At the threshold: Therapy for Perimenopause & Menopause

an initiation, a portal...

A mythic portal,

  • Menopause is an initiatory portal our culture has forgotten or suppressed. 
  • Only a handful of mammals experience menopause, and in those who do it is those wise elders who guide, guard, and care for the rest.
  • At Holdfast we honor menopause as a time of transformation, change, and reckoning that invites women into new choices, new power, new opportunities. (And yeah, sometimes it sucks.)

the invisible revealed

  • Beginning (on average) in a woman's late 30s to early 40s, perimenopause has been poorly studied, rarely talked about, and mostly ignored by the medical system.
  • Women's health has been systematically understudied, misunderstood, and silenced. (Most medical studies until just a few decades ago were based almost entirely on male subjects, that includes mental health research.)
  • Today: we're changing that. Perimenopause and menopause are powerful seasons in women's lives & together we approach them with curiosity and community.
  • No shame, and definitely no silence, at Holdfast we talk openly about the ways our bodies, minds, and spirits are changing.
  • There is space to mourn what we might not be ready to let go of, and to welcome a new powerful and normal season in our lives.
you are worth the investment
intentional, supported, affirmed

with intention, power

  • You didn't get this far without learning a few things (more than a few). You have survived suffering, hardship, and struggle as well as collecting memories filled with joy and wonder.
  • When we approach menopause with intention we can disarm the monster: when we bring taboo subjects out into the open we strip them of their power and regain our own.
  • Befriend the crone. Explore the rich world of myth and story outside of Western colonial culture that reveres, honors, and learns from the crone in all her mischievous, confident, trickster power. (And maybe notice why our society is so afraid of her!)

everything changes

  • Perimenopause has been compared to a second puberty. For women in the midst of hot flashes, night sweats, insomnia, brain fog, and sudden unwillingness to take shit from anyone it can feel that way, but it is so much more.
  • It isn't just your body that is changing. Menopause is an invitation to understand who you have been, rethink who you are, and dream of who you would like to be.
  • For many women, especially those who are neurodiverse, peri and post-menopause is a time of throwing away masks and living into their authentic self for the first time.
  • Whatever your menopause portal holds, there is space here to navigate it with intention, support, and care.
you write the next chapter

Reclaiming Crone

together, we're queering the story of aging

“


Menopause is an invitation to invest in yourself. A chance to address trauma, to face injustice, to dream of new possibilities and new ways of being. Women in menopause often describe it as running out of softness and rediscovering their rage. That rage can burn you up, or fuel you for what you want in your next chapter. Are you ready? It's OK, you don't have to do it alone.
I'm ready to invest in myself
"Dear brave souls, I warmly invite you to come be at the fireside with me and the Dangerous Old Woman and the Power of the Crone. Who is the crone? She is the most dangerous, the most radical, the most revolutionary woman in existence. Whether in fairy tales or in consensual reality, the old one goes where she wants to and she acts as she wishes; she lives as she chooses. And this is all as it should be. And no one can stop her. Nor ought they try."

–Clarissa Pinkola Estés, PhD