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Saturday, 12 September 2026
On this day of your life
I believe God wants you to know ...
... that it is well to think well. It is divine to act well.
Horace Mann said that, and he was right. Thinking is
just the first step in creation. You've had some
wonderful ideas lately about changes you want to make
in your life. Now it's time to put those thoughts into a
action, yes?
Mindful Eating Through Menopause (OM)
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The Hidden Weight of Modern Womanhood: Why Menopause feels Harder than Ever.
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This time in history probably has the most burnt out, exhausted generation of mid-life women…ever.
If you ask a midlife woman how she’s experiencing menopause, she’ll often pause before answering. Not because she doesn’t know—but because she doesn’t know where to begin.
Menopause today feels louder, heavier, harder, more relentless, and far more draining than it was for previous generations. And while our hormones haven’t changed, almost everything else has.
My own menopause journey has been hellish. My own mother delights in telling me that she “breezed through menopause” and that she “didn’t even notice it,” as if her ease was a badge of honour and my menopause distress means I am weak, over-dramatising, or not “doing it properly.” But there are stark differences between her life then and my life now.
She never worked, she had family close by, she didn’t have any financial worries, and by the time she was experiencing menopause my sister and I had flown the nest. Her time and energy were totally her own. There were minimal demands or pressures on her. She had the luxury of being able to take an afternoon nap if she felt tired.
She was also a “hands off” parent whilst I was growing up, which meant she had more time for herself. Her reserves were overflowing when the time came to dip into them.
Fifty years ago, most women weren’t hustling through full-time careers while managing a household. Their days didn’t include daily commutes, performance reviews, inboxes, commutes, office politics, or the pressure to constantly “level up.”
Today’s woman often faces an unrelenting load: building a career, proving her worth, staying competitive, while simultaneously managing a home and caring for her family. She is doing two full-time jobs—the paid one and the unpaid one at home.
Menopause isn’t landing on a rested body; it’s landing on a body already stretched thin. She is stepping into it from a place of depletion, not rest.
And then there’s parenting. A generation ago, children played in the street until dusk while neighbours casually kept watch. Family often lived nearby, stepping in with support when life became overwhelming. There was a village.
Now, motherhood requires 24/7 emotional vigilance: cyberbullying, social media anxiety, online and offline safety, academic and peer pressures, mental health concerns, constant chauffeuring, extracurricular overload. Today’s mother is in a constant state of vigilance and high alert. Many women are navigating menopause while managing tween or teenage emotions—a collision of hormones on both sides of the household.
Women are also having children later in life. That means a menopausal woman today might be dealing with her own sleep disturbances and mood fluctuations while coordinating carpools, organising sleepovers, checking homework, and being the emotional anchor for growing kids. It’s not just tiring. It’s draining at a soul level.
Even in more egalitarian relationships, research continues to show that women carry the majority of emotional labour and mental load. The soothing, remembering, planning, scheduling, managing the barrage of e-mails from school, topping up lunch accounts, remembering school “book day” where fancy dress is required, birthday presents, dentist appointments, school trips….it goes on and on.
Fifty years ago, parenting was more hands-off: “let them cry,” “children will figure it out,” “don’t pander to them,” “children should be seen and not heard” was the norm. Today’s mothers are expected to be endlessly attuned, emotionally available, and consciously parenting at every turn.
And let’s not forget life in this modern world. It has become louder, faster, and far more demanding and always “on.” With smartphones and 24/7 connectivity, women never truly switch off. There is always another message to reply to, another task to track, another crisis to manage.
Social media can push mums into constant comparison, viewing carefully curated posts that make other mums look effortlessly fit, organised, and thriving. This creates a false sense of perfection, turning motherhood into a competitive performance and leaving those who are exhausted or struggling feeling inadequate, unseen, and even more overwhelmed.
Rising costs of living, global uncertainty, relentless news cycles, and hormone-disrupting chemicals in our food, environment, and beauty products all add layers of stress the menopausal body must navigate.
When women say menopause feels harder now, they’re telling the truth. Women are entering this transition more depleted, stressed, anxious, and more stretched than generations before them. They are moving through a profound biological transition in a world that gives them less rest, less support, and fewer pauses than generations before them. They’re carrying more than their bodies were built for.
The solution isn’t to “toughen up.”
It’s to recognise that modern women deserve more compassion and understanding, more community, and more space to breathe through this transition.
Menopause isn’t the end of vitality—it’s an invitation to finally lay down everything that was never meant to be carried alone.
~
There are Ways of Walking Through the World that Don’t Ask to be Seen.
Still, I Walk.
I find it easier than most to be true.
Even when it leaves me standing alone
at the end of the day.
There are ways of walking through the world
that don’t ask to be seen.
I recognized something in a line I heard recently.
She walks quietly so nobody can hear.
It stayed with me.
There was something familiar in it—
a knowing I’ve carried for a long time.
That being true
doesn’t always make you understood.
Sometimes it simply leaves you alone.
I noticed it again walking through tall grass one evening,
the sea somewhere in the distance,
nothing asking anything of me.
That same quiet way of moving.
Nothing to explain.
I think of rooms where people carry more than they ever say.
I’ve seen it closer than most.
I know the weight of every mile.
There are ways of moving through the world
that don’t ask to be seen.
I’ve learned that way.
I learned young to hold.
To take responsibility.
Never afraid of hard work, done with dignity and pride.
To protect.
To make value.
Moving between places.
Holding responsibility that didn’t speak its name.
Protecting what needed to arrive safely.
Watching closely.
Knowing what could happen if something slipped.
It wasn’t loud work.
It didn’t ask to be recognised.
But it carried weight.
You see it in others too.
Service men and women
who return with something still echoing inside them.
Farmers
without thanks.
The care for the earth we are treading
deserves to be returned.
Lives at the edges.
Not because they are small,
but because they are not performed.
There is a kind of grit there
that doesn’t ask to be seen.
And sometimes—
recognition comes in ways that don’t need words.
A quiet handshake.
From someone who knows.
I received that here, of all places.
And that was enough.
And I keep moving.
Not toward anything that needs to be proven.
Not away from anything that has already shaped me.
Just…moving.
And still—
it holds.
Still, I walk.
And maybe that is enough.
~
author: Kerstin Blomkvist
Image: Author's Own
Editor: Molly Murphy
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