Pleasure, Power, Presence

Menopause arrived like a new dashboard light.

Not a warning — an invitation.

A soft, persistent glow asking me to slow down, to listen, to recalibrate.

At 45, it began quietly.

My sleep thinned.

My sex drive dimmed.

My body dried in places I never imagined would lose their language.

My moods swung like weather fronts I couldn’t predict.

I thought something was wrong with me.

I thought I was fading.

I thought this was the beginning of the end of my sensuality.

But it wasn’t.

It was the beginning of my return.

Natural supplements helped me find my footing again — the ones I now share on my Wellness by Shannon blog because no woman should have to navigate this terrain alone. But the deeper shift wasn’t in the products. It was from the perspective.

Menopause shone a light on me as a woman — not the woman I had been, but the woman I was becoming.

A woman who no longer chases youth but courts vitality.

A woman who lets pleasure be her compass.

A woman who understands that dryness doesn’t mean depletion — it means attention.

It means nourishment.

It means choosing myself with intention.

Now, at 53, seven years into this journey, I treat my body like the Ferrari she is.

Not for speed, but for sensation.

For curves.

For the way she hums when I honor her.

She’s not broken.

She’s brilliant.

And she’s always been trying to steer me home.

I haven’t had my moon since April of last year.

They say one full year marks the crossing into cronehood.

Crone — a word so many misunderstand.

To me, it means wise.

It means seasoned.

It means I’ve earned every insight I now carry.

It means I get to give back — not as an authority, but as a guide.

Not with instructions, but with open‑ended invitations.

Menopause, for me, doesn’t mean drying up.

It means juicing up — physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally.

It means choosing natural supplements that support my internal ecosystem.

It means eating foods that nourish my brain and my body.

It means moving in ways that make me feel whole.

It means practicing the self‑care I write about, not as a performance, but as a devotion.

This season is not a decline.

It is a deepening.

A ripening.

A reclamation.

If you’re somewhere on this path — at the beginning, in the messy middle, or stepping into your own wise‑woman years — I want you to know this:

You are not losing yourself.

You are meeting yourself.

And she is extraordinary.