What to do during perimenopause: Reconnecting With Your Body During Perimenopause

Welcome to the podcast.
In this series, we’ll explore perimenopause through a unique lens—drawing from female wisdom across cultures, lived experiences, and identities. We'll look beyond just symptoms and science, and instead focus on how you can define your own version of health and claim your power during this transformative time.

As a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist trained in systemic thinking, I bring a different perspective. While many podcasts focus on hormones, medications, and clinical terms, this space centers the emotional, social, and cultural systems that shape how we experience perimenopause—and how we’ve been taught to understand womanhood itself.

We’ll talk about hobbies, health, identity, nutrition, and so much more—all with a focus on insight and empowerment.

This podcast is created for all women—trans women, cisgender women, biological females, women of all ethnicities, disabled women, single or partnered—and for the people who love and support them.

Join me on this journey, and feel free to share your thoughts in the comments. Let’s grow through this together.

Transcript:

Why We Become Disembodied

Hi, I’m Katherine Linscott, and welcome back to the What To Do During Perimenopause podcast. We’re now in part four of our series, and today we’re diving into a big one: embodiment.

But before we get into how to embody more fully during perimenopause, we need to talk about what gets in the way. Why is it so hard to stay in our bodies — or even find our way back to them in the first place?

The truth is, embodiment is not simple. Especially not in this fast-paced, digital world that prioritizes productivity over presence and conformity over authenticity. We’re swimming in unspoken rules, systemic bias, and institutions built by the powerful — often for the powerful.

So before we talk embodiment, let’s explore two core themes that deeply affect our ability to stay embodied: values and abilities.

Values: The Disconnect Between Who We Are and the World We Live In

In Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), values are treated as guiding principles — the compass that points us toward meaning. But our values evolve, and sometimes the values that shaped our decisions in our 20s or 30s don’t align with who we are now in our 40s or 50s. That’s an uncomfortable place to be.

This mismatch between personal values and the dominant values of our society — patriarchy, capitalism, ableism, amatonormativity, cisnormativity — causes enormous dissonance. When our culture rewards certain identities (able-bodied, heterosexual, cisgender, male, neurotypical, wealthy, religious, etc.) and sidelines others, it becomes harder and harder to live authentically.

And that dissonance shows up in our bodies.

Here are just a few real-life examples of how misalignment between values and systems creates disembodiment:

• Disabled individuals being denied accommodations or forced to work full-time to afford basic care.

• Women in perimenopause experiencing intense symptoms with no access to effective treatment.

• Neurodivergent people feeling alienated in rigid workplace structures.

• Marginalized communities being told to “lighten up” after a microaggression.

When you live in a world that doesn't reflect or support your values, it becomes easier to disconnect from your body. Disembodiment becomes a survival strategy.

Abilities: The Unseen Barriers to Belonging

Let’s talk about ability — physical, mental, emotional, and societal.

Historically, religion framed disability as a punishment for sin. While we don’t hear that language as much today, its legacy lives on in toxic cultural messages like:

• “What you put in is what you’ll get out.”

• “Be kind and life will reward you.”

• “Just try harder.”

These ideas imply that suffering is deserved — that those who struggle just haven’t done enough. This creates shame, invisibility, and disconnection.

In reality, disability and chronic illness are still erased in public life. Consider:

• Lack of accessible media for deaf children.

• Few ramps or braille materials in public spaces.

• Rare workplace accommodations for chronic pain or illness.

• Service dogs misunderstood and mocked in public.

How can we embody ourselves when society insists only "abled" bodies are worthy of belonging?

Embodiment During Perimenopause: Finding Our Way Back

Embodiment is often born out of protest. When you’re erased or ignored, showing up in your full humanity is radical. For those in perimenopause — often exhausted, emotional, unseen — the act of staying present in our bodies can feel impossible.

But I’m not angry at perimenopause. I’m angry at a culture that refuses to make space for it. I’m angry that the people who hold power — often abled, male, and unaffected — can ignore us while labeling our pain as “too much.” I’ve been called a “bitch” and “reactive.” So have my clients. And so have you, probably.

It wasn’t always this way. There was a time when people could be “Two-Spirit,” when tattoos held sacred meaning, when identities were embodied and celebrated. But once the “-isms” took over — patriarchy, racism, ableism — embodiment became conditional.

You used to live your embodiment every second of every day. Now it’s: “What self-care can I squeeze in on Friday night?”

How to Practice Embodiment During Perimenopause

I can’t cover every identity or ability here. But I want to focus on how perimenopause offers a doorway back to embodiment — if we’re willing to step through it.

Perimenopause often shows up like a thunderstorm:

• Rage outbursts you didn’t see coming.

• Sleepless nights.

• Cognitive fog.

• Physical and emotional exhaustion.

• Feeling invisible and misunderstood.

It’s easy to feel like a stranger in your own skin. But this shift is also an invitation. Perimenopause asks: What do you need now?

Start small:

• Try a new anti-inflammatory cookbook.

• Take a walk on a nearby trail.

• Make homemade banana-avocado face masks and read something just for you.

• Or begin therapy and explore who you are now.

Embodiment and Internal Family Systems (IFS)

IFS has transformed the way my clients (and I) experience embodiment. This therapy honors both the mind and the body. It helps us discover the parts of us carrying pain — often younger parts stuck in panic, fear, or shame — and gently unburden them.

When that happens, something powerful emerges: curiosity, joy, creativity, strength.

I’ve seen clients rearrange their homes, start new rituals, or explore movement that speaks to their soul. Some collected rocks with personal meaning. Some practiced chair yoga with grief specialist Paul Denniston (his free resources are amazing). You don’t have to be pain-free, fit, or rich to begin.

Embodiment becomes possible again — even in a broken world.

You Matter. You Always Have.

You might not be there yet. You might still believe your needs come last — after your kids, your partner, your job. You might still be waiting for the “right time” to rediscover who you are.

That’s called self-silencing — and we’ll talk more about it in the next episode.

But hear me now: You matter. Your well-being is not optional. When women thrive, the whole world shifts.

Thanks for joining me today. Next time, we’ll dive into healing from self-silencing — especially during perimenopause — and how reclaiming your voice can help you live more authentically.

You deserve you. Until next time.

[ID: Every female in perimenopause needs a good hair expert, active hobby, experiential psychotherapist, and friends. She needs all the advocates she can get that empower her to be her own greatest advocate. Quote by Katherine Linscott, LMFT. End ID]