What If "The Pause" Is the Start of Something Awesome?

What perimenopause and menopause are doing for you that nobody talks about.

Everything we see online, at work, in friend groups leans in on the struggles of “The ‘Pause” as if it’s the end of all fun in life. We are less valuable, less attractive, snarky, crying, foggy-brained, and pretty territorial over the thermostat. It makes women turning the page into this chapter do it with reluctance instead of stepping in to what could be (and often is) the start of the best decades of our lives.

So to address the reality of what you hear about perimenopause and menopause: brain fog, hot flashes, mood swings, weight gain, fatigue. Yes, all of that is real. And the symptoms don’t end there (we’ll talk soon about all the random unexpected symptoms and what to do about them, but that’s too much to unpack for today.) We're not here to minimize it.

There's a whole other side of this story that barely gets airtime because it’s not dramatic and bad and marketable. What’s cool is it's not wishful thinking or toxic positivity. It's research. Real, published, peer-reviewed research.

So let's talk about what's going right. Because it’s pretty awesome.

Your brain is reorganizing, not declining.

During perimenopause, your amygdala (the part of your brain responsible for fear and social anxiety) becomes less reactive to disapproval. At the same time, your prefrontal cortex (logic, decision-making, big-picture thinking) starts taking the lead.

In plain terms? External approval and validation aren’t the same level of importance anymore. That doesn’t mean we’re being difficult. It’s our brain literally restructuring itself and providing clarity.

When estrogen dips, so does the biological urge to fawn and people-please, to smooth things over and nurture and keep everyone around comfortable. We still care about people and still are capable of deep empathy. We just stop people-pleasing at the expense of ourselves. And when progesterone decreases, some of the anxiety that kept you second-guessing every word you said yesterday decreases too. Thank goodness.

That thing where you suddenly don’t panic when you set a boundary without rehearsing it in your head for two days first? That's neuroscience, not snarky attitude.

Women in menopause are finding their voice. For reals.

A systematic qualitative review published in Health Promotion International found that women going through this transition reported finding their voice and feeling able to speak out for themselves. They became more assertive. Less tolerant of things that didn't serve them. More willing to prioritize their own wellbeing.

Women in the study described this phase as a time of personal transformation. Deeper spiritual connections. Renewed relationships. A greater commitment to physical health. One participant said it felt like being reborn and seeing the world differently.

That doesn't mean every day feels like a rebirth. Some days feel like a dumpster fire. But it’s important to acknowledge the balance and pause for a moment (pun intended) and appreciate the wholeness of what’s happening.

The creativity surge is not a myth.

Margaret Mead, the anthropologist, coined the term "postmenopausal zest" to describe the physical and psychological surge of energy women experience after menopause. Her famous line? "There is no more creative force in the world than a menopausal woman with zest."

A 2023 academic study in Gender, Work & Organization confirmed it. Women do experience a new creative energy during this transition. And it's intense. Author Marina Benjamin wrote that most women feel a surge of creative energy in midlife that runs directly counter to the physical symptoms.

There’s something so cool about that. The renewed and passionate creativity doesn't replace the other stuff. It exists alongside it. You can have brain fog at 2pm and a breakthrough idea at 4pm. That's not contradictory. That's balance amongst chaos.

The brain fog lifts.

This one matters because brain fog during perimenopause can feel terrifying. It can shake your self-confidence and make you question your competence, your memory, and your future. Few things make you feel older than, “you lost your keys again?!” jokes.

But there’s good news. A study that followed 2,362 women over four years found that memory and learning ability rebounded after the menopausal transition. Researchers at the University of Rochester found the same pattern: cognitive performance dips during late perimenopause and then improves as women move through to the other side.

It's not a permanent decline. It's a transformation. The construction phase of a butterfly in a cocoon is nothing we want to witness. It’s a bit goopy and messy, but the evolution is beautiful and light and free.

Women 50+ are starting businesses. And they're doing it well.

An AARP study of women entrepreneurs over 50 found that most of them started their businesses because they wanted to, not because they had to. (Ahem - including yours truly.) 27% said they'd always wanted to. 19% did it to follow a passion.

And the women over 50 were less likely to face financial challenges after launching than women in their 40s. 45% of the 50+ group avoided financial challenges entirely, compared to only 29% of women in their 40s.

Why? Wisdom and pattern recognition. Decades of life experience mean you can see problems coming before they arrive. You've made enough mistakes to know which ones matter. You've built enough things to feel confident in what "good enough" looks like.

Menopause doesn't slow that down. In a lot of cases, it speeds it up. When the need to please and nurture everyone else quiets down, the space to build something of your own blossoms. 

So what does this mean for you?

It means that if you're in perimenopause or menopause and you feel like something is shifting, you're right. Something is.

Your brain is reorganizing. Your tolerance for nonsense is dropping. Your creativity is surging. Your ability to make decisions without agonizing over what everyone else thinks is getting stronger.

None of this erases the hard parts. The hot flashes, the sleep disruption, the days where your skin looks meh or does something completely unexpected, the joint pain nobody warned you about. That's all real and it all deserves support.

But so does this: you are entering one of the most creative, clear-headed, and self-aware phases of your life. And that's not a silver lining. That's the main event. It’s why we say, “Every decade gets better.”

The only thing the research doesn't hand you automatically is the decision to do something with it. The door opens on its own. Walking through it is on you.

If you're a millennial just starting to notice the early signs of perimenopause? You have time. You have information your mothers didn't have. You have sunscreen. You have resources for education. You have updated science. Just continue to learn and use sunscreen. It will all be okay!

And if you're Gen X and you just rolled your eyes at that last line? That’s okay too. It means you're still paying attention. We’re already in it. We already know it's not all sunshine. But we also know we’ve survived worse with less information and fewer resources.

So yeah. We see you. You’ve got this, now go get it.

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Sources referenced in this post: Margaret Mead's postmenopausal zest research; Quental and Rojas-Gaviria (2023), "The dialectic of (menopause) zest," Gender, Work and Organization; AARP study on women entrepreneurs 50+; Health Promotion International systematic qualitative review (2025); Herstasis Health Foundation cognitive rebound study; University of Rochester longitudinal menopause cognition study; The Vitality NP neurological research review.