A couple of years ago, I had no idea what was about to hit me.

I was full of energy. Full of plans and patience.

And then perimenopause came.

It was like the end of an era. Like the person I was was no more in the room.

My mood was so low. I had just enough energy to work, and that was it. Then I headed straight back home, and didn’t want to do a single thing around the house — which, for a Virgo, says a lot!

It put many of my relationships in crisis. It took my self-esteem. But mostly, it took my innate optimism.

Suddenly I was sad for no reason. Everything felt meaningless.

And here’s the part that confused me most.

 At that time, things were mostly good in my life. But the way I was feeling didn’t match any of it.

So I did what I think a lot of us do.

I blamed myself.

I literally thought something was wrong with me. That maybe I needed to see a doctor. That maybe a pill could take this sadness away.

The penny dropped on a day I felt so low I just wanted to be on the couch, watching TV in the middle of the day, and it wasn’t because I was tired.

That’s when I said it: something is way off with me!

Nobody had told me. And my doctor didn’t tell me either.

He didn’t even have a proper conversation with me about the phase I was in.

He gave me no answers. He didn’t acknowledge what I was going through.

I was just another case for him.

I ended up doing the menopause training myself. That was the only way I was going to understand what was happening in my own body.

The word actually came from other women.

Along with the midlife women in my groups, we have built something beautiful together, and we share things — the real things. That’s where I heard it.

Perimenopause.

Puberty 2.0.

The awareness came, and that helped.

I stopped being so judgemental — towards myself, and towards friends of mine who were dealing with the same things.

And then I did something I had never done before.

I put a brake on.

I gave myself permission to be exactly as I was feeling.

From being overactive all day, I gave myself permission to take a break in the middle of the day.

From being exhausted the whole week from work and house chores, I gave myself permission to rest at the weekend and have somebody help me with the house chores.

From not wanting to cook every day, I gave myself permission to order food.

I stayed silent. I stayed sad. I soaked in every moment without trying to fix anything.

It was the first time in my life I didn’t have the energy to try to fix things (sooo challenging for a Virgo).

And it took time. Longer than I wanted it to.

That was my perimenopause. Yours might look nothing like it.

Some women go through this and barely feel it. Some are floored by things I never had. I only know mine, and I’m not going to pretend I know what it’s like inside your body.

Now, I’m in menopause. It arrived overnight, surgically and abruptly, when I had to have my ovaries removed.

And honestly? I feel better since. I still get hot flashes, and my anxiety runs high — but they’re manageable, thanks to the practices I’ve built into my days.

But I’m only at the beginning of it, so I don’t want to say big words.

If I could go back and sit next to that woman, I wouldn’t hand her a list of things to do. She has enough on her plate already.

I’d say one thing.

Take a break. You are more than enough — as much as the world wants to convince you of the opposite.

As women, we go through so many seasons. This is the one where we get to take the best of everything we’ve lived and learned so far and ask what we actually want next.

That’s the question I’m sitting with now. How do we get the most out of this chapter — and how do we support our bodies to stay strong through it?

Before you close this, one question. Grab a pen. Answer with the first thing that comes to mind, not the right one. The true one.

What’s one thing you’d give yourself permission to stop doing this week?

P.S. If the nights are the hardest part for you — the 3 am waking, the anxiety that’s there before you open your eyes — that’s what Come Back to Calm is for. Three days, three small things.