The Wisdom of Menopause

by Christiane Northrup

  In my own family, as soon as my brothers turned eighteen my father sat them down and told them that they had to start supporting themselves. But he paid for my college tuition without question. I did put myself through medical school with student loans and scholarships, but when I got married, during my last month of med school, I gladly let my husband take care of all the details of buying our first home—a process that mystified and terrified me at the time. He used the last of his educational trust fund as a down payment, and I felt unbelievably lucky to be living this fairy-tale life! We paid off my medical school loans without difficulty.

  My husband also made all the decisions about charitable donations and investments, though our incomes were basically equal. Donations went to the educational institutions and charities he favored. I never questioned this. I found the topic of money burdensome until I was forced to wake up at midlife. I’m not alone; many women find themselves in the same situation. Though we went through women’s liberation in college, in the interest of creating a happy home and family life we were always willing to do “a little more” housework and child care than our husbands. Now our generation is taking the next step and waking up financially.

  When I first went through my divorce, I secretly hoped that my life would be miraculously fixed by meeting a financially savvy and successful new man to marry so that I could get squared away again. Yep, I admit it. I was hoping that Prince Charming would ride up on his white horse and save me. (I saw how thoroughly this old programming lived in me, despite my career success.) As time went on, however, and no Prince Charming rode up to my door, I was forced to learn how to save myself. I learned that saving myself was not only fun, it was exhilarating. As the scales fell from my eyes and I learned to trust and value myself, my desires, and my financial savvy more and more, I was finally able to withdraw my projections from men, too. They were human and flawed, just like me. No better. No worse. Through my dealings with bankers, brokers, insurance agents, and accountants, I learned that men didn’t have any more financial or other “magic” than I had. In fact, the more I saw myself as the source of my own magic, the better my life became. And from this new perspective, flush with pleasure and delight at my new, more prosperous way of being in the world, I began to appreciate men more than ever! I found out that when you’re clear with them about what you want and ask nicely—without any anger or neediness—they’re often more than happy to provide it for you! This past Christmas, for example, I told my oldest brother that I wanted a bonfire outside on the solstice. When I arrived at his house, he and my younger brother had prepared a pile of wooden pallets so substantial that I was sure my solstice bonfire could be seen from space! I was completely moved and gratified by this gesture of support. This past spring, a male friend came over to the house and replaced my car battery when the car wouldn’t start. I realized that all I had to do was ask instead of being determined to figure it out myself. My old, stoic “I don’t need anybody” attitude began melting away in the warm glow of self-acceptance, compassion, and vulnerability. But this magic all started only when I no longer looked to a man to “complete” me or make me happy. When I discovered that I had what it took to make myself happy and I gave up the futility of self-sacrifice as a way to get my needs met indirectly, my whole world changed. And so can yours.

  MARY: It’s Never Enough

  Forty-six-year-old Mary had long been convinced her husband was better at finances than she was. He paid all the bills and did the taxes every year. But these activities always upset him. His mantra seemed to be “There’s never enough. There’s never enough.” Increasingly Mary felt as though she couldn’t ask her husband for money for anything but the barest of essentials, and it seemed the only way she could help the situation was to spend less. Finally, after much soul-searching, Mary decided to get recertified as a nurse, the profession she’d had when she had met and married her husband. Given the nursing shortage and the fact that they lived in a city with several large hospitals, Mary had no difficulty getting a job with a good salary and decent benefits. Within a year or so she began to make substantial contributions to the family income. This made her feel good, even though she hated the on-call part of her job. Despite her contribution, however, her husband continued to exercise iron control over all their financial decisions.

  Mary suspected that one reason her husband was reluctant to share the financial decision making, as unhappy as it seemed to make him, was that he was going through his own midlife crisis at work. He seemed depressed about his career and the fact that he hadn’t reached the success he thought he should have during his forties—a time he referred to as his “power years.” He had started talking about retiring early, selling the house, and traveling around the country in an RV. Mary hoped that her husband was just going through a phase and would recover soon. She suggested that he get some individual counseling, but he became angry with her and said absolutely nothing was wrong with him and that he was not depressed.

  Meanwhile, bringing home a paycheck had allowed Mary to become much more empowered in the world, if not at home. Nevertheless, she began to suffer from a host of health problems, including palpitations, severe hot flashes, and lower back pain. Her periods also became very irregular and very heavy. It was at this point that Mary came to see me, and I asked her what was going on in her life. When she told me, I gave her a series of recommendations to help her physical symptoms. (I will discuss these in later chapters.) I also suggested that she begin to assume a more proactive role in managing the family finances, which she agreed to do.

  When she came back three months later, many of her menopausal symptoms were better. She reported that at first her husband had been resistant to her desire to know about their finances and help with spending decisions. However, soon after she initially raised the issue, he started to experience chest pain, which was diagnosed as angina. He realized that if his life continued in the way it had been going, he could die of a heart attack. This was his own midlife wakeup call, and it made him realize that he, too, needed to revamp some of his outmoded beliefs and behaviors.

  In the meantime, Mary took steps on her own to increase her financial knowledge. Her new confidence forced changes in her marriage, of course. She told me that she and her husband had to completely rework their agreements about money and household chores. It wasn’t easy. But as she identified her own needs, and also assumed a more playful attitude about the whole matter, things began to shift. She found that lightening up around the serious subject of money not only helped her, but also helped her husband, who had been taught that money was his burden alone. In time, Mary’s husband realized that it was in both his and Mary’s best interest if both of them knew everything about their mutual finances and agreed upon their spending habits.

  Changing Your Cultural Legacy

  Middle-class women of my mother’s generation were brought up to believe that they would be taken care of by their husbands. With the help of life insurance policies and the unprecedented economic growth that followed World War II, many of them were. The majority of my mother’s friends, women now in their sixties, seventies, and eighties, never worked after marriage and never had to return to work after they became widows. The women’s movement brought to our collective consciousness the price that our mothers paid for being taken care of in this way, and my generation vowed that we wouldn’t become our mothers. (My mother tells me that she is routinely dismayed at the dismissive and abusive ways in which many of her friends’ husbands treat their wives.) Though we’ve come a very long way when it comes to earning and handling money, the truth is that far too many women still lack basic money skills and are overly dependent upon husbands, employers, or family members to do their financial planning for them. It boils down to this: many women were raised to think that someone else will take care of us financially if we do all the other kinds of caretaking, so we invest in the people (usually husbands, but not always) who we believe will provide for us and love us. A bumper st
icker from the Women’s Institute for Financial Education (www.wife.org) says it all: “A Husband Is Not a Financial Plan.”

  In fact, about 70 percent of businesses are now started by women, and women-owned businesses employ one of every four U.S. workers. Women now control more than 60 percent of the wealth in the United States. According to www.wife.org, the average baby boomer woman is likely to be widowed by age sixty-seven and will outlive her spouse by eighteen or so years. This means that 90 percent of us will be managing our own money for at least some of our lives. The good news is that despite fears of becoming bag ladies (fears that are very common), we women are actually really good at handling and managing money once we realize that money is simply the manifestation of life energy and not something that is beyond our grasp. The best way to become financially literate is to realize that we have the innate ability to deal effectively with money—with a little education. If our bodies have the skill and know-how to turn our life energy into an entirely new human being from our own flesh and blood, it ought to be a piece of cake to manage the life energy that money is simply a symbol of!

  The news is good. Women, particularly midlife women, have now been identified as a lucrative new market for the financial industry. And, as already stated, we have an aptitude for managing money. Studies have shown, for example, that women’s investment groups do better over the long haul than men’s. Women tend to focus more on long-term financial goals than on short-term performance, in part because womanly values tend to support families and communities, not just a woman’s own personal goals. This is why, in both our own country and in developing nations, the key to a sustainable economy is to invest in women-owned and women-run enterprises.5

  The Value of Becoming Financially Savvy

  Regardless of your current circumstances, it is crucial that you get very clear about your beliefs about money so that you can begin to assume dominion over your money in the same way you are daily assuming dominion over your health. Money is a very concrete form of energy—it is power in our society, allowing you to go where you want to go and stay where you want to stay. Having control over your money gives you a sense of freedom and safety. In study after study, higher socioeconomic status is consistently associated with better health. But I believe it is the sense of empowerment and control, not the absolute number of dollars involved, that makes the real difference.

  Many women report that in the early stages of taking financial control, they feel fueled by both anger and fear. I was no exception. In those first few months after my separation, I found myself possessed by a new sense of purpose, driven by the need to get my life free, clear, and settled. I had to get myself out of debt, pay off the overdrafts, and get the household accounts reorganized. It seemed scary and burdensome at first, but it quickly became exhilarating as I came to the realization that I could do it all by myself. The truth is, I had never actually acknowledged the fact that I had doubted that ability before. I learned I could manage my household finances just as effectively as I had for many years managed my professional and business finances—all without my husband’s income, advice, or support. This is not to minimize or disparage his contribution during all the years of our marriage. Rather, it is to acknowledge the personal empowerment that comes from becoming financially independent.

  From Poverty Consciousness to

  Prosperity Consciousness

  The rubber really met the road for me when I came to the realization that I was the one who was responsible for paying the mortgage and the vast majority of two private college tuitions. I had dabbled in reading about the universal laws of prosperity but had never really been “up against it” enough to apply them in my life. Not so anymore. Every day, as I ran on my treadmill, I read Think and Grow Rich (Briggs Publications, revised edition, 2003) by Napoleon Hill, about how desire and consciousness create the mindset that attracts prosperity; Suze Orman’s The Courage to Be Rich (Riverhead Books, 1999); and also everything by Robert Kiyosaki, author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad (Doubleday, 1999). I played his brilliant game Cash Flow 101 over and over until I could easily get out of the “rat race” (living from paycheck to paycheck) and into the “fast track”—having residual income from businesses and investments that come in regularly whether you work or not. For the very first time in my life, I began to see myself as a business that was producing a product. I saw that my books, CDs, and newsletter were all “products” and all marketable.

  I also saw how clearly my beliefs about money and prosperity were reflected in my bank accounts. At around this time, I met Suze Orman in the green room at the Today show. She told me that you can see people’s ill health in their money and cash flow first because money has nowhere to hide an energy imbalance. You either have positive cash flow or you have debt. Simple. Sooner or later, if the behavior patterns and beliefs that create money problems are not addressed, they will manifest as health problems in the body. At the time, I was complaining to her about having to shoulder all the financial responsibility for my daughters. She said, “The only thing holding money back from you is anger and fear.” I realized that she was right on the mark. My anger at my ex-husband, who by this time was remarried with a baby on the way, had left me full of resentment. And it was time to let it go instead of staying stuck in the prison I’d created for myself. Suze’s remark was a wake-up call. Instead of seeing myself as a victim, I decided to be grateful for the opportunity to really learn how to support myself. I decided then and there to manifest more prosperity than I’d ever dreamed possible. I realized that what my ex-husband did or didn’t do with his life or his money didn’t have to affect me adversely at all—if I didn’t allow it to. I realized that I could manifest the money I needed, and support myself and my kids even better than before. I read Catherine Ponder’s The Dynamic Laws of Prosperity (De Vorss & Company, revised edition, 1985) and began to do affirmations about prosperity regularly. I still do them every day to ward off the ill effects of the poverty consciousness that pervades most people’s way of thinking—and attracts its equivalent. Read the following and see how it makes you feel.

  I am now experiencing perfect health, abundant prosperity, and complete and utter happiness. This is true because the world is full of charming people who now lovingly help me in every way. I am now come into an innumerable company of angels. I am now living a delightful, interesting, and satisfying life of the most widely useful kind. Because of my own increased wealth, health, and happiness, I am now able to help others live a delightful, interesting, and satisfying life of the most widely useful kind. My good—our good—is universal.

  Now imagine thinking thoughts like this day in and day out. It changes your life. As a result of my efforts in this area, my financial status is now light-years better than it ever was when I was married. And so are my mental and physical health. In fact, I’ve been so impressed with the result of this approach in my own life and in the lives of my daughters, family members, and close friends that I have started to include prosperity consciousness as a crucial part of creating health.

  Getting Started

  If you’re already one of the many women who run their own businesses and also do the family finances, I urge you to update your prosperity consciousness so that you can do even better than you’re doing now. It’s crucial to understand the link between self-worth and net worth. Because money difficulties often run in families and are a reflection of self-worth issues, I strongly recommend the twelve-step Debtors Anonymous program (see www.debtorsanonymous.org) to those with persistent underearning behavior.

  Women who are currently being supported by a husband or other family member can put themselves on the road to financial competence by doing the following exercise for one month. Pretend you are divorced, widowed, or suddenly faced with supporting yourself. Continuously ask yourself questions such as these: “Where are the insurance papers? The deed to the house? The mortgage papers? The pension plan? The tax forms from past years? What is the appraised value of the house?
What is my net worth? When was the last time I filled out a financial statement?” Having a firm grasp on this type of information can help ensure that you remain in your relationship for all the right reasons—because it fulfills you and makes your life better on many levels—rather than because you believe you would fall apart without it. You simply cannot be available for true partnership and exhilarating co-creation with another until you know how to pull your own weight and have faced your own dependency squarely—and then done something about it. Whether or not you are financially savvy, it’s clear that the financial crisis of 2008 served as a wake-up call for pretty much everyone on the planet. Every business that is not sustainable and not based on providing real value is being phased out. You can benefit from this trend by thinking of yourself and your finances as a microcosm of this macrocosmic shift. Please realize that the healing you personally do around money and finance helps heal the global economy as well.

  COMING HOME TO YOURSELF

  When I wrote the first edition of this book, I was well into perimenopause, a time when I should have been in the throes of what many call “hormone hell.” Yet I felt better than I had in years. The severe hot flashes I was experiencing in the last few months of my marriage virtually disappeared after my husband left—a phenomenon I’ve seen repeatedly in other women who’ve had the courage to leave dead-end relationships. Over and over I’ve watched perimenopausal symptoms resolve in women who’ve had the courage to negotiate the rapids of their midlife transitions consciously and in an empowered way in which they finally give their own needs high priority.