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My body is on fire, and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it.

I’m overheating and breaking out in a sweat—often, without warning, without any regard for my schedule or to-do list. I was not expecting menopause to become my spiritual teacher, but here we are. I’ll be going about my day and suddenly there’s a shift—a little queasy feeling in my belly, my legs start sweating, and then my whole body is on fire.

Just like that, my entire attention is pulled into the experience of burning. No matter how hard the fan is blowing or how low the air conditioner is set—I burn. There is no escaping it, no stopping it, no distracting myself out of it. The burn demands my full attention. It’s kind of awful.

And after several weeks of being completely hijacked by this, I’m starting to notice something. I can hold Warrior One and have a hot flash. I can take deep breaths and have a hot flash. I can keep talking, keep thinking, keep moving… and still be on fire.

So now I’m wondering—
is this mindful menopause?

It’s here, in this body, that I’m being stretched to the edges of who I think I am. What I think I can tolerate. What I believe I have the capacity to hold—physically, emotionally, spiritually. All of my edges are here, in my body. Not in theory, not in some ideal version of myself—but in the very real, very immediate (and sweaty!) experience of being in this body.

My body, the sensations, my emotions, my thoughts—they don’t stay neatly separated in convenient little compartments. They rise together, collide, spill over. A sensation becomes a feeling, a feeling becomes a story, a story becomes a whole internal experience that can carry me right to the edge of what I know and understand. And sometimes, past it.

And right there—at that edge of what I think I can handle, where I can’t manage it, can’t control it, can’t think my way out of it—no bypassing it—
I find myself laid out at the feet of the Divine.

Sometimes it feels like a crash landing—jarring, disorienting, more than I want to feel or hold, and downright rude. (That’s a story for another day.) And sometimes… it’s something else entirely.

Sometimes, right in the middle of it, there’s a kind of sweetness I didn’t know was available to me. A gentle awareness of Good moving through my body, through my mind—caressing my skin and my thoughts, like care I didn’t know I needed. It’s a glorious surprise every time, softening something in me, easing the grip of discomfort, meeting me lovingly right where I am.

It doesn’t take the heat away. It doesn’t make the moment disappear. But it changes my relationship to it, opening me to a Greater Reality that is also present in the moment.

There are moments when I can feel that presence—subtle, steady, sweet—right here in my own skin, in my breath, in my thoughts. And in those moments, the only thing I can do is revel in it… smile… and say thank you.

This choice to pay attention—to notice what’s happening in my body, in my thoughts, in my experience—is how I begin to be revealed to myself. This is becoming.

And from that place of awareness, something opens. A little more space in my thinking. A little more room to choose. Not to rush to stop what’s happening, not to make it all go away—but to decide how I meet it.

When I soften instead of brace, and stay instead of check out, I am caring for myself right in the middle of it.

And over time, these small choices—these moments of attention and care—begin to shape something new in me. A different way of being. A different relationship with my body, my life, myself.

This is the quiet, powerful work of becoming.
This is the blessing of living into wholeness.
This is spiritual living—real life.