It's no accident that the current movement of psychospiritual healing is composed largely of women in their thirties, forties, and fifties. We are awakening en masse and beginning to deliver a much-needed message of health, hope, and healing to the world.

My personal experience tells me that the perimenopausal lifting of the hormonal veil - the monthly cycle of reproductive hormones that tends to keep us focused on the needs and feelings of others - can be both liberating and unsettling. The midlife rate of marital separation, divorce, and vocational change confirms this. I, for one, had always envisioned myself married to the same man for life, the two of us growing old together. This ideal had always been one of my most cherished dreams. At midlife, I, like thousands of others, have had to give up my fantasies of how I thought my life would be. I had to face, head on, the old adage about how hard it is to lose what you never really had. It means giving up all your illusions, and it is very difficult. But for me the issue was larger than where, and with whom, I would grow old. It was a warning, coming from deep within my spirit, that said, "Grow...or die." Those were my choices. I chose to grow.

From The Wisdom of Menopause : Creating Physical and Emotional Health and Healing During the Change, by Christiane Northrup M.D., Christiane Northrup. © March 2001 , Bantam Doubleday Dell Pub used by permission.