Following on from Part 1 of my story from last week.
The story so far….
I was not sleeping.
I burned out.
I had to leave my teaching job which I loved.
What was going on for me?
Put simply….it was menopause ….. more accurately…. It was my attitude towards menopause. I wanted to pretend that I was 30 or 40 and I continued to work 50-60 hour weeks ……..all while not sleeping. Sleep was my main issue during menopause. Of course, that was not sustainable and something had to give…but my mindset was not ready. I wanted to keep doing what I was doing and ignoring the warning signs, but it was not working for me anymore.
So of course….I burned out. Yep….I crashed and burned!
As I mentioned, it was mostly the sleep….or severe lack of it that did it. I even bought a fit bit…not to measure my steps or heart rate (although it did come in handy for that too), but to measure my sleep. I was lucky to get 2 or 3 hours per night at the time …..and it was not quality sleep.
Now….the stats say that about 20% of women have severe and debilitating symptoms during peri- menopause and menopause. I was one of them. I had no idea about how this stage of life can completely change you.
There really isn’t much discussion about it out there. Nobody really talks about it.
I also thought to myself ‘I am a science teacher and I did not really understand the possible ramifications of menopause…what about women who don’t have a science background?
I got to thinking ‘If this is happening to me, what about other women who have no idea? If I found it challenging…what about them?’
In fact, I got onto Facebook groups for menopause and found no shortage of women who were suffering. I was FAR from alone.
I did a lot of soul searching, reading and study around the subject of menopause and midlife. Being a Scientist and Science teacher, I was extremely interested.
Ultimately ……. I healed myself. I feel a million percent better.
How? …….
Tune in next week for part 3 of this story.In the meantime, if you would like to have a quick complimentary session with me, book into my online calendar.
