Research Note 3 — Is It Menopause, or Just Life?

Conditions for Flourishing After Menopause

Stage: Emerging Observation

I’m a third of the way through the interviews for the Conditions for Flourishing qualitative research, and one thing already seems remarkably consistent: when going through menopause, it can be surprisingly hard to distinguish whether something you’re experiencing is because of menopause — or just because.

Is the tiredness hormonal, or are you simply exhausted? Is the change in confidence menopause, ageing, work, relationships, stress — or some combination of all of them?

That uncertainty seems significant.

Menopause does not happen in isolation. It arrives in the middle of a life already shaped by work, family, health, relationships, responsibilities and change.

Perhaps part of understanding postmenopausal flourishing is therefore not only asking what menopause does to us, but also paying attention to the wider conditions in which the transition takes place.