Don’t let anyone else write your menopause narrative.

The menopause narrative, while massively useful, can also be incredibly loud when it comes to reminding women of their limitations.

Yes, our bodies are changing. Yes, there are certain rhythms, practices and habits that should be investigated and perhaps adapted accordingly. But I found myself taking on more limitations than were personally necessary.

My yoga practice was perhaps the most obvious place I saw this.

I injured my shoulder three and a half years ago and healed it within the first year. Which means that for the following two and a half years, I continued nurturing the idea—the identity, even—of someone with a weak and problematic shoulder.

And, of course, a gammy shoulder is also, among many things, something we hear associated with menopause. So chaturanga (a yoga push-up) and wheel (a deep backbend) were simply out of the question.

I never once stopped to examine what else my resistance might actually be about.

Until today.

During my practice here in Italy, on retreat, I was doing my adapted chaturanga, no problem, when I thought: What if I just try wheel?

And so I did.

No pain. Nothing. Stability was there. My shoulder was completely pain-free.

And I immediately saw that I had taken on a limitation that didn’t actually fit.

But I saw something else too.

My resistance wasn’t really to the pose. It was to the joy of it. To feeling even more. To enjoying the fullness of expression that comes from allowing my body to open, expand and take up more space.

And that feels important to me at this stage of life.

I don’t want this to be a time of collapsing in. Of constantly protecting, restricting and making myself smaller in anticipation of what my body may or may not be able to do.

I want it to be about enlivening. Stepping in. Exploring. Moving outward. Discovering what else is possible.

Yes, this stage of life needs to be acknowledged, celebrated and loved—but I want to experience it as an expansive state, not a limited one.

My body is my greatest source of knowledge, and I will continue listening to her guidance, alongside the healers and doctors I trust through this process.