Words by Penny van der Sluys and Jen Annette
It might come as forgetfulness, or sudden tears. A surprising rage. A libido that vanishes without explanation – or returns in full force, bold and untamed. For some of us, it arrives as a sudden tenderness for silence. For others, a grief so big we wonder if we’ve ever really cried before.
We were not prepared for this. Not by schools. Not by society. Not even, if we’re honest, by our mothers. And yet, here we are, breaking open, changing, becoming.
Menopause arrived for each of us as a threshold. For Jen, a glorious and sometimes terrifying undoing. For Penny, a desire to lean into discomfort and trust her body like never before. And this has given us one of the greatest gifts of our lives: the process of coming home.
Whether you’re 18, 25 or 30, this is for you. It’s for the women who raised you, for the friends and mentors you love, and for your future self. Understanding menopause as a creative threshold changes how we support one another now and how we meet our own bodies later with less fear and more tenderness.
We’re two women in our midlife, one an artist, the other a somatic sex coach. Both pleasure activists and women’s wisdom space holders, encouraging women to explore and embody the power of our pleasure, sensuality and life force energy.
We are mothers, daughters, lovers. And we are embracing this chapter not as a quiet exit, but as an awakening. Because menopause, it turns out, is not an ending. It’s an initiation.
We come to this stage of life often feeling frayed. The years have stretched us in all directions: career, children, care, loss. Somewhere along the way, we put ourselves second, then third, then barely remembered. But menopause is the great interrupter. It demands to know what’s still true for you. What’s no longer tolerable. What are you finally ready to feel?
The body, long silenced or mistrusted, suddenly becomes louder. And if we’re willing to listen, if we can resist the urge to numb and medicate it all away, or power through as we were taught, something astonishing happens. We meet ourselves. Again, or maybe for the first time.
This is not an easy process. It’s not polite or linear, but it’s honest. It’s real. And it’s deeply creative. Because to let go of who you’ve been in order to become who you are, that’s the creative path.
Inspired by the reclamation of the very source of her feminine power, Jen began to create textile art depicting the vulva for installations and on journal covers, sacred symbols, reimagined. Each fold, each colour, each layered texture became a meditation on self-worth, visibility and the exquisite, diverse beauty of the body.
Meanwhile, in her circles and coaching spaces, Penny was guiding women through sensual awakenings not rooted in pleasing others, but in reclaiming pleasure for themselves. Breath, movement, presence. The body as an oracle.
Together, we began to talk our truth. To name what was moving through us and to invite others into these conversations. To speak aloud the quiet things: the rage, the loneliness, the desire that refused to disappear. And what we saw, over and over again, was this…
When women feel they have permission to soften, they unfold. This unfolding is not a collapse. It’s emergence. Think of a leaf unfurling—a sculpture revealing itself as the marble is chipped away. A truth finally spoken after decades of silence.
Menopause is not just hormonal – it’s a mystical transformation. It asks for surrender, not submission. It invites the kind of power that doesn’t shout, but whispers. The kind that says I know myself now. And I choose all of me!
This knowing has redefined what power means for us. It’s not control. It’s coherence. It’s not how others see us, it’s how we feel in our own skin when no one is watching.
We no longer need to be understood to be valid.
We no longer wait to be chosen.
We have chosen ourselves.
That, in itself, is revolutionary.
Menopause isn’t simply a medical event or something wrong with women that needs fixing. Through our work, through our shared voice, and now here, we’re sharing the possibility that menopause can be a portal. It’s an opening. A creative threshold. A space to make something beautiful from all our parts.
And, this isn’t just about personal growth.
It’s about challenging our conditioning. About writing new stories for the next generation to inherit. About undoing the shame woven into every sigh of “hot flush”, every joke about “hormones”, every absence of elder women’s voices in public discourse.
We’re not pausing, we’re embracing all that comes with this stage of life.
Will you join us in the Glow-Up?