The Spaciousness of Menopause: Becoming the Wild, Wise Woman
October 2026 | by Kate Mead
On honouring our cycles, learning to let go, and finding the freedom to become more fully ourselves.
I am in the later stages of perimenopause, and while there are certainly challenges, there are aspects of this transition that I am really enjoying and embracing as a welcome and needed shift into the next stage of my life.
This might not be the usual way we talk about menopause. So much of the conversation focuses on what we lose, what stops working as it used to, and what we need to do to manage the changes. And of course, there are things that can be difficult. Our bodies change, our sleep can become unpredictable, and sometimes we find ourselves searching for a word that we know perfectly well but simply cannot retrieve, along with the myriad of other symptoms that can be extremely challenging for some of us at this stage in our lives.
But alongside these changes, I have noticed something else happening. Something that feels less like a loss and more like a shedding and growth.
A shedding of expectations, of old patterns, of the unconscious belief that it is somehow our responsibility to make everything and everyone around us comfortable.
And I wonder whether this stage of life offers us an opportunity to discover a different way of being a woman.
To understand why this feels so significant to me, I find myself looking back at something we often overlook: the wisdom of our own cycles.
We are cyclical beings in a linear world
For most of our reproductive lives, our bodies move through a cycle of change. Our energy, mood, desires, needs and capacity for connection can shift as we move through the different phases of menstruation.
Yet we live in a society that largely expects us to be consistent. To turn up in the same way every day. To be productive, sociable, accommodating, focused and available, regardless of what might be happening inside us.
We are rarely encouraged to ask whether our needs might be different today from what they were a week ago, or whether our changing feelings might have something valuable to tell us.
I have come to think of the cycle as our inner compass.
In the first half of the cycle, as oestrogen rises towards ovulation, many women experience greater energy, sociability, confidence or a desire to connect. We might feel more outward-facing, more playful, more inclined to make plans, bring people together and take on new things.
This is often the version of ourselves that the world seems most comfortable with. She is bright, giving, lively, productive and available. She is easy to celebrate because she fits so neatly into the demands of modern life.
But our cycles have another side.
In the second half of the cycle, the luteal phase, we experience a pull towards the inward. We may become more sensitive to our surroundings, less interested in socialising, or more aware of the things that feel uncomfortable, unfair or out of balance.
I think of this as the shadow part of the cycle. Not because it is bad or something to be ashamed of, but because it can reveal the parts of ourselves and our lives that we would rather not look at.
The mess in the house that didn't bother us a few days ago suddenly feels intolerable. A demand from a family member that we would normally meet willingly feels overwhelming. Something we happily agreed to last week now feels like the last thing we want to do.
We can become irritable, angry, frustrated or sad. Sometimes the feelings are disproportionate to the immediate situation; sometimes they seem to arrive with surprising force.
How often do we respond by blaming our hormones?
We tell ourselves we are being unreasonable. We try to push the feelings away, carry on regardless and wait until we feel like ourselves again.
But what if we became a little more curious?
What if the irritation was an invitation to look at the things we have been tolerating? What if the anger was asking us to examine an imbalance? What if the overwhelm was telling us that we need more support, more rest or a different arrangement altogether?
Of course, not every feeling is a profound message, and our hormones can genuinely affect how we experience the world. But neither does every uncomfortable emotion need to be dismissed as a hormonal nuisance.
Perhaps there is something to learn from the moments when our usual willingness to accommodate others begins to falter.
We might ask ourselves: Am I taking on too much? Have I agreed to something I don't really want to do? Am I giving more than I have to give? Is there a conversation I have been avoiding, a boundary I need to establish, or a change I have been reluctant to make?
These questions won't always have simple answers. But they may offer us a different relationship with our changing inner world.
Instead of treating ourselves as unreliable because we feel differently from one week to the next, we can begin to recognise that we are not designed to feel the same all the time.
Our cycles can offer information about our needs. Learning to listen to that information, rather than overriding it, can become a practice of self-knowledge, inner wisdom and feminine connection.
The difficulty is that our lives rarely slow down to accommodate this inward journey. Work schedules continue, family responsibilities remain, and the people around us may still expect the same version of us to show up.
We are not routinely taught to make space for ourselves, ask for help or allow someone else to pick up the slack.
So we push through. We override. We carry on.
And sometimes we enter the next cycle already depleted, having spent the previous weeks ignoring the very signals that might have helped us restore ourselves.
I wonder how different our lives might be if we were taught to honour these changing rhythms from the beginning. If we understood that the inward phase was not a failure of our usual bright, capable selves, but another part of our experience worthy of attention and exploration.
Perhaps we would spend less time fighting ourselves and others and more time learning from ourselves and other wise women around us.
When the cycle begins to change
Perimenopause brings a new dimension to this relationship with our bodies.
The familiar rhythm becomes less predictable. Our periods arrive early or late, disappear for a while and return unexpectedly. The patterns we once recognised may become harder to follow, and we can lose our sense of where we are in the cycle altogether.
It can be disorientating when the map we have relied on for so long no longer seems to work.
And yet, I wonder whether this changing landscape also asks something new of us.
If we can no longer rely on the familiar signs and rhythms, perhaps we are invited to develop a more immediate relationship with ourselves. To notice how we feel now, rather than assuming that we know what we should be able to do because of where we think we are in our cycle.
This isn't always easy. Sometimes the changes are uncomfortable, confusing or exhausting. But it can also be an opportunity to listen more closely, to question our habits and expectations, and to discover what we need in this particular chapter of our lives.
As oestrogen and other reproductive hormones fluctuate and eventually decline, our experience of ourselves may change in many different ways. I cannot say that the shifts I am noticing are simply the result of hormonal change. We are shaped by our experiences, our relationships, our age and the wisdom we gather along the way.
But I am curious about the relationship between this physical transition and the other changes I feel happening within me.
Because there is something quite profound about beginning to question the roles we have occupied for so long.
The art of a kinder no
For much of my life, I have been very familiar with the desire to please, to look after others, to be helpful and accommodating.
There is nothing inherently wrong with these qualities. Caring for others is one of the ways we connect, love and build meaningful relationships.
But there is a difference between caring for others because we genuinely want to and caring for them because, somewhere along the way, we have learned to put their needs ahead of our own.
There is a point at which giving becomes an expectation. We say yes when we mean no. We take responsibility for feelings that are not ours to manage. We make space for other people while quietly asking less and less space for ourselves.
In this later stage of perimenopause, I have noticed that this pattern has become increasingly difficult to tolerate.
I am less willing to override myself to keep the peace. Less inclined to agree to something simply because it is expected of me. Less interested in taking responsibility for things that are not mine to carry.
And what I find particularly interesting is that this doesn't necessarily feel like becoming harder or less caring.
It feels like becoming clearer.
Brené Brown has spoken about a finding from her work that has stayed with me: the most compassionate people she interviewed were also among the most boundaried. The idea is that clear boundaries can make genuine compassion possible, rather than allowing care to become entangled with resentment or self-sacrifice.
This makes a lot of sense to me.
When we know ourselves, understand our strengths and continue to work with our challenges, we can offer others space without losing ourselves in their experiences. We can be present without taking over. We can listen without needing to fix everything. We can allow another person to explore their own difficulties without assuming responsibility for resolving them.
When we communicate clearly about what is and isn't acceptable to us, we give others the opportunity to understand where we stand. They may not always like our boundaries, and they may not always agree with them, but we no longer need to abandon ourselves to avoid their disappointment.
This is something that has come through strongly for me during this transition.
I can say no without constructing an elaborate explanation. I can recognise that something doesn't work for me without needing to make the other person wrong. I can hold a boundary without closing my heart.
Perhaps this is one of the gifts of growing older: discovering that a firm no and a kind heart are not mutually exclusive.
I don't need to be unkind to protect my energy. I don't need to feel guilty because I have chosen myself. And I don't need everyone to understand or agree with my choices before I am allowed to make them.
There is a quiet freedom in that.
Letting go without making anyone the villain
One of the things I have found most surprising is how I feel about friendships and relationships that have run their course.
There was a time when I might have spent considerable energy trying to understand why a relationship had changed, whether I had done something wrong, whether I should try harder, or whether letting go somehow meant that the relationship had failed.
Now, I find myself able to let go of relationships that no longer serve me without guilt or remorse.
Not with anger. Not with a need to rewrite the past or decide that the other person was somehow bad for me.
But with gratitude.
Gratitude for what was shared, for the experiences we had together, for the ways we may have supported one another or helped each other grow. Gratitude for the chapter of life in which that relationship made sense.
And an acceptance that a relationship can have been meaningful, important and genuinely good without needing to last forever.
We change. Our priorities change. The things we need from our relationships change, too. Sometimes two people grow in different directions, and there doesn't have to be a dramatic falling-out or a clear person to blame.
We can honour what was and still recognise that it is time to move on.
Perhaps there is something about this stage of life that makes the cost of holding on to things out of obligation feel greater than the discomfort of letting them go.
I no longer feel the same need to keep every connection alive simply because it has always been there.
Instead, I want to make room for the relationships that feel alive, reciprocal and nourishing now.
And there is something rather lovely about being able to leave a chapter with appreciation rather than resentment.
The spaciousness of this stage of life
Another change I have noticed is a sense of spaciousness.
I don't mean that life suddenly becomes simple, or that there are no more demands, responsibilities or complicated situations to navigate.
It is something more subtle than that.
I feel less drawn into the detail of everything. Less compelled to analyse every situation, to understand precisely why something has happened, or to hold multiple things in my mind at once.
I seem more able to step back and see the bigger picture.
For much of our lives, we become very good at managing complexity. We learn to multitask, anticipate needs, remember commitments, organise the details and keep all the moving parts in motion. We become skilled at noticing what needs doing, what might go wrong and what someone else might need from us.
These are useful skills. But they can also keep us perpetually occupied with the immediate and the necessary.
Lately, I feel less interested in spending so much energy working out why things are the way they are, and more interested in creating what moves and inspires me.
What do I want to bring into the world?
What feels meaningful now?
What would I like to explore if I were not so occupied with managing everything else?
There is a difference between trying to understand every detail of life and having enough space to participate in creating the life we want.
I am finding myself increasingly drawn to the latter.
I don't need to have every answer before I begin. I don't need to understand every reason behind every experience. Sometimes I can simply notice what feels right, what has energy in it, what sparks my curiosity, and follow that.
This feels less like losing something and more like having room for something new.
Perhaps this is another expression of the inward wisdom I have been learning to recognise throughout my life. There are times for doing, giving, connecting and creating out in the world. There are also times when we need to step back, allow things to settle and see what emerges when we are no longer trying to manage everything.
I am increasingly interested in the possibilities that open up when we stop insisting that we must always be switched on.
When the brain has other ideas
It would be rather dishonest to talk about this transition without acknowledging the less welcome moments.
There are times when I cannot find the word I want. I forget a commitment or lose track of something I would previously have remembered. It can be frustrating, particularly when I feel perfectly clear about what I want to say but cannot quite get the words to cooperate.
And yet, I have found that I can be playful about it.
Instead of immediately becoming critical of myself, I can choose to smile, find another way of expressing what I mean, or simply accept that the word may return when it feels like it.
I don't want to dismiss these experiences, especially when they are distressing or interfere with everyday life. But I also don't want to turn every change into evidence that something is wrong with me.
Perhaps there is a useful distinction between noticing a challenge and making that challenge into a judgement about ourselves.
I can acknowledge that something is harder than it used to be without deciding that I am less capable, less intelligent or less myself.
There is a gentleness in learning to work with where we are, rather than continually comparing ourselves with who we were.
When the body asks us to change
Sleep has been an issue for me at different points in my life, and perimenopause has brought its own challenges.
There have been times when a good night's sleep has been non-existent and bed has felt like a torture rather than a necessary pleasure. To help myself, I have had to look more carefully at the habits and patterns that shape my evenings.
My body has also become less forgiving of things I once seemed able to tolerate without much thought.
Caffeine has gradually reduced, and alcohol has disappeared altogether. I have had to establish a healthier nighttime routine, which means no screens before bed and, perhaps most tragically, resisting that delicious piece of chocolate at ten o'clock in the evening.
These may sound like small things, but they represent a change in how I relate to my body.
I can no longer assume that I can push through, ignore what I need and expect everything to work as it always has. I have to pay attention. I have to notice what helps and what doesn't. I have to be willing to change my habits rather than simply wishing my body would cooperate.
There is a certain humility in this.
We spend so much of our lives adapting ourselves to the demands of the world. We fit our sleep around our schedules, our meals around our commitments, and our needs around the expectations of others.
And then there may come a point when our bodies begin to insist on a different arrangement.
Not a more restrictive life, but a more conscious one.
I am learning that looking after myself is not an indulgence or a reward for having looked after everyone else. It is part of the foundation from which I live.
And if this stage of life is asking me to pay closer attention, then perhaps I can meet that request with curiosity rather than resentment.
The older, wild, wise woman
As I think about the women who have come before us, I wonder how much wisdom has been lost in the way we have learned to talk about ageing and the female body.
We are surrounded by messages telling us to hold on to our youth. Creams, lotions, treatments and endless promises to slow the visible signs of ageing. As though the passing years were something to conceal, correct or apologise for.
There is an irony in this for me.
Just as I am beginning to feel more comfortable in my own skin, more confident in my choices and less concerned with pleasing everyone, I am surrounded by an industry that seems to suggest that ageing is a problem to be solved.
What if we told a different story?
What if we celebrated women who have lived, loved, made mistakes, changed their minds, lost things, found things and gathered wisdom along the way?
Women who are no longer quite so interested in performing the version of femininity that makes everyone else comfortable.
Women who can be generous without being endlessly available. Tender without being compliant. Powerful without needing to dominate. Women who can speak honestly, hold their boundaries and still meet the world with an open heart.
I think of these women as the older, wild, wise women. Not because they have all the answers, but because they have learned to trust themselves enough to keep asking the important questions.
Women who can bring their wisdom into the world with gentle strength.
Women who understand that their value does not depend on how young they look, how much they give, how useful they are or how well they meet everyone else's expectations.
I would love to see more of these women visible in our communities, our families and our culture. Women who are comfortable in their bodies and unafraid of the space they occupy. Women who can speak about their experiences without shame, and who make it easier for the next generation to do the same.
Perhaps menopause offers us an opportunity to become more of these women.
Not through some magical transformation, and certainly not without difficulty, but through the gradual process of letting go of what no longer fits and making room for what feels true.
A transition, not a decline
I know that not every woman will experience perimenopause in this way. For some, the physical and emotional challenges are substantial. Hot flushes, disrupted sleep, changes in mood, aches and pains, vaginal dryness, changes in libido and a sense of disconnection can all affect our quality of life.
I don't want to romanticise these experiences or suggest that every difficulty contains a hidden gift. We deserve support when things are hard, and we don't have to turn every challenge into a lesson.
But I would love us to make more room for a story that includes the possibilities as well as the difficulties.
A story in which menopause is not simply something happening to our bodies, but a transition through which we can reconsider how we live, how we relate and what we want the next chapter of our lives to hold.
Perhaps we discover that we no longer need to be quite so accommodating. Perhaps we find the courage to let a relationship end without turning it into a story of failure. Perhaps we begin to see the bigger picture, to trust our instincts, and to direct our energy towards the things that genuinely inspire us.
Perhaps we become more comfortable with our changing needs, less frightened of our own anger, more willing to ask for help and more accepting of the fact that we will not always feel the same.
Perhaps we learn that the inward parts of ourselves are not something to overcome, but something to honour.
And perhaps, as the familiar rhythms of our bodies begin to change, we can discover a different rhythm altogether.
One that is more spacious, more intentional and more deeply our own.
For me, this is becoming one of the most interesting aspects of the later stages of perimenopause.
I am not trying to return to the woman I was before. Nor am I trying to become some perfected, enlightened version of myself, the call of authenticity is strong.
I am simply noticing what is changing, letting go of what no longer fits, and making room for what feels meaningful now.
There are difficult days. There is always more to learn, habits to change and moments when I wish my body would make things a little easier.
But there is also space. There is gratitude. There is a growing freedom in choosing where my energy goes.
I no longer have the capacity to override myself, and I want to listen deeply. I can let go of what no longer serves and spend more time creating what inspires me. Less energy worrying about whether I am meeting everyone else's expectations, and more energy exploring what it means to be fully alive in this chapter of my life.
Perhaps menopause can be an invitation to become more comfortable in our own bodies and skin, even as our bodies change.
Perhaps it can be a time to reclaim our cycles, our boundaries, our wisdom and our right to change.
And perhaps we can learn to say no without guilt, let go without bitterness, and move forward without needing to explain ourselves to everyone.
And perhaps part of what makes me feel so open to this next chapter is the work I have been privileged to do over the past 20-plus years.
As a homeopath, I have had the joy of working with women at all stages of life, listening to their stories, supporting them through times of change and witnessing the wisdom and strength that can emerge from even the most challenging experiences.
I feel incredibly honoured to have the beauty and richness of the homeopathic tradition as part of my own journey, as well as my work with the wonderful women I meet. It has always been one of my greatest joys to listen, support and grow alongside them. I continue to learn so much from all the women I work with. These transitional stages of life can ask so much of us, and I value having homeopathy as one part of the way I approach and support women through them.
Perhaps this is another part of becoming the wild, wise woman: recognising that we never stop learning, that we can continue to support one another through the changes life brings, and that there is something deeply nourishing about sharing our experiences and wisdom across generations.
I don't know exactly what this next chapter will bring, but I am open enough, and have enough faith to be authentic in finding out.
Kate Mead - LCCH, BSCT