What if menopause wasn’t an ending… but the beginning of your second spring?

For most of us raised in Western culture, menopause has been framed as decline, loss, disruption, or at best, something to “get through.” But in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), menopause is not a problem to fix — it’s a natural turning point. A gateway. A season of renewal.

This week on the Midlife Reset Podcast, I spoke with Clarissa Kristjansson, an expert in TCM and Qigong for women. If you’re tired of pushing, striving, and powering through, this conversation is your invitation to soften and rediscover your natural rhythm.

And I have to say: Clarissa embodies what she teaches. She joined me in the midst of an international move — calm, grounded, and centered. Proof that these ancient practices work.

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The Chinese Medicine View: Menopause as “Second Spring”

In TCM, women’s lives unfold in seven-year cycles — each building toward a new phase of wisdom and vitality. Menopause marks what is called the second spring, a chapter meant to be spacious, reflective, and rich with possibility.

Compare that to the Western approach, where menstruation is treated like an inconvenience, postpartum recovery is rushed, and perimenopause is marketed as something to fear or suppress.

Clarissa put it simply:

“Menopause is not an illness. But the imbalances we carry into it can make the transition harder than it needs to be.”

Instead of forcing the body to behave like it did at 25, TCM invites us to honor how energy naturally shifts as we move through life.

If we’ve spent decades overriding these cycles — hustling, overworking, skipping rest, pushing through PMS, postpartum, burnout — midlife becomes the moment when all that catching up wants to happen at once.

No wonder so many women feel blindsided.

Why We Feel So Off: The Seasons Within Us

TCM teaches that nature’s seasons live inside the body:

Spring — rising energy, renewalSummer — peak activityLate Summer — grounding, stabilizingAutumn — releaseWinter — deep rest + restoration

Women experience these cycles monthly, yearly, and over the course of a lifetime. But modern life ignores these rhythms completely. We’re eating fridge-cold breakfasts in January, sprinting through 12-hour days, over-scheduling, under-resting, and calling it normal.

So when midlife arrives — a natural decline in yin and jing — the body is already depleted. That’s when symptoms show up: hot flashes, insomnia, anxiety, bloating, mood swings, dryness, brain fog.

Not because menopause is a problem. But because we didn’t honor the seasons on the way here.

The Hidden Cost of Modern Coping

I shared with Clarissa that I hit menopause at 57 — exhausted, burned out, and overcompensating with wine, rich food, bootcamp yoga classes, restrictive diets, and too much travel.

These coping mechanisms are common. They also destabilize the system.

Alcohol, overstimulation, constant output, and emotional suppression all drain yin — the grounding, cooling, restorative force that midlife depends on.

TCM says what we already know deep down: We aren’t meant to live in a perpetual summer.

Eating for Balance: Warm, Moist, Gentle

One of the biggest TCM recommendations for midlife women is deceptively simple: warm, lightly cooked, moistening foods.

Why?

Because digestion slows with hormonal shifts. Cold foods slow it even further. Hot foods overstimulate. And dryness is one of the main symptoms of declining yin.

Clarissa shared some midlife-supportive foods:

* Fermented soy: miso, tempeh, tamariPulses and beansSnow fungus (a collagen-supportive food used for centuries)Warm oats — grounding and moisturizingSoups, stews, steamed vegetablesGentle spices, ginger, cinnamon

These foods support the kidney system, which governs bones, hearing, urogenital health, reproductive energy, and longevity in TCM.

No fancy supplements. Just food that warms, nourishes, and steadies.

Qigong: Gentle Movement, Powerful Medicine

If you’ve only encountered Qigong in a community center or park, you might not know how deep this practice goes — especially for women.

As Clarissa explained, Qigong isn’t “exercise” in the Western sense. It’s medicine. A way to move qi — the life force — through the body.

Her women’s Qigong focuses on:

* grounding and stabilitynourishing the heart and emotional centerreleasing grief and fearsupporting digestion and sleepstrengthening bones and joints

balancing hormonal energy

nurturing the uterus and breasts

And it doesn’t require an hour a day. Ten minutes is enough to shift your energy.

What I loved most is how Qigong mirrors what I teach in yoga therapy: slow down, feel inward, regulate the nervous system, and rebuild trust with your body.

Midlife Is Not Something to Fix

The biggest takeaway from our conversation?

Midlife isn’t a problem — it’s a portal.

It’s not something to control. Or optimize. Or push through. It’s a season to meet with curiosity. A chance to explore ancient practices that have supported women for millennia:

* Traditional Chinese MedicineAyurvedaQigongMindfulnessYoga therapySeasonal eating and living

You don’t need to overhaul your life. Small shifts — warm food, better rest, 10 minutes of movement, emotional honesty — can change everything.

Menopause isn’t the end of anything. It’s the beginning of your second spring.

If you want to explore these practices more deeply:

🌿 Follow Clarissa Kristjansson — her Substack and Qigong offerings are linked in the show notes. 🌱 Check out my free masterclass:The 5-Step Midlife Reset, rooted in yoga, breath, and mindful habit change. 💛 And stay tuned — Clarissa and I will be doing a live session together on Substack soon.

Namaste, Cheryl

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