With A Rebel Yell, She Cried “No! No, More!” — A Perimenopausal Battle Cry
How do we go about separating ourselves from our pasts? Those parts of our lives that we want to leave in the past so we can take the lesson, yet leave the pain experienced.
This is a question we answer together when you choose me as a sage guide along your journey. For today, please sit a spell so we can talk this out in UNconventional Wisdom fashion…
Whether you purchase my upcoming book or join the Unraveling Together CoWorking Space, we start with the foundation of what got us here, now.
I’ve been to the metaphorical mountaintop and traversed my own tough path on the way up as well as the way down. Though I’ve “been there, done that, got the t-shirt”, you’ll never find me in the position of telling you what you should do.
I Won’t “Should” On You.
No matter the means by which we work together, I simply share my unraveling experience. You take what resonates, and leave the rest.
I share with you what I did to untangle myself from experiences in my past. These experiences kept me weighed down. I had a heaviness to me that I never realized existed until I left my past where it belonged. Squarely in the past.
For the longest time, I hadn’t realized just how unable I was to be truly present in my life. I was numb. For years. Decades.
Oh, the things I missed, even when I was physically present!?! I carried guilt for a long while until that too had to go.
I just can’t keep lugging this sh*t around.
No, no more!
This previously unacknowledged weight contributed to my destructive habit of beating myself up on a continual basis because I wasn’t enjoying life like I “should”. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
But seriously, how could I enjoy life? I was “too busy” trying to do all the things I “should” do and fill all the roles I “should” fill.
Are you more the audio type? Listen to the Unraveling Together Podcast Episode # 060 through the Dr. Sam Graber YouTube channel. Click the image above or this 🔗 will take you there: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCa4-eWSfidtTODb7nQSnYDg
Camp Status Quo. New Recruits Welcome.
Let’s be real, most people opt to go with the flow. And I can understand why. Digging up the past is not easy. On any level.
Let’s unpack that phrase, “digging up the past”. It implies, in a way, that “the past ” was just laying there, minding its own business when we came along and disturbed it.
As if.
The past, acknowledged or not, weaves its sticky tendrils throughout every facet of our lives in the now. In fact, we bring it along in everything we do, everywhere we go.
There are many ways to give some structure to this concept. Let’s suffice it to say that unless and until we bring our past into the light, 100-percent open to listening to what we are trying to tell ourselves by holding on to it, we will be run by past thought patterns, reactions, and actions.
This sticky trio operates in the background. Consider it your “auto-pilot”.
Many people get caught up in the “group think” mentality and are just fine with defaulting to the masses for their opinion. They don’t buck the system, nor do they question much of anything. These gals planted their flag in Camp “Status Quo” eons ago and honestly, they’re a-okay with that.
Are you one of them? It’s absolutely fine if you are. There’s no shame in your game. Own it.
Now if you’re the kind of person I write for, you are interested in growing as a person. You are committed to what I’ve heard called C.A.N.I., “Constant And Never-Ending Improvement”. Your mindset is a stark contrast from that of a person who boasts the mantra, “I am who I am. No sense in changing now.”
If you are someone who wants to do a deeper dive into the goodness of life versus one who simply splashes around on the surface, you are someone who will jive with my vibe. And a person who is primed for a midlife unraveling.
The Most Important 3-Letter Question
The most important question that you will have to ask yourself at the beginning of your unraveling is, “Why?”
Why are you doing this?
Really think about it. The answer that you give is one that has to last you for the majority of your life, so the answer better be good. Real good. Stick to the ribs kind of good. It has to be so good that you won’t falter, even at the worst of times.
Staying focused and driven to reach your goals, ultimately finding your North Star, will require you to examine your thoughts, mindsets, and actions. Intimately.
And to take this on, you will need to essentially rewire your brain.
Cool thing about that is that you can.
It used to be “group think” that our brain was fixed. We now know that is inaccurate. We don’t have to live in the past. We can live in the now and refine our skills as we live our lives.
No Guru Required
Though we can each access this ability to rewire our brain, if we’ve never undertaken a holistic self-examination, or have struggled with some aspect of personal development before and haven’t quite moved past it, how are you going to do this?
How can you get into the self-actualization zone and stay there all the time, no matter what?
First off, there’s no being “in the zone” twenty-four-seven, three-sixty-five. Please don’t put that level of pressure on yourself. And secondly, finding the zone and staying there day after day, month after month, year after year is an impossibility. So you can cross that item to stress about off your list as well.
With those two points in mind, you can see exactly why your answer to why you’re undertaking an unraveling, is critical. To see through to fruition a proactive unraveling, you must embody a spirit of rebellion, creation, cultivation as well as an unwavering sense of personal commitment to pursuing your life’s meaning, or purpose if you will.
You must strategically pursue the E.D.G.E.
I’m finalizing edits on my latest book. It was written for this very purpose.
I named it The Unraveler’s E.D.G.E. – A Rebellious Woman’s Guide to Tapping into Boundless ENERGY Uncovering Your Inner DRIVE and Cultivating the GRIT to Fully EVOLVE During Perimenopause.
And I didn’t name it that for nothin’. Let’s mount an (inner) rebellion!
Channel Your Inner Rebel
I don’t talk about my community being chock full of rebellious midlife* women without us earning that title. We are Gen X’ers and we know how to mount a rebellion.
We’ve been perfecting our “Rebel Yell” for decades. You bet that’s a nod to Billy Idol. What Gen X’er didn’t love him when we were coming of age?
*Rebellious women of all ages are welcome, just putting that out there.
My rebellion began in the mid-to-late 80s when on any given Saturday night you’d find me glowing in the dark while riding a wave of Aquanet fumes. I spent the vast majority of my weekends yelling at the top of my lungs with hundreds of my closest friends. Those were the days!!
We are a collective of women in hot pursuit of reclaiming our health and our inner truth. We want a holistic, more natural approach than the “here, take this” mentality of conventional medicine.
We are curious and quite rebellious when measured against the status quo.
You have to channel your inner rebel to wade through the muck and the B.S. conventional wisdom slings at us in midlife, heck…our entire life. They disguise it as beauty, anti-aging, and other buzz terms, but we’re on to their shenanigans, and we’re not buying what they are selling.
I specify “rebellious” because you have to be a little rebellious to buck the system and step out from the shadows cast by the ever-ubiquitous status quo.
Channeling one’s inner rebel is challenging for most.
I am a Rebel Whisperer. She’s in there, I promise.
She’s just been silenced over time and weakened because she’s been starved of oxygen, and everyone knows a good fire needs oxygen to grow. Now it’s not “oxygen” in the molecular sense, mind you. This oxygen is whatever it is that gives you that spring in your step. That reason for doing the tough stuff. That reward for a life well-lived.
We’ve been constantly told to “be nice”, “don’t buck the system”, “don’t speak too loudly”, and a whole mess of other messages that have resulted in us losing our footing along with our direction. Losing sight of what lights us up in life.
This is where your community comes in.
Who’s In Your Community?
I’ll tell you a bit about the one I’m cultivating.
The Unraveling Together Community is built upon the foundation that women are stronger together. When it comes to doing the inner work in midlife, we do it collectively to harness that strength. ( https://www.unravelingtogether.com/ )
Unravelers are willing to roll up their sleeves, wade into the uncomfortable, and do the work.
The sense of unrest amplified at midlife isn’t only in our thoughts and emotions. It is felt at a cellular level. We’ve accumulated toxins, depleted nutrients, and ignored our own cries for help. These cries come from our heart, our mind, and our body.
Unraveling Together is the place we talk about the things we just don’t talk about. Especially as women.
Unraveling Together is an Info Hub and online CoWorking Space focused on issues affecting women in perimenopause and beyond. Unravelers are encouraged to do the work for themselves but are never by themselves as they do it. When you are in need of an assist, you have all of us right there alongside you.
The bottom line on every single topic we work through together… Ending The War With Our Bodies. It’s time.
Meet Your Inner Rebel
There’s one overriding common trait amongst those of us who channel our Inner Rebel: we are unable to blindly accept the status quo at any and all levels.
We are unwilling to conform to standards set by others. We push ourselves past these set boundaries.
It is this spirit that allows us to face a plethora of problems head-on while recognizing solutions to said problems. This spirit illuminates the opportunities that present themselves as well.
It is the same spirit that allows us to rise above the fear of failure and overcome doubts. It allows us to improvise, innovate, invent, and create new paths both personally and professionally, where none previously existed.
An Inner Rebel is steeped in the undying belief in one’s own ability. She has the resolute belief that we all have a role to play in shaping society through the creation of solutions for some of life’s most common problems. Whether creating the solution or supporting those who do, we put our resources where our mouths are.
Whether in a for-profit situation or a not-for-profit, we know that collectively we can address what needs to be addressed to get to the heart of an issue instead of shellacking the surface in the pursuit of vanity metrics.
Most of the qualities that Unravelers possess are a manifestation of our Inner Rebel.
When faced with a problem, we will exercise resourcefulness. When faced with a situation that we can’t immediately control, an Unraveler perseveres.
Saturday, September 17, 2022 marks the opening of our online CoWorking Space.
Though each of us is on our own holistic healing journey, we are walking alongside one another through the CoWorking model. If you’re a woman in hot pursuit of reclaiming your health as well as your inner truth, please consider this your invitation to join us.
Samantha “Dr. Sam” Graber is an author, podcast host, keynote speaker and Holistic Transformation Coach for women ready to stop sacrificing their health in their pursuit of success. She focuses in on the powerful transition of menopause, from pre- to peri- to post-. For it is here that a woman has an often missed opportunity to fully tap into her truest and highest Self.
After a multi-decade career as a holistic chiropractor, she orchestrated her own transformation from burnt out doc to impassioned community curator.
The Unraveling Together Community is where women connect and pursue a more holistic approach to their changing bodies and minds with a focus on their midlife metabolism and menopause, from pre- to peri- to post-. Through masterclasses and co-working sessions, they cultivate more meaning in their individual lives while tapping into the collective wisdom of women.
Visit drSAMgraber.com to see what she’s up to.