Actually, they don’t!
No woman has ever reported discomfort, at least to me.
But here’s what happens instead.
I’m called “mad!’
My work is labelled “bunk!”
Women show up and share their opinions after reading a blog post:
“Well I wish I could have the time back I spent reading it.”
“That was pointless!”
I used to leave comments like this on The Wiser Woman Facebook page, until I realized that they weren’t public service announcements and I could hide them!
Beyond social media, when I’ve given live talks, women have also said.
“Wait till you get to 52! Then you’ll understand menopause!”
“You can’t say that! You’re not a doctor!”
And “tech speak,” which is what a member of the medical profession who finds herself in the audience will sometimes throw at me – medical jargon and technical terms, as opposed to constructive dialogue – as if women haven’t experienced menopause throughout history and as if menopause is a complicated disease that requires “wonder pills” (as doctors have been convincing us since mid-last century).
And yet, after every blog post or talk that attracts criticism, there are women who respond with love. Proof, of course, that there are a variety of thoughts and feelings that can arise when a woman encounters my work…and that these are always up for change.
So what is going on with the uncomfortable feelings? Why might a woman who reads my blog feel the need to lash out? What am I challenging in her life?
Is what I’m sharing scary?
Perhaps.
Sometimes!
But that’s because in the West, so many of us have grown up cultivating a peculiar and particularly unhelpful relationship with our bodies and our health.
We flip between believing “my body is me” to “I have no agency over my body – fix me quick,” when neither are true.
When we operate from “my body is me” we think we control the body, or during times of crisis, need to get better at controlling it. In this space, we forget that the divine energy behind all life, the same energy that keeps the heart beating, operates our lungs, digests our food and carries out the millions of other processes that keep us alive, is not within our control; it just is.
We are not the body – its parts and its processes; we are each the divine consciousness that has found a home there; and we are our body’s primary carer.
We get to experience the magnificence of life through our bodies, while our bodies are in our custody, and while our bodies are also our personal protectors and guides.
When we flip to “I have no agency over my body – fix me quick,” we forget that our bodies are ours to care for, and that our bodies are brilliantly designed to help us fulfil this role, so that we can experience joy and wonder in this life.
When we encounter unpleasant feelings, discomfort and even symptoms, these arise to guide us back to our innate health. Sometimes, we may seek help from certain people, foods, herbs or medicines, but as we journey through our lifecycle, we cannot outsource the role of primary carer of our body to anyone – not even the most experienced doctors.
So, come midlife, when women experience perimenopause and menopause symptoms, and if they are caught in this Western dichotomy of, “I am my body / I have no agency over my body – fix me quick,” it can get messy.
A woman can easily interpret her symptoms as a sign that she is falling apart and then spend years trying to find the thing that will fix her from the outside.
When I encourage a woman to look within to return to good health, as opposed to looking outside or focusing on her hormones (as if our hormones run wild detached from the divine energy that manages every other part of our body), on the one hand it may appear that I’m reinforcing an idea that she is the problem (because if it’s not her hormones, then what is it?). And on the other hand, it may appear that I’m taking away her only hope for a cure to her symptoms, if she believed that something outside of her was the lifeline that would save her.
What’s more, approaching our health from the inside out can appear annoyingly abstract if we’ve convinced ourselves that retuning to good health must involve something practical, like taking a pill or using a patch or cream to just fix our hormones.
And yes, all of this can feel uncomfortable at first!
However, rather than strengthening an idea that something is wrong with us and a cure is unreachable, looking within helps us realize the opposite: lasting good health is closer than we imagined because we were never broken to begin with!
An inside out approach to health is the simplest path to cure our symptoms because it’s what our bodies have wanted us to embrace all along. And it’s what our bodies will keep pushing us towards as our hormones fluctuate and beyond.
It is not my intention to make women feel uncomfortable when they encounter my work. But as I disrupt the narrative on midlife women’s health (because it is founded on myths and doesn’t serve women), sparks may fly!
A woman may want to lash out, call me mad or run away, but if there’s a quieter voice in her that says “maybe stick around and explore some more,” she might want to do just that, since there is an alternative and more empowering experience to be had around what I share.
I’m sharing principles of innate health and how they relate to midlife change. These same principles have allowed people to cure conditions and chronic diseases that many believed would be with them for a life-time (see the resources at the end of this post to learn more). However, even if we are prepared to accept that such an understanding has helped others (as the resources below reveal), we can still convince ourselves that when it comes to us and our hormones, surely things work differently.
But what if they don’t?
So many women are prepared to spend small fortunes on supplements, treatments, and anything else that promises to fix them.
But what if all that was needed was to put aside some old beliefs that we thought were true (no matter how uncomfortable that can feel at first)?
Perhaps opening up to new ideas from a fresh state of mind might be at the heart of transforming “bunk” into life-changing insight!
As Sarah, a woman I connected with, explained: "At first, I was resistant to some of what [Tania] was sharing. It was not how I saw my own experience. Over time though, my understanding changed and I now see and share the truth of what she is pointing to. I am so grateful."
Sending love to you, wherever you are on your journey.
Resources on the Three Principles of Innate Health
1) A great introduction to the power of the Principles of Innate Health from A Little Peace of Mind.
In this podcast, Nicola Bird interviews Claire Shutes, who describes her journey from being admitted to a mental health institution with extreme anxiety and depression, to a life lived free of anxiety and depression for over 25 years. Listen to the podcast here: https://alittlepeaceofmind.co.uk/podcast/episode-69-a-personal-journey-through-anxiety-to-freedom-with-claire-shutes/
2) Two webinars on curing physical disorders and mental illness from the Real Change Portal.
Elizabeth Lovius interviews the psychiatrist and mental health pioneer Dr Bill Pettit to explore what creates and what cures mental illness, physical symptoms and life-threatening conditions. With over 35 years experience in the field of psychiatry, Dr Pettit shares case-studies that reveal how an understanding of the Principles of Innate Health have led to radical transformations in people’s lives. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-6Wa8b6_vM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMLOvCgVfzs&t=37s
3) Two podcasts from Primal Happiness on curing Chronic Fatigue and how this can relate to curing other conditions too.
Lian Brook-Tyler interviews John El-Mokadem and Karen Fritz DiMarco who share their inspiring journeys on curing Chronic Fatigue and returning to good health. In the podcasts, they explain more about the research they conducted to document how the Principles of Innate Health can have a dramatic effect on such conditions.
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