I never expected menopause to feel like time travel, but recently I have felt like I’m a child again.

Like I’m back right back where I started.

That shy, quiet, invisible, reserved, unsure girl, who was lacking in confidence, who felt unheard, unseen & ugly, powerless, insignificant, small and scared.

Stinging tears of sadness and hurt and I’m that six year old, standing crying in front of female role models in my life, being shamed and humiliated about how I looked, while they laughed at me.

One hot flash and suddenly I was 15 again—awkward, raw, unable to fit in, the weirdo.

Another sleepless night and I was back in my twenties, replaying heartbreaks I thought I’d buried.

All the layers have been stripped away from the years that I’ve lived in the roles that I held….peeled back…revealed…exposed.

Menopause didn’t just rob me of oestrogen. It stripped away my armour and revealed layers of pain.

At first, I blamed the hormones, the night sweats, the brain fog. I told myself, “This is just physical, get through it.”

But the truth was harder: my body wasn’t only changing, it was speaking. Loudly.

Every old hurt I’d neatly filed away came knocking again.

Childhood insecurities.

The sting of rejection.

The grief I’d pushed aside because I was “too busy.”

Menopause was less a thief of my youth and more a mirror—one I couldn’t put down.

The mirror showed me how much I had survived. But it also showed me what I had avoided.

I realised how often I had numbed myself with busyness, caretaking, or pretending to be “fine.” Now, stripped raw by hormonal chaos, there was no buffer.

My body demanded presence. My past demanded attention.

It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t polished. But, it was real.

I’ve gradually come to realise through the grief, pain, and distress that Menopause is not just an ending. It’s an invitation.

An invitation to pause, to listen, to finally tend to the hurts I’ve ignored. The irritability, the tears, the old wounds resurfacing—what if they’re not signs of weakness, but signals of what’s ready to heal?

We don’t often speak about Menopause this way. We call it a “change,” a “pause,” a “decline.” But maybe it’s also a rite of passage. A sacred checkpoint where our bodies whisper:

You’ve carried enough. It’s time to let go.

Maybe you’ve felt this too—that sudden ache that feels bigger than hormones, bigger than the moment. Maybe you’ve noticed memories surfacing you thought you were “over.” If so, you’re not broken.

You’re breaking open.

Menopause is not the enemy. It’s the mirror. It reflects the parts of us still waiting for care and compassion. Still waiting for rest. Still waiting for love.

These days, when the heat rises in my chest or the tears come out of nowhere, I try not to push them down. Instead, I ask:

What is this showing me? What’s asking to be healed?

Sometimes it’s something small, such as the sting of being dismissed in a meeting. Sometimes it’s something deep, like the shame I carried from my childhood. Whatever it is, I let it surface.

Because if menopause has taught me anything, it’s this: the body keeps the score, but it also offers the map.

The map for the rest of our journey, it shows us the direction to take, how to align with ourselves, free ourselves, be authentically alive, and sit back and enjoy the ride.

~