Jan 16, 2018
Sarah feels it’s a real time of reckoning for her. She feels real clarity about things in her life that she needs to do more of or less of - and she’s ready to get on with it. Julia had a similar thing happen at work - a reckoning. It’s been a busy time for both of them. Podcast empire, anyone?
Bible Study - Chapter 1 - Menopause Puts Your Life Under a Microscope - from the Wisdom of Menopause - we felt we got more out of the chapter by reading it at the end than having started with it at the beginning of the podcast.
Sarah loved this quote: “The vision-obscuring veil created by the hormones of reproduction” that’s apparently what happens to you when you start your period. Funny concept! Dr. Northrup talks about how her marriage broke up during menopause because she kind of “woke up” when the veil came down. But she takes responsibility for it happening and doesn’t blame her husband (very much) - and we notice how it always comes back to US - to each of us - just like diet and exercise - to choose our lives and be in charge of our lives.
It’s so much work to raise children, and we get so caught up in it, and then we wake up once it’s done and wonder - what about me? Because even in 2017, women still do most of the work of child-rearing, whether they work outside the home or not. Men as primary caregivers is a rarity. When it came time to decide about having a baby, Julia had to weigh whether she was willing to put her personal, creative goals on hold for a while. It was serious.
Dr. Northrup tells a story in the chapter about when she was making strides in her personal career and asked her husband to help more around the house and with the kids, and he said No. It was part of her realization that her marriage was ending. Again, the two steps of the lesson are “being willing to take responsibility for the problems in our lives, but being willing to feel the pain and loss - and grieve for those parts of our lives that we are leaving behind.”
And there’s a fascinating thing in the chapter about marrying our Mothers - and we both have done it! Crazy. And the chapter talks about how a marriage must adapt at midlife. Til Death Do Us Part made more sense years ago when people didn’t live as long, so it was easier to achieve!
Dr. Northrup went through a period when she had a fibroid the size of a soccer ball in her uterus - wow! We feel quite lucky that we’ve not gone through that. And a reminder to not assume you know what people are going through just from the surface.
Another great quote from the book, after Dr. Northrup was divorced and she found she wasn’t being invited to as many gatherings as before “I was becoming the kind of woman I’d always heard no one wants to invite anywhere lest she steal another woman’s husband. A woman alone at midlife: unclaimed, unwanted, and dangerous to the status quo.” Crazy! Plus we feel an empowered woman always makes people uncomfortable and they feel disempowered themselves, so they resent a powerful person simply because they don’t have it.
Another great quote from the chapter is “I have learned that letting go is a process, not an event.”
How Hot Was Your Flash - Fall in LA means it’s cool in the mornings and then hot in the afternoons, usually. Before it gets actually chilly. Julia felt actually cold this week. Wow. Sarah has seen a huge decrease in flashes since changing her diet - adding the supplements and adding more kale. So that’s good.