Whenever the subject of rage has come up in one of my menopause circles there is a palpable reaction.
Above all there is relief that it has been named.
Because menopausal rage is real. It may not happen to everyone, but it is really common.
However, when it comes, the intensity of it can take us by surprise.
Where are these feelings coming from?
I have a couple of theories:
1. The menopause process is a call, from our soul, towards deep healing
Perimenopause can bring to the surface all our old limiting beliefs, traumas and emotional wounds for healing.
In the case of rage, for example, many of us learned early on in life that anger was not ok.
Perhaps it wasn’t ok to say 'no' as a child. Maybe our boundaries were crossed when we were younger and we had no way to protect ourselves so we had to stuff our natural anger response down.
Maybe we were told: 'it's not nice to get angry', and we took on the message that we wouldn't be loved if we expressed or even felt anger.
Or maybe we saw anger being used as aggression and violence and we decided to never, ever be like that ourselves.
These are all very good reasons why we may have put our healthy, righteous anger ‘into Shadow’ - meaning that we repress it, deny it, try to hide it, from ourselves and from others.
And when we put something into Shadow, it stews and grows down there in the darkness, until eventually it leaks out or explodes - in this case as rage.
This can happen at any time in life, but in perimenopause it can all feel much closer to the surface.
Maybe perimenopausal rage is the backlog from:
-all the times we said 'yes' when we really needed to say 'no', all the times we crossed our own boundaries, and
-all the times we said 'no' when we really longed to say 'yes', each time we deprived ourselves of what we really needed.
A lifetime's worth of stuff built up inside of us. And then, when our little one won’t eat their dinner, or there’s one too many emails to reply to, or our partner speaks to us in the wrong tone of voice... it explodes. As rage.
Some people call this being 'triggered'. Those little things that are out of proportion with the rage that they spark. Or perhaps it feels like you don't even need to be triggered! The rage is just there. All. The. Time.
Either way the feelings are BIG.
The way I look at it is: part of why these feelings are coming up is because our soul doesn't want us to carry them around any longer. The old patterns are ready to be healed.
Another theory I have is that much of the rage we feel at peri-menopause doesn't even belong to us:
2. Maybe we are feeling ancestral, archetypal rage
What if much of the rage we feel at perimenopause isn’t even ours?
What if it's been passed down through the generations? What if it is in our bodies, in our DNA?
If the rage we're feeling is actually the unexpressed rage of all the injustices our ancestors faced, of the women before us who were burned as witches, who had no voice, who had no chance to express the wildness and love inside of them? Who faced oppression, violence and abuse?
Wherever it comes from, Menopausal rage is too big for normal life
I believe that all of our feelings in perimenopause are precious. Not something to be shamed, hidden or medicated away.
Whether it’s our own backlog accumulated over a lifetime, or rage coming down through the ancestral line, this is a big, archetypal emotion. It's bigger than everyday life, and we need a place outside of everyday life to bring it, contain it and transform it. We need a safe space. We need sacred space.
The most powerful transformation in my life has come from being welcomed, all parts of me, just as I am, in sacred space - time outside time, where there are no real world consequences.
When completely welcomed, the parts of me that had been shamed could feel safe enough to come out and be healed. As a result I've been more and more able to harness the true power and life force energy at the heart of what seem like the darkest parts of me.
Shadow Work® provides the safest container I have come across for this kind of transformation.
In Shadow Work® we believe that rage and anger are gateways to our power. When we have a healthy relationship with anger we can access the energy that helps us put boundaries in place, that enables us to have our healthy 'yes' and 'no', to stand up for ourselves and to take meaningful action in the world.
Your rage is not wrong or bad
If you're struggling with feelings of rage, know that:
-you are not alone, and
-your rage in itself is not bad. You may just need help to process and transform it.
I really encourage anyone going through menopause and experiencing big emotions to first and foremost keep in mind that these seemingly overwhelming and difficult feelings all have 'gold' at their core. And that the more difficult they feel, the more 'life force energy' is locked up in there, ready and waiting to be harnessed as a force for good in your life and in the world.
Honouring and welcoming you in all your colours,
Melanie
