre stage which can often feel a bit depressing. I don’t know about you but I don’t want to be part of the meno-posse, be seen as a walking hot flush or talk about my brain fog.

Yes, it’s great that these symptoms which were once taboo are finally hitting the mainstream. But in all the noise about menopause it’s important to remember that actually there is way more to women in midlife than just our biology.

 

Lean into transition

It’s true that midlife is a time of huge transition and many of those changes are not just hormonal.

Research we conducted at NOON.org.uk found that by 50 over half of women had been through at least five of divorce, bereavement, redundancy, caring for elderly parents, or a Gen Z or young person with anxiety or similar – not to mention our own health issues and of course menopause. And often these can all hit together in what I call a midlife clusterfuxk (or more politely a midlife maelstrom or collision).

But what we also found which may seem unexpected to you was that the women who had been through the most ended up the happiest.

That sounds counterintuitive but it shouldn’t. The midlife collision had caused these women to clear out of their lives anything that no longer served them, all the things which no longer fit.

“What we found… was that the women who had been through the most ended up the happiest.”

 

Embrace the shift

What I know from six years of running NOON (the UK’s premier network for midlife women) is that midlife isn’t a crisis, it’s a chrysalis. What I see is that often what has been at the centre of our lives until this point will fall away in midlife. For me that happened when I was made redundant, suddenly, from the big job that had defined me for 25 years. I felt lost and sad and all at sea. But six years on I am so much happier and more fulfilled than I would have been if I was still there. For some of us it’s about a work shift, for others the changes may come at the end of a marriage, or when the kids leave home.

“Midlife isn’t a crisis, it’s a chrysalis.”

A new beginning

I  think of our lives as being like a figure of eight – this falling away at midlife is like the middle of the eight, where one circle ends, the lines cross and another one begins.

Midlife and menopause can feel like the end – that’s because they are the end of the first circle – but it is important to remember that they are also the beginning of the next one.

Midlife is not the end, it’s the end of the beginning. It’s the age of opportunity, where we clear the ground, start creating our next act. This might not be where we expected to find ourselves, or what we thought we might be doing – but there is beauty and strength in that. I see so many women rise out of midlife adversity, shedding what no longer serves them, embracing something they never knew they would do and finally becoming the women they always wanted to be.

“Midlife is not the end, it’s the end of the beginning.” or

“It’s the age of opportunity, where we clear the ground, start creating our next act.”

Your Queenager era

In our research nearly half of women 50 plus said that their Queenager years (Queenager is the term I coined to describe us midlife queens living our best lives) were their best; when they could finally put themselves first “when my life finally feels like my own, like I am just getting the hang of it’ as one of the women in our focus group put it.

“Nearly half of women 50 plus said that their Queenager years… were their best.”

It’s only noon 

You see at menopause we’re not done. In fact in the 100 year life, at 50ish we are only half way through, it’s only noon, lunchtime… we’ve got the whole afternoon and evening to come. So don’t think of midlife as the end, it’s just the start of the next part. We Queenagers are just coming into our prime… just getting going.

There really is Much More to Come…

If you’d like to know more about what that can look like and how to build a life which is truly resonant for you (by which I mean your life on the outside matches how you feel on the inside) then sign up for my newsletter here, follow us on Instagram or check out my book Much More to Come (A Times Bestseller). 

 

Learn more about how to empower your menopause journey, find the right menopause supplements for you, or make our nutritional therapist’s delicious and nutritious Menopause Muffins. Our expert nutritional therapists are also always on hand for one-to-one advice, whenever you need it.