The M Word

The M Word by Kate Poux

When Laura and I began planning Put Some Claws in Your Pause I googled synonyms for “menopausal.” According to Power Thesaurus, a crowd-sourced online thesaurus, menopausal can also be described as:

Dry

Wasted

Desert

Fallow

Celibate

Fruitless

Ineffectual

Desolate

Barren

Uncultivated

Impotent

Arid

Exhausted

Leached

… and the list goes on, including both unproductive and nonproductive, unplowed and sucked dry. We were shocked, horrified and more convinced than ever that we needed to dig in to this menopausal narrative and amplify a powerful alternative.

What if we revered menopause as a critical moment of realization and transformation for all women? What if we supported the women we love as they braved these various and unpredictable physical and emotional changes? What if we offered the same kind of societal respect and adoration we extend to pregnant women and new mothers? What if women could look forward to a mid-life rite of passage when we look back on our life experience as women and set a new course for the next chapter of our lives? Put Some Claws in Your Pause is that rite of passage, a safe, supportive, playful space to honor the women we have become and energize our future selves.

As I was editing these thoughts aloud in my kitchen, I was interrupted by our Google speaker. It picked up on my mention of "menopause" in the first paragraph and said, “Sorry, I can’t help with that yet.” Google might not be ready to help, but Laura and I are, right now, together with all of you! Wherever you are in your experience of mid-life transformation, I hope you’ll join us this Labor Day. Let’s rewrite that list of synonyms to include real, actualized, ripe, wise, grounded, liberated, seasoned, hot, worldly, simmering, powerful, bold. This is our time.