Midlife, Anger & Grief
Reflections on the heightened emotions we may feel during midlife & perimenopause.
Midlife and the perimenopause transition are a time of great change - and potentially a time of awakening.
All of this will likely lead to it being a time of heightened emotion - and you’ll feel this even more intensely if you’re highly sensitive.
And two emotions which will likely make their home in the guest house of your body-mind are: anger and grief.
Anger
As you awaken to see the truth of your life and society, you’re going to see things that make you angry.
And, my Goddess, there’s a LOT to be angry about isn’t there?
We’re living under a capitalist, white supremacist patriarchy. We’re trapped in a collective de-humanizing nightmare that seeks to keep us locked into being disengaged, inward-focused, self-serving, competing yet docile consumers.
What’s more, it views nature as a resource to be plundered and is unceasing in its greed for perpetual growth and profit. It’s destroying the planet and crushing the human soul...
Then add to this whatever’s going on in your own life and personal relationships.
…And you’re going to feel it.
Sadness. Frustration. Anger. Rage!
You’re not alone.
Some would say that anger is one of the symptoms of perimenopause.
I’d say it’s actually one of its GIFTS.
Because anger and rage can be a powerful expression of refusal to accept injustice or inhumanity.
Harnessed, it can channel your energy outwards to fuel direct action and effect change from a place of rooted presence.
But anger can become toxified and destructive when we repress it, which we might do because we’re afraid of the intensity of feeling in our bodies and don’t know how to contain it and use it, or because we’ve been socialized to believe that anger is wrong, damaging, shameful and should never be expressed.
Or if it feels too much to handle it can easily get dampened down as sadness and powerlessness (which is more socially acceptable) or curdle into cynicism and disengagement.
Instead, I invite you to acknowledge any anger and rage you feel as a sacred guest, here to show you where something needs to change in your life.
Grief
Another big emotion you’re likely to experience is grief.
We humans can have an ambivalent attitude towards change, can’t we?
And, make no mistake, you are changing through this midlife process and perimenopause.
The old you is dying.
Some of the things you might be grieving include (but aren’t limited to):
Youth
Fertility
Changes to your looks
Feeling invisible – the loss of the male gaze (if that mattered to you)
Changes in health and body function
Loss of strength and/or mobility (or fear of this)
Not having had children, if you’d wanted them
Children growing up and leaving home
All the years you’ve dedicated to other people and/or child-rearing where your needs and desires were ignored
Feeling opportunities are passing you by and life is slipping through your grasp.
You may feel lost, abandoned, isolated, misunderstood.
You may feel your needs and experiences are being ignored, belittled or invalidated by those around you and by society as a whole.
You may feel at the mercy of a process over which you have zero control – there’s no consenting to this journey.
You may feel disenfranchised.
It might feel that whatever measure of power or privilege you held in society is fading away as people treat you as a faceless older woman rather than the unique individual that you are.
Let yourself feel this. And beware of toxic positivity.
You’re allowed to feel how you feel.
Yes, I know I talk about peri/menopause being an empowering experience.
But within that I very much include being empowered to experience the full spectrum of emotions that come up for you without feeling like you should just toughen up or plaster a fake smile on your face and get on with it.
This is about empowering yourself to give yourself space to grieve.
To allow yourself to feel anger and rage.
To allow yourself to BE.
And to trust yourself through this process
