Three thoughts about the menopause
Island women are tough, a lot like the aunties I grew up around in Nagaland, and probably countless women the world over. But there's tough, and then there's the menopause.
In this country we've only really started talking about it. My husband enthusiastically tells me he's been to a menopause workshop at his work, so now I get the menopause mansplained to me! 😉 Probably still not talked about in plenty of households in the Western Isles.
Talking about it won't help in and of itself; there's no talking your way out of this one. What helps is awareness and acceptance, from family, from work, from public life: that it's real, and it's really bad. You might not want to talk at all, and that's fine, just don't ignore it.
Because let's be honest: it absolutely sucks. And the more people who know that and accept it, the more space we get to actually experience it. Here are three things I know from my own journey: it's different for every woman, you don't have to tough it out, and regular care beats crisis response.
It's different for every woman
This is so spectacularly true it never ceases to amaze me. I specialise in menopause massage, so I see it up close, and no two women who come to me are carrying the same thing. One is undone by the night sweats and the broken sleep. Another barely notices those but can't find her words in a meeting anymore. Aching joints, low mood, a body that suddenly feels like a stranger's: the symptoms mix differently for everyone.
But underneath the variety there's one common thread: change. In some areas, total change, and not all of it physical. Your energy, your desires, your sense of what you want and who you are, all of it shifts. Something ebbs away through the suffering, and something else solidifies in its place.
It's transformation and grief and acceptance all at once, and here's what I most want you to hear: you can't get it wrong. It is fundamentally yours. It'll take as long as it takes. It's unfair and unreasonable, and you're perfectly within your rights to feel the injustice, the anger and the despair. But don't give up.
You don't have to tough it out
For the longest time, the generations before us just had to get on with it. And within our own lifetimes it was barely better: doctors were taught next to nothing, and inaccurate medical information shaped the care of millions of women for decades, because it simply wasn't a priority. We cloned a sheep. We mapped the entire human genome. Half the population going through the menopause? Apparently that could wait.
Well, the cat's out of the bag now. Nobody at home or at work gets to expect you to just "jog it off." Women of the Western Isles, I know you're tough. But tough and suffering in silence aren't the same thing, and you don't have to prove anything by gritting your teeth through this one.
Yes, we all still have to function. But we all need help and support too, and sometimes the help you need most is being given the space not to function at all. That's allowed. There is support out there, and you have options.
Regular care beats crisis response
Here's what I've built for exactly this. I offer a specialist menopause massage rooted in acupressure: the old wisdom, worked out over centuries, that specific points on the body connect to specific troubles elsewhere in it. It never stops amazing me how this ancient knowledge is still quietly caring for people the world over.
(And yes, I know I look a wee bit Chinese. I'm not. Utterly impartial on this one.)
The principle is simple enough: for almost every symptom, there's a pressure point that answers it. I work four main ones, for the sleep and the anxiety, for the night sweats, for the aching joints, and for the pelvic and bladder changes nobody warns you about. I pair that with geranium aromatherapy oil, long valued in this kind of bodywork for helping to steady mood and bring a sense of balance.
The technique is only half of it. The other half is that for fifty minutes, you have a space that is entirely your own. No one needs anything from you. You get to reconnect with your body, even when it feels like it's out to destroy you, because it's still yours, and you'll never have another one.
And this is the real point: this works best as regular care, not a rescue mission. Not one desperate visit when you're at the end of your rope, but a standing fifty minutes that's yours, month after month. That's how the change becomes something you move through with support, instead of something you endure alone.
Menopause massage therapy in Stornoway
You don't have to take my word for it, you can read what my happy customers say on the website and over on Facebook. I'm a CIBTAC-qualified body massage therapist with specialist training in menopause massage, so you're in trained, insured, and genuinely caring hands. Come and see Shi Shi, and let's give you some real TLC.