I am starting to notice something similar happening with the menopause and HRT.

Here’s the thing.

Our crone years are about us stepping into our full leadership and using our voice for truth and sharing our wisdom.

When we move through the menopause, our power centre is moving from being in our sacral chakra where it is for our reproductive years, up to our throat chakra, so we can speak and lead. Hot flushes are said to be caused by the rising energy of our power centre moving up from our sacral chakra to our throat chakra so we can truly own our power using our voice.

Yet we are being encouraged to block that process and take HRT.

HRT isn’t a great choice when you read the patient information leaflet and see the risks - which include increased risks of breast cancer and heart disease.

As women, we are transitioning. Evolving. Growing. Transitioning isn’t always comfortable. Many of us working with women have observed that if we haven’t worked through our traumas before menopause, we will be faced with them then, because to truly step into leadership as a crone and be powerful, we really have to healed through enough of our traumas to be strong, to be able to call through our wisdom - to truly lead from a place of being powerful. It may be really painful if we have been avoiding dealing with some of our challenges. It’s during menopause that what is unhealed comes up to bite us on the bum.

So menopause is an invitation - an opportunity - to finally bring healing so that we can be free. If we are willing to embrace the invitation.

There is support to help us. Diet, exercise, natural medicines, talking therapies, doing family constellations that can really make a difference, and I will share some suggestions here.

The menopause doesn’t go on forever. It ends. We step into our role of being a wise crone and able to speak up and share and lead and inspire in more powerful ways than we ever thought possible, if we would like to.

Synthetic hormones artificially block that process. Why block a process meant to help us get to a place where we can LEAD? And OWN IT?

When women stop taking HRT, they just go back to where they were on the menopausal journey to finish it. So we might as well walk through it and embrace how it changes us. And celebrate the crone years. They are a gift.

Also, menopausal symptoms are a newer thing. Cultures that live close to the Earth, eat organic unprocessed foods, don’t use synthetic chemicals on their skin, or face the kind of pollutants we face in the developed world, don’t have these same intense experiences when they transition. There are root causes to our discomfort. Our hormones only go out of sorts because something is causing them to do so. Our bodies are telling us something if we are willing to listen.

It’s our time ladies. It’s time for the Divine Feminine to RISE.

Synthetic hormones are a tool of the patriarchy to keep us suppressed during our reproductive years (and reduces our intuition which makes us powerful as women) and in fear during our menopausal years - ultimately in both cases, it keeps the patriarchy in power.

And here’s one final but uncomfortable truth that we do need to talk about. When we take synthetic hormones, we pee them out. Our babies drink them in their water, and our children, and then they become suppressed too, their hormones and fertility all compromised. We are responsible for affecting their hormones and health when we take synthetic hormones.

It’s not just hormones in the water. What we put in our bodies gets passed on to others in our pee and water supply. When we look after our health naturally and organically, it’s not just us who benefits. It’s everyone, our children, the plants and trees and all the animals and fish and the whole ecosystem.

I am choosing to celebrate the natural flow of our hormones, the changes they bring, the power and connection they gift us with and the complementary ways of getting support when needed when our hormones are shifting.

There are other ways. Below I share some of what you can do to help yourself. If you are a woman who isn’t yet perimenopausal or menopausal, these are steps you can take to help yourself and your body be better prepared for when the time comes.

Some financial cost is involved, and I would like to see all of this be accessible to all women irrespective of their financial circumstances.

How to walk through the menopause naturally

1. Have a think about your diet. There are 3 things I would reallllly recommend, no matter what else you do:

a) If you eat meat and dairy, please please please go organic. Non-organic meat contains antibiotics, growth hormones and GMOs. Non-organic foods are sprayed with glyphosate - as well as being a weedkiller, it is also an antibiotic. Antibiotics destroy healthy gut bacteria. Around 80% of our immune health is dependent on a healthy gut, and 80% of our serotonin production (which helps us feel happy) happens in the gut - and needs healthy gut bacteria in order to be produced. So every time you eat non-organic meat or dairy, antibiotics may be affecting your gut health, and growth hormones may be affecting the balance of your hormones. Whilst antibiotics may be genuinely necessary for you at some point in your life, getting these from food isn’t going to help your body. If you can go organic with everything else, then great. A healthy gut supports healthier mental health, which will help us feel stronger and more resilient.

b) Drink hormone-free water. That means don’t drink tap water. Decades of women peeing out the contraceptive pill means that there are high levels of oestrogen in the water supply (and did you know cocaine is in the top 5 ingredients in tap water too?!). Either buy water in glass bottles (not plastic), or use a filter that can remove hormones and pharmaceuticals, or use spring water if you can. One filter to look at is the AcalaQuell. Distillation is an excellent way to purify water. Also check out the remarkable work of Veda Austin who teaches how to purify water with intention.

c) Eat lots of organic fresh fruit and veg - try an organic green smoothie a day, and help your way to health.

d) I know this is a tough one, but it’s time to give up sugar. Research shows that higher levels of glucose in the blood can cause more hot flashes. Eat organic fruit as much as possible. Craving chocolate? Get a lump of really good quality organic cacao and take a teeny nibble when you get a craving. It’s bitter, but you’ll get used to it - and bitter foods are great to stimulate the liver.

2) Ladies, I know this is a tough one, but it’s also time to give up alcohol. There a lot of natural sugars in wine and beer, but also, alcohol acts like a suppressant. Your centre of power is trying to move up from your sacral chakra to your throat and alcohol will block that transition. The consequence? A lot of emotional distress as your body battles you to try to get those feelings and emotions out, whilst you are trying to block them.

3) Have therapy / use EFT / trauma release techniques like Brainspotting and EMDR / Family Constellations to help you process any unhealed pain. It may be painful, but if you find the strength and courage to walk through “doing the work”, it can help us find our way to freedom from emotional pain. We do need extra support emotionally. Our adrenals will take over producing oestrogen, progesterone and testosterone from our ovaries, as they slow down production, which means our adrenals have more to do, and may end up under more pressure. So we need to manage our stress, and these are wonderful ways of doing so.

4) Learn to LOVE yourself. You are ageing. Those crows feet? You’ve earned them! With experience, love, pain, trauma, laughter, joy. They tell a story of the amazing journey you have made through your life to being a wise crone. Bits will be sagging, wobbling, flapping. We will put on a few extra pounds. We are supposed to. One of the most beautiful visions to me as a kid was seeing the little round grandmothers in my families’ home country of Yugoslavia where I spent my summers. To me they were and still are beautiful. Visit Grandmother’s Wisdom, a Council of 13 Indigenous Grandmothers from around the world, and be INSPIRED. Be that crone - stop caring what others think. Be YOU. You are beautiful just as you are. OWN IT.

5) Start taking a really good supplement. I particularly like the Terra Nova brand - they use foods that compliment the vitamins and minerals, to help your body utilise the nutrients more easily, instead of cheap fillers. And most of the foods are grown on a biodynamic organic farm, started by a former NASA rocket scientist who uses the same freeze-drying process to capture all the nutrients in ways that are done so astronauts can have nutritious meals in space. Terra Nova also produce a wonderful Life Drink, filled with superfoods, probiotics, a prebiotic, health-promoting fungi and digestive enzymes, which is an ideal way to boost the health of your body. (I am not paid commission by them, or anyone else btw, I just genuinely love what they do!)

6) Support your gut health - it’s absolutely crucial for our health. I mention the Life Drink which contains probiotics. Also I use new homeopathic remedies with my patients that support gut health.

7) Your liver balances your hormones, so help your liver out! Even if we aren’t massively boozy ourselves, our liver has to process a lot, from air pollution, to artificial chemicals in skincare, to pharmaceutical drugs, to additives in processed foods. A great supplement to take is Milk Thistle. It has been found to literally regenerate the liver! Gingko Biloba can also be a great addition, because it helps to open the capillaries, so any toxins can leave the body more easily. You might even want to cleanse your liver - I really like the Liver Rescue book by Anthony William.

8) Move to using only 100% natural toiletries, cleaning products and make-up. Synthetic perfumes and ingredients in standard toiletries can affect hormones, and some have been linked with cancers. So help your body and your immunity by making the switch, there are so many brilliant natural alternatives now.

My absolute favourite natural skincare products are Essential Blends by Sophie Joseph, and my favourite hair products are made by Green People. Ecover and Method are not natural. Here is a video where I talk about what you need to know about washing up liquids, and why switching to only 100% products matters. Sonnett and Greenscents are my favourite cleaning products - and homemade vinegar and bicarbonate of soda! I write more about all of this in my book Nature’s Medicine Code.

9) Evaluate your life - is there any part of your life that feels out of balance? With work, or friendships, or even in your relationship? What can you do to bring yourself more happiness or joy? Maybe taking up meditation for even 10 minutes a day can help create some space in our lives just for us. There is a great app - Headspace that teaches this for free. It’s also something I look to support in my prescribing as a homeopath - coming into our power and being able to make decisions that bring balance back into our lives.

10) See a great natural health practitioner. I am biased as a homeopath, because I see great results using it with my patients, and I explain what it is and how it works here, but you may be drawn to a naturopath, or herbalist or nutritionist, or a TCM practitioner, or an acupuncturist. Find someone you feel you can trust, and who you resonate with, and support your health with the knowledge and experience they can share with you.

11) Finally, I know it’s easy to say in our busy lives, but rest. It’s nature’s greatest medicine, and if we let our body rest, it can relax more. Spend more time lounging about in your PJs with your partner or kids or friends, watching great films, reading, gardening, playing music, doing art, seeing friends, having a lovely massage or reflexology treatment, having holidays If you can - whatever it is that makes you feel rested. We’ve been told we have to keep going with tons of energy until we die. Do we?! Haven’t we earned the right to take a little bit more easy? Chill if we can? Have a day time nap? Listen to our body’s needs? Rest is a gift. Let yourself receive.