097 Menopause Isn’t a Problem to Fix: A Reframing of the Midlife Threshold

You’ve heard menopause is “natural.” But natural doesn’t mean effortless... and it certainly doesn’t mean support isn’t needed.

In this expansive and empowering episode, we reframe menopause not as something to fix, but as a profound rite of passage. A threshold. A second spring.

Join me as we explore:

• What’s really happening with your hormones: oestrogen, progesterone, and testosterone, and how they impact bone, muscle, mood, and more
• The real stages of menopause: pre-menopause, perimenopause, menopause, and post-menopause
• Why so many of us feel off-balance in midlife and why you’re not broken
• The deep cultural silence around this transition, and how to reclaim your voice
• How this season of life offers a return to your core values, clarity, and strength
• Why “second spring” isn’t about going backwards, it’s about emerging with more of your self intact

This episode is part education, part validation, part invitation. Wherever you are on the menopause path, this conversation is for you.

You’re not behind. You’re not broken. You’re blooming in your own time.

If you want to feel supported and held with an experienced guide to walk beside you, perhaps you'd like to meet for a chat to see how we might get on. Book a free Clarity Call here → https://www.carlykillen.com

Mentioned in this episode:
📚 Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés
📘 NHS guidance on menopause → https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/menopause/

Thanks for listening to the Strong Bones Coach Podcast

If you'd like to get in touch to ask a question about today's episode or to find out how you can get support from my coaching, reach out on the following links:

hello@carlykillencoaching.com

https://www.instagram.com/thestrongbonescoach

Thanks for listening to The Strong Bones Coach Podcast!

If you’d like to get in touch with a question about today’s episode or find out how I can support you with coaching, here’s how to reach me:
📧 Email: carlykillenpt@gmail.com
📱 Instagram: @thestrongbonescoach

Do you crave unshakable confidence in your strength from midlife and beyond? Would you love to achieve your goals without sacrificing family time or self-care?

Ready to take your strength to the next level? Start building a stronger body and healthier bones with my Strong Bones Starter Kit—your step-by-step guide to safe and effective strength training at home.
👉 Click here to learn more and access today

🌟 Stay connected and inspired with daily wellness tips on Instagram @thestrongbonescoach.
🌟 For tailored advice or personal queries, email me at carlykillenpt@gmail.com

Thank you for being here, and I look forward to supporting you on your journey to strength, health, and confidence! 💪🦴✨

Transcript

Carly: 0:37

Hello, lovely people. It's Carly here, your host of the Strong Bones Coach Podcast, and today we're opening a conversation that I know many of you are quietly living already. You might feel like life's shifting beneath your feet, not necessarily in a dramatic midlife crisis kind of way, although, let's be honest, sometimes it does feel like that's at 3:00 AM but for many of us, midlife arrives quietly and powerfully. Things begin to feel different inside and out. You're expected to carry on as usual to keep up, to stay the same, but inside something is stirring, ready for softening. The deeper kind of truth is asking to be heard, and maybe you've been told menopause is natural and that is true, but just because something is natural doesn't mean it's easy, and it doesn't mean we don't need support. Natural is not the same as effortless. This next chapter, it's not about fixing what's broken, it's about listening to what's waking up inside us. So let's dive in. I'm gonna start with three truths we've never been taught and the first menopause didn't come with a map. Women's health has been under researched, under acknowledged, and honestly under respected for far too long. And hormonal shifts were often dismissed as just part of being a woman. And we haven't been given the tools, the language, the frameworks, to understand this transition. So here we are patching that map together ourselves. And yes, there's power in that. That's why I'm so pleased to see so much research starting to be done, starting to raise awareness about menopause. It's why I decided to do my training as well so I can be part of that change. So finally, at least as women, we can understand menopause being something we will all go through. We don't need to feel alone. The second truth, hormones support strength until they don't. Estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, they all work behind the scenes supporting our bones, muscles. Mood and mind. And when they start to shift, we really feel it in our joints, our energy, our recovery, our emotional resilience. And that is not a weakness. That is our biochemistry. And this isn't to make you feel disempowered. This is to help raise awareness. Because of awareness is empowering. When we understand what's happening, we can move with choice. And the third truth. Menopause asks us to return to ourselves. We might begin with questions like, who am I now? What boundaries do I need? What truly matters to me now? And they're big questions, but you don't have to answer them alone. That's where trusted friendships, community coaching, and gentle support can be so valuable. The main thing is to take your time with this to allow it. To fear the change, how life might be different. Easier said than done, but as I said, support makes all the difference Now as women. You might have to understand that we are cyclical creatures. We have a rhythm within our rights and seasons within our lives. It took me quite some time to come to terms with that. I thought I could run with the men, so to speak. I thought that was some kind of gold standard to pretend that my natural rhythms, my cycles weren't happening. This just led me to feeling completely burnt out and outta sync with everything. But eventually I did come to know and to understand that honoring our changes, our cycles is actually a strength we have as women. And this is beautifully demonstrated in one of my favorite books women Who Run with the Wolves. It's by Clarissa Pinko Estes, and she reminds us about. How much we are cyclical beings. Our lives move through rhythms of initiation, awakening, return to self. So our younger years, they teach us how to do things. We learn the basics of how to move through life. And as we move into midlife, she talks about how it teaches us how to be in our essence in ourselves. And what contribution this can make to the world, and that it doesn't actually have to make a contribution at all. How we are just whole in ourselves. And menopause in this way is less of an ending and a bit more of a threshold, almost like a second spring. And that threshold is not just emotional or spiritual, it's physical too. So let's talk about what's actually happening in the body. So when it comes to understanding the stages of menopause, it's a bit like seasons. Menopause is not just one moment, it's a progression. So in our lives we have our pre menopause. It's a time before there's any major changes, although I have to say puberty is in there. So I wouldn't say that's not major. We go through starting our menstruation. Our cycles may become regular, Towards the end of this pre menopause time. Perhaps as we start midlife, we may notice subtle whispers, mood shifts, energy dips, recovery. That's not quite what it used to be. Quite a change from our young years in our twenties, where we had more energy, but we could push things a little beyond what might be quite right for us. We got away with a lot. As we move into our late thirties or forties, we could be entering our perimenopause, and this is where our hormones like estrogen, progesterone, they start to fluctuate wildly at times. Your cycles can become quite erratic. You might feel more reactive, sleep less deeply. This is where it can feel really unsettling, but it's also a deep time of awakening. When we enter menopause, did you know that menopause in and of itself is just a single day, so we have 12 months after your last menstrual bleed, and if there has been no bleeding, the day after that is your menopause day. That's it. Everything after that is menopause. Around this time you might start to feel those ripple effects for years, the lead up and the time afterwards, and again, this is not a disease, it is a transition. Some of you might choose to explore menopause hormone therapy, or. Hormone replacement therapy. Not to fix, but to support your body's changing needs, your doses, how much you need it. That's up for discussion with your healthcare team. And finally, we have post menopause. This is a third of most women's lives, and yet doctors often don't get more than two hours training. In comparison to the per and postnatal support that they get, but we're working on that. So as I said, post menopause, everything. After that 12 months and a day mark, your hormones will start to settle into new baselines. Your body continues to evolve, but perhaps feels a little less rocky. And this is where your strength training, your bone health, your emotional integration become key. You finally start to feel a type of settling, perhaps a return of your own rhythm. Another chapter once again, and just remember, these aren't fixed stages. Every woman's journey looks different, the ages, when these exactly land will vary. So there's no way of being ahead or behind. So let's have a look at what's actually happening inside the body. We can explore three hormonal players and their ripple effects. So we have estrogen. This is what's responsible for our ovulation. It supports our bones, our brain mood. It also has an anti-inflammatory effect, something that most people don't give it credit for, but as it drops, our bone breakdown can accelerate. We may start to notice a rise in inflammation and brain fog might settle in. So this is one of the more well-known hormones. We also have progesterone. This is responsible for helping the womb lining to remain thinner. It also has the added effects of being a more calming and more soothing hormone. It can help us with sleep, so when it fades, sleep can become lighter. Our moods can feel a bit more choppy. We can feel a bit more prone to feeling anxious and our nervous system more sensitive. And then we have testosterone. This supports our energy. It supports our muscle mass, our motivation, our clarity. So when this starts to dip, you might feel flat, weaker, not just physically, but emotionally too. And we may even notice a change in our libido. So again, there is no blame or shown with this. When we move from awareness, we can move with our choices, as I said earlier. So yes, these shifts are real heart flushes, belly fat changes, digestive weirdness, sometimes joint stiffness, brain fog, lowered recovery from exercise. It can all be connected again. These aren't necessarily flaws, although they can feel restrictive at times, but they're an invitation for you to lean in to support yourself more, to pay attention and speak up for what you really need. With what I've just said so far, I can imagine you can now start to see why our boundaries become so important in this time of life. Any people pleasing that has already been done when we had excess energy in our twenties is gonna start to want to fall away as we have to be more. Discerning with where we spend our energy, with who we give our time to, with more of a priority onto ourselves. So with my clients, we often talk about living from our bare bones, it's where we take a look at the external roles we've played. And also the deeper values that live underneath. It's a time we get to re-choose. We get to really dig deep into our values. We look at what rhythms truly nourish us, what movements feel sustainable now, what kind of rest feels restorative, and making sure that we can take all of that without guilt, without shame speaking up for what we need. When we strip it all back, we get to reconnect with strength and not the performance type of strength, but that real bone deep clarity. So what if menopause isn't a decline, but a deepening into our own inner knowing, our own sense of self? What if slowing down is actually how we tune in? Those tears you cry are clearing space. What if this phase is permission not punishment? You don't need to rush through this. This is where we can find presence. Here's a few tools that you might want to tap into. You can connect with our strength and create structure with this lift, move, carry. It gives your bones, your muscles a signal to stick around. It can nourish with intention. Eat for energy, joy, clarity, connection. Reconnect with your peace within your food choices. You can find presence with your breath. Reconnect with a breath that soothes your system and perhaps you can support the space. Let yourself be held by a coach, a circle, a quiet walk with a friend. So I'll give you a moment to let this land you are not broken. Perhaps you're blooming and you're doing it all in your own time. So if this episode resonated and you're feeling called to walk this space with more support, i'm here to support you. You can reach out to inquire about one-to-one Coaching, breath work, or even Strong Bones Club. Feel free to book a free clarity call on my websites, carly killen.com. Remember, you're not behind. You're on the cusp of something incredibly powerful. So until next time, stay strong. Take care.