The other day I wrote these wonderful words: I am no longer in the “prove it” part of my life. And that’s a really nice place to have arrived. Three cheers for getting older.
By now I have a track record. I’ve accomplished (and enjoyed) so much already, things the small person version of myself didn’t expect to experience. And that’s all great. Now what? It doesn’t mean I’m done doing stuff. On the contrary, I’m doing more interesting / bigger stuff. But my motivation has shifted.
A few years back I worked on an interesting project for a menopause-related supplement and education company, designing journaling prompts for women as they navigate their hormonal evolutions. In a meeting the consulting gynecologist, Dr. Kourtney Sims said something I won’t soon forget. She called estrogen the give-a-fuck hormone. And when you start to have less estrogen in your system, guess what happens? You stop giving a fuck. This can result in women no longer being as focused on pleasing others, instead prioritizing what is true for them.
A welcome shift of perception. Rather than “the change” seeming like some kind of cultural death, it can be a full-blown personal renaissance.
I had a sense of perimenopausal pride as I was turning 50. It was a peak moment that provided a bit of a victory lap. Well, I’m not defiantly celebrating a milestone in a crop top on a daily basis. Now I’m just…here. Hiiiiiiii. The vision board isn’t exactly blank, but it’s not full either. There’s terrain with room to grow.
Which means it’s time to update my term sheet.
“Living life on your terms” sounds like a great idea but it’s important to check in and ask, who wrote your term sheet? Did a younger version of yourself create those agreements, maybe even a child version? Have you outgrown them? Or did you inherit aspects of your term sheet from external sources such as family and culture, things that no longer serve the authentic you?
I dig a literal, pre-Pinterest era vision board. You know, the kind with tacks. I’ve had some version of one in my home or office for decades, and it’s been pretty remarkable how potent they can be at drawing me towards scenarios and environments that I’ve cut out and pinned up. Case in point - that time I was in Tahiti with solo sailor, surfer and environmental activist Captain Liz Clark. I suddenly realized I’d had a photo of her I cut out from a Patagonia catalog (before I knew who she was) surfing Teahupoo (a wave I couldn’t pronounce at the time) up in the corner of my office pinboard in the East Village (all before I’d even learned to surf). Over a decade later… there I was on a Tahitian beach with Liz, looking at that very wave. Bananas.
So yeah, I believe. But lately I’ve been asking myself what I want my life to feel like rather than look like. To start somatically and grow the magic beans from that place.
That’s a pretty big deal for a person as logical as your friend Laura, here. In my newish BYOB (e for estrogen) era, it’s no longer all about architecting, striving. Nope. Mary Oliver wrote, “In what is probably the most serious inquiry of my life, I have begun to look past reason, past the provable, in other directions.” Past reason.
Today, living life on my terms means a lot of exactly that – providing myself with the time and space to feel into things, and revise my personal term sheet accordingly. Being unreasonable seems like a really good place to start (thanks, Mary). Vision board to follow.
Note: Thank you for reading. If you found this at all helpful (or amusing), please give it a like or drop a comment below. And if you know someone that might enjoy my perspective, kindly forward it along. Your participation is everything.
estrogen=give a fuck hormone-wow wow wow! thank you for writng this and illiminating my perspective on a number of things. Here's to being unreasonable!
Turning 50 is brilliant. Love that we are living proof of that.