Surviving - Reviving - Thriving. The menopause and me.
Over the last 6 months I have been documenting my menopause journey from merely surviving in this wonderful world to thriving. The below musings are taken from my LinkedIn profile. If any of this resonates with you, or you know a woman who is having a tough time, I would be happy to chat. We all have different experiences of the menopause and I can only talk about my lived experiences. As the old saying goes, it’s good to talk.
Surviving, reviving and thriving. Pt 1: Finding my next physical Everest. (April ‘24)
Over the last 6 years I have been floored by the perimenopause and menopause and it's only this year, 2024, that I have felt that I have enough energy physically and mentally to commit fully to a long held goal. I have had quite the journey over that time with fatigue, weight gain, anxiety, tinnitus, sore joints and brain fog being a few of my symptoms. I have written a few blogs about my time navigating my way through this half time oranges period of my life. Cathartic for me and hopefully helpful for the reader too.
➡ Am I losing my mind? The menopause and me
➡ Man up Sista and show no weakness
➡ Dear year ago Jo. You, me and HRT
In order to rediscover me, I decided to make a number of changes to my life in 2023 which have made a huge impact to my physical and mental wellbeing. I will be writing a few reflective posts running through being in survival mode, into the revival period and how it has all knitted together to help me thrive.
And what is this goal? To complete a middle distance triathlon - 1.9km swim, 90km bike, 21km run (you may know it as a Half IronMan) at the start of June. I have felt this goal was far out of my reach for a number of reasons, until now and to simply get to the start line I have a few Sunday shenanigans planned to get me a few steps closer.
For now, I will leave you with my cheesy grin from the Devizes half marathon which I ran on 14th April and another cheesy grin from yesterday's Southampton Fast Twitch Sprint triathlon. My first half marathon in 16 years (out of 3 previous halfs) and my first triathlon in 10 years (and only my 2nd to date).
To be honest I have been busy climbing big mountains over the last 16 years and it's now time for a different kind of challenge, time to shake things up a bit, to take back control of my life physically and mentally.
It's time to tackle my next Everest.
Surviving, reviving and thriving. Pt 2: Finding my next mental Everest. (May ‘24)
My last post was themed around my next physical goal, one that has been on hold until now due to my particularly bumpy journey through the menopause. This next challenge has also been put on hold for too long due to work commitments and many moments of self doubt (my way of reframing imposter syndrome).
I left school at 17 and with a plan to attend Warwick College of Agriculture to study for a Diploma in Horse Management. A year 'in the field' was required first and I spent a wonderful 12 months at Catherston Stud, at the time based in the New Forest. I loved working so much and learning on the job that I cancelled college and gained my education through experiential learning. This learning trend has carried on as I worked my way up through management in a variety of industries. Learning from brilliant people that I surrounded myself with plus books, podcasts and on the job training, I felt happier not being in formal education. I have always known that gaining a degree is an itch that I want to scratch, but when?
Having cleared some mental space in 2023 and found capacity to tackle this mental challenge, 2024 is that point in time. The moments of self doubt are still there and now combine with feelings of great excitement as I chatted to my tutor this morning. With a weekend of DofE assessing and OU website familiarisation ahead of me, I will be all set and raring to go for Week 1 starting Monday.
I have chosen to tackle the Access course first before throwing myself into a full degree, mainly to ease myself back into formal education but also to make sure that Psychology is the degree I really want to do.
As I mentioned in my first post in this series, I will be writing a few blogs over the next few weeks about how my 'Surviving, Reviving and Thriving' journey has evolved and I am looking forward to sharing the highs, lows and plateaus with you.
Here's to a wander down this totally new path and to anyone else jumping into this particular pond, let's do this!
Surviving, reviving and thriving. Pt 3: Climbing high and sinking low. (June ‘24)
2022 was a year full of exhilarating expeditions highs as well as a year of great personal loss and crashing lows. It was a year that I knew I had to make changes if I was going to not only survive my 50s, but to start to thrive in the 2nd half of my life.
A diary full of high-altitude expeditions, plenty of DofE work, a smattering of fulfilling leadership development gigs and a good number of motivational speaking opportunities awaited. I was looking forward to ‘getting back to normal’ in terms of work which had been severely altered due to the pandemic. I was starting to feel more like my old self knowing that the HRT was working its magic and, little by little, my symptoms were easing. I was learning to work with them rather than spending precious energy which I simply did not have fighting what I thought I could not change.
The year started off with my beloved 6 year old Spaniel, Lily, spending 11 frightening days at a specialist vet trying to survive a series of epileptic seizures and pneumonia. She had developed epilepsy at the beginning of 2020 and her seizures were under some sort of control until just before Christmas '21 when they took over. I was given the all-clear to pick her up on New Year’s Day and I drove back a very different pup than she was 11 days previously. The next 2 months saw me cancel a couple of expeditions and some UK work to look after this damaged bundle of energy. After 8 weeks of much care and a huge amount of love, a final seizure took her life. I was devastated.
3 days later and utterly broken I was on a plane to Sweden to take part in a race which I had been training for since the autumn. Lily had been my 4 legged training buddy whilst I dragged my tyre named Dave for miles and miles at a time, preparing my body and mind for 185km in the Arctic with 2 legged race partner Roger. My body was willing, but my brain was in a bad place so when Roger pulled the plug on his race due to injury, I also called time on mine. We headed back home and not that I knew it whilst travelling, I brought a severe bout of Covid home with me. 12 days of testing positive with 5 days KO'd, I guess my body had decided that rest was best.
The months rolled on with a challenging expedition in Nepal leading a team to Everest Base Camp and onto 2 x 6000m peaks, a schools expedition in Eswatini, 2 trips up Kilimanjaro and 2 more 6000m peak expeditions in Nepal, punctuated by DofE expeditions and a few leadership development days, I would usually have taken all of this in my stride but I was physically and mentally exhausted. Putting my all into every job, something was changing and I knew that my excitement pre or during expeditions was not burning as brightly as pre Covid.
If I was going to spend precious time of my life which I would never get back with people I generally didn’t know, I needed to really want to be away from home. Without that excitement, why was I doing it? What was my purpose, I had lost my why.
To onlookers, my life looks really exciting. Beautiful places and high mountains, helping people achieve what they never thought possible, living a life so many dream of and for many years it was just that but the reality wasn’t stacking up. The excitement had fizzled out so I knew it was time to start creating a new plan and a different life / work balance.
But how?
Surviving, reviving and thriving. Pt 4: Lines in the sand and fond farewells.
The autumn is usually the time when the companies I lead for send out the following year’s expedition dates. I would peruse the lists with excitement, choose some favourites and pop in one or two which are new to me. I may also have set up an expedition or have been approached to lead something specific, and once everything was confirmed, I would have my year planned out. Gaps would be planned here and there for work such as motivational talks and leadership development to fill, or I would leave space for much needed rest.
I knew that I wanted to continue my DofE work but I wasn’t feeling the usual buzz of excitement for another year of overseas expeditions and decided, bar one short trip to Toubkal in Morocco, not to book in any expeditions at all. I was not saying goodbye this part of my life forever, it was time to draw a line in the sand, I needed a break.
Cutting out half of my annual income without having work in its place seemed like a crazy plan but it was a risk I was prepared to take.
The autumn of 2022 was a busy one and, although my energy levels were returning with the help of HRT, I knew there was more in me. And to discover just how much more, I needed time at home.
2022 had indeed been a year of climbing high and sinking low and after the expeditions were done, I arrived home towards the end of November to say one sad farewell that was to break my heart for the 2nd time that year.
Daisy, my 16 ½ year old Spaniel, was at the end of her adventurous life and it was time for her to catch up with Lily, my 6 year old Spaniel who had died due to epilepsy 9 months before. After 22 wonderful years of dog Mumship, I was flying solo and that felt scary and very lonely. I was missing the Yin to my Yang.
A few days after I said a sad farewell to Daisy I delivered my final talk of the year before heading south with my Mum on a 3 week trip of a lifetime onboard Hurtigruten’s MS Roald Amundsen to the Antarctic peninsula. A very different part of Antarctica to the one I had experienced at the end of 2019 when I climbed Mt Vinson, the highest mountain on the continent.
I left the UK feeling completely broken and knew that 3 weeks away being immersed in a different world would do me the world of good. With a plan for the first 2 months of 2023 was to be at home, giving me time to work on the leadership side of my business, explore new avenues, build new relationships and to have some much-needed down time and head space. I was looking forward to being in my own bed for an extended period of time, something I had not done for 16 years.
Little did I imagine when we boarded the ship at the start of December in Ushuaia what was to happen next.
Surviving, Reviving and thriving. Pt 5: Rediscovering me in 2023. (June ‘24)
Recently, I have had a few messages from friends asking if I am ok. I think the tone of my recent posts has been reflective and reading them back, I can understand their concern. Taking a look back at the last few years has been cathartic and I feel, as I titled my last post in this series, that after 2022 I have been able to draw a line in the sand. 2023 was a year to move forward, it was time to rediscover the lost me and work out who this 50 something menopausal woman would like to be.
When I boarded HX's MS Roald Amundsen in Ushuaia with my Mum in December 2022 bound for the Antarctic Peninsular, I knew the year ahead was going to be different. I had chosen not to book in any overseas expeditions other than one quick trip up Toubkal in Morocco in March and had set aside January and February to work on the leadership and speaking sides of my portfolio business, to strengthen the relationships I had cherished for many years and to make new connections. I had a small amount of work in my diary as time and space is what I needed.
’Best laid plans of mice and men often go awry’ as Robert Burns wrote. Oh, how true.
At the end of that trip of a lifetime I had secured a job as Field Guide with UK Antarctic Heritage Trust via an out of the blue email sent by a contact I made when I climbed Mt Vinson in Antarctica in 2019. The role was to support 2 heritage carpenters to restore and repaint Damoy Hut, a former air transit base on Wiencke Island which was operational from 1975 to 1993. Now an historic monument, the 3 of us were to spend just short of a month in this most special of places. Life sends you’re the right thing at the right time.
Losing both my dogs in 2022 and not having booked in only but a few days of work for January and February meant that I could afford the time to head south for 2 months and enjoy some isolation and a different kind of challenge.
I left for Antarctica on 2nd January 2023 and returned to the UK on 27th February. Those 2 months, as challenging as they were both physically and mentally, were the most restorative I have had in a long time. They were my half time oranges before the rest of the year kicked off, my pause for thought and time to reflect on what had been and what I would now like to have happen.
I have written a few blogs about my time in Antarctica from a hot off the press viewpoint as well as a more reflective tone one year on. I won’t repeat my musings in this post, if you fancy having a good read please click on the links below:
➡ A long commute to work – the what, the why and the how of my most bonkers job to date
➡ Necessity is the Mother of all invention - 26 days of ‘summer’ at Damoy Hut
➡ The nitty gritty of 26 days working at Damoy Hut
➡ Looking back at my most bonkers job to date
Over the next few posts I will be breaking down how I navigated my way through my year of rediscovery and revival including a new member of my family, major post trip blues, inhabiting a new space, listening to a pivotal book, doing the Zoe thing, my NLP journey, intermittent fasting and a rather rocky end to the year.
Surviving, Reviving and thriving. Pt 6: Finding my the Yin to my Yang
After a recent social media hiatus, I will kick off the 2nd of my 'rediscovering me in 2023' posts of how I have navigated my way out of the menopause, by writing about a very special dog.
Dogs are an integral part of my life. They are the Yin to my Yang, my adventure partners in crime and the heartbeat in my home. When I lost both my Spaniels separately in 2022 amidst the turmoils I was experiencing with the menopause, I headed into 2023 emotionally broken. Finding a replacement dog was never on the cards as I feel you can never fill the space that one beating heart has left, more so I was looking for a 4 legged co-pilot to help me navigate the next phase of my life.
As I was used to Spaniels I was looking for a 2-3 years old pre-loved bitch. All bar one of my dogs over the past 22 years had been pre-loved or rescues and I wanted to give a dog who was being rehomed through no fault of their own a chance to live their best life.
With blinkers on, I searched the rehoming sites, being turned down on several occasions due to the transient nature of my work. Although the dog would be with me at home, on DofE expeditions and on adventures in the UK, trying to explain my eclectic lifestyle didn't tick the routine boxes that so many rehoming centres prefer for their dogs and I understood that.
Early April 2023 saw a message drop into my in-box from a friend to say that a 2 year old Collie x Dalmatian dog had just come up for rehoming due to his owners splitting up. I was reticent at first. I was used to bitches, used to Spaniels and their crazy brains, used to a smaller dog and familiarity was what I thought I needed at the time. But there was something nagging at me 'just meet him and see'.
The rest, as they say, is history.
Roger, as was then his name, came to stay for a week over Easter. I knew as he strode through my living room and into my garden that he was going to stay. Tall, slim, calm and considered, he was very different to any of my previous charges and maybe a change was a good thing.
Within a few days he had taken to his new name of Monty and a week later we were off on our first adventure, walking 80 miles along the Rob Roy Way.
What better way to bond as a team than to walk each day, just the two of us with the odd friend popping by to join us. Wild camping at night, sharing the load during the days, if he could trust me instantly to look after him, then I had to start trusting myself that everything was going to be ok.
As we walked along the beautiful trail heading northeast from Drymen to Pitlochry in Scotland, I could feel my menopausal baggage melt away. Every step closer to our goal was a step farther away from my recent past of anxiety, lack of confidence, fatigue and crushing self doubt.
With me supporting him and, little did he know it, him supporting me in return, I began to feel whole again.
This was just the start.