HuronPerthBoomers_Spring2022

y Jo Davis
As Mary Oliver said in her famous poem The
Summer Day, “What is it you plan to do with your
one wild and precious life?”
As I approached my 50th birthday, this question
spun around in my head and a voice kept repeating,
“It’s time… it’s time!”
“Time for what?” I wondered.
As the day came and went, the answer began to
reveal itself. I’m now 50. Time is not infinite. If
there are things I want to do, now is the time to
start.
After over 25 years working as a professional in the
social profit sector, and receiving some life-altering
coaching myself, I decided to embark on a journey
to become a personal development coach. I was
unsettled by this throw-caution-to-the-wind decision,
but halfway through one of the courses, I had an
overwhelming, solid, confident feeling that coaching
was my calling. Did it matter that I was in my early-
50s? Was it too late?
Over the next two years, I completed my training
and became a Certified Professional Co-Active
Coach (CPCC). I put out my shingle and started my
business. As I was developing my niche, a wise coach
asked me who I was drawn to and who was coming
to me. I realized that all of my clients were women,
just like me, in their 50s and 60s, experiencing a
new kind of phase in their lives. We all had so many
uncanny similarities – children launching (who am
I now?), desire for more meaning and giving back
(generativity), needing a shift in perspective or a
new career, fear of ageism, and increasing health
concerns.
I got more curious and began a conversation about
this with a young friend. She said that in Traditional
Chinese Medicine, when a woman has finished her
childbearing years and enters menopause, her life
LIFESTYLE
force or chi energy moves upwards to her heart and
mind. This gives rise to a new, refreshed life phase or
a “Second Spring.”
This knowledge has been around for thousands of
years. The following is an excerpt from The Yellow
Emperor’s Classic Medicine, a famous book written in
China around 2,600 BC.
“At seven times seven a woman’s heavenly dew wanes;
the pulse of her Conception channel decreases. The
Qi that dwelt in the baby’s palace moves upward
into her heart, and her wisdom is deepened.” (Ni,
1995, as cited in Nelson, 2019)
This poetic way of explaining the mental and
physiological changes that occur during menopause
made perfect sense to me. This is what my clients
were describing – the presence of a new phase, a
letting go, an opportunity for renewal and navigating
minimal space. I began to delve more deeply into
this idea of a new adult phase of life for women.
As I read and listened, my thoughts got a little
clearer. In our culture we have markers or signposts
for women – daughter, young woman, mother,
grandmother – but there is a missing marker.
Between mother and grandmother, in our 50s and
60s and even 70s, there is a phase that is discernibly
different. It can feel robust, healthy, sexy, wise and
knowledgeable. Unfortunately, in our western
culture, women often feel the opposite – invisible,
washed up, “over the hill,” and in decline.
My thoughts were that we needed a mindset shift,
to reclaim and redefine this phase and throw off the
negative stereotypes our culture has given it. It is
and should be a time when wisdom and experience
are celebrated and deeply held values lived out with
intention and purpose. As Gail Sheehy said in her
book, Sex and the Passionate Life, “A seasoned woman
is spicy, she has marinated in life experience. She
is at the peak of her influence and power. She is
SPRING 2022 • 27