Growth has felt like subtraction, not addition' is such a precise reversal of how we're taught to think about becoming more. The armor that got you through one season is so often the exact thing you have to put down to get through the next one, and nobody warns you in advance. And 'showing up anyway, even partially, is not failure dressed up as effort, it is the effort' might be the truest sentence in here. Some weeks the whole win is opening the laptop
Lovely. I enjoyed reading this and I skip through much in my feed! Midlife is such a profound time - the crazy hormones, the sudden, drastic gravity crisis of everything going south, the not knowing who we are any more or where we fit in, or even if we want to. I used to see a nurse practitioner in the States who specialised in mid life women's health. She had a needlepoint on her wall inscribed with the words, "I'm out of oestrogen and I've got a gun!" I related.
When Psyche storms into our hidden selves and decides it's time for a spring clean of lifetimes, throwing every little hurt and regret around our emotional bodies, forcing us to re-visit every uncomfortable event, every unforgiven encroachment and all the disappointments. It's the work of lifetimes and we do it in a decade or so. What it teaches us is so profound, about who we are, all we can do, what we have survived and all we can still become, how post menopause is our time of great mastery and how much more valuable that new wisdom is than what our bodies once were. (Long reply - sorry! Didn't know I had so much to say about this! 🫀
There is something I recognize in that. The version of me that survived couldn’t soften. She wasn’t meant to. And learning to let her rest, with tenderness rather than judgment, that has been its own slow returning.
Wow what a wealth of resources Kiran! Saving to review all of them, but this stood out to me in the first read ‘The growth I’ve experienced in this season hasn’t felt like addition; it’s felt like subtraction. Like shedding. Like sitting with the discomfort of not yet knowing who you’re becoming, and trusting her anyway.’ Thank you for putting this together.
Kiran, I love how we connected and collaborated, so much fun!
And yes this was all this week, our Substack live together on growing on Substack creating relationships and community and featuring you in my co-authored article with 11 other women talking about the things that make us feel feminine in midlife.
Kiran, this resonated so deeply. What you write here about midlife feeling like a season of subtraction feels profoundly true to me too.
So much of this midlife journey has involved letting go. Relationships and roles that no longer fit. Earlier versions of myself rooted more in expectation than desire. The armour I once thought I needed in order to move through the world.
And maybe the hardest part is exactly what you describe — learning to trust the not-yet-fully-formed version of ourselves as she begins to surface. To believe that even in the shedding, something truer is emerging. Thank you for putting all of this into words. XO
Growth has felt like subtraction, not addition' is such a precise reversal of how we're taught to think about becoming more. The armor that got you through one season is so often the exact thing you have to put down to get through the next one, and nobody warns you in advance. And 'showing up anyway, even partially, is not failure dressed up as effort, it is the effort' might be the truest sentence in here. Some weeks the whole win is opening the laptop
Lovely. I enjoyed reading this and I skip through much in my feed! Midlife is such a profound time - the crazy hormones, the sudden, drastic gravity crisis of everything going south, the not knowing who we are any more or where we fit in, or even if we want to. I used to see a nurse practitioner in the States who specialised in mid life women's health. She had a needlepoint on her wall inscribed with the words, "I'm out of oestrogen and I've got a gun!" I related.
When Psyche storms into our hidden selves and decides it's time for a spring clean of lifetimes, throwing every little hurt and regret around our emotional bodies, forcing us to re-visit every uncomfortable event, every unforgiven encroachment and all the disappointments. It's the work of lifetimes and we do it in a decade or so. What it teaches us is so profound, about who we are, all we can do, what we have survived and all we can still become, how post menopause is our time of great mastery and how much more valuable that new wisdom is than what our bodies once were. (Long reply - sorry! Didn't know I had so much to say about this! 🫀
Thank you for the work you are doing on this frontier!
“She couldn’t put the armour down.”
That landed somewhere deep.
There is something I recognize in that. The version of me that survived couldn’t soften. She wasn’t meant to. And learning to let her rest, with tenderness rather than judgment, that has been its own slow returning.
“Still arriving” feels exactly right. 💗
Wow what a wealth of resources Kiran! Saving to review all of them, but this stood out to me in the first read ‘The growth I’ve experienced in this season hasn’t felt like addition; it’s felt like subtraction. Like shedding. Like sitting with the discomfort of not yet knowing who you’re becoming, and trusting her anyway.’ Thank you for putting this together.
Thank you for this nice warm bowl of truth!
Kiran, I love how we connected and collaborated, so much fun!
And yes this was all this week, our Substack live together on growing on Substack creating relationships and community and featuring you in my co-authored article with 11 other women talking about the things that make us feel feminine in midlife.
Good week indeed!! 🎈🎈
Kiran, this resonated so deeply. What you write here about midlife feeling like a season of subtraction feels profoundly true to me too.
So much of this midlife journey has involved letting go. Relationships and roles that no longer fit. Earlier versions of myself rooted more in expectation than desire. The armour I once thought I needed in order to move through the world.
And maybe the hardest part is exactly what you describe — learning to trust the not-yet-fully-formed version of ourselves as she begins to surface. To believe that even in the shedding, something truer is emerging. Thank you for putting all of this into words. XO