What If This Is Actually Your Time? Menopause, Self-Trust & The Wisdom of Your Body

What if menopause is not the beginning of losing yourself… but the beginning of coming home to yourself?

In this episode of Up Your Total Glow, Ruth explores a different perspective on perimenopause and menopause — one that goes beyond managing symptoms and invites you to reconnect with your body, your intuition, and your own inner wisdom.

Ruth shares her personal experience of moving through menopause and why she believes this transition can become a powerful opportunity for transformation, deeper self-trust, and renewed vitality.

Together, we explore:
✨ Why your body may not be working against you — but communicating with you
 ✨ How menopause can become a turning point rather than something to simply endure
 ✨ The Ayurvedic perspective on heat, grounding, nourishment, and balance during midlife
 ✨ Why sleep changes, emotional shifts, and body changes may hold important messages
 ✨ How to reconnect with yourself and create a more supportive relationship with your body

If you are navigating perimenopause, menopause symptoms, hormonal changes, fatigue, sleep challenges, or simply feel ready for a deeper relationship with yourself, this episode is for you.

Your body is not betraying you.

It is inviting you into a new chapter.

🌿 Discover your unique Ayurvedic constitution and what your body may be asking for:
 https://www.ithriveforhealth.com/ayurvedic-dosha-quiz/

✨ Ready for personalised support and deeper transformation?
 Book your Vitality Reconnection Session here:
 https://tidycal.com/ithrive/vitality-reconnection-session

Remember:
 You are love.
 You are light.
 And you are already whole.

Much love, and keep glowing.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Hello and welcome back to Up Your Totem Law. As always, I am so excited that you are here. And if you are going through perimenopause or menopause and you feel like your body is changing the rules, then this episode is for you. Because what if your body is not working against you? What if it is actually inviting you into a completely new relationship with yourself? So, yes, today I want to talk about menopause and I want to share my experience with it and why I believe that it is so important that we begin to reframe this transition. Because what if menopause is not simply something that we have to get through and to endure? What if it is actually an invitation? But before we dive deeper in, this is my gentle reminder for you. This podcast is for education and inspiration only, and it is not a substitute for medical or mental health advice. So please make sure that you seek personalized support where you need it. Because it is my experience that when I'm in a room with people and I hear the word menopause, I notice that the entire energy in the room shifts. And it feels like everything just becomes a little heavier, and I see shoulders dropping ever so slightly. And it feels like there is this quiet sense of bracing, almost as if many women have already been told that this is something difficult that they simply have to endure. I genuinely do, because I see many women who struggle in menopause and who have symptoms, and yeah, where this whole transition is very challenging. I see women who struggle with sleep because sleep suddenly stops cooperating. And I see women who experience sudden changes in their mood and they don't recognize themselves anymore. Everything feels so unfamiliar. And I see bodies that seem to respond differently. Nothing what used to work works anymore. And I see changes in how we experience heat and weight and energy and emotions. It's almost like a kind of internal weather that can feel unpredictable and at times completely overwhelming. So I don't want to dismiss that at all. And I also believe that every woman's experience of this transition is deeply personal. And I hold so much respect for how varied and sometimes genuinely difficult this time can be. But today I want to offer you a different perspective. Not because it is the right perspective for everyone, and not because your experience should look like mine, but because sometimes seeing something through a different lens can open a door we didn't know that was there. So my experience of menopause has not been horrible at all. And I say this very carefully because I never want another woman to hear that and then feel like her own experience is somehow wrong. Absolutely not. We are all so different. And I'm also not suggesting that we can simply think our way through every challenge. Absolutely not. And I'm not suggesting that every symptom has an easy answer. I know this isn't true either. But I do believe something very deeply. I believe that the relationship that we have with ourselves and with our bodies matters. And the relationship that I have cultivated with mine has supported me in moving through this chapter in a way that feels aligned and connected and even empowering. And wouldn't that be awesome? So it's not about copying my journey, obviously not, and it's not about forcing your body to fit into someone else's experience. Never. So for many years, you probably have learned to live from the outside in. You have probably organized your life around everyone else's needs, around the rhythms of your children and your partner and your career and other family members and other responsibilities. So around all the people that truly matter to you, and also the dreams that matter to you. And there's of course something deeply beautiful in that. And you are so able to adapt and to create and to nurture and to carry and to love and to show up. And again, this is beautiful. You probably have become very skilled at responding to what life asks of you. But now there is a different kind of transition, and this can bring a different question to the surface. So the question is probably not what else can I do? But the question now is, how do I want to feel in this next chapter? What do I need now? What parts of myself have been waiting for my attention? Because something changes in this season, not just physically, but inside of you. The way that you experience energy changes, and the way that you respond to stress changes, and the things that you once tolerated may no longer feel possible, and the things that you once ignored may suddenly become impossible to ignore. And maybe this is not a problem. Maybe this is wisdom. Maybe the heat is wisdom, and the changes in sleep and the emotional ups and downs, and the moments where you suddenly realize something no longer feels aligned. Maybe these are not signs that your body is your enemy. Maybe they are moments asking you to become more present with yourself and to become more honest and more connected and more willing to ask, is this still nourishing me? Is this still supporting the woman that I am becoming now? Because this transition is not only about what you are losing, it is also about what you are no longer willing to abandon. Maybe you are no longer willing to abandon your needs and your energy and your voice and your truth. This is your body inviting you into a different relationship with yourself. One where you no longer have to constantly override your own signals. One where caring for yourself is not something you earn after everyone else has been looked after. One where you begin to realize you were never meant to leave yourself behind. So they are not simply endings, but they are invitations to evolve. And this transition has often been viewed as a turning point in Ayurveda, as a deepening, as a time when the energy that once flowed strongly outward, obviously toward the creating and the nurturing and the supporting and the sustaining of others, where this energy now begins to move inward, and not as a loss, but as a return, as a return to yourself. And when you move through this transition consciously, when you begin responding instead of resisting, when you begin nourishing instead of constantly pushing, something unexpected and very beautiful can happen. You may discover a clearer sense of who you are and a lower tolerance for what no longer feels true, and a stronger connection to your own intuition, and a beautiful trust in yourself that perhaps has been waiting for a long, long time beneath all of those years of responsibility and expectations. And this clarity is not simply a result of getting older. It is what becomes available when you stop spending all of your energy holding everything together for everyone else, and instead begin creating space for you, for yourself, for your own desires and your own needs and your own wisdom, your own becoming. Because maybe, just maybe, this chapter is not about becoming less. Maybe it is about finally becoming more fully yourself. Okay, so what does working with this transition actually look like in your daily life or rather can look like? And as always, I want to keep this simple because it is my experience that often the things that create the deepest and most long-lasting shifts are not complicated, but they are the small moments where we begin to relate to ourselves in different ways. So here's my invitation number one to you. Stop fighting the signals and become curious about what they are showing you. So when there's heat in your body that rises, or when you sleep becomes more difficult, when you notice that you are more irritable, maybe for no apparent reason. I'm inviting you to pause for a moment. And before you ask yourself immediately, how do I make this stop? Ask yourself, what is this moment showing me? What might my body be asking for right now? And I'm not suggesting that you ignore your symptoms. It is really important that you support your body through this. But there is a difference between caring for your body and constantly fighting against it. And there is something deeply, deeply healing for a body that feels hurt and responded to. And it is my experience that this body feels very differently and reacts differently to a body that is constantly being controlled and pushed and corrected. So sometimes the most powerful shift begins with something super simple. And my suggestion is to start with moving from resistance to curiosity. And here's my invitation number two. I'm inviting you to create more cooling and grounding. And this is not meant as another thing to perfect or as another act of self-care that you have to put on your to-do list. But it is my experience that in this season we don't need more intensity, we need less pushing and less running on empty and less trying to hold everything together through willpower. And in Ayurveda, we often speak about excess heat in the body, and this is not only about feeling physically hot. Heat can also show up as constantly being busy or always needing to achieve, or feeling impatient and feeling like you're running on high, feeling like there is no space between one demand and the next. And sometimes the answer is not another strategy. Sometimes the answer is to create more space and to slow down and to allow yourself to receive and to choose foods that truly nourish you, and to take moments where you are not trying to improve yourself or fix yourself or achieve something, but that you gift yourself moments where you are allowed to be without any agenda. And if you don't know how you could simply be, then maybe just nourish yourself with a beautiful meal that you eat slowly, or that you spend some quality time outside without needing to accomplish anything, or that you spend a quiet evening where your nervous system can soften. It's about that moment where you communicate to your body. You do not have to keep running. You are safe to slow down now. And here's my invitation number three for you. Treat your sleep as information, not just as a problem to solve. And I know this is a tricky one. Struggling with sleep is so painful, and somehow in the middle of the night, the thoughts and everything get so much louder than when it is daylight. And if you are struggling with sleep, chances are that you are already trying to support yourself. So maybe you have research supplements and sleep routines and different techniques, and there's nothing wrong with that. It is super important that you support your body wherever you can. But there's also another layer. There's a layer where I'm inviting you to become curious about what is happening underneath all of this? What thoughts keep returning in those quiet hours? And what emotions have not had space to move through during your day? And what have you been carrying silently because there simply wasn't. Time to feel it. What parts of yourself have been asking for attention? Sometimes better sleep comes from supporting your physical body. And sometimes it comes from understanding what your inner world is asking for. And my experience is that often it comes from both. I believe that your body is not keeping you awake to frustrate you. But that it is creating an opportunity for you to listen. And the practice is learning to meet those moments with curiosity rather than frustration. And here's my invitation number four for you. And this is my favorite one of all. Allow yourself to become more, not less. And maybe this is the part where yeah, you are surprised. The part that you did not expect. Because this transition is so often described through what is changing and what is declining or what is being lost. But I don't see it that way. And I'm inviting you to ask yourself instead what is becoming available for me right now? Because this chapter can be a time where you reconnect with parts of yourself that may have been waiting patiently for your attention. The part of you that knows what matters, and the part of you that trusts your own knowing, and the part of you that can say, This feels right for me, and this no longer feels aligned, and this is what I need now. And you may find yourself becoming clearer about your relationships and your work and your priorities and how you want to spend your precious energy. And yes, I also know that this clarity can feel uncomfortable at first, especially if you have spent many years being deeply aware of everyone else's needs and emotions and expectations. But discomfort does not always mean something is wrong. Sometimes discomfort is simply the feeling of growing beyond an old version of yourself. And you may notice that you have less patience for conversations that drain you, and less willingness to keep saying yes when your whole being is saying no, and less capacity to pretend everything is fine when it isn't. And that is not a problem. That is wisdom. So no, you are not becoming less. You are becoming more honest and more connected and more yourself. Isn't this beautiful? And I want to leave you with this. You do not have to enter this transition, expecting your body to become something you have to fight, and you do not have to accept the story that this is simply a time of decline and difficulty or losing parts of yourself. Your body is not betraying you. It is asking for a different kind of relationship, one that is built on trust, one that is built on compassion, and one that is built on the understanding that your body has carried you through every chapter of your life. And perhaps now it is asking you to meet it in a new way. And the women that I have seen move through this transition with more grace and more trust and sometimes even more joy are not the women who found the perfect protocol. I don't think it exists. They are the women who became willing to slow down enough to understand themselves and to become curious and to reconnect and to honor, to really honor what their body was asking for. And perhaps that is the invitation waiting for you to not because everything will always feel easy, and not because nothing will change, but because this may be the moment that you are invited to come home to yourself in a way that you have never allowed yourself before. Perhaps this is actually your time, your time to listen more deeply, and your time to trust yourself more fully, and your time to create a relationship with your body that feels supportive and loving and connected. It's your time to shine. And if this episode resonated with you, I want you to start with just one small thing this week. One moment each day where you pause and ask yourself, What do I need today? And then ever so imperfectly practice responding, not from pressure and not from what you think you should do, but from a place of deep care for you. And that is where this transition can begin if you want it to. And you can find my free vitality imbalance quiz linked in the show notes, and this is a beautiful first step into understanding your system and what your body is asking from you right now. And if you feel called to go deeper, and if you'd like personalized support from me, you can also find the link to my vitality reconnection session there. And this is a 90-minute space where we together have a deeper look at what's been going on and on all levels of you, and then we create a powerful map that will help you back into harmony. But the most important thing of all, always remember, never forget, you are love, you are light, and you are already whole. Much love and keep glowing.