Be Your Own Change Guru: The Ultimate Women's Guide for Thriving at Midlife

By Susan Paget

When Susan Paget was 47 years old, she realized that even though she was reasonably healthy, had a happy family life and a career as a television producer - something wasn't right. Unable to sleep, having panic attacks and all around feeling lousy, her own doctors weren't able to get to the bottom of what was going on.

It took watching a daytime talk show for Susan to work out that she was smack in the middle of perimenopause - the lead up to menopause. Susan soon discovered a strange code of silence around this natural process and took off on a mission to discover what was happening, how to take charge and feel good during this key time of life.

"Be Your Own Change Guru - The Ultimate Women's Guide For Thriving At Midlife" is a step by step guide for making change, specifically for women over 40. The book addresses common midlife challenges including relationship issues, career transition, body image, finding life purpose and facing empty nest and fertility issues while at the same time, weaving Susan's personal journey throughout.

• Language: English
• Publisher: eBookIt.com
• Release date: Apr 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9781456620752

Book preview

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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.

In our Western population, the actual timing of menopause, in the average healthy woman, can happen somewhere between 48 – 53 years of age. For some women though, early menopause is a fact of life and this can occur anytime before this average range due to genetics, medical conditions, surgical procedures such as hysterectomy or medical treatments like radiation and chemotherapy. While the physical process of menopause would be obvious, there’s a deep psychological connection that has long been ignored and much of this book explores this link.

Confusion with menopause and whether we’re at that stage yet or not is because of a relatively new term that's been introduced in the past decade into our current culture's vocabulary of female health and that’s perimenopause. While the term can be traced back to a 1931 book, Obstetrics: Gynecology by Joseph Bolivar De Lee and Jacob Pearl Greenhill, it's a new bit of lingo. In fact, as I write this and then spell check, my auto-corrector recognizes menopause but not perimenopause.

The lack of recognition of this word isn’t limited to my spell-checker. Many women I speak to today, whose periods are a thing of the past, have no idea what this newfangled word perimenopause is. They've never heard of it! When I’ve mentioned it in conversation they look at me like I'm from the wimpy, whiney, younger generation that has to make a big deal about everything they experience.

I admit that they might have point. The tail end of the Baby Boomers (born between 1946 and 1964) and the generations that follow are known for setting the bar high when it comes to having demands and wanting choice. And now, that choice has extended to lifting the lid on a lot of the so- called normal ways of doing things. We're now looking closer at the stories we’ve been told. We’re asking questions and naming names. While perimenopause was always there, somehow accepting, understanding and seeing it as a tangible stage of life never quite took off for the generations that came before us. Label or no label though, when I clarify the difference between perimenopause and menopause for my older and wiser women friends, they recognize right away what I’m talking about. Some even admit having a name to put to what they went through might've been helpful. It would’ve been really frustrating to not be able to give a name to a host of stuff that was going on.

So here’s the thing:

Perimenopause is the lead up to menopause. It’s responsible for the upheaval and classic symptoms that most of us have attributed to menopause. This process, which can take years, is when our hormones start making themselves known, often manifesting by way of symptoms that accompany our periods. As progesterone, estrogen and other hormone levels begin to fluctuate, they set off a chain of events that begin stimulating several aspects of our nervous system. My belief is that this hormonal reaction stirs things up and calls our attention to nearly every key area of our life from the way we feel about our bodies to the demands on our time. It can even make us face up to our unresolved hopes and dreams or highlight the health of our closest relationships and more. It’s almost like these hormones go on a massive fishing expedition to inspect what’s going on and to search for where things aren’t up to scratch. And as often happens in life, it’s the things that aren’t working that stand out the most.

So let’s get down to the very basics. When you’re reading this book, I kind of tandem between the two words. When I say going through menopause, that might not necessarily mean periods have ceased. I may be talking the old school label of what we now know perimenopause to be. When I say perimenopause I’m talking about the lead up to the time when periods officially stop which is menopause. Basically, I’m probably gonna interchange the two words just to keep a complicated scenario semi-simple.

Confused yet?

I hope not too much.

The most important thing to understand about both of these life events is that they can be considered massive wake up calls to address all aspects of your being from your health and family life to your vocation, your spirituality, your core values and beliefs. Really taking charge during perimenopause is the equivalent of developing a business plan for the rest of your life. Right now, this is a time to take a look at what you’ve got and then, work out what you’re going to need to thrive in the years ahead.

There’s no doubt in my mind that this is a radical time. Women who take on the challenge of this opportunity are absolutely pioneers because this is stuff no one ever told us how to do. Who knew it was even possible to look forward to the years ahead in a dynamic way?

One way to look at what we’re going through right now is to go backwards a bit. To me, going through perimenopause has big similarities to pregnancy. And this similarity is all about cultural shift.

Whether you’ve had a child or not, if you think back over the years, there was a time when pregnancy did not have the social cachet it has today. Actors couldn’t even say the word on television. A woman either got knocked up or had a bun in the oven or some long beaked bird was responsible for bringing a human baby into the world and dropping it into a lowly cabbage patch. Being pregnant was something that happened not something that was owned.

But somewhere along the way, and this happened recently, the way the world thought of pregnant women changed. Now, the words mummy and yummy are used in the same breath. This is a whole other story than when I had my kids! I remember when I was pregnant for the first time, over 25 years ago. It was a license to be a frump. I used to schlep around in shapeless giant t-shirts and unattractive mother-to- be overalls (I gotta say, I was comfortable!). But now, that attitude of seeing pregnancy as a nine month hall pass to let yourself go is a social no- no. Pregnancy is now touted as empowering. Sexy.

And rightly so. Times and attitudes have changed dramatically and that’s a good thing.

And so this cultural shift of perception, of something that once needed to be kept under wraps but now is out and proud, reminds me very much of where we’re at with midlife.

A lot of us connect perimenopause and menopause with everything that sucks. We've been told since we were young girls how our bodies will just plain turn on us. We’ve been brought up to believe that the path beyond 40 is a loaded minefield, a sagging booby trap full of extreme lowlights like being ravaged by hormones from hell, losing our looks, being invisible, being redundant in the workplace, never having sex and on and on and on.

With a laundry list of scary and downright unattractive expectations, it’s no wonder we don’t want to know about this thing and hope it just goes away.

To be totally honest, there’s no doubt that this stage of life presents a variety of symptoms and scenarios that are confronting. But let’s be realistic here. Don't all stages of our human life have their unique quirks? For example:

Did you teethe as a toddler or have acne as a teenager?

Did you hide or love your newly grown breasts as a pre teen?

Did you want to tear the roof off the house during periods from hell?

Did you do the Freshman 15? That’s the slang term for gaining weight when you first left home. Maybe you had an eating disorder as you tried to put some kind of control into your life.

And how about managing monthly periods as an adult or going through pregnancy? There’s a few quirks there to say the least…

Now, imagine that during every physically quirky life stage you found yourself in you made a choice. You decided how you approached each stage and how you took care of yourself. You chose to either learn about the processes you were going through OR you chose to soldier on without looking too close. Or, you ignored them all together and kept on moving. Which category do you slot into?

And let’s go one level deeper.

We all know that our human experience reaches far beyond flesh and bone. Beyond the physical, we’ve also gone through stages of learning how to make our way in the world. That means that we’ve developed patterns for how we make choices, a lot of times courtesy of the way we’ve been brought up. We most likely do what we learned, either consciously or unconsciously, attracting certain people and situations into our life that might’ve been perfect, completely wrong or somewhere in between.

And then there are the practicalities of being in society. All of us at midlife have spent the majority of our adult time in the getting years. We’ve been getting an education, getting relationships, getting careers, getting a family and getting stuff. We’ve spent a lot of these getting years doing things because we’ve always been told that’s the way it was supposed to be. Following some of these rules has worked out