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Could Menopause Be An Awakening To A Starseed Identity? · The Menopause Disruptor Podcast

• 0:01
  Mary Lee: Hi, my friends.
• 0:02
  Mary Lee: Welcome back to the Menopause Disruptor Podcast.
• 0:04
  Mary Lee: I am your host, Mary, a fierce menopause doula on a mission to challenge the status quo on how menopause is treated, discussed, acted upon, and ultimately accepted in society.
• 0:17
  Mary Lee: And I want to challenge those outdated narratives and basically throw the book at the medical professionals who just dismiss the menopause experience as being something to get over.
• 0:28
  Mary Lee: Well, I'm here to say, and all my guests on the show to date will agree that is not the case.
• 0:33
  Mary Lee: As wise women rising, we are going through a neurological, psychological, physiological, and spiritual awakening.
• 0:41
  Mary Lee: So many things are aligning.
• 0:43
  Mary Lee: So many things are breaking apart all at once.
• 0:45
  Mary Lee: And I just heard on a recent conversation, well, it wasn't a conversation, she was having a conversation with us.
• 0:52
  Mary Lee: It was on her podcast, a podcast episode with the lovely Maria.
• 0:57
  Mary Lee: Her podcast is called This is Maria.
• 0:59
  Mary Lee: And she, although she doesn't know it, is one of my spiritual teachers.
• 1:04
  Mary Lee: One of the first ones I ever started to have a spiritual awakening with, right around the time, that I went through perimenopause.
• 1:11
  Mary Lee: Maria talked about star seeds.
• 1:13
  Mary Lee: Wow.
• 1:14
  Mary Lee: First of all, what are star seeds?
• 1:16
  Mary Lee: Starseeds, no, it is not like a spice or anything like that.
• 1:20
  Mary Lee: They are human beings who walk this earth who have a profound role in ushering a new earth.
• 1:26
  Mary Lee: They dance between 3D and 5D.
• 1:29
  Mary Lee: And that's the best explanation that I can give.
• 1:32
  Mary Lee: But I will link that podcast episode.
• 1:34
  Mary Lee: This is Maria in the show notes, so take a look.
• 1:37
  Mary Lee: It was the first time that I had really ever woken up to this idea that there are two parallel ways to understand the perimenopause-menopause experience through the spiritual lens, but also the biopsychosocial neuroscience lens.
• 1:53
  Mary Lee: First of all, let's look at it through the spiritual lens.
• 1:56
  Mary Lee: A woman may interpret an intense sense of not quite belonging during menopause, but she might also feel this heightened intuition or unusual sensitivities, including food sensitivities that never ever existed before, or some synchronicities, a feeling of having a larger purpose as an awakening begins to unfold.
• 2:17
  Mary Lee: That awakening might be an awakening to a starseed identity.
• 2:21
  Mary Lee: Now, as for the biopsychosocial neuroscience lens, menopause is a profound period of neurological, hormonal, physiological, and even existential reorganization.
• 2:34
  Mary Lee: There are changes in estrogen that affect every system in her body, including the brain, which is involved in mood, cognition, sleep, stress response, and emotional processing.
• 2:46
  Mary Lee: At the same time, this life stage itself invites women to have an identity reassessment, asking questions like, who the heck am I now?
• 2:57
  Mary Lee: Who am I now that I no longer need to be that person everyone else wants me to be or expects me to be?
• 3:05
  Mary Lee: And see, through these two lenses, there are two possible explanations that don't necessarily have to fight each other as to what is happening in our bodies and in our mind, heart, soul, spirit during the menopause transition.
• 3:19
  Mary Lee: It doesn't have to be one or the other.
• 3:21
  Mary Lee: It can actually be both menopause and the ascension syndrome.
• 3:26
  Mary Lee: And this is why menopause could become an awakening portal.
• 3:30
  Mary Lee: In fact, I say it's not could, I believe it actually is.
• 3:35
  Mary Lee: I believe this fits beautifully into the Avedic philosophy that menopause is the time of the Great Reveal, the Great Reveal concept that I speak about often on my podcast.
• 3:47
  Mary Lee: Here's why.
• 3:48
  Mary Lee: For many women, perimenopause strips away the strategies that allowed them to function for decades.
• 3:54
  Mary Lee: Estrogen, with its neuroprotective properties, immunomodulatory properties, and its anti-inflammatory properties, is like a veil in itself, a great shield, and it helps us push away, avoid, dismiss, and shelter to the back burner all the issues that tend to come up, like trauma, including those that we experienced in childhood, so that we can get on with life.
• 4:18
  Mary Lee: Be the moms, be the wives, the daughters, the sisters, the career women, the caretakers, and the list goes on and on.
• 4:25
  Mary Lee: We wear many hats.
• 4:26
  Mary Lee: But when estrogen declines, all those balls in the air that we've been juggling for so long, they begin to drop.
• 4:34
  Mary Lee: The overachieving stops working, the people pleasing becomes intolerable, suppressing anger becomes harder.
• 4:42
  Mary Lee: Oh yeah.
• 4:43
  Mary Lee: And living according to other people's expectations becomes absolutely exhausting.
• 4:49
  Mary Lee: As for the nervous system, it becomes less willing to tolerate chronic stress.
• 4:53
  Mary Lee: That nervous system, well, she starts talking back.
• 4:56
  Mary Lee: And we have to pay attention because suddenly the women who we have spent, say, 40 years adapting to the external world begins asking, what if I have been living someone else's life?
• 5:07
  Mary Lee: And that question can be profoundly spiritual.
• 5:11
  Mary Lee: And for some women, that answer arrives from experience that they can only describe as some sort of awakening.
• 5:18
  Mary Lee: They might notice an extraordinary increase in intuition, synchronicities that feel meaningful, you know, like thinking about somebody, and suddenly you get a text or a phone call or a message pops up on your feed from them, vivid dreams, even dreams about or people, places you haven't even thought about for many years, heightened sensitivity to people and environments such as loud noises, foods, as I had mentioned, and some of the energies that people give off, they start to drag you down.
• 5:49
  Mary Lee: And this can lead to a sense of disconnectedness, but also interconnectedness with others that we may never have thought about, never have met, and suddenly are finding ourselves in new company with.
• 6:02
  Mary Lee: Case in point, I joined Sonia Chaquette's circle called the Good Vibe Tribe.
• 6:07
  Mary Lee: And I'm connecting with women through our posts, through sharing pictures, weekly Zoom calls, and through our book club.
• 6:14
  Mary Lee: Women that I have suddenly felt a connection with, as though I have known them for years and years, but I have just met, because we are all on the same frequency, same energetic level.
• 6:26
  Mary Lee: It feels as though we're on the same trajectory of ascension, that spiritual awakening.
• 6:32
  Mary Lee: You might also have a fascination with ancient wisdom or astrology or energy work that you never had before.
• 6:38
  Mary Lee: That's been my case as well.
• 6:40
  Mary Lee: My goodness, have these ever come into my psyche lately?
• 6:44
  Mary Lee: Like, where did that come from?
• 6:46
  Mary Lee: And the minute I start thinking about it, things start aligning and coming into my field.
• 6:50
  Mary Lee: I'm suddenly attracting all this energy.
• 6:53
  Mary Lee: I became interested in sacred geometry recently, and then the work of Alexandra Wenman came into my psyche, and I've been following her ever since.
• 7:02
  Mary Lee: I ordered her Archangel Fire Deck Oracle cards, and I pull one almost every day.
• 7:08
  Mary Lee: Never thought about archangels to this extent ever before.
• 7:11
  Mary Lee: And I will include the links to Alexandra Wenman in the show notes as well.
• 7:15
  Mary Lee: She's also one of my spiritual teachers, but she doesn't know this yet.
• 7:19
  Mary Lee: Then there's the feeling of, oh, I just feel different.
• 7:22
  Mary Lee: I feel different in my headspace, different in my body, as though you don't quite belong.
• 7:28
  Mary Lee: And there might also be this intense desire for solitude, for authenticity, spending more time alone in nature, and really soaking in the things that make you feel whole again, that bring you joy, that make you feel full of love and of joy.
• 7:43
  Mary Lee: One of my favorite definitions of joy from an intuitive spiritual teacher, I won't name his name because I'm mad at him.
• 7:50
  Mary Lee: He's wrapped up in some terrible files that won't be disclosed by the U.S.
• 7:55
  Mary Lee: government.
• 7:56
  Mary Lee: I need not say anymore.
• 7:58
  Mary Lee: But his definition of joy is this happiness for no particular reason.
• 8:02
  Mary Lee: I find I'm seeking that out more and more.
• 8:05
  Mary Lee: And when I do so, I have this smile on my face.
• 8:08
  Mary Lee: It happens most often when I get in my creative space and I isolate myself and I play.
• 8:14
  Mary Lee: I play with music, I play with lyrics, I play with creating videos, and of course, with my podcast.
• 8:20
  Mary Lee: And then there also might be an unexpected pull towards healing or services for others.
• 8:26
  Mary Lee: Career women leave their corporate jobs to go into coaching, to go into some of the healing modalities.
• 8:32
  Mary Lee: And again, I can speak from personal experience.
• 8:35
  Mary Lee: I went from corporate PR and communication to a menopause doula, a life of writing stories and pitching other people's stories and making companies look good, dropped off, and suddenly I felt better, helping women look and feel the best in midlife and sharing information as I do on this platform right here.
• 8:53
  Mary Lee: There also could be a sense that life has a purpose beyond conventional success.
• 8:58
  Mary Lee: As I just explained, we're seeking out experiences now that make us feel connected.
• 9:06
  Mary Lee: Experiences that some women might interpret as downloads or messages or energetic information.
• 9:13
  Mary Lee: Again, tapping into the intuitive side and an inexplicit recognition one encounters when they're experiencing becoming a starseed.
• 9:23
  Mary Lee: So what is a starseed?
• 9:26
  Mary Lee: Well, it's profound.
• 9:27
  Mary Lee: I honestly believe that if starseeds were a large population of individuals roaming this planet right now, it would comprise of just about every Gen X woman in this generation of women born between 1965 and 1980.
• 9:44
  Mary Lee: There are so many trailblazers, the Waymakers, and the first generation of women to really understand menopause and challenge it while also managing symptoms and their career, their family, and all those other balls that we've been juggling that I mentioned earlier.
• 10:00
  Mary Lee: I mean, just take a look at some of the voices in the menopause arena today.
• 10:06
  Mary Lee: They're all around the age of 50 to 55, 60, stepping up to the plate, breaking down the barriers to women's hormonal health and challenging the status quo.
• 10:16
  Mary Lee: The first generation of women to do so without a playbook, because we come from our mother's generation, the silent generation that never spoke about or were never supported in the healthcare system.
• 10:27
  Mary Lee: And if they did, it was truly unusual.
• 10:29
  Mary Lee: And my guess is that they were so connected with themselves and their intuition, they weren't afraid to speak their truth.
• 10:36
  Mary Lee: But now we are all speaking our truth.
• 10:39
  Mary Lee: So in that vein, you could frame menopause as a transition from identity structured around adoption to an identity structured around authenticity.
• 10:48
  Mary Lee: So we're asking questions like this: before menopause, who did I need to be?
• 10:53
  Mary Lee: My career, partner, mom, caretaker.
• 10:57
  Mary Lee: And after the transition, we're asking, why can't I keep being that person?
• 11:02
  Mary Lee: Who am I actually?
• 11:04
  Mary Lee: And this third question of who am I actually is where spirituality can enter.
• 11:09
  Mary Lee: A woman may discover that what she'd previously called I'm too sensitive becomes I'm highly prospective.
• 11:16
  Mary Lee: What used to be called I'm too emotional is now identified as having profound emotional intelligence.
• 11:22
  Mary Lee: Wow, emotional intelligence.
• 11:24
  Mary Lee: I love that one.
• 11:25
  Mary Lee: And the I don't fit in is now becoming maybe it's not supposed to be.
• 11:31
  Mary Lee: And that, that, my friends, takes wisdom.
• 11:33
  Mary Lee: A spiritual framework that helps us understand the experience.
• 11:37
  Mary Lee: And that's where the starseed identity can become psychologically useful.
• 11:42
  Mary Lee: The symbolic framework through which a woman makes sense of her lifelong sense of being different or a lifelong drive to be purposeful and to feel that she belongs.
• 11:53
  Mary Lee: But here comes a really tough question to ask.
• 11:55
  Mary Lee: What do I want to do with that?
• 11:58
  Mary Lee: I would be cautious about allowing the notion that I'm just a starseed, so that is my new identity label.
• 12:04
  Mary Lee: It's more of a question of what is awakening?
• 12:07
  Mary Lee: What is awakening in me?
• 12:09
  Mary Lee: And is this real and meaningful?
• 12:11
  Mary Lee: And what is it asking of me to do differently?
• 12:15
  Mary Lee: And that's where I think the entire framework changes.
• 12:17
  Mary Lee: And I call this framework the starseed to service journey.
• 12:21
  Mary Lee: I'll get into that.
• 12:23
  Mary Lee: Bear with me.
• 12:25
  Mary Lee: So, number one, recognize that something has shifted, something has changed in you.
• 12:29
  Mary Lee: Don't immediately assign an explanation though.
• 12:32
  Mary Lee: Get curious.
• 12:33
  Mary Lee: What are you experiencing?
• 12:35
  Mary Lee: What has intensified?
• 12:37
  Mary Lee: And what no longer feels tolerable?
• 12:40
  Mary Lee: And then ask yourself, what are you suddenly drawn toward?
• 12:44
  Mary Lee: This is important.
• 12:45
  Mary Lee: This is grounding and it's crucial.
• 12:47
  Mary Lee: Spiritual awakening without grounding can become very overwhelming.
• 12:51
  Mary Lee: Grounding requires you to sleep well, to nourish your body well, to move your body wisely.
• 12:57
  Mary Lee: And I'm gonna throw in strength training because, from a biological perspective, muscle is the most metabolically active tissue in the body.
• 13:03
  Mary Lee: It supports brain health, heart health, and bone health.
• 13:06
  Mary Lee: So when you move your body wisely for your aging body, you are setting yourself up for longevity, and this is an important step in grounding.
• 13:14
  Mary Lee: On top of nourishing your body and moving your body wisely, it's important to get out into nature, soak in some vitamin and I call it, feel a connection of the energy that nature provides.
• 13:27
  Mary Lee: Very grounding and breathing, not just any breathing, but breathing techniques that help you downregulate your nervous system.
• 13:34
  Mary Lee: The 478 breath, for example, is an excellent technique to calm the nervous system and to ground into your body.
• 13:41
  Mary Lee: Also important to this list, relationships.
• 13:44
  Mary Lee: Relationships can suck the energy out of you if you have very poor relationships with loved ones, parents, children, friends, colleagues at work, neighbors.
• 13:53
  Mary Lee: So it's really important to get centered in your relationships.
• 13:57
  Mary Lee: Like I said earlier, you might be disconnecting from those who no longer serve you or vibrate at the same frequency as you.
• 14:04
  Mary Lee: And this is okay.
• 14:05
  Mary Lee: But for those relationships that are near and dear to you, nourish them, like you nourish your own body so that they can still continue to support you energetically.
• 14:14
  Mary Lee: Taking time away from our screens.
• 14:16
  Mary Lee: Oh my goodness, I am so bad at this.
• 14:18
  Mary Lee: I get so distracted.
• 14:20
  Mary Lee: My day is literally being governed by what shows up in my feed, my inbox, text messages first thing in the morning.
• 14:26
  Mary Lee: And before I get a chance to say no, my day starts unfolding in a different direction.
• 14:30
  Mary Lee: So you have to ground down with rituals such as meditation, taking a slow breath before you even open up your phone, drinking a glass of water, hydrating your body.
• 14:40
  Mary Lee: Any morning rituals that can set your day off the way you want it to be and not be governed by anybody else's agenda.
• 14:48
  Mary Lee: And then there's body awareness.
• 14:49
  Mary Lee: That doesn't mean who you are in space and time.
• 14:52
  Mary Lee: It's about taking care of your body in such a way that you are consuming beautiful thoughts, not just fueling your body with nourishing food, but fueling your mind with nourishing thoughts.
• 15:03
  Mary Lee: A lot of our thoughts are about ourselves, self-deprecating thoughts.
• 15:07
  Mary Lee: So be body conscious.
• 15:10
  Mary Lee: Love yourself.
• 15:11
  Mary Lee: Speak kindly to yourself as though you're looking in the mirror and staring back at your seven-year-old self.
• 15:16
  Mary Lee: Would you speak poorly to her?
• 15:18
  Mary Lee: I don't think so.
• 15:20
  Mary Lee: And then this one is really important, especially during menopause, and that is addressing physical symptoms rather than interpreting everything as an energetic shift.
• 15:30
  Mary Lee: I know I often say that treat your menopause as an energetic event when we're talking about the chakras, but I go deeper than that.
• 15:37
  Mary Lee: It's not just about realigning your energy in your chakras by doing things like movement, yoga, tai chi, breath work, the havening technique, tapping.
• 15:47
  Mary Lee: Understand that there's a language between your symptoms physically and what's happening at the endocrine system in your body, particularly in your gut.
• 15:55
  Mary Lee: For example, hot flashes are often a language your body is telling you that your gut is dysregulated.
• 16:01
  Mary Lee: The gut microbiome needs diversity.
• 16:04
  Mary Lee: And if you're not ingesting good bacteria and lots of colorful food, you're fueling the bad bacteria.
• 16:10
  Mary Lee: And I don't mean skittles when I say colorful.
• 16:13
  Mary Lee: I mean all the colors of the rainbow that we find in our fruits and vegetables.
• 16:17
  Mary Lee: And you can go back to several episodes recorded previously when I speak about gut health.
• 16:22
  Mary Lee: And there's also the gut brain axis.
• 16:26
  Mary Lee: Poor eating habits can lead to things like a leaky gut, and that disrupts the lining of your gut and leaks into your bloodstream, and this ultimately disrupts our brain function.
• 16:36
  Mary Lee: So be aware of those physical symptoms.
• 16:39
  Mary Lee: And I always say this as a doula: start tracking your symptoms.
• 16:44
  Mary Lee: Chart what's happening in your body.
• 16:46
  Mary Lee: You don't have to be cycling, but chart down what shows up on a daily basis, month to month, recognizing those ebbs and flows of energy, those dips, those valleys, those peaks and highs, and also how you react to certain foods, how you react after you eat a meal, and how it shows up in your sleep patterns.
• 17:05
  Mary Lee: These are signals, these are messages, and you need to be paying attention to them.
• 17:10
  Mary Lee: And another important thing about grounding is the art of discernment.
• 17:14
  Mary Lee: I feel that this is sometimes one of the most important steps.
• 17:17
  Mary Lee: For example, you can ask yourself, is this intuition that I'm feeling in my body?
• 17:22
  Mary Lee: Is it fear?
• 17:23
  Mary Lee: Is it my ego?
• 17:24
  Mary Lee: Is it wishful thinking?
• 17:26
  Mary Lee: Is it trauma activation?
• 17:28
  Mary Lee: Could something be happening coincidentally?
• 17:31
  Mary Lee: Or is there some kind of synchronicities or some sort of experience at a spiritual level?
• 17:38
  Mary Lee: What comes up in our thoughts is really important.
• 17:41
  Mary Lee: It can be confusing, though.
• 17:43
  Mary Lee: This is where I feel the ego wants to get involved and interpret everything from its persona, from the human experience.
• 17:50
  Mary Lee: But the quiet whispers of our soul, of our higher self, of our higher knowing, they can get muted from all the noise of our ego and from all the stimuli that we experience in a day.
• 18:01
  Mary Lee: So you need to really sit in stillness and practice the art of discernment.
• 18:07
  Mary Lee: And some of the best ways to do that is to sit in meditation.
• 18:12
  Mary Lee: You might turn to different modalities of like using a crystal pendulum, for example, asking questions, see what shows up.
• 18:19
  Mary Lee: Does it turn in circles, go up and down?
• 18:21
  Mary Lee: You don't even need to crystal.
• 18:23
  Mary Lee: Think about your body, asking yourself a question.
• 18:26
  Mary Lee: Could this just be my ego or is this true to me?
• 18:29
  Mary Lee: If you get that tightness in the chest or that uneasy feeling in the gut, chances are whatever you're asking isn't right for you.
• 18:37
  Mary Lee: But if you're feeling this warmth or expansion in the heart area, or maybe the corners of your mouth suddenly start to turn up without you voluntarily offering a smile, then chances are whatever you're feeling or asking is a positive yes.
• 18:51
  Mary Lee: But you don't necessarily have to dismiss the mystical experience altogether, or necessarily have to unquestionably believe every interpretation either.
• 19:02
  Mary Lee: And this is what I call spiritual discernment.
• 19:06
  Mary Lee: And if you're waking up to becoming a starseed, spiritual discernment is critical.
• 19:11
  Mary Lee: This is where the concept of integrate comes in.
• 19:14
  Mary Lee: Instead of collecting all these spiritual concepts, you can start asking things like, how does this spiritual concept change the way I live?
• 19:24
  Mary Lee: What is waking up in me?
• 19:26
  Mary Lee: Perhaps you're called to create something that you've never created before.
• 19:30
  Mary Lee: Perhaps it's to leave a toxic relationship or a career or a workplace.
• 19:36
  Mary Lee: Perhaps it's to invest in and repair an old relationship.
• 19:41
  Mary Lee: Or perhaps you want to take up an advocacy role for a cause that you deeply believe in.
• 19:47
  Mary Lee: Maybe it's just that feeling that it's time to write.
• 19:50
  Mary Lee: Write that epic novel or teach.
• 19:53
  Mary Lee: Teach something that allows you to become more authentically yourself.
• 19:58
  Mary Lee: And how do you know who you are authentically at your core?
• 20:03
  Mary Lee: I'm gonna bring back the concept of joy.
• 20:06
  Mary Lee: Do what you love to do.
• 20:08
  Mary Lee: And if you don't even know what it is that you love to do, then ask yourself what makes me feel the most love, love for myself, for others.
• 20:17
  Mary Lee: I'll give you an example.
• 20:19
  Mary Lee: I've been pouring my heart and soul into writing lately, writing a book, writing song lyrics that I have never done before, because writing songs I've found have been very useful in helping me unpack what is showing up and quieting the ego mind so that I can just listen to those quiet whispers.
• 20:39
  Mary Lee: Quite frankly, it's a lot of my past that's coming up.
• 20:42
  Mary Lee: And so rather than writing a full-on book that was very distracting for me, and I could never stay focused, I kept procrastinating.
• 20:50
  Mary Lee: I discovered this tool, an AI tool called Suno.
• 20:55
  Mary Lee: And so in Suno, I put in my lyrics and create them to songs, choosing the vibe, choosing the instruments, choosing the type of voice, and bringing life into these stories of mine was bringing me joy, that creative outlet.
• 21:11
  Mary Lee: But I also had to practice discernment because I was feeling my ego kick in saying, You're not a songwriter.
• 21:18
  Mary Lee: You're not good enough to do that.
• 21:19
  Mary Lee: And if you share that, you're gonna be judged.
• 21:22
  Mary Lee: And that was purely fear-based.
• 21:25
  Mary Lee: But my spirit was saying, this is your creative outlet.
• 21:28
  Mary Lee: You're investing in you.
• 21:30
  Mary Lee: And this creative outlet needs to be nourished.
• 21:33
  Mary Lee: And so I say this by investing in your creative outlet, something that you've always loved to do your whole life, whether it's writing a book, singing songs, you're tapping into the very essence of who you are at your soul level.
• 21:48
  Mary Lee: Another spiritual teacher of mine who's been teaching this, Sonia Choquet.
• 21:53
  Mary Lee: Again, she doesn't know that she's one of my spiritual teachers, but she's on my board of spiritual guides, living in human body for.
• 22:00
  Mary Lee: She's also the one that put together the circle of a good vibe tribe.
• 22:03
  Mary Lee: If you are interested in joining like-minded, soulful, spiritual-seeking individuals, go check it out.
• 22:09
  Mary Lee: Again, I'll put the link in the show notes below.
• 22:12
  Mary Lee: And her advice on tapping into her creative side, doing something that we love to do for just the sake of doing it, rather than doing it blindly because we have to.
• 22:20
  Mary Lee: She says it's a healing process, bringing back the fragmented parts and becoming whole again, which is also, I feel, another way of looking at what the definition of spirituality is all about.
• 22:32
  Mary Lee: Your awakening has to come into life organically and be germane to the lifestyle that you have already created for yourself.
• 22:40
  Mary Lee: It doesn't have to be this shock and awe event where you completely change everything.
• 22:45
  Mary Lee: In fact, quite honestly, it's very subtle and it enters into your ordinary life naturally, without being too disruptive, but enough for you to say, oh, something's happening here.
• 22:55
  Mary Lee: And then the last point I want to make is about service.
• 22:58
  Mary Lee: This is where I think the concept becomes particularly beautiful.
• 23:02
  Mary Lee: If someone believes that they have a larger soul purpose, then the question then to ask yourself is, what am I here to contribute?
• 23:11
  Mary Lee: And that changes the energetic direction from identity to purpose and then eventually into service.
• 23:17
  Mary Lee: Perhaps that's the mature version of a starseed journey.
• 23:22
  Mary Lee: I'm still on that journey.
• 23:23
  Mary Lee: I'm here to provide service to other women, but at the same time, I still feel like I'm a journeyman trying to learn a little bit more about what's showing up in my body spiritually and energetically, and to practice a little bit of discernment without letting the ego take over and ruin my creative process.
• 23:41
  Mary Lee: So again, wise questions you might want to ask yourself now is have I always been this different?
• 23:48
  Mary Lee: Or perhaps there's something different showing up, and this difference is something that I can now use productively in service to others or for something greater than just myself.
• 24:00
  Mary Lee: Therein lies a beautiful menopause metaphor.
• 24:03
  Mary Lee: Menopause isn't necessarily the end of something.
• 24:05
  Mary Lee: It's the end of a particular biological chapter, no doubt.
• 24:09
  Mary Lee: But potentially it is the beginning of an extraordinary psychological and spiritual chapter.
• 24:15
  Mary Lee: The reproductive years are over, but the post-reproductive years, they're an invitation for a different kind of creativity, a conscious creativity.
• 24:23
  Mary Lee: And that doesn't mean every woman needs to be spiritually awakening, and we shouldn't romanticize menopause or suggest that symptoms are caused by spiritual blockages.
• 24:31
  Mary Lee: Menopause can become a developmental threshold.
• 24:35
  Mary Lee: And thresholds are often where people now start to really consider, contemplate identity and meaning of life and immortality, purpose, belonging.
• 24:44
  Mary Lee: And so perhaps your great reveal isn't simply menopause revealing its symptoms.
• 24:48
  Mary Lee: It's menopause revealing the parts of yourself that you had to silence in order to survive, in order to fit in, belong, perform.
• 24:56
  Mary Lee: But now it gives you an opportunity to decide what deserves to come forward.
• 25:02
  Mary Lee: And so for some women, that revelation might be in creativity, activism, ancestral healing.
• 25:08
  Mary Lee: The list goes on and on.
• 25:09
  Mary Lee: This invitation isn't necessarily to prove which one is objectively true to being a starseed consciousness.
• 25:15
  Mary Lee: The invitation is to ask, what does the experience awaken in me?
• 25:19
  Mary Lee: And how do I responsibly bring that awakening into the world?
• 25:23
  Mary Lee: And so you ask, what is a starseed?
• 25:26
  Mary Lee: Well, a starseed is a concept from modern spiritual and new age traditions, describing a person who believes their soul originated somewhere beyond Earth, often another planet or a star system, another dimension, and they came to Earth with a particular purpose, such as helping humanity evolve or raise consciousness.
• 25:46
  Mary Lee: There isn't any scientific evidence that human souls originate from other star systems.
• 25:51
  Mary Lee: So it's best understood as a spiritual belief or an identity framework rather than an established scientific phenomenon.
• 25:59
  Mary Lee: But starseeds do believe, and beliefs vary, but someone identifying as a starseed may describe a lifelong feeling of not belonging.
• 26:08
  Mary Lee: A strong sensitivity to people, environments, emotions, highly sensitive people, for example, and paths.
• 26:16
  Mary Lee: They may have different intuition or unusual perceptions about life and have a deep sense of purpose.
• 26:21
  Mary Lee: Feelings that they're here to contribute something meaningful, but sometimes can't quite put their finger on it.
• 26:27
  Mary Lee: And so they seek out other spiritual guides, intuitives, and teachers and leaders to help them figure it out, consciously or subconsciously.
• 26:35
  Mary Lee: And as I mentioned before, synchronicities are very powerful.
• 26:39
  Mary Lee: These are meaningful coincidences that seem to guide us.
• 26:42
  Mary Lee: So if you're noticing synchronicities happen in your life, I recommend you get out a journal and jot them down and start looking for those patterns, much like you would charting your symptoms.
• 26:51
  Mary Lee: If you're seeing any of them, there's a good indication that there's something more than just plain old coincidence.
• 26:59
  Mary Lee: And then some believers or starseeds will have experiences described as intense downloads or past life memories, or feel this communication with higher consciousness.
• 27:09
  Mary Lee: So, for example, when I've been sitting in meditation recently, I've been doing some past life regression meditations with Kirsty Gallagher.
• 27:17
  Mary Lee: Again, she's another one of my guides on my council.
• 27:19
  Mary Lee: And she's also the author of the book Cosmic Purpose, and she has her own podcast, the Kirsty Gallagher Podcast.
• 27:26
  Mary Lee: I'll get those in the show notes.
• 27:28
  Mary Lee: Needless to say, in these meditations, I'm experiencing places and people I would never be able to imagine in my normal everyday existence.
• 27:37
  Mary Lee: But in meditation, when she guides me through it, I'm literally taken back into certain eras of time.
• 27:43
  Mary Lee: 1300s, the 1700s.
• 27:46
  Mary Lee: And I'm like, where did this come from?
• 27:48
  Mary Lee: But I just sit with it.
• 27:50
  Mary Lee: I don't judge it.
• 27:51
  Mary Lee: I don't try to push it away.
• 27:52
  Mary Lee: That would be my ego taking over.
• 27:54
  Mary Lee: I just get curious.
• 27:56
  Mary Lee: I just let the experience unfold like watching a TV series.
• 28:00
  Mary Lee: Observe.
• 28:01
  Mary Lee: Don't absorb.
• 28:02
  Mary Lee: So if this is happening to you, get curious and write it down and see if there's anything that it's trying to tell you or if there's some kind of pattern.
• 28:09
  Mary Lee: But here's a part of menopause that I think is especially interesting.
• 28:13
  Mary Lee: The word starseed itself may be less important than what the experience represents psychologically and spiritually.
• 28:19
  Mary Lee: So imagine a woman who's just spent, say, 45 years thinking, why have I always felt different?
• 28:25
  Mary Lee: And then poof, suddenly during perimenopause, something shifts.
• 28:29
  Mary Lee: Her old identity starts falling apart, her tolerance, her pretending diminishes, her intuition seems to get a little bit stronger, and she starts questioning her career, her relationships, her beliefs, and her purpose.
• 28:41
  Mary Lee: Check, check, check them all off for me.
• 28:44
  Mary Lee: And then she encounters the concept of a starseed and thinks, oh my goodness, this explains me entirely.
• 28:50
  Mary Lee: This was exactly my experience when I listened to Maria's podcast.
• 28:54
  Mary Lee: While the moment of recognition can be incredibly powerful, I do caution you, hold the interpretation lightly rather than literally.
• 29:01
  Mary Lee: Don't go around saying, I know it, I got it, I'm a starseed, and therefore I'm special.
• 29:06
  Mary Lee: I would advise to move towards the idea that, okay, this resonates with me, something that I possibly have always been feeling.
• 29:13
  Mary Lee: And now, what is it trying to tell me?
• 29:16
  Mary Lee: And I feel that this opens up a much richer inquiry.
• 29:20
  Mary Lee: So a starseed can be more like a metaphor rather than actually an entity.
• 29:26
  Mary Lee: You could think of it as a woman who's always felt different, an outsider.
• 29:30
  Mary Lee: And then menopause is that pivotal point in time in which she stops trying so hard to fit in a box that doesn't fit her anymore, and she starts thinking outside it.
• 29:41
  Mary Lee: That's very aligned with what's happening in menopause.
• 29:44
  Mary Lee: A woman doesn't necessarily become someone new.
• 29:47
  Mary Lee: She's becoming less willing to abandon who she always was at the very core.
• 29:51
  Mary Lee: And this moves the concept from cosmic identity into cosmic purpose, to coin Kirsty Gallagher's book title.
• 29:58
  Mary Lee: But it's purpose and agency end with service, which is where I think it becomes genuinely fascinating for midlife women.
• 30:05
  Mary Lee: Now I could go on at great length, but I'm gonna leave it at that.
• 30:08
  Mary Lee: This is just breadcrumbs for what I'm hoping to dabble into more often in this podcast, and that is the intersection of science and spirituality.
• 30:17
  Mary Lee: We're not just disrupting the current mainstream thinking and lack of research around women's health and hormones.
• 30:23
  Mary Lee: We're disrupting who we are at the core, disrupting our persona like we're taking off a coat and ditching it and revealing what was underneath all along, but just needed a little bit of provoking and provocative conversation like this one to let ourselves step into that true identity.
• 30:38
  Mary Lee: So I'm gonna leave you at that.
• 30:39
  Mary Lee: And I really hope that you've enjoyed this journey with me and taking a new angle into the Menopause Disruptive podcast.
• 30:46
  Mary Lee: We'll be sharing more of these with other guests, and it won't always be solo podcasts of me preaching for my spiritual soapbox.
• 30:53
  Mary Lee: No, in fact, I have some wonderful guests coming up pretty soon who share their memoirs, their trauma experiences, and then their awakening.
• 31:02
  Mary Lee: Incredible conversations coming up.
• 31:04
  Mary Lee: But for now, I'll leave you with this.
• 31:06
  Mary Lee: Your menopause is a journey into becoming someone whole again, bringing back together all those fragmented pieces that needed to separate so that you could fully feel into the true experience of all your life's challenges, opportunities, achievements, successes, failures, milestones, and so on.
• 31:26
  Mary Lee: And when you bring those fragmented pieces back home together, you come back home to who you are at the spiritual level, at the soul level.
• 31:34
  Mary Lee: And that is such a beautiful unfolding.
• 31:36
  Mary Lee: I hope you enjoyed this podcast conversation.
• 31:38
  Mary Lee: And if this conversation did resonate with you, please share.
• 31:41
  Mary Lee: Share it with a friend, a colleague, share it on your feed.
• 31:44
  Mary Lee: Take some time to write a review.
• 31:46
  Mary Lee: The more that we can spread these conversations, the more we're helping women through this transition.
• 31:51
  Mary Lee: And helps me get these conversations out to a broader audience for people who truly can benefit from them.
• 31:57
  Mary Lee: That is all from me, my loves.
• 31:59
  Mary Lee: Please join me again for another exciting episode coming up on the Metopause Disruptor Podcast.