BE YOUR OWN CHANGE GURU:
The Ultimate Women’s Guide for Thriving at Midlife
By Susan Paget
Copyright 2013 Susan Paget,
All rights reserved.
Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-2075-2
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
For Matilda & Presley
Foreword
This book was literally written under the influence of perimenopause.
I'd wake up at 3:00 am (the midlife Witching Hour!), and when I knew that all the tossing and turning in the world wasn’t going to get me back to sleep, I’d drag my tired but wired butt out of bed, shuffle into the living room and open up my laptop.
Like some bizarre magnet, I felt as if something was pulling at me to get up and Google words and phrases like “perimenopause” or “midlife” or “I’m 47, what the hell is going on with me?” I was on a mission. I wanted to get to the bottom of what life was all about when we found ourselves at its halfway point.
Some force was compelling me to uncover whatever it was I was going through. To be honest, I didn’t know what was happening to me. The only thing crystal clear was that something was going on and I couldn’t find the words to explain it. It was like I’d landed in a new city where I didn’t speak the language, I didn’t have a map and to be honest, the locals weren’t very friendly.
But rather than be daunted, I was challenged. Instead of going back to bed and pulling the covers over my head, I was hell bent on finding a way to explain what I was going through and how I was changing. At the same time, the further I got into it, the more I could see that venturing into this topic was taboo territory. It seemed this way because I hadn’t come across anyone of the same age in my circle that wanted to talk about it. It was some big, weird code of silence that, I guess, I was also supposed to keep.
But, I couldn’t do that. These feelings weren’t going anywhere. And like anyone else who’s intrigued by a good mystery, the more you get into it, the more you want to find out how it unfolds. The more I felt that something was off limits without any understandable reason why, the more I wanted to know about it. Maybe you’re like that too.
So 3:00am became a weird friend to me. In the quiet and stillness of the very early morning I’d investigate what I really wanted to know about this time of life and whatever I learned, I wanted to share it.
There was one thing I knew when it came to writing a book about midlife. I felt it was bigger than me. I’d tried to write books several times in my life and couldn’t get past the first few pages. I either hated what I wrote or I just didn’t think anyone would really care.
But something about getting older, and doing it well made me feel like I had to get rid of my ego so I could just pass a message to anyone I knew.
I had to write this book.
I wanted to write it for my friends, sisters and daughters. I wanted their friends and family to have it in their hands. And from there, I wanted a conversation started with our partners, our moms, our dads, our sons and our colleagues.
I had a burning desire to add my voice to the small but collective chorus of the people that I encountered during my online quests, who saw midlife as something amazing and vital. Thankfully, there’s a small army of women who believe in the power and positivity of this age. And I felt a need to be a part of this groundswell. I wanted to find a way to share my own thoughts and trash the stilted thinking of a "use by date" when it came to the potential of a person. Something in me felt like taking on the commitment of proving that our 40s, 50s and 60s (and beyond) could be a time of deep personal development and progress as long as we backed ourselves, even if we were flying blind, and kept taking steps into the big unknown.
And this part, the taking steps into the big unknown part, was actually where I was at during those middle of the night writing and researching sessions. To find answers I resonated with, to work out where to start the journey, I found I really had to search. And that was saying a lot considering my day job was often as a researcher for television shows. I prided myself in being able to find the best information and best people to tell stories in a pinch, but with this whole midlife thing, I had to really knuckle down and look damn hard for information that I could relate to and that also inspired me. While I looked, I couldn’t help but think how bizarre it all was. Here we live in a time where we’re supposed to be so evolved and where we have access to everything, yet here I was, in the middle of the night in my sweats, scouring search engines for seriously real, proof- positive messages about what to expect from our 40s and beyond. It simply didn’t make any sense to me.
If I was the only one walking around not knowing what was happening that would be one thing. But time and time again I would be confronted by women in my circle – smart, switched on, “should know everything” women – who had no idea about what they were going through and seemed quite happy to keep it that way.
Here’s a classic example from when I had started writing this book. I was telling a colleagues, in her late 40s, about what I was up to. and she told me that she wasn't’ "anywhere near menopause yet so she didn’t need to think about it for a while”.
I tried not to raise my left eyebrow.
Then she added that she really had no idea about what this stage of life even meant. It got a little awkward so I changed the subject to something nice and vanilla, but on the inside, I saw a kindred spirit.
When this woman shared what her version of menopause looked like I completely got it. That disconnect was me at 47. When someone would say the “M Word” to me, I’d draw an absolute blank. In my mind, I wasn’t there yet, even though my age pretty much said otherwise. I had no reference point of what going through menopause looked like, let alone what it felt like or how it would impact me. The only slight bit of intel I had on it was that it seemed like something I’d be smart to sidetrack as much as I possibly could.
I got exactly what this woman was saying (and what she wasn’t saying!). It was that attitude of avoiding clues or forward thinking that kept me in the dark until I couldn’t stay clueless anymore.
My personal need to check under the hood of midlife led me through an often confronting and frustrating period to gain control of my well-being. In the chapters ahead I’ll tell you the story of what happens when you’re not aware of what your body is trying to tell you, especially when you think that you "Don’t need to think about it for a while".
But before we get started, I’d like to clarify some terms.
Most of us think of menopause as when a woman’s periods stop and yes, that’s correct. To break it down though, let's do a little Menopause 101 and talk basics. (For those of you who already know this, that's awesome! But as I’ve encountered so many women who have no idea regarding how menopause works, like the women I mentioned above, these few paragraphs are for them).
The word "menopause" comes from the Greek word pausis - meaning cessation- and the root word men- which stands for month. Put them all together and, well we know what that means!
Menopause designates the official stop to the menstrual cycle and the general rule of thumb says that if you’ve gone for one year without a period, then you’re officially in menopause. You’re not making viable eggs anymore and you will not be able to naturally get pregnant.