Embodied Wisdom:

THINK. FEEL.

Tidbits & Takeaways

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You’ve had it. You haven’t been “feeling quite like yourself.” You walk into a room and draw a complete blank as to why you are there. You become fully enraged by an ordinary stressor. The tears flood your eyes without warning. Your baseline anxiety seems to have accelerated. You feel overwhelmed and can’t seem to make decisions. The people you love seem to be irritating you more than usual. You feel a deep sense of loss now that you are aging beyond your reproductive years.

It’s no secret that anxiety and depression go hand in hand. In peri/menopause, these co-occur at a rate of 85-90%. Both insomnia and hot flashes contribute to increased anxiety, while anxiety contributes to insomnia and hot flashes (what a win-win!). Poor sleep also increases the occurence of depression by 10x. As previously discussed, some ways to address A&D include constructive worry time, regular exercise, mindfulness practices, connection to support network (friends, partner, therapist), journalling, and practicing gratitude.

❋ Anxiety & Depression

Brain fog is described as not a singular symptom but can include impaired focus, trouble concentrating, scattered thoughts, slow reaction, indecision, and memory trouble, affecting up to 60% of women. Cognitive issues demonstrate links to insomnia, fatigue, and hot flashes. For those with ADHD, these cognitive symptoms can be exacerbated exponentially (see below for two great videos on the co-occurence of menopause & ADHD). Brain functioning is shown to be improved by good nutrition and regular exercise, and avoiding alcohol and recreational drugs. Self-care practices are crucial, such as mindfulness & self-compassion, spending time in nature, journalling, gratitude practices, and taking up creative practices. Dr. Jen Gunter reassures us that many women regain brain functioning after the transition into post-menopause!

❋ Brain Fog

The peri/menopausal stage tends to fall during the time in our lives when we are most in demand. We may have children or teens (meaning that the entire family may be going through intense hormonal changes). We may be caring for aging parents. We may be at the peak of our careers. For those in heteronormative relationships, we may be coping with male partners’ lack of knowledge or empathy about the perimenopausal transition, and we may also be dealing with a long-term discrepancy in the mental/emotional load that has now reached it’s boiling point. All that to say that this time is fraught with stressors that are unrelated to hormone changes, but are certainly exacerbated by them. As such, this is the time to develop skills around effective communication, boundary setting, and asking for help. This is also a time to seek mental health support and invest in the micro, mezzo, and macro levels of self-care.

❋ Stress & Overwhelm

❋ Mood Swings

As with other cognitive & psychological symptoms of peri/menopause, emotional symptoms such as mood swings and rage are linked to hot flashes, poor sleep, increased stress, brain fog, and fatigue. About 50% of women report experiencing intense emotions, citing the seeming lack of control to be the most troubling factor. Again, these emotional symptoms have shown to return to your pre-menopausal baseline in the years following the final menstrual period. Coping strategies are aligned with the methods described above.

What have you “had it” with?

Circle of Concern: Road construction, capitalism, patriarchy, bureaucracy, AI, social media companies

Circle of Influence: Children, friendships, partners, relationships, shared living dynamics

Circle of Control: Self-criticism, insecurity, self-regulation strategies, leaving more time for ourselves, To Do lists, boundaries, worry, cleanliness, saying NO, worry/anxiety, how we spend our time

Why feel your feelings?

North American culture tends to overindex towards feeling happy and joyful, so much so that often we shy away from feeling difficult emotions. However, when we bypass, ignore, distract, or redirect into positivity, we don’t get rid of those unwanted emotions. Instead they are internalized and transformed into thoughts and behaviours that assume problematic consequences, like rumination, sleeplessness, and default coping habits (ex. substance use, disordered eating, shopping, doom-scrolling, etc.). Giving ourselves permission to pause, feel, and process our difficult emotions provides us with a path to acceptance and freedom.

Essential Resources

Journal Prompts

  • When big emotions arise, where do you FEEL it in your body?

  • What is beneath this current big feeling? What is the WHY? What pattern is this connected to?

  • Of the the things you’ve “had it” with, which ones are linked to social inequalities and injustice? How can you influence changes to improve this for yourself and for others?

Tools

Videos

Podcasts

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Featured Facilitator:

Andrea Ting-Luz,
Clinical Counsellor

I walk in the world as a perimenopausal, cisgender, heterosexual female, a once-divorced and twice-married spouse, an acculturated person of colour, a first-generation child of Chinese-Filipino-Spanish immigrants, an unapologetic feminist determined to include the masculine in the conversation, a staunch ally of the queer and trans community, and an activist committed to disrupting the cycles of violence and intergenerational trauma.

I am a Clinical Counsellor and Yoga Instructor (MACP, RCC - Qualifying, ERYT-500), who earned a Master’s in Counselling Psychology (MACP) with honours from Yorkville University in 2026. I am currently finalizing accreditation as an Registered Clinical Counsellor (RCC) from the British Columbia Association of Clinical Counsellors (BCACC).

I provide counselling services to individuals and couples with a fcous on adults undergoing momentous transitions and related discomfort including peri/menopause, sleeplessness, anxiety, empty-nesting, retirement, career transition, divorce/separation, new love, grief and loss. I benefit from the supervision of BCACC member Frances Kinloch, RCC.

WORK WITH ME

Sources

Brown, L., Hunter, M., Chen, R., Crandall, C., Gordon, J., Mishra, G., Rother, V., Joffe, H., & Hickey, M.(2024). Promoting good mental health over the menopause transition. The Lancet, 403, 969–983. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0140-6736(23)02801-5Garg, R., & Munshi, A. (2025). Menopause and Mental Health. Journal of Mid-Life Health, 16(2), 119. https://doi.org/10.4103/jmh.jmh_61_25

Mervosh, N., & Devi, G. (2025). Estrogen, menopause, and Alzheimer’s disease: understanding the link to cognitive decline in women. Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences, 12, 1634302. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmolb.2025.1634302

Mosconi, L., Berti, V., Dyke, J., Schelbaum, E., Jett, S., Loughlin, L., Jang, G., Rahman, A., Hristov, H., Pahlajani, S., Andrews, R., Matthews, D., Etingin, O., Ganzer, C., de Leon, M., Isaacson, R., & Brinton, R. D. (2021). Menopause impacts human brain structure, connectivity, energy metabolism, and amyloid-beta deposition. Scientific Reports, 11(1), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-90084-y

Mueller, S., De Franceschi, M., Brzozowska, J., Herman, A., Ninghetto, M., Burnat, K., Grymowicz, M. & Marchewka, A. (2024). An influence of menopausal symptoms on mental health, emotion perception, and quality of life: a multi-faceted approach. Quality of Life Research, 33, 1925–1935. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-024-03641-z