Are you feeling fired up yet?
(No not menopausal indigestion)
Today marks the beginning of the Year of the Dragon which supposedly means a massive shift in energy. This is just what we midlife women on a mission need. The Dragon represents bravery, strength and independence…. the perfect trilogy to counter the Triad of Turmoil I often talk about. This Triad of people pleasing, perfectionism and imposter syndrome affects women who are trying to fit their round shaped reality into the square shaped societal messaging on who and how we are supposed to be.
We don’t experience those afflictions because we are weak, insecure or incompetent. We experience them because knowing and asking for what we want, expecting fairness in the work/life balance and living our lives according to our needs rather than the expectations of others was deemed unwomanly. From the Salem trials to modern social media destruction, women have been hung as witches and trolled as bitches for centuries.
So, I love this energetic shift and it’s exactly what we need, what I’m feeling and what I’m seeing. (I feel a Braveheart moment coming on!).
I was told recently by someone who knows all about this stuff, that this change in cosmic energy is going to be very important for me. She told me that the Year of the Dragon is the space for me to come alive again. Not that I was dead, but I have been dead tired for quite a long time.
This friend has always been on the button about what’s coming, so while I know nothing about Chinese astrology other than to question does it come with prawn crackers, I’m going to take her prediction and run with it.
Although I can feel the shift myself - not just in me, but in other women.
For me, years of parent-care and intense single parenting are coming to an end. There is space around me that I haven’t felt in years. Mental space. Emotional bandwidth. And even yes, the holy grail:a little extra time. (Now I’d like to say this “Space” has come with a side helping of no laundry or dinner production but even there, I’m just giving a lot less fucks. I bought each of my daughters their own laundry basket and so now only do my own, and while I buy food, I’m a lot more lackadaisical about bringing it all together in a meal every single night. At 15, 18 and 20, I’m in the mindset of raising adults now, not children. It won’t kill them to cut up some chicken and boil some pasta).
I’m now identifying as a powerful peri-menopausal woman and my pronouns are: Try Me.
The witch is stirring in me. The warrior woman in me is rising. And now this year, I am firing up my inner dragon.
Fire in my belly.
Lighting up my own way.
Incinerating anyone who dares to suggest I must smile to make them happy.
As I turn 56 next week, it isn’t just the changing of my circumstances. It’s a continual growing into my own skin, however crepey and sun-spotted it might be.
Research came out last week that reveals that women’s overall mental functioning, when you combine reasoning, knowledge, emotional intelligence, judgment, and decision‑making, actually peaks between ages 55 and 60. So there! Younger is not always better. It’s in our 50’s that we actually hit the cognitive sweet spot (menopause brain notwithstanding) whereby we have greater emotional stability (less fucks given), a strong sense of self (try me), and sharper judgment (why am I pleasing anyone except myself?).
As I pointed out in my column here a couple of weeks ago, women in their 50’s are leaving marriages, workplaces and communities that just no long serve them. Mmmmmm… I’m seeing a correlation.
It’s also a time for letting go.
I had my ex-husband and his partner over for Christmas Eve dinner a couple of months ago, and in doing so put to bed 10 years of emotional turmoil. I haven’t forgotten what he did, and there are some things I haven’t forgiven, but I have put it down. I no longer carry the pain and anger in my body and brain. I am too busy now focussing on my own life and the life we can create as a dysfunctional functioning family. That creates even more space.
And I’m not alone.
I have several clients at the moment who are putting back the off-the-rack skin they were handed as younger women, and trying out their own skin instead.
Last week I was invited to afternoon tea by an ex-client. She had just turned 60 and had celebrated with indulging herself with a a night in a posh hotel and a week of outings with her children and friends. She’d ended her marriage last year and while it hasn’t been easy, she is glowing. A whole new life awaits.
She showed me a newspaper feature she’d seen in that day’s paper. It was about ‘Walkaway wives.’
“I guess that’s me,” she said as we sipped a glass of bubbles. It’s a catchy term and it doesn’t convey the deeply difficult decision to end a marriage but it does represent the shift I’m seeing. Women have had enough of not getting enough support, of not getting enough back for what they put in, for not getting enough credit (pay, pension, orgasms) out of the relationships, marriages and careers they invest in.
Because midlife has been expanded to a three or four decades long stage of life, we have this extra 20 years of living before old age, and that means repurposing our careers, perhaps redefining our marriages or post-marriage relationships and shifting our energy to actually pleasing ourselves more, ditching the perfectionism for good enough, and pushing past our imposter syndrome to try new things, explore new versions of ourselves and be more bold in our becoming.
Sometimes it takes a crisis to change up the energy of our lives. But sometimes it happens BECAUSE nothing changes. Because you wake up feeling the same shit way you did yesterday and realise if you don’t change, nothing will.
After years of being pulled in every which way by so many people, expectations and responsibilities, I am actively choosing and chasing a feeling of emotional ease. This does not mean I don’t want to feel strongly. It means I don’t want to be wrecked by those feelings. I am grieving the loss of my dad and family and I am at ease with all that that entails. I have put down the end of my marriage and refuse to carry it in me anymore. I am revelling in the mother part of me, but am steadfastly refusing now to be eaten alive by the role. And I am trying on my own skin for size and my bum looks perfect in it, thank you very much.
When I find myself being pulled away by frustration and drama, or captured by anger and resentment, or feel a wave of guilt hold back a loving “no” or a rebellious “yes!” I simply check in and ask myself what a wise woman would do in this moment. What would those wise witches, warrior women and dragon queens do?
I am that wise woman. So are you.
She always knows the right answer.
In this Year of the Dragon let’s not age gracefully, let’s age powerfully, whatever our age. Let’s put fire in our bellies, let’s shine a light on our own path, and let’s get on with living life that makes us soar.
Let me know what you think and how you are shifting your energy!
And as always, if you’d like some space to face into your life with a bit more intention and energy, you can book some 1:1 coaching with me - be that my stand alone Breakthrough Empower Hour, or my main coaching programmes at