A Radical Reframe: Menopause as a Portal to Your Power + Awakening

This article was first published as a blog on the Comfortable In My Skin website

Exploring what it means to be comfortable in my skin has been at the heart of my menopause journey.

It’s been a process of stripping back. Letting go of the expectations. The “shoulds.” The roles I’d outgrown. And returning to what’s real.

To who I am when I stop pretending, proving, or pleasing

I’ve chosen to trust my body. To trust nature’s rhythms. To meet this transition as something sacred - not broken.

We’re told menopause is a menace.

It messes you up.

It’s a stressful time to endure and survive.

We hear that it’ll wreck our relationships, hijack our bodies, strip us of joy, desire, and identity. That it’s something to dread, tolerate, and get through.

What if you knew this is only one story - and it doesn’t have to be yours?

Menopause isn’t one-size-fits-all. 

Just like puberty, pregnancy, parenting, and life itself aren’t one-size-fits-all.

It is a period of change.

A rite of passage.

A profound awakening.

And while we can’t control every symptom or bypass every challenge, we can choose how we meet this transition:

• The stories we carry

• The mindset we cultivate

• The care we offer our bodies

• The support we welcome in

Here are seven invitations - not prescriptions, but gentle doorways - to help you reclaim menopause as a radical return to yourself.

1. Create a Relationship With Your Body: What Is It Wanting You To Know?

Menopause often amplifies the body’s voice.

The hot flushes. The restlessness. The shifts in sleep or mood - they’re not failures to be fixed, but messages to be heard.

We’ve been taught to push through, numb, and override. But what if you asked:

What are you trying to tell me, body?

What have I been ignoring that now wants my attention?

This is the moment to listen with tenderness. To treat your body as an ally rather than a problem.

2. Tune Into Your Own Needs and Desires

This is a time to turn inward - to listen for what you want and need, rather than what the world expects.

For many, that looks like reclaiming pleasure. 

Not just sexual, but sensual. Creative. Playful.

It might mean resting more. Saying ‘NO’ more. Making art. Moving your body. Surrounding yourself with beauty.

The drop in oestrogen reduces our tendency to accommodate and smooth things over. 

That shift can open a powerful space to ask:

What do I want now?

What lights me up, nourishes me, and makes me feel alive?

3. Understand That Your Brain and Hormones Are Adapting for a Purpose

We’re often told menopause damages the brain - with jokes about brain fog, forgetfulness, and mental decline. 

But research shows something far more fascinating. 

The brain is rewiring. Pruning what’s no longer needed. Preparing you for a new phase of life.

This transformation is deeply purposeful.

Throughout history, post-menopausal women have taken on essential social roles - as caregivers, wisdom keepers, and community anchors. Our biology supports this shift.

Interestingly, while oestrogen drops, hormones like FSH (follicle-stimulating hormone) and LH (luteinising hormone) - which typically fluctuate throughout the menstrual cycle and peak during ovulation - stabilise at those high ovulatory levels post-menopause.

And here’s the magic. 

Ovulation is when many of us feel our most charismatic, magnetic, articulate, and vibrant. 

After menopause, these qualities don’t disappear - they become more consistently available.

Instead of mourning who you were, honour who you are becoming. With clarity. Presence. Purpose.

4. Welcome What’s Rising to Be Healed

Many of the symptoms we associate with menopause - mood swings, anxiety, insomnia, irritability, aches, emotional surges - are the body’s way of signalling that something deeper needs attention.

Unprocessed grief. Unspoken resentment. Past traumas. Unmet needs.

They rise to the surface, not to punish us, but to finally be seen, felt, and released.

This is not a breakdown.

It’s the body saying: I’m ready to be free of this.

What might you be carrying that’s asking to be cleared — with compassion, support, and truth?

5. Lighten the Load - Body and Environment

Our liver processes hormones alongside environmental toxins. When it’s overloaded - by alcohol, caffeine, chemicals, or pharmaceuticals - it struggles to maintain hormonal balance. 

And chronic stress prioritises cortisol over sex hormones, amplifying symptoms.

When I began truly listening to my body and making choices that felt best for my body, mind, and soul, moment by moment, it felt easy and obvious to stop drinking alcohol. To eliminate caffeine. To shift to a vegetarian, mostly plant-based diet (with some occasional seafood protein).

It wasn’t about perfection.

It was about honouring my body. Aligning with my values. Choosing what made me feel healthy, vital, and alive.

6. Balance Doing and Being

We live in a world that glorifies overachieving and overgiving. Menopause invites us to restore what’s been missing - rest, softness, space to be.

In many traditions, yang is outward, productive energy. Yin is inward, receptive energy - the quiet, intuitive, cyclical part of us that’s often been neglected.

We need both.

But most of us have lived lopsided. 

Overextended in doing and effort. Menopause offers a course correction.

Softness is not failure. It’s medicine.

Receiving is not weakness. It’s sacred.

7. Question the “Shoulds” and Choose Powerfully

By midlife, we’ve collected a lifetime of “shoulds” - about how to look, work, parent, behave, and show up.

Menopause gives us the chance to burn off those layers and ask:

What’s true for me now?

What do I want to keep?

What am I ready to let go of?

For me, that meant walking away from corporate cushioning, job security, status, and a career I had university qualifications for. 

I chose to follow my heart. Trust my intuition. Step into my deeper calling.

It was one of the most liberating decisions of my life - and one that aligned my outer world with my inner truth.

A Homecoming to Yourself

Menopause is not an ending.
It’s an initiation, a rite of passage and a return to your deepest self.

There’s no one right way to move through this portal.

There’s only your way.

So pause here if you like. And ask yourself:

• What story am I ready to let go of?

• What truth am I ready to honour?

• What part of me is calling to come home?