I\u2019m perimenopausal, and combined with being neurodivergent, it\u2019s made organization and communication comically difficult. There are the classic \u201cwhy did I come into this room?\u201d moments a few times a day, but also the struggle of trying to get thoughts, which feel clear initially, to pass through the dense fog of shifting hormones and still make sense on the other side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While the ideas in my mind are perfectly formed, every time I try to put them into words, it\u2019s as if they\u2019ve gone through a kaleidoscope, scattered and only vaguely resembling what I meant to say. If ever there were a recipe for frustration, disappointment, and the feeling of failing as a \u201cproductive member of society,\u201d this would be it. I\u2019m forgetting things, little and big alike. My organizational skills, which have always been, let\u2019s say, unconventional, are now comically absent. And I\u2019d generously estimate a 50\/50 chance that what I communicate actually matches the thoughts in my head. My moods are a complete gamble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of course, this is hardly an injustice. It\u2019s just inconvenient in a world that expects us to move at a certain pace and remember where our wallets are. People go through hormonal changes all the time. It\u2019s part of being human. But being common doesn\u2019t make it easy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When the fog rolls in extra dense and everything feels just out of reach \u2014 my words, time, focus \u2014 I can sit, dense fog and all. When nothing else is accessible, my cushion is waiting without judgment or demands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Maintaining a meditation practice through major transitions can feel nearly impossible. It\u2019s easy to get swept up in all that comes with big internal or external shifts. It can feel like chaos, but really, it\u2019s a reminder that everything changes. Keeping a regular practice through it all, as hard as it may be, is a radical act of honoring that impermanence. Especially in a culture that demands business as usual under nearly all circumstances, that expects productivity even at the cost of wellness while setting impossible standards for nearly everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So for twenty minutes a day, in addition to all the other benefits of mindfulness, I sit with my wildly imperfect, hormonally imbalanced, ever-shifting self as an act of rebellion. Waiting for me on the other side are emails that will take me ten minutes to answer instead of five, after the three minutes it takes to remember why I opened the laptop in the first place. But for those twenty minutes, I\u2019m simply with myself, as is, without expectation or goal. It\u2019s never felt more important to keep my practice than through this transition that society insists I cover up and push through it. And maybe it\u2019ll also help me keep track of my wallet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019m perimenopausal, and combined with being neurodivergent, it\u2019s made organization and communication comically difficult. There are the classic \u201cwhy did I come into this room?\u201d moments a few times a day, but also the struggle of trying to get thoughts, which feel clear initially, to pass through the dense fog of shifting hormones and still […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theanxiousbuddhist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theanxiousbuddhist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theanxiousbuddhist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theanxiousbuddhist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theanxiousbuddhist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=355"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theanxiousbuddhist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":356,"href":"https:\/\/theanxiousbuddhist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355\/revisions\/356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theanxiousbuddhist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theanxiousbuddhist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theanxiousbuddhist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}