My Story

So I’ve finally bitten the bullet, launched myself on to the unsuspecting public as a midlife well being practitioner with a particular focus on all things menopause.  First off I should make it clear and I’ll be doing that repeatedly that I’m not a qualified medic, far from it!  I’ve had no medical training and I can’t prescribe or recommend treatment but I can help if you’re wanting some guidance on how to approach your GP for support or want to be signposted elsewhere. I can share my own experience as a post menopausal woman who has tried alsort of pills, potions and random remedies and is a fully paid up member of the HRT club.  I want to share what I’ve learned on my journey through hormonal change and what I’ve learned from my menopause well being training and ongoing nutrition studies over the last few years.

That is what my business Two Magpies is really all about!  I want to work with you to help you to find your way through some of the changes that often land completely unannounced in midlife.  When I’m talking about midlife it’s of course a guesstimate as none of us knows how long we’re going to live for, but think anywhere from early 40s to 60s or 70s. It’s really from when we begin to manage what is happening to us as our bodies morph through perimenopause to post menopause and then how we live our best lives for as long as we can as healthily as possible. Midlife marks the transition from fertility into our second spring, a spring that could be as long as our first one!

The reality is that we are living longer than our grandmothers and great grandmothers and we’re living and working post menopause for decades.  The context of our lives is so much different and we have much more agency over how we live but we don’t always know what we can do to help ourselves and that’s where I come in.

My own story is unique to me but there will be parallels in your life.  There’s one absolute given that unless there’s been surgical intervention you will go through the menopause, hormones will fluctuate, periods will stop and although some of us sail will through these changes without much disruption to our lives, most of us don’t!

I’m sometimes reminded of the stories we tell each other about other life events and how easy it is to feel disappointed if we do struggle or have a different experience.    Some of those stories are told by our own mothers and my mum will tell you that her menopausal journey was fine, a bit like her childbirth story, nothing to see here!  She did however have joint pain, was exhausted, had pins and needles in her fingers, put on weight round her midriff but she put up with it and didn’t associate much of it with ‘the change’ until I pointed it out to her that all of these symptoms seemed to coincide with her late 40s.

I feel guilty now that I once sat watching her frustratedly try to thread a needle with numb fingers, thinking that this must be the inevitability of old age and poor health, not knowing that it was actually to do with oestrogen depletion affecting her nervous system. She even told me that it was something her mum, my grandma had had too!  Of course she did.

I’ve not wanted to put up with it especially as I’ve come to understand that the changes don’t all happen in one hit, that the impact of hormonal fluctuation and then decline means that I will continue to have symptoms potentially for many years to come.  And like my mum I haven’t always known that some of those symptoms that appeared a long time ago are related to the menopause.

Looking back I was perimenopausal in my mid 40s.  My periods weren’t irregular but they never were so that wouldn’t have been a gauge for me. I did however have some pretty impressive mood swings, sleep was troubled, my hair thinning and my waist was thickening, my bones ached and there were days when I was so tired I would have to power nap in the loos at work. And then my periods stopped when I was 50, starting again just before I was 51 and then officially marking the menopause almost a year later with 12 months period free.

During the perimenopause and menopause I parented my children through the tail end of adolescence and out to uni, separated and subsequently divorced from their dad, sold and moved out of our family home, trained to be a workplace coach, dabbled with dating and relationships, gained and lost and gained again the same 2 stone, had 4 months off work with work related anxiety and of course, survived a pandemic.  All the time experiencing joint pain, brain fog, random aches, overwhelming fatigue, occasional hot flashes, bladder dysfunction, tender arches and an overall sense of not being on my game, not being the person who was used to multi tasking, organised events, remembered birthdays and knew where the corkscrew lived.

I’d describe some of that time as feeling a bit lost, not really sure of who I was anymore but wanting the people around me to not see me as lacking in any way, the metaphorical swan swimming frantically below the surface against the current.  Sometimes waves of sadness would overcome me in the shower or I’d find myself clenching my fists or biting my lip to stop myself screaming, I scratched my arms in my sleep to vent my frustration.  None of it felt very pretty.  Or in control.  And like many women being in control has been important, how else would the world revolve?

Talking to other women, friends, colleagues, clients those parallels with their own stories are all so familiar, women anticipating change but unprepared for the impact, often taken by surprise or worse convinced that they might be seriously ill.  Mother nature intends for the menopause to be a natural transition as our bodies stop being vessels for potential reproduction but that’s hard to embrace when it feels like she’s actually pulling the rug from underneath and cutting us no slack as we continue to navigate our roles as children (often of ageing parents), colleagues, wives, mothers, partners etc. 

Let’s not sugar coat, it the menopause can be a roller coaster ride that we have no idea when we’re going to get off it and little idea when we got on it! But we can find ways to enjoy our midlife years, to flatten out some of those top hats (that’s what the top of the hill is called on a roller coaster btw!). And there are plenty of well being hacks that can help you to feel more in control again.

My story isn’t complete, I’m post menopausal which is not the end of the journey, my symptoms are still there, they’re just managed differently.  I am going to share with you my top tips to get you back in control, embracing your second spring with better rest, hydration and nutrition, more relaxation and less anxiety.

I look forward to working with you!

Paula