Perimenopause Explained: Why Your Body Is Changing and What It’s Trying to Tell You

Perimenopause as a season of renewal, nervous system refinement, and embodied wisdom

For many women, perimenopause and menopause are spoken about in hushed tones, framed as something to endure, fix, or medicate away. Symptoms are listed, diagnoses are handed out, and solutions are often reduced to hormone replacement or the promise of symptom control. But what if this entire phase of life has been misunderstood?

What if perimenopause is not a malfunction of the body, but a profound and intelligent transition into the next stage of womanhood?

From Fertility to Wisdom

Biologically, the purpose of our reproductive years is clear. Our bodies invest enormous amounts of energy into ovulation, menstruation, and the capacity to bear children. Perimenopause marks the gradual completion of this phase. We no longer need to direct energy toward fertility, egg production, or monthly cycles. Naturally, the body reorganises. Hormones shift. Systems recalibrate.

In Japan, there is a beautiful word for this transition: konenki. It translates to the years of renewal or the season of renewal. Rather than seeing this phase as decline, it is understood as a meaningful turning point — a passage into a new role within the community.

Across many ancient cultures, women who had completed their child‑rearing years stepped into positions of elderhood. They became the wise women, the healers, the storytellers, the holders of knowledge. With children grown and external demands reduced, time and energy were finally available for learning, reflection, and service to others.

Why Symptoms Can Intensify

For many women, perimenopause brings anxiety, depression, pain, fatigue, insomnia, or a sense of being emotionally raw. From a purely medical lens, these are often treated as problems to be suppressed. But there is another way to understand what is happening.

This phase has a way of amplifying anything that has not yet been processed.

Unresolved grief. Suppressed anger. Old shame. Childhood wounds. Traumatic events that were too overwhelming to fully feel at the time they occurred. During earlier phases of life, survival often required us to keep going — to function, to care for others, to push feelings aside. The body complied.

During perimenopause, that strategy often stops working.

The nervous system becomes more finely tuned. Sensations are felt more strongly. Emotional patterns surface with intensity. This is not a failure, this is an opportunity. 

Anxiety and Depression as Survival Adaptations

Anxiety and depression are not random disorders. They are learned responses of the nervous system.

Anxiety often develops when a child grows up in an environment that felt unpredictable or unsafe. The nervous system learns to stay alert, scanning for danger. This hypervigilance may have been necessary once. Later in life, it can show up as chronic anxiety.

Depression often forms through emotional suppression. A child who was not allowed to express feelings — or who sensed that their parents were overwhelmed or emotionally unavailable — may learn to shut emotions down entirely. That suppression can become automatic in adulthood, even when it is no longer needed.

Perimenopause tends to magnify these adaptations. What once kept you functioning may now feel unbearable. This is not your body betraying you. It is your body recognising that it is finally safe enough to feel, that there is time to heal. 

Pain as a Message, Not a Mistake

We live in a culture that quickly labels discomfort. A word is given. A diagnosis is made. Medication is prescribed. Pain is treated as an error.

But in nature, pain is information.

Pain can signal that energy is not flowing freely in a part of the body. That the immune system is compromised in a specific area. That there is long‑held tension — often created by emotions that were never fully felt or expressed.

Tension is not just physical. It is emotional and neurological. Unprocessed anger, sadness, fear, or shame do not disappear. They are stored in the body.

Perimenopause often brings these areas to the surface. The body is asking for attention. Not suppression — awareness.

Becoming the Healer

As women transition into this stage of life, the nervous system refines itself. Sensitivity increases. Intuition deepens. Empathy expands. These qualities are not weaknesses — they are the traits of healers.

But to hold others, we must first clear what we are still carrying.

This is why perimenopause can feel confronting. It asks us to face what we avoided. To feel what we pushed down. To meet old pain without running from it.

When this work is done, something remarkable happens. The body softens. Energy flows more freely. Old patterns loosen their grip. The nervous system settles into a state of trust rather than survival.

Trusting the Intelligence of the Body

Nothing in nature happens by accident. Your body is nature.

The changes of perimenopause are not random or cruel. They are purposeful. They are preparing you for the next phase of your life.

Rather than rushing to cover symptoms with hormonal interventions alone — placing a plaster over deeper signals — there is value in asking:

What is my body trying to show me?

Approaching this phase with curiosity instead of urgency creates space for real healing. It allows you to address root causes rather than silencing messengers.

A Rite of Passage

Perimenopause is not the end of youth. It is a rite of passage.

An opportunity to clear old pain. An opportunity to release survival patterns. An opportunity to step into clarity, freedom, and embodied wisdom.

When we trust this process, we emerge more attuned — to ourselves and to others. Ready to serve, guide, and support from a place of lived experience rather than exhaustion.

How To Release

In my practice, I work with women navigating this transition using Deep Release Therapy — a process that supports the nervous system to access, process, and release stored pain and tension from the body.

If this perspective resonates with you, and you feel called to listen to your body rather than fight it, you are welcome to explore working together.

You can book a call with me here:

www.deepreleasetherapy.com

Perimenopause is not something to fix.

It is something to honour.

It is the season of renewal.