Reclaiming menopause as a rite of passage | Keri Mangis | TEDxMinneapolis

Key Concepts

• Life Transitions: Significant shifts in identity, roles, or circumstances, both planned and unplanned.
• Menopause: The specific biological transition marking the end of a woman's reproductive years, technically defined as one full year without a menstrual period.
  • Perimenopause: The period leading up to menopause, characterized by fluctuating hormones and symptoms.
  • Postmenopause: The period after menopause, continuing to experience symptoms.
• Right of Passage: A ceremony or ritual marking a significant transition from one stage of life to another.
• Pause Day Movement: A proposed initiative to create a designated day and associated ceremonies to honor and make meaningful the transition of menopause.
• Stigma and Silence: The societal reluctance and negative attitudes surrounding menopause, leading to a lack of information and support for women.
• Normalization: The process of making menopause a commonly discussed and understood topic, free from shame or embarrassment.
• Elderhood: A societal role, particularly in indigenous cultures, where post-menopausal women are recognized as leaders, sources of wisdom, and guides for future generations.
• Ceremony and Ritual: Intentional practices and events used to imbue life events with meaning and facilitate transitions.

Personal Journey and the Concept of Pause

The speaker begins by sharing her long-standing fascination with how humans mark significant life transitions and find meaning in transformations. She recounts a personal experience 11 years prior: a three-week solo pilgrimage to Southeast Asia. This journey served as a "pause" between her decade-long identity as a yoga teacher and her then-unknown future as an author. During this "in-between time," she felt "unmoored and uncomfortable," prompting a deliberate reflection on her past self and an intentional vision for her future.

Society, she notes, offers little language or support for these transitional periods, often pressuring individuals to "grit our teeth and get through them." Her pilgrimage was nearly derailed on the first morning when she sprained her ankle. A local doctor's words, "Don't think of this as bad luck. We are glad you are here," provided a crucial shift in perspective. This led her to rewrite her itinerary, slow down, observe, meditate, participate in local ceremonies, and play. Despite the injury, she still achieved her goals, albeit slowly, returning home with a clear sense that her old self was gone and a new one was emerging. Five years later, she indeed emerged as the author of her first book, attributing this transformation to the intentional pause she took.

The Menopause Transition: A Call for Reimagination

Currently experiencing menopause, which she humorously refers to as "the fiery pits of hell" among friends, the speaker identifies it as another profound life transition. She describes shifting from an adult focused on raising a family, building a career, and outward achievement, to aspiring to become an elder with more time for sharing wisdom, guidance, mentorship, and seeking inner fulfillment. She feels her "old identities and roles are getting too tight," while her voice, beliefs, and energy are expanding.

While acknowledging the challenging realities of menopause—such as hot flashes, frozen shoulder (a symptom often learned from friends, not doctors), and the grief of a body that feels "betraying"—she argues against romanticizing it. Instead, she views menopause as more than just physical changes; it is an "emotional, psychological, even spiritual initiation" and a "mindbody right of passage." This passage, she contends, fully accepts the struggle but recognizes that for something new to emerge, one must surrender attachments and previous self-perceptions. Menopause, whether symptom-free or a full-blown crisis, "is asking women, maybe even demanding that we stop to pause."

Introducing "Pause Day"

The speaker proposes creating a "Pause Day movement" – a ceremony built around this time of life to make it meaningful, visible, and intentional. This wouldn't necessarily be a physical pilgrimage but could be a "pilgrimage of the heart or soul," a "renewal of our relationship with our bodies." It's an opportunity to reflect on who one has been and intentionally decide who one wants to become.

She emphasizes that this conversation includes men as family, friends, and co-workers, as their encouragement and support are vital for women navigating this "crucial pivot point." To make Pause Day a reality, collective effort is needed to raise visibility around menopause.

Defining "Pause Day":

• Technical Definition of Menopause: Medically, menopause marks the single day a woman hasn't had a period for one full year.
• Related Terms:
  • Perimenopause: The period before this date, including symptoms.
  • Postmenopause: The period after this date, including symptoms.
• "Pause Day" as a Midpoint: The speaker redefines this single day of menopause not as an ending or the beginning of a decline, but as a "midpoint between two stages of life," a "day for a new beginning."
• Flexibility: For women who don't track periods or are long past this date, she suggests choosing any date that holds personal meaning, honoring it once or making it an anniversary.
• Personal Example: The speaker plans to transfer holiday meal responsibilities to her adult daughters on her Pause Day, signifying a release of obligations and a step into desire.

Societal Barriers and Stigma

Western culture, the speaker asserts, has failed to teach women that menopause is a right of passage, providing "little to no information." She cites a study of nearly 800 women under 40, revealing that 80% had received "little to no information" about menopause, highlighting a "collective failure" leading to stigma, silence, and women enduring alone.

Historical figures have contributed to this stigma:

• Sigmund Freud: Famously called menopausal women "quarrelsome, vexacious, and overbearing" (vexacious meaning annoying), essentially likening them to "belligerent, bossy mosquitoes."
• A female colleague of Freud's: Suggested menopause marks "the end of a woman's contributions to the species."

These attitudes, though perhaps not spoken aloud today, still linger, creating an "invisible stigma" that makes discussing menopause publicly require "courage." The speaker questions why women apologize for hot flashes, avoid discussing libido changes with partners, or lack information on treatment options. She calls for breaking these rules and reshaping the passage of menopause, urging women to release obligations and step into desire, becoming "fierce, wise, and free."

She reminds us that humans already know how to create ceremony for other life events (birthdays, graduations, weddings, retirements), and even personal ones (like her aunt celebrating her mother's kidney transplant anniversary). "Meaning is not inherently built into life. We give life meaning through ceremony, through language, and through honoring the pauses in our lives." Pause Day, she explains, is "a day to say, 'I was that and now I am this, different, evolved, more whole.'" Celebrations can be varied, from picnics to restorative retreats, without creating new rules.

The Broader Impact of Pause Day

The speaker outlines three broader societal shifts that a Pause Day movement could help create:

1. Normalize Menopause: Anything affecting half the population for up to a third of their lifetimes should receive funding, research, and open discussion—at dinner tables, in offices, and especially in doctor's offices. Visibility will spark funding, and normalization will fuel research, countering shame and silence. The current climate, with influencers and celebrities like Oprah and Halle Berry openly discussing menopause, presents an "open door to change the conversation."
2. Model for Younger Generations: Imagine young women and girls growing up accustomed to, accepting, and expecting menopause because they've witnessed and learned about it their whole lives. Attending Pause Day ceremonies for family members would internalize the idea that this phase of a woman's life is "worthy of recognition," challenging a culture "obsessed with the gifts of youth and fearful, if not disdainful, of the process of aging."
3. Create a Culture of Elderhood: Ceremony helps people embody new roles. The speaker contrasts this with the destabilizing effect of lost ceremonies (e.g., pandemic proms/graduations), which left young people "stuck in limbo" with "no closure, no launching pad." She questions if this is happening to women in menopause. In many indigenous societies, post-menopausal women are community leaders with considerable power and status, sought for their wisdom and guidance. Pause Day could be a crucial step in creating a culture of elderhood, allowing women to "take up the mantle of elder."

Conclusion: Honoring Life's Pauses

The speaker concludes by urging listeners to "choose to make menopause matter" and create the Pause Day movement. She believes that by doing so, culture will be compelled to catch up, leading to better funding, research, and options for women today and for future generations. By changing the narrative around menopause, an even bigger question is posed to society: What if we created more dialogue and ceremony around all significant pivotal points in life, not just the easy or celebratory ones, but also those that profoundly change us? She shares a personal example of taking her daughters to dinner after their first major breakups to reflect and discuss what they learned, highlighting it as one of her proudest moments as a mom.

Ultimately, she reiterates that "meaning is not inherently built into life. We give life meaning through ceremony, through language, and through honoring the pauses in our lives." Her vision is a future where the world cannot imagine itself without Pause Day ceremonies, which bring meaning and intention to the "sacred passage of menopause."