What the Irish Language Knows About Emotions, Menopause, and Midlife

When I’m talking with my clients, we often talk about the feelings they are having at a particular time. Someone might say they are feeling anxious, low, overwhelmed, or simply struggling with something in their lives.

Often, the first step is simply to look at how we describe what we are experiencing.

In Irish, we have a very beautiful way of speaking about emotions. We don’t say the emotion is in us. We say the emotion is on us.

We say:

TÁ ÁTHAS ORM

I have happiness on me.

TÁ BRÓN ORM

I have sadness on me.

In other words, the feeling is on us, not in us. There is a temporary nature to it. It reminds us that we are not the emotion itself.

I think that way of thinking can be very helpful.

Talking ourselves into fearing midlife

Lately, I’ve also been noticing how menopause is being talked about. I hear many women saying they are frightened of it before it has even begun, and a lot of the conversation around it has become very fear-based.

Sometimes it can almost become a contagion of fear. We know that within communities, feelings and beliefs can spread from one person to another. When one person begins to talk about something in a certain way, it can quickly become the shared story for everyone.

My instinct tells me that we are starting to talk about this stage of life too negatively. Sometimes it feels like we are being influenced by a constant stream of information on social media. Perhaps we need to come back to ourselves a little more, to wake up again to our own inner wisdom and decide for ourselves who we want to be at this stage of life.

Sometimes women in midlife experience anxiety because they are worried about real-life issues, things going on in their family, in their workplace, or how they are going to deal with the challenges life puts in front of them.

Sometimes mood changes can also be linked to something simple, like being low in a nutrient or not getting enough protein or sleep.

Not everything has to be explained by the stage of life we are in.

Midlife is here. It’s not what defines you.

I often think about things in an Irish way of saying things, and how we talk about our experiences.

TÁ AN MHEÁNAOIS ANN

Midlife is here. It’s not to be feared. It’s not what defines you.

Of course, everyone’s experience is different. Some women feel they need HRT and others may choose a more holistic route. The important thing is to know that there are options, and there are different ways of thinking about this stage of life. We don’t need to approach it with fear.

Personally, I have no symptoms whatsoever. I feel good.

I also see wonderful results with my clients. Hypnosis can be incredibly supportive for women during menopause, and sound healing can be very helpful too. Perhaps that is why many of my clients, and myself included, feel absolutely fine.

With so much negative conversation around menopause, it can sometimes feel like we’re being encouraged to fear or even hate this stage of life, but it doesn’t have to be that way.

Instead, we could choose a different tone.

In Irish we might say:

BÍODH ÁTHAS ORAINN GO LÉIR

May happiness be on us all. Let’s have happiness on us together as we move through these stages of life.