Recently, I heard a short clip by Barbara Marx Hubbard (www.cocreatorcourse.com) and she talked about a phase in a women’s journey when she enters “regenopause”. This is the time when all her eggs are gone and she herself becomes the egg. The woman comes into a phase where she trusts her own intuition and gives birth to her most authentic self, her essence. She sees this period of a women’s life as a time in which she is able to explore, develop and give her most creative love and energy to the world despite the unknowns and challenges the world and she are facing on a daily basis. This woman, Barbara Marx Hubbard says, is able to see these unknowns and the individual and global challenges she/we are facing as “evolutionary drivers” that are bringing her and the world into a new place.

I am crying tears on the inside as I write this blog today – tears of joy and sadness. In my deepest of hearts I wish I could physically shed a tear but I have not been able to cry since 2008 due to the stress I am under on a constant basis. I cry tears of joy on the inside because I am this woman, this woman in regenopause. I am trusting in my own self-organizing system (heart, mind, body, womb, intuition, and gut intelligences) and I continue to give birth to my most authentic self which includes having severe PTSD.

Further examples of this interaction between joy and sadness are that I have found joy because I have found peace with the fact that I no longer can give my creative energy and love to the world through my work and career which I did for 25 years. This is a deep loss for me which causes great sadness as well. In addition, every day I find daily self-care challenging. Also, any change from my daily routines makes it even more of a distressing day so being able to hold a traditional job is impossible – this brings me sadness. However, I am able to give my creative and loving energy to myself and the world in other new and different ways and this brings me joy.

One way I give my creative and loving energy to the world is through the writing of this blog. My gift is my ability to write from my heart and to share my weekly insights into how I am learning, growing, developing and living a fulfilling and purposeful life of bliss while suffering on a daily basis. Furthermore, I have found peace with the fact that my gifts now lie in my ability to give my creative and loving energy to the world by learning how to become more loving towards my husband, family and friends. It involves finding creative and supportive ways to be with them on their individual journeys to greatness. Finally, my quest for lifelong learning and my search for knowledge, truth, wisdom and understanding of the story of humankind and the universe are connecting me to “All That Is” in new ways. It is making me part of “All That Is” even if I find it difficult to be outside my home. This search for knowledge in the hope to understand the complexities and evolutionary history of the human experience and “otherness” is giving me a sense of enlarged thought. In addition, it is helping me to understand what I think a well-lived life is for me and gives me a perspective of how others might define the meaning of life, and if they even think there is meaning to life.

However, the tears of sadness come because the unknowns of life cripple me on a daily basis. It elicits my fear and terror. I have grown in this area intellectually and have learned to trust in my own evolving and that of the universe to a degree; yet, I am still affected by the traumatic thinking that I discussed in my 2011 writings (look under the further reflections tab on this blog site). The most challenging part for me is to rebuild or rewire is the physiology of PTSD. Sometimes I get depressed because I have seen little progress in the rewiring of the physiology of this illness. I think trauma does stay with you for a lifetime in many ways. When I have this depression, my husband and therapist remind me that I am no longer burdened with lots of medical complications other than chronic fatigue and chronic pain which I have learned to manage over the last decade. They remind me that I am seeing neuroplasticity (rewiring my brain pathways) everywhere in my life albeit maybe slower than I would like. Sometimes I do have sadness with the fact that severe PTSD will be a real part of me forever. However, it truly is part of my authentic self. I have a new love for my authentic self – this brings me joy.

Finally, I have both tears of joy and sadness because I do see my challenges with PTSD and my earlier breakdown as “evolutionary drivers” which catapulted me into finding and living from my authentic self. Had I not had my complete breakdown during the years 2004-2008, I never would have been able to find and live from my most authentic self and redefine how I give my loving and creative energy to the world. Today, this brings me bliss in the suffering.

I embrace the concept of “regenopause” because I do feel like have given birth to my most authentic self (including living fully with joy and sadness). I look forward to continuing this phase of my life.