Practice was how I met everything

For most of my life, practice was how I met everything.

I moved through single motherhood, loss, ambition, travel, devotion, exhaustion, beauty, and responsibility with breath, discipline, and faith in the teachings. I truly believed—because it had always been true—that if I practiced sincerely enough, I could meet whatever arose.

Perimenopause taught me otherwise.

What arrived wasn’t subtle. It was disorienting.

Migraines. Brain fog. Agitation. A loss of vitality and clarity. A kind of anxiety I had never known. And perhaps most unsettling—a feeling of not recognizing myself.

Like many women, I did what I had always done:

I kept moving. I kept teaching. I tried to herbalize, dietary-fix, meditate my way through. I spiritualized what was, in truth, a profound physiological transition.

I didn’t see how dark it had become—until an OB-GYN, a long-time practitioner in my community, gently reflected back what I could not yet see: that this wasn’t a failure of practice or discipline, but a body asking for support, education, and care.

My course exploring perimenopause and beyond through the lens of yoga was born from that moment of humility and awakening.

It exists to normalize, to inform, and to remind women they are not broken—and they are not alone.

I’ve watched devoted practitioners begin to quietly doubt themselves.

Not because they lack resilience or wisdom, but because:

• our nervous systems are changing
• our hormones are shifting
• our recovery capacity is different
• our tolerance for overload is gone

And yet, like me, many feel they should still be able to “push through.”

I see women blaming themselves for fatigue, for irritability, for grief without an obvious cause. I see shame around needing rest. Confusion about why practices that once regulated them now feel depleting.

What’s missing is not discipline—it’s context.

Without understanding the biology of this transition, women internalize it as a personal or spiritual failing. I wanted to create a conversation, shared experience, and evidence-based understanding so we stop turning inward with judgment and instead turn toward ourselves with intelligence and care.

This phase of life is not about transcending the body. It is about listening to it more precisely than ever before.

The practice evolves:

• From heat to regulation
• From effort to attunement
• From expansion to containment
• From proving to preserving

Asana becomes less about output and more about nervous system support, joint health, and circulation.

Pranayama shifts from stimulating to stabilizing.

Meditation becomes a refuge for truth-telling rather than self-correction.

And dharma deepens.

This is a stage of life where clarity matters more than capacity. Where discernment becomes the practice. Menopause is not an ending—it is a threshold.

If we meet it informed, supported, and in community, it can become a passage into a steadier, wiser, more honest way of being in the world.

This is not about choosing ancient wisdom or modern medicine.

It’s about weaving them together—so women can remain sovereign, informed, and deeply supported as they cross this terrain.

om

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