Somewhere along the way, we have lost our way about the life transition in midlife.
Menopause—this sacred threshold in a woman’s life—has been reduced in the dominant narrative to a list of symptoms to manage, a decline to delay, a hormonal malfunction to correct. It’s treated as pathology. As though something is wrong with you. As though you are breaking down.
And every time I hear that framing, I feel a deep ache in my gut. Because it’s not only wrong—it’s harmful. It robs us of the true power and meaning of this life stage. It narrows it down and over simplifies it. More than that, it obscures the possibility that this transition could be the beginning of something more, not less.
In my work with women moving through midlife, I see something astonishing. When the noise of cultural conditioning is quieted—when we slow down enough to listen to our bodies and our deeper rhythms—what emerges is not depletion. It’s ripening. A flourishing. Something ancient and wise begins to move through. The psyche softens. The soul speaks louder. A different kind of power shows up.
A Culture That Fears Ageing
We live in a world obsessed with youth and productivity. That obsession comes at a great cost. It leaves little room for the natural seasons of life and no roadmap for the descent that midlife brings.
In the medical system, menopause is often treated as a condition to be treated. In the workplace, it’s barely acknowledged. Even in leadership and personal development spaces, there’s an undercurrent of “fix it, push through, stay relevant.” But menopause isn’t asking us to push through. It’s asking us to look deep within and to go downward.
It is, in many ways, an initiation our culture has forgotten how to hold.
The Sacred Descent of Midlife
There is a path in the mystical traditions known as the via negativa—the path of unmaking, undoing, letting go. It is not a glamorous path, but it is a sacred one. Many times during our life we are called into the path of the via negtiva. It is the path of letting go.
Midlife calls us into that descent. It asks us to shed identities we’ve outgrown. To let go of belief systems that no longer serve us. To lay down roles that once defined us. To grieve the things that will never be. And in that letting go, we begin to remember who we are beneath the masks.
This descent is not a breakdown. It is a re-rooting. It is the composting of what no longer serves into the fertile soil of wisdom. And yes, it can be disorienting. But it can also be deeply freeing.
Becoming Ourselves by Deepening, Not Striving
In this season of life, with our hormonal cocktail changing, the nervous system begins to tell the truth we may have avoided for years. The body no longer tolerates what once was bearable. The soul begins to whisper (or sometimes roar), asking for integrity, alignment, authenticity.
This isn’t about striving to become some upgraded version of ourselves. It’s about softening into who we’ve always been. It’s about expanding our capacity to feel—grief, joy, awe—and to live from a place that’s more honest, more grounded, more whole.
This is where somatic work is a game-changer. By learning to be with our sensations, to regulate our systems, to hold ourselves in the tender places, we create the space to truly meet ourselves. Not as a project to fix, but as a mystery to unfold.
Stepping Into Stewardship
The journey doesn’t stop with self-discovery. There is another unfolding—one that calls us into relationship with community, with the next generation, with the wider web of life. We often find our passions and interests broadening to issues of the wider system, of community.
This is the forgotten role of the elder. Not just someone who is older, but someone who has metabolized their life experience into wisdom. Someone who can hold space for others, offer perspective, and serve as a steady presence in uncertain times.
Our communities are starved of elders. Not because they don’t exist, but because the path to eldership has been erased. What if we reclaimed it? What if menopause was not the end of relevance, but the beginning of true leadership?
We don’t just become an elder by getting older. This work requires us to do the deep self inquiry, the deep integration work on ourselves. When we can reclaim the lost parts of ourselves and invite them all to coexist together. When we can honour their voices and tend to them when they need support.
Regulation as a Return to our Blueprint
One of the most powerful shifts I witness in the women I work with—one I’ve lived myself—is what happens when we begin to create more capacity in the nervous system.
It sounds simple. But it’s deeply radical.
So many women have been running on high alert for decades—juggling careers, caregiving, emotional labor, all while trying to keep it together. Their bodies are stuck in “go” mode, and rest doesn’t feel safe. Stillness feels unfamiliar. Slowing down can feel like failure—or worse, danger.
So the work begins gently. We slow down, yes—but we also build the internal scaffolding to support that slowing down. We build safety in the body through somatic practices. We learn to recognize sensation without needing to fix it. We explore the thinking patterns that reinforce overdoing. And little by little, something begins to shift.
There’s more space inside.
And in that space, something magical happens. Life doesn’t get easier—but it becomes more liveable. Triggers still arise, but they’re like whispers instead of alarms. You start to notice: “Ah, there’s that pattern again”—and you choose how to respond instead of being hijacked by it. The nervous system no longer dictates your reactions. You come home to yourself.
This is what I mean by returning to our core, our blueprint.
Not just physically—though that’s part of it. But to the energetic and psychological centre of who you are. That place in the body where you are most you—before the world told you who to be. That grounded, wise, tender place that knows how to move through life with presence.
It’s not about becoming someone new. It’s about remembering who you’ve always been—beneath the striving, beneath the masks, beneath the noise.
And that remembering? That is the real gift of this life stage.
This return to the core also supports what I believe is the central developmental challenge of midlife: radical honesty. Not the performative kind, but the deeply embodied kind—the honesty that arises when you’re no longer willing to betray yourself. At this life stage, we’re invited to tell the truth about where we are. About what hurts. About what we want. About who we’re becoming. And the more capacity we have in our nervous system, the more we can meet those truths without collapse or denial. We can meet them with presence. With curiosity. With love.
"At midlife, the call is not to climb higher, but to descend deeper — into the ground of the soul, into the roots of being, into the core of what is most genuine and lasting in us."
— Michael Meade
A New Story
I believe we are being called to tell a new story—or perhaps to remember an old one.
A story where menopause is not a problem, but a portal.
Where aging is not decline, but deepening.
Where midlife is not a crisis, but a rite of passage.
And where those who walk through it with presence and courage emerge as the elders and stewards we so deeply need.
If you’re in this threshold season, you’re not alone. And there’s nothing wrong with you. You’re ripening. And the world needs your wisdom.
Becoming in Midlife
What if midlife isn’t a crisis, but a threshold?
Not the beginning of decline, but the beginning of becoming. A shedding of what no longer fits, and a ripening into who we were always meant to be. Not the self built to survive—but the self born to belong. To the body. To the truth. To community. To the wider web of life.
This isn’t a solo journey. We need spaces—safe, regulated, and wise—where we can do this work together. Spaces where we can slow down enough to hear our own knowing. Where our nervous systems can root into rest. Where radical honesty is welcomed, not feared. And where the fullness of this life stage can be honored as the powerful initiation it truly is.
Because when women reclaim midlife, they don’t just change themselves.
They become stewards. Guides. Elders-in-the-making. Not in the hierarchical sense, but in the soulful sense—those who carry the flame of embodied wisdom forward for others to gather around.
This is the gift. This is the work. And it’s time we told a different story about what it means to grow older.
If you would like to explore your deepening come talk to me about life transitions coaching or somatic experiencing.
If you are based in Melbourne, I will be holding a talk on Tuesday 13th May at the Tree of Life Integral Centre, 3 Denmark St Kew at 6pm. Click here to book your spot as we explore Midlife as a sacred rite of passage.
