What Midlife and Perimenopause Are Really Asking of Us
- 1 day ago
- 5 min read
Written by Lisa Gaines, Leadership Wellbeing Coach
Lisa Gaines is a leadership and wellbeing coach, empowering mid-life women leaders to redefine success, break through barriers, and thrive. Drawing on her expertise in neuroscience and emotional intelligence, Lisa supports her clients with navigating change, finding renewed purpose, and creating sustainable growth in both work and life.
I was speaking with a client who has spent years thriving in a high-pressure, senior leadership role. She told me she feels guilty for operating at less than full throttle lately, compared to how she has always shown up, even though she and her team keep delivering great results.
I asked her a question I ask many of my clients in midlife: ‘How would it be to leverage what you have built up to this point in your career and park the guilt?’
I shared my understanding, drawn from years of reading and research on perimenopause and menopause, that we actually need to make our lives more menopause friendly by slowing down.
I could see this idea landing for her, and I was reminded of how I’ve been practising parking my own guilt about slowing down and allowing myself to listen more to my body instead of constantly overriding my needs, as I have done for most of my adult life.
The cost of operating at full speed
Like many women in midlife, for as long as I can remember, I’ve been operating at a pace that doesn’t quite work for me. I’ve been intentionally creating space to bring more calm and spaciousness into my life, and it’s a work in progress. I don’t always get the balance right.
For years, I’ve been fuelled by adrenaline and hormones. I’ve worked hard and travelled extensively for work, and as an Irish Aussie, I visit my family in Ireland every year. I’ve come to realise that if I keep pushing as I have always done, and to some extent gotten away with, there’s a cost, and it’s more expensive than it was in my twenties, thirties, and even early forties. The impact on my physical and mental health is more challenging, and it affects my energy levels and output. This is happening to millions of women in midlife everywhere. In Australia, the Jean Hailes 2023 National Women's Health Survey found that one in four Australian women in midlife say menopause symptoms make it hard to get through daily life, including performing at work.
Then, if that’s not enough to be dealing with, there’s the existential identity crisis: ‘If I’m not this hormone-fuelled, adrenaline-driven person, then who am I?’
For some of us, that reckoning goes even deeper: the midlife attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) diagnoses we didn’t see coming. In a 2022 ADDitude magazine survey of over 1,500 women with ADHD, 83% said they experienced ADHD symptoms for the first time during perimenopause or menopause, precisely when we have spent decades working hard to keep those traits and coping strategies hidden. Then there are the many women who have diagnosed themselves, who don't want medication, and who soldier on regardless. It’s a lot to process.
Why slowing down feels like a reckoning
I know I’m not alone in this. I see midlife women everywhere speaking about these challenges and considerations.
So here I am, going through my midlife inquiry, shall we call it? Slowing down is not something I find easy, and I know this is true for so many of us. Operating at a hectic pace has become a societal norm, and when we pause, slow down, and feel our nervous system and how unregulated it is, it can be a bit of a reckoning.
Another reason we might avoid creating more space in our lives is that we get a chance to feel feelings we may have been avoiding and running from. Often, sitting with and acknowledging these feelings isn’t as bad as avoiding them. Sometimes it is, and we may need the support of a wise partner, friend, colleague, coach, or counsellor with our bigger feelings.
The book Wise Power by Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer, which I think is essential reading for midlife women, gave me the understanding that this is a time when we tend to review our past and need to come to terms with our choices up to this point. It is like a midlife inventory. It can be confronting and can be a time when our inner critic becomes very loud and accusatory. It has to be managed, and recognising that some women in midlife aren't well resourced to support their mental health through this is important. Through awareness of how challenging this time can be for a woman, we can be more compassionate and perhaps normalise reaching out and getting the help we need.
Permission, not just productivity
If the idea of slowing down comes our way at all, usually the message is that it’s only okay to slow down so we can ultimately speed up and be more productive. This is a tricky message: “Are we only allowed to rest if it ultimately fuels productivity?” But what if slowing down is the priority, and we can trust that when we need to be productive, that energy will be there on the other side of deep rest and stillness? This is what I have found to be true again and again.
Perhaps this change in pace and in how we operate is exactly what is needed, without needing to push ourselves to be more, do more, and have more. The irony is that when we slow down, we get a chance to feel how much we have and how much we are.
Using perimenopause as permission
So here I am today, tapping into my inner wisdom and using perimenopause as permission to slow down so I can continue to connect to this wisdom.
From here, I’m feeling a sense of awareness that I am enough. It’s the antidote to “I’m not enough, good enough, young enough, clever enough, experienced enough,” and so on. When I slow down, I have access to more compassion and kindness toward myself, and honestly, it feels like a panacea that helps overcome many of the challenges of midlife.
I hope this inspires you and gives you permission to slow down, too. I’m curious to hear from you: what does slowing down even look like for you?
Read more from Lisa Gaines
Lisa Gaines, Leadership Wellbeing Coach
Lisa Gaines is a leadership and wellbeing coach devoted to helping mid-life women leaders reconnect with themselves, overcome roadblocks or burnout, and thrive. With over 15 years of experience and drawing on her expertise in neuroscience and emotional intelligence, Lisa supports her clients through meaningful transitions in work and life. Her coaching style is nurturing, insightful, and practical, and empowers clients to overcome their barriers and step into new chapters with clarity, courage, and balance. Lisa is passionate about supporting women to step up, stand tall, and create sustainable success on their own terms.
