When the Buffer Is Removed: What Menopause May Reveal About the Lives We’ve Lived
Paige Elizabeth
Founder and Coach
What Menopause May Reveal About How We’ve Lived
A friend of mine recently lost her battle with breast cancer.
She was 54.
I’ve been thinking about her death and about something I have observed for years: how many women seem to develop serious health issues during the years surrounding menopause.
I don’t think that’s something we should look at only through the lens of aging.
I have another theory.
I believe our hormones provide a kind of buffer during our reproductive years, and when that hormonal environment changes during menopause, some of that buffer is removed.
And when the buffer is removed, we begin to see what has been accumulating underneath it.
Not just what we’ve eaten.
Not just whether we’ve exercised.
But how we’ve lived.
The emotional habits we’ve practiced for decades.
The things we’ve swallowed.
The needs we’ve ignored.
The anger we’ve suppressed.
The boundaries we’ve refused to establish.
The relationships we’ve maintained at our own expense.
The number of times we’ve known something wasn’t right and betrayed our own knowing anyway.
I believe the body keeps track.
A Lifetime of Self-Abandonment
Women are taught self-abandonment so early that most of us don’t even recognize it as self-abandonment.
Be nice.
Don’t make anyone uncomfortable.
Take care of everybody.
Be understanding.
Give him another chance.
Don’t be difficult.
Don’t be selfish.
Keep the family together.
Keep everyone happy.
Don’t say what you’re actually thinking.
And eventually a woman can become so accustomed to overriding herself that she doesn’t even hear her own voice anymore.
There is the woman everyone else sees — capable, accommodating, nurturing, pleasant, dependable.
And then there is the woman underneath.
She might be furious.
She might be exhausted.
She might desperately want something different.
She might know that a relationship is wrong.
She might know she doesn’t want to keep giving.
She might know she’s being mistreated.
But instead of honoring that internal truth, she repeatedly overrides it.
That creates an inner duality.
You are living one reality while feeling another.
And I believe living in that state for decades takes a toll on the body.
Why the Breasts Fascinate Me
In metaphysical wellness traditions, the breasts represent nurturing.
Think about that symbolism for a moment.
What are women historically expected to do?
Nurture.
Give.
Caretake.
Mother.
Provide emotional support.
Make everybody else comfortable.
Women can spend decades pouring energy outward while barely considering whether anything is coming back in.
And resentment can begin growing underneath all that giving.
Not because she’s a bad person.
Because she’s depleted.
There is a massive difference between giving because your heart genuinely wants to give and giving because you’ve learned that your value depends upon what you provide for everyone else.
I believe the body knows the difference.
And when I look at breast issues through that metaphysical lens, the question that interests me isn’t simply:
“Who have you been nurturing?”
It’s:
“Where are you in the equation?”
Because you were supposed to be one of the people receiving your care.
And Then There Is the Thyroid
The other area I think about constantly is the thyroid.
Metaphysically, the throat is associated with voice, expression, truth and personal authority.
And women have historically been conditioned to suppress all four.
Don’t say that.
Don’t make a scene.
Don’t be angry.
Don’t challenge him.
Don’t ask for too much.
Don’t be too loud.
Don’t be intimidating.
Don’t be difficult.
Don’t tell people what you actually think.
Swallow it.
And we do.
Again and again and again.
Then we wonder why so many women reach midlife feeling like they don’t even know who they are anymore.
To me, thyroid issues and the metaphysical association with blocked voice and authority are worth examining.
Not because every woman with a thyroid problem has the same emotional history. Human beings aren’t formulas.
But because patterns matter.
And the pattern of women losing connection with their own authority is everywhere.
The Body Keeps the Score
This is one reason The Body Keeps the Score was so enlightening to me.
The central idea that our experiences don’t simply disappear because we’ve intellectually moved beyond them changes the way you think about the body.
We like to separate everything into categories.
This is emotional.
This is physical.
This is psychological.
This is hormonal.
This is relational.
But you’re one organism.
The woman having the thought is the woman producing the hormones.
The woman suppressing the anger is the woman inhabiting the nervous system.
The woman staying in the relationship is the woman living inside the body.
There isn’t one version of you experiencing your life and another completely unrelated version carrying your biology.
It’s all you.
And that is why I believe the way we live matters far more than we’ve been taught to understand.
What Menopause Reveals
Menopause fascinates me because I don’t simply see it as the end of fertility.
I see it as a revealing.
The hormonal landscape changes.
The buffer changes.
And suddenly the strategies that carried us through our 20s, 30s and 40s may stop working.
Maybe that’s why so many women also start changing psychologically during this period.
They stop tolerating things.
They become more direct.
They start questioning relationships.
They want their lives back.
They discover anger they spent decades suppressing.
They become less interested in being liked and more interested in being free.
I don’t think that’s accidental.
I think something profound happens when a woman begins reclaiming her authority.
And I wish we taught women to do it much earlier.
Don't Wait Until Your Body Forces the Conversation
My friend’s death at 54 has made this feel especially important to me.
Because we shouldn’t have to wait until something goes wrong to ask ourselves how we’re living.
Where are you abandoning yourself?
What truth are you swallowing?
Where are you saying yes when you mean no?
Who receives all of your nurturing?
Do you?
What resentment are you pretending isn’t there?
What relationship requires you to continually betray yourself in order to maintain it?
Where have you handed your authority to someone else?
Those are not small questions.
I believe they are questions about health.
And I don’t believe caring for ourselves means simply eating better, exercising more or taking supplements.
Sometimes caring for yourself means telling the truth.
Sometimes it means disappointing someone.
Sometimes it means saying no.
Sometimes it means leaving.
Sometimes it means becoming unwilling to sacrifice yourself so everyone around you can remain comfortable.
Your body has been with you through every experience you’ve ever had.
Maybe we should stop treating it like an object we drag through our lives and start listening to what it has been trying to tell us.
Nurture yourself.
Use your voice.
Own your authority.
And stop abandoning yourself in the name of loving everyone else.
Ready to Start Choosing Yourself?
If you’ve spent years putting everyone else first, ignoring your own needs, or struggling to trust your voice, it may be time to create a different relationship with yourself.
Through one-on-one coaching, you can begin exploring the patterns that keep you stuck, strengthen your boundaries, reconnect with your needs, and learn to honor your own voice and authority.
You don’t have to wait for your body or your life to force the conversation.