When Oprah Spoke, Something Stirred

Jenni Mears
Jun 4
2 min read

An embodied perspective on what I felt Oprah’s Menopause series that I watched recently didn’t cover but women might need to hear.

When Oprah put menopause front and centre in her recent special, something cracked open. At last the silence was broken, and the cultural taboo lifted just enough to let real stories and honest questions rise to the surface.

For many women, it was validating. Uplifting. A relief to hear someone finally name it. To see menopause given airtime, expertise, and emotional weight.

But for others myself included the conversation still felt incomplete.

What We’re Still Not Saying

We’re still not saying that menopause brings a reckoning.

We’re not talking about:

The rage that bubbles up, unannounced.
The grief that follows us into our dreams.
The clarity that arrives like a lightning strike.

We’re not saying enough about:

How desire evolves but never dies.
How many of us feel invisible and powerful.
How pleasure is not over but asks for new attention.

We’re not saying that menopause is not the end of anything it’s the beginning of a new relationship with self.

A Personal Turning Point

I remember the moment it all cracked open for me.

I was standing in my kitchen, one hand on the kettle, when a wave of heat rose up through my body like wildfire. It wasn’t just a hot flush it was as if something ancient had been disturbed. My skin prickled, my heart raced, and a deep, untouchable grief welled up out of nowhere. I felt furious. Invisible. Unseen.

And then, just as quickly, I felt an unexpected clarity. A knowing. A voice inside that said: Enough.

That moment wasn’t graceful or poetic but it was the beginning of a turning.

I didn’t need to fix my menopause. I needed to listen to it.

A Fembodied Approach to Menopause

In the Fembodiment work I guide and teach, menopause is honoured as a rite of passage not a problem to solve.

This is how we meet it:

Through movement, breath, and sound.
Through pelvic reconnection.
Through pleasure and emotional truth.
Through making space for power to rise.

We learn to listen.

We learn to feel.

We learn to come home.

This Is Our Time

Oprah helped raise the volume. Now it’s our turn to deepen the conversation.

To every woman in her 40s, 50s, 60s and beyond:

Your body is not broken.

You are not fading.

You are remembering.

And the world needs what you are becoming.

Want to explore a more embodied path through menopause?

Let’s rewrite this rite of passage together.

“Menopause isn’t a decline, it’s a return.”

Jenni Mears , Creator and Teacher of the Fembodiment Method