After you’ve lived in a house for a while, you get to know its quirks and rhythms: the toilet where you need to hold the flusher down an extra beat, the hum of the dishwasher.
You know how high to set the thermostat so you’ll be comfortable, how far to turn the faucets to get exactly the water temperature you want.
You can plan your day around the times when the light is perfect, and you know the times of year when the sun coming through a certain window gets too hot.
Everything has a rhythm to it. Even a house.
Now, imagine that one day everything changes.
You set the thermostat to the usual temperature, but now it’s either too hot or too cold. The faucets you knew so well suddenly aren’t working as they usually do. The cold water tap delivers hot water; the hot tap emits lukewarm water. The window of perfect light has changed and it’s no longer predictable. You cook the same foods in the same oven at the same temperature, but suddenly they are coming out overdone or underdone.
Everything about the home may look the same on the surface, but the thermostat, plumbing, and ovens aren’t working the same way they used to.
Suddenly, you’re like a stranger in your own home. You’re in a familiar setting, but nothing is working the way it used to. You feel disoriented. Lost. Out of sync with the rhythms you’ve known for all these years.
Because you’ve never heard of a house just suddenly having issues like this, you might be inclined to dismiss your experience.
Maybe you’re just imagining this. Maybe you’re just under a lot of stress. Maybe it’s a temporary quirk.
This is the experience of perimenopause.
Your body is a house, complete with plumbing, electrical systems, a thermostat and many other systems. If you’re paying attention, you get to learn its particular quirks and rhythms. You learn which hand does better with certain functions like writing or holding a fork, the foods that make you sick and those that always satisfy you.
Over the course of decades, you learn how much sleep it needs, how much food, how much exercise, and what types. You become familiar with its boundaries and constraints, and you learn how to adjust. You know, based on outside temperature, when you’ll need a sweater and when you’ll want a tank top. If you pay attention, you’ll learn what fuels your energy and what drains it.
By tracking your cycle you can get to know when you’ll have low-energy and low-focus days, and plan your workload around those valleys to avoid overloading yourself when the energy isn’t there.
Over decades, we get to know our way around our house. We navigate its quirks and adapt to its rhythms.
Then, suddenly, everything starts changing.
Our predictable cycles stop being predictable.
The changing cycle of your period gets the most attention, but that’s not the only cycle that is affected. This change also impacts our daily rhythms of sleep, exercise, eating, and energy.
The old setting on the thermostat no longer feels comfortable. Foods you loved might suddenly make you nauseous. The exercise that once energized you now drains you. You might experience mood swings, joint pain, brain fog, and other new issues.
It’s like you’re suddenly a stranger in your own home.
All of nature operates in a rhythm, including you.
Your heartbeat is a rhythm. Your breath is a rhythm. Your energy cycle is a rhythm. Your wake and sleep schedule is a rhythm. The side of your nose you breathe through is a rhythm.
Even your focus is a rhythm.
If you feel disoriented, lost, and unlike yourself, you’re not crazy. You’re not imagining it.
It’s because the rhythm you’ve known for decades has just been disrupted.
Rhythms orient us to time and space. They help us stay regulated, grounded, and centered in a turbulent world. Feeling disoriented or lost is a natural consequence of losing our rhythms.
And when we lose connection to our essential rhythm, we lose connection to an essential part of ourselves.
You won’t feel lost forever.
Nature works in seasons, cycles, and rhythms. All beings entrain to the rhythms around them. For example, people who sing in a choir start breathing in sync. If you go sit by the ocean, your breath will entrain to the rhythm of the waves. You don’t need to do anything consciously for this to happen; it happens on its own.
This means that even as you might be losing the rhythm you’ve known for decades, you will naturally entrain to a new rhythm.
It might not be the rhythm you’ve known, but it will be a new rhythm for a new season of your life.
And you will find yourself again — a new version of yourself.
Are you feeling out of rhythm?
I help women with perimenopause and ADHD find their rhythm and reconnect with themselves so they can finally feel like themselves and bring their best work to the world. Get in touch to schedule a chat about your needs.
[…] was not a perimenopausal hot […]