Menopause is the pinnacle transition for women. Society looks at this time as “the end” and it holds negative, self destructive images. Images of the dried up, wrinkled old women with nothing left to give. The cultural, and medical messaging is focused on how to “fix” it, mask it or prescribe it away. But menopause and the changes that come with it isn’t a disease. It doesn’t need to be fixed. You can’t fix aging. Everyone does it every single day. This is a natural transition. But maybe we need to look at it with a different understanding of how our body naturally works. Peeling back the subtle layers, if you will. Today I’d like to explore the subtle body and its relation to menopause and how we feel in our own skin throughout this transition.
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Ep 140
Subtle body energy and the power in menopause
Several years ago I had the good fortune to work with a health coach for myself. In our first session, as one does, she asked me what I wanted to improve as far as my health. That’s probably the hardest question you can ask anyone. There are so many areas of health,Physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, how can you know? And it had been a long time since I had asked myself what I wanted. I finally distilled it down to one answer. I want what I always want. To feel comfortable in my own skin. I had realized that even when I was at my peak fitness levels I still never felt that sense of calm and comfort in my body, in myself. I think that that’s true for many people. For women in particular discomfort in our body has become both normalized and pathologized. So a lot of times we just suffer in silence.
We know there’s more to being healthy than what western medicine would have us believe. A lot more. Particularly for women. We are far more complex physically, mentally and emotionally.
The fact is that health isn’t the absence of disease just like pain doesn’t always equal injury or illness. And the natural aging process is not a disease.
Our modern culture has stripped women of the sacredness of our bodies. Cut us off (sometimes literally) from our intuition. We are hyper sexualized from a young age and then shamed for our sexuality. Modern feminism has masculinized womanhood in the workplace and stripped all honor and reverence away from motherhood at home.
Is it any wonder that women feel exhausted trying to please everyone and have forgotten how to please themselves?
There are 3 transitions in a woman’s life where she has the opportunity to completely regenerate physically, mentally and emotionally into something greater than she was before. Menarche, childbirth, and menopause are all moments of metamorphosis.
Menopause is the pinnacle transition for women. Society looks at this time as “the end” and it holds negative, self destructive images. Images of the dried up, wrinkled old women with nothing left to give. The cultural, and medical messaging is focused on how to “fix” it, mask it or prescribe it away. But menopause and the changes that come with it isn’t a disease. It doesn’t need to be fixed. You can’t fix aging. Everyone does it every single day. This is a natural transition. But maybe we need to look at it with a different understanding of how our body naturally works. Peeling back the subtle layers, if you will. Today I’d like to explore the subtle body and its relation to menopause and how we feel in our own skin throughout this transition.
Much of my work is inspired and informed by yoga philosophy. And though I don’t claim to be any kind of expert in yoga or history or philosophy I find the teachings to be intuitively enlightening especially when applied to the latest western understanding of health, nervous system and the human body and particularly the often ignored women’s health.
The Kosha’s are a fascinating way to expand understanding of our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health. The koshas are 5 layers or sheaths, of the self. There's the physical body, energetic body, the mental body, wisdom body and the bliss (spiritual) body. I like to think of them like the layers in a really good cake. Each one is separate but influenced and enhanced by each of the others. I use the kosha’s often as an underlying structure for how I approach trauma informed teaching and coaching. And once you understand what each of these layers is about you will have ways to tap into your own well of subtle body power and energy for whatever transition you are in.
The Kosha’s are made up of 5 layers. We’ll go into each one and then try to connect the dots for you.
The first layer
The physical body. Anamaya Kosha. We all know this one. For most of us this is the only one we ever pay attention to. This is the outermost layer that interacts with the world. The one you can see and feel. But also the one that does things you can’t see or feel. There are things the body does for you that you’ll never know about, all to keep you alive.
The physical layer is the one we’re always trying to change. The one we’re so often dissatisfied with. The one that’s never good enough. The one we can’t trust. The one we are always fighting.
This layer is made up of what we eat and how we move. It’s full of sensations.
It is the icing on the cake, the decoration on the outside.
The second layer
The energetic body or life force. Pranamaya Kosha. You might recognize that name, pranamaya. Prana is life force or you might know it as breath. Pranayama is breath. Pranamaya is this layer of energy just beneath the physical body. It’s both our own vital energy within our own body and our ability to connect with and affect the energy of others. Coregulation. It’s not necessarily conscious unless we make it so.
This layer affects how we move and engage with the world through the physical body. The way we treat, care for and fuel the physical body then affects this energetic layer.
In a cake these are the actual layers of sponge. Without it we have no cake.
The third layer
The mental layer. Manomaya Kosha. This layer is a kind of bridge that brings your experiences and sensations from the outer world into your inner world. It’s made up of the emotional meaning, thoughts and the stories you’ve created about the things you’ve done and the things that have happened to you.
This layer can lock memories in as well as shape your world for the better. The stories that you tell yourself about your history can become your identity. Thoughts and emotions can then become actions in the world. But just because you have a thought or feel a feeling doesn’t make it true. And that’s where a lot of us can get stuck in past traumas and ideas about who we are.
In our cake this is the buttercream filling between each layer.
The fourth layer
The wisdom layer. Vijnanamaya Kosha. This layer is your awareness of yourself. I think of it like the witness seat. Unlike the mental layer, this layer lets you step back from the messy emotional monkey mind and take a calm objective view of what's happening. Here you are aware that you are aware. This is also the seat of intuition where you can find and listen to your gut instinct about things. This is also the layer that lets you see the truth and is strongly associated with the 6th chakra, the 3rd eye. Without this layer of awareness we can get swept up in our emotions. This layer can help balance out our mental layer.
In our cake it is the supports that let you stack another layer and keep each layer from sliding off.
The fifth layer
The spiritual layer or bliss body. Anandamaya Kosha. The deepest most subtle layer of the subtle body. This layer is our connection to the divine. I was raised christian and when I think of this kosha it reminds me of a diagram that they used to show a lot in bible studies. It was a picture of a bunch of little chairs and one big chair. The big chair represented God and all the little ones represented you and all the things that are in your life. Like job, school, money, relationships etc. The teaching showed one picture with the big chair outside of the little ones. And another picture with the big chair in the middle of the little ones. The idea was that God isn’t outside of you. He lives inside of you.
That is what the bliss body is. A direct connection with the divine, however you define that, that resides inside at the core of your being.
Because it is at the center and is the most subtle it can be missed. You might not even know it’s there. Or have any kind of understanding of how this layer influences any of the other layers.
So in our cake this layer is a simple syrup that’s been distilled with the subtle flavors over time and drizzled throughout the sponge. This is the kind of layer that elevates and expands this cake into a gourmet confection.
Those are the 5 koshas. Most of us are only concerned with our physical body. Afterall that’s the one that complains the most.But the energetic subtle body that we all have beneath the surface of the skin is where we can start to encourage more comfort, more acceptance, more trust. And you can do that through a deeper understanding of these layers for yourself.
Everyday our physical body is changing and adapting and there’s no bigger change for women than the transition through menopause. It’s a slow shift that can happen over years so even though it can feel like an overnight change but really those subtle things have been happening for a while.
As hormone levels naturally change we start to feel things differently in the body. It changes us at every layer. Our joints become less stable, it feels like we’re losing muscle mass, we’re told that our bones will become weaker, maybe our libido changes, maybe we notice weight being distributed differently in the body, maybe we aren’t sleeping well, our energy levels aren’t the same, our brain gets foggy. And all of those things start to mean something to us. They can trigger any range of emotions in our mental body from fear or sadness to frustration or resentment, even relief and anything in between. Tapping into the energetic body and stepping into the wisdom body can give us a different perspective on the physical sensations we experience on any given day.
All of those symptoms of menopause are both true and they can be influenced. There are things you can do that tap into the natural body systems and subtle body systems that can turn menopause into the powerful regenerative transition that it was meant to be.
Menopause is a powerful time of transition. An opportunity for regeneration into something new. You don’t have to have to suffer in silence. Not everyone wants or needs a prescription.
This is your invitation to metamorphosis. Doors open today on an 8 week online course for women from postpartum to empty nest who want to master their symptoms, take the tiger out of motherhood and step into a life of legacy.
Hot flashes, weight gain, sleep disruption, pelvic floor dysfunction, joint pain, mood swings, blood sugar instability, libido changes all of that and more are considered “normal” for women of a certain age, with or without children. But common is not the same as normal.
Fact: you can influence all of these symptoms for the better naturally. You have the power at your fingertips, on your plate, in your body.
I’m leading this 8 week class LIVE and each week we’re peeling back the myths from your plate to the pelvic floor, the mat to the mattress. With simple actionable tools that work through the physical body and into every layer of the subtle body.
It’s time to demystify menopause and embrace the change you want to see in the mirror.
If you want to join us in this metamorphosis go to the show notes at Savagegracecoaching.com/theworkin to enroll.