This year for me has been very topsyturvy. What I mean with this is that I have been living in a dimension where everything is amplified, my emotional and psychological life has become very unstable, possibly as unstable as I was during my teen age years.
My friends ‘the hormones’ are throwing me back in the past and bringing up all those aspects that so happily I thought I had left behind in my puberty. Well, I thought I managed to get rid of those painful aspects of my emotional and psychological life to never look at them again, but Nature thought differently …
Puberty and maturity
Being unstable and unpredictable when you are a teenager is excused and forgiven, but during maturity it’s a different matter all together.
I look in the mirror and see how my face is transforming, my hair is changing colour rapidly and my body shape is softening and becoming rounder on the edges, but to my surprise I go through emotional states that I remember very well when I was 16, how can it be?
I am still not sure why it is so, but obviously my friends ‘the hormones’ seem to be determined to take me down the path of memory lane.
Who could remember all those details of so many years ago?
It feels as all that happened in a different life, not mine!
What I am observing at the moment is that there are two major themes occurring: wilderness and melting.
Wilderness
Let’s explore a bit first my favourite one: wilderness.
I remember so vividly during my puberty how important it was for me to be able to express myself freely and rebel to anything that I perceived as a limit or a traditional way of operation/behaviour.
I could be triggered by the smallest of things that somebody would say or do and I would be off on my verbal crusade fighting for a good cause: freedom!
I have to say that at times I did have some very good points to make, but I suppose it was more an exercise to establish myself as a proper human being who happened to have an opinion, rather than simply being a child who would obey orders.
I am very well aware that at times I might have spoken about things I couldn’t possibly know much about, as I was so young, but the point wasn’t being accurate, the point was to make a stand, a very different matter.
Now I am going through similar states, but with a very different consciousness and some life experience under my belt, therefore the points I can make are very well articulated and are backed up by experience which can make them invincible.
Some situations I put myself into are so reminiscent of some similar ones of over three decades ago that sometimes I can’t help laughing as I feel like in a time warp and am not sure any more who is speaking … Is it really me, the mature woman I can see reflected in the mirror or the spotty and skinny teenager that is pondering what she wants to do and be as a grown up?
Difficult to know indeed …
Revisiting the past
If I knew back then that I would have revisited those ‘places’ few decades later, I would have probably thought twice before speaking, but my friends ‘the hormones’ were as active back then as they are right now, so I am still living at their mercy, but just with a bit more awareness.
The huge difference though is that in the meantime I have accumulated few tools that can become handy in those situations to be more self-aware, therefore I am not oblivious of them any more. I have become a good observer of myself, know my values and traits and do my best to be as objective as I possibly can, rather than just charge like an angry rhino against anyone who is in my way or has a different opinion to mine.
The impetus is the same though, it is a force of nature, I have to say, and so is my determination. Well, I am a passionate creature and my home is in the wild.
I still pay attention to manners though, I don’t stick my fingers in my nose or spit on the pavement, I have never done that anyway, but I feel any restriction, as little as it can be, enormous and have no patience to withstand it.
This emotional state is testing in a severe way my self-control because I like being kind and considerate, therefore I have to come to terms with my wilderness and pay attention when it arises, otherwise situations can escalate in no time.
Even though it is weird to confess this, it is true and I am willing to share it for the sake of other women who might be less confident, articulate and courageous than I am.
Anger
Anger goes hand in hand with my friends ‘the hormones’ and is a regular at their parties, it is the louder of guests for sure!
My life experience and good common sense tell me that anger is the outer layer of pain, therefore it means that there is a bit of healing work that has to be done, if I want to be able to reach the peaceful state I would like to be in again.
Also the rate at which anger shows up in my emotional life now is simply the confirmation that I have to patiently look into it and make friends with it.
To accumulate unresolved pain is an easy thing to do in life, even if one might not have had rough and challenging experiences, therefore it is a must to allow the painful experiences to arise to be able to melt the anger that results as a by-product of them.
Expansion of consciousness
Let’s now explore a bit the second trend: melting.
The best way to explain this state is to imagine to put a dollop of honey in a cup of hot tea, after a while you won’t see the blob any more and the tea will be sweet if you drink it: same colour but sweet.
This is the way my emotional life is at present.
From the outside I possibly look as tranquil and as poised as before (the tea has the same colour) but inside I feel topsyturvy!
It’s like having lost the barrier that divides my body from the outside world and at times the two merge and I can feel distinctively what is outside of myself.
This state brings along intense emotional states that feel like floods that come all over me and leave me feeling like a wreck.
It’s as if the sensitivity of my ‘inner winters’ has now established itself as a resident in my body all month long.
I used to appreciate and look forward to this state when I would bleed, but to experience that all the time is another matter.
Anything and everything can trigger acute states of this sort and be rational during them is simply out of the question.
Adjusting the way of operating
The advantage of these states is that they are delivering very interesting insights about life, humanity and myself, they are like spiritual downloads; pity that I can’t schedule these downloads as I can do with the updates in my computer, they happen before I switch my pc off in the evening.
When these downloads occur I feel like when I go to my computer in the morning and try to resume my activities but, because of the updates happened the night before, sometimes I feel confused and don’t know what to do any more, as the updates have scrambled my files.
The only way is to have patience and start from scratch in the process of understanding the new way of operation.
I used to say that I hate routine, now a bit of old routine sounds like heaven to me!
My friends ‘the hormones’ are making me see everything in a very different way and I am not sure where I am going any more …
What I am also realising is that not necessarily some emotions that I feel are necessarily related to me, so I need to be more present than ever before and use my discernment to protect my emotional well-being.
In other words at the moment I am more open to tap into the collective unconscious where there are many negative emotions expressing the collective pain of humanity.
Feeling like water in the ocean
There are moments when I feel like a drop of water in the sea, I know who I am, but I can’t distinguish myself from the rest of the sea, it is all water.
It feels like a dissolving of the ego, hence my ego has revenge moments when it shows up on my stage and wouldn’t move from it for the rest of the play, even if it is supposed to show up only in one act rather than in all.
I call them ‘ego attacks’ and I have become quite good at recognising them to prevent myself falling into the ‘desperation ravine’, but sometimes I miss them and they create havoc in my life.
When an ‘ego attack’ shows up all sanity and satisfaction disappear and I feel inconsolable and totally unsatisfied of whatever I do or whoever I am.
Another way of calling the ‘ego attack’ would be: inner critic in operation.
It is not about me
I decided to share some of these intimate states of mine because I assume that other sisters out there might go through something similar and might wonder if they are becoming monsters or what is happening to them during these days of their lives which should bring wisdom rather than madness …
Well, sometimes the boundary between the two is not distinguishable and to keep sane one has to become friend with madness.
Madness simply brings up parts of ourselves that we have repressed or ignored and need resolution, rather then being kept in obscurity.
It is time to take the ‘skeletons’ out of the cupboard and have a look at them.
I hope that sharing my topsyturvy living might shed some light in your madness or at least make you feel that there is nothing wrong with you or with other women at this time of their life, it is just the initiation of menopause that is approaching closer and closer.
Also if you wonder what is going to happen to you and who you are going to become, I can suggest the following: it might be possible that like in the Harry Potter’s film, the map has no evident path to follow until you start moving when to your great surprise you will see the footsteps start appearing as by magic on the parchment. It takes heaps of trust to be able to do that!
If my reflections intrigue you and you would like to find out more about my work, check my website: Flying Inspiration.
I am looking forward to reading your thoughts and comments.
May the feminine energy help you go through the initiation of menopause.
Thanks for reading!
