Yesterday was a very rocky mental health day for me. Urgh – I can feel the shame rising even as I type that. “Mental health”. For many years, I liked to think that I was invincible and that rocky mental health days were something that happened to other people. Weaker people.
And THAT about sums things up.
I’ve certainly taken my mental health firmly into my own hands over the past few years. I slowed down my life, figured out my nervous system, gained emotional clarity and practised deep, daily awareness. I sleep well, eat well, move well and spend time outdoors every day.
But all of that is no match for the current transition I’m in – peri-menopause.
Wait, wait, wait. Before you think about closing this email and putting it to the side, just hear me out for a minute.
I do NOT want to write about peri-menopause. I do not enjoy sharing my struggles and vulnerabilities. My life was infinitely more enjoyable when I only shared #inspo and #goals.
Even recently, I’ve been thinking about how I can move away from sharing all the messy in-between stuff I’ve been sharing over the past two years, and focus on the fucking powerful and epic awakenings, realisations, and lessons I’ve had that I KNOW can help others.
And yet, today in yoga, my teacher shared a quote that resonated deeply with me. It states:
“People are often unreasonable, illogical and self-centred; Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives; Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies; Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you; Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight; Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous; Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow; Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough; Give the world the best you’ve got anyway.
You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and your God; It was never between you and them anyway.”
– Mother Theresa
I thought about the line, “Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough; Give the world the best you’ve got anyway.”
The best thing I have to give right now is a story of my own, messy human experience, in the hope it may offer comfort to others.
You may not have any experience with peri-menopause. You may have already coasted through it yourself. You may be a man. You may think, “This doesn’t affect me”, but you are wrong.
Half of the world’s population are women. All women will transition, at one time or another, through peri-menopause and into menopause – the time when we stop experiencing cycles and are no longer fertile. For those of us who choose to transition without hormone replacement therapy, the ride can be a bumpy one.
Until recently, my only experience of menopause was hearing my mother joke about threatening to stab her doctor in the eye unless he gave her more hormones. (This was at a time when studies were showing how dangerous long-term hormone replacement could be. She somehow managed to convince him and has been on hormone replacement ever since. She’s now 78.)
Nevertheless, when I started my daily Awareness Journal Practice, I included space to track my menstrual cycle as a kind of “preparation” for peri-menopause. My understanding of the transition is that all unresolved issues in your life will come up, and that working through them during earlier menstrual cycles will “soften the blow” when the time comes, or at the very least give greater understanding and perspective of the hormonal fluctuations that colour women’s lives.
Thank GOD for this practice, I think every day.
Peri-menopause didn’t creep up on me, though. Instead, it landed fully formed in my lap the moment I committed to weaning William completely in November last year. Apparently, this can happen with older, breastfeeding mothers.
I have now had four complete cycles with an altered hormonal state – symbolic of peri-menopause. They are … different!
You see, a woman’s normal, natural (not influenced by hormonal birth control) cycle is quite a ride as it is. Over the last two and a half years of tracking my cycle, I’ve come to expect a few things:
My hormones tend to suffer the strongest drop on day 23 of my cycle. On this day, I can expect to be more anxious or angry than usual. Sometimes this lasts for two days, or starts a day or two early or late. My nervous system is a little more volatile right now. I can quickly cycle into fight-or-flight simply from loud noises or having too much to do.
On day 27 or 28 of my cycle, I get a burst of energy and often feel motivated to finish jobs and tasks around the house.
As I start to bleed, I often feel great relief, but I also CRAVE solitude, and when I have too much to do, or too much time with the kids, I can feel very suffocated and frustrated.
On day 5 or 6 of my cycle, I notice a quickening of energy that intensifies around day 9 or 10.
By day 14, I feel invincible. I am strutting around the house, ticking off chores with ease. My exercise has increased. I’m stronger. My nervous system is robust – it would take a truly monumental incident to rock me. I can do, be and have it all.
When I ovulate around this same time, I feel a little grief and sadness; it passes quite quickly, and I’m able to ride the high of my energy and optimism right through until day 23, when it all repeats.
Knowing all of this has given me many gifts! I know when to take on big jobs. I know when to back off. I don’t stay in suffering on the days I’m emotional or dysregulated. Instead, I remember that my hormones are at play and take steps to support myself. I don’t JUDGE myself.
After I weaned William, my cycles were nothing like what I just listed. In fact, during the first two, I experienced no PMS or hormone drop at day 23 and coasted on high energy right through until my bleed … when all hell broke loose!
For the first two cycles in a row, my bleed symbolised uncontrollable, red-hot, RAGE. I’m talking zero to a hundred anger in two seconds. The rage consumed me – taking me out of body where I forgot all my tools and simply craved a place to go and scream endlessly – a place that unfortunately doesn’t exist in the city.
I thought, okay. Cool. So I now know that I get uncontrollable rage when I bleed. What can I do about that? I talked to my husband, and we came up with some logistical solutions. I did some energy work with Jenny (My energy coach/ healer). We cleared a lot of rage that wasn’t mine. Things seemed to die down.
Then came Vietnam. I started to bleed the evening I landed in Singapore on my way to my final destination—no PMS. No rage. A straightforward and peaceful bleed.
“What was different?” I asked myself with curiosity. Zero obligations. Zero responsibilities. No overstimulation. And, importantly, time first thing to journal and practice breathwork – practices that I unfortunately often have to do in the afternoon in Australia.
Peace. Vietnam.
I came home full of hope and optimism – with more answers about how to support myself. I spoke with Dreamboat, and we settled on a new schedule that takes some of the parenting load off my plate. I made a commitment to wake up each morning at 5:00 AM, before the kids, and do my Awareness Practice and Breathwork before my day starts. (Sacrificing an hour of sleep, but buying me more clarity earlier and more time for work later in the day.)
Yesterday was when the wheels fell off. After one breezy cycle in Vietnam and two cycles without PMS and only the bleed rage to contend with, I thought I was armed and ready for what was next.
Yesterday I was on day 24 of my cycle – my previous danger zone. I woke up at 5:09. I don’t set alarms. Amazingly, my body has been playing along and waking me up naturally ever since I committed to that start time.
I settled onto the outdoor couch with my journal and already noted that my state was … unsettled.
I felt relieved and grateful to have the time and space to process it all until William appeared at my side. At 5:19. (He was followed by his sister at about 5:30.)
I felt instantly defeated. Having my morning practice disturbed wasn’t the issue – William has regularly gotten up before I’ve done breathwork, or Makia has crept onto my lap during my first round.) The thing was – my practice hadn’t even STARTED. And now it was 5:30 in the morning, TWO AND A HALF FUCKING HOURS BEFORE WE LEAVE FOR SCHOOL, and both my kids were awake. Both my kids were tired. Both my kids were needy. Both my kids were annoying as hell. And I had no capacity for any of it.
On Monday, he woke up at 6:00 AM at least.
I woke up Dreamboat at 6:00. I couldn’t do it. And, as fortune would have it, Tuesday morning is one of his new mornings. I crawled back into bed, but William wasn’t having it. He wanted mummy, and he wanted her up, and he wasn’t taking no for an answer. As he quickly descended into dysregulation and emotional turmoil, the mental fortitude that usually allows me to step up to the plate completely shattered. I started crying with him. I buried my head in the bed and cried and cried and cried.
He’s crying. I’m crying. He’s craving a connection that I can’t give him because I am quite simply completely out of my own body and unable to control my responses.
Emmanuel doesn’t know what to do. My mum even appears for a moment, bewildered, and asks what’s wrong. Dreamboat offers a simplified response. “She’s overwhelmed.”
Finally, I scoop up William and take us both to the shower, where I let the hot water run over us until it runs out. We’re regulated. Somewhat. But the experience isn’t over for me.
I feel ashamed. Ashamed that I don’t “have what it takes”. That I can’t “do it all”.
In my household, as in many others, I (mother) am the glue that holds it all together. My husband is amazing, yes. But I keep the calendar. I do the shopping. I manage the budget. The mental load? It’s mine. And not just for the household. I’m the kid’s first preference. And I live with aging parents that I shop for, pay bills for, take to appointments, fix tech issues for and make decisions for.
I feed the worms.
I empty the dishwasher.
I water the plants.
I remember the library books.
I plan the parties and buy the cakes.
(Thank god Dreamboat does the washing and cleaning and bed linen and plenty of other things, too)
The point is, it’s just too much shit. I can handle it when I’m hormonally supported during the middle of my cycle. Hell. I can even handle it when I’m in a normal cycle and can plan for my easy and more challenging days.
I cannot handle it when I am unexpectedly thrust into the hormonal hellscape of peri-menopause.
I could, like many women before me, reach for the hormonal replacement that doctors will be quick to give me. Ahh. What sweet release to be, again, able to withstand the impossible workload that faces me daily.
Or I could actually stop and say – get fucked.
Our entire society, and the systems we live in, rely on the unpaid and unappreciated labour that women do in the household.
On any given day, the number of tasks I undertake is insane. I ran a company with twelve staff, and the workload was completely achievable and manageable compared to raising two kids and living with aging parents.
And I want to go back to work! I NEED to go back to something that is mine and mine alone. Something for me. Something that gives me a sense of freedom and purpose. How can I do this when I am drowning?
So what can I do?
I don’t have the answers today. But I know that something isn’t working in our society.
I want to pretend this isn’t so. I want to be the woman who “has it all”. On some days, I even want to beg for the hormones – as my mother once did. (Can you still threaten a doctor to stab them in the eye?) But there is a very loud part of me that knows my job is not to conform. My job is to challenge.
So I challenge.
I’ll book another call with Jenny. (Jenny – I’m coming for you, my friend, haha.) I’ll re-jig the schedule. (Dreamboat is already clambering to give me more reprieve.) I’ll go out for my early journaling so the kids can’t disturb me. There are some solutions.
But there aren’t enough solutions for the fact that every single woman in the world goes through this, and their ANGER is not misguided. Something is not working in our society, and things need to change.
(Those things are not us, and the solutions are not artificial hormones!)
So you might not be approaching peri-menopause yet. (Which, FYI, can last for ten years) Or you might have breezed through it. You might be a man. But the world IS affected by the suffering of billions of women – and it won’t change until something changes.
Today I wanted to disappear back into a Netflix hole, and perhaps I will now. But I’ve said what I wanted to say. I gave the world the best I’ve got, anyway.
Xx
**Originally published to my email database on the 18th of February, 2026**
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