Late Perimenopause, The Dark Night of the Soul, and What It Was Really Preparing Me For

late perimenopause

If it feels like everything is falling apart, this might be why.

I originally wrote this in September 2025 and for some reason I didn’t post it… so its here today, shared in its original form, but now I am now out the other side.
I have been post menopause for 3 months, and I feel the most stable, secure, present, energised and whole than I have been before.

…..

I want to share something I have been sitting with for a while now ~ my own experience of late perimenopause and what felt, at its most intense, like a dark night of the soul.

Not because it was easy to live through. It wasn't.

But because I know there are women reading this who are in the middle of something similar right now, wondering what is wrong with them, and I want them to know: nothing is wrong. Something very important is happening.

If you prefer to watch and listen, the full version of this story is on YouTube: https://youtu.be/PZ_cOrWboss?si=Icj4ENz2TwI0aMCU

What we think perimenopause is ~ and what it can actually be

When we talk about perimenopause, the conversation tends to go straight to the physical: hot flushes, disrupted sleep, changing hormones. Those are real, and they matter.

But for me, the bigger story was something else entirely.

It was crashing fatigue. And a flood of subconscious beliefs rising to the surface ~ beliefs I thought I had long since dealt with. Around money. Around desire. Around feeling enough.

All of it came back up.

What I have come to understand is that perimenopause ~ particularly in its later stages ~ can act like a direct line into the psyche. The hormonal shifts that are happening in the body create conditions in which the subconscious mind can no longer hold what it has been holding. What has been suppressed, avoided, or managed begins to surface. Not to break you. To be finally seen and released.

This is not what most women are told to expect.

And it is, I think, one of the most important things to understand about this time of life.

My own story: from avoidance to awakening

Around the time I launched The Becoming programme in February 2024, I made a quiet request to my body. I was 49, about to turn 50, and I asked to be taken through menopause.

Our bodies are always listening.

Not long after, everything shifted. I began experiencing intense oestrogen crashes. Up until then I had had very few symptoms. Now, at 51, I can see just how powerful that intention was ~ and how completely my system responded to it.

Two months before I wrote this, I hit what I now recognise as a dark night of the soul. I have been through periods like this before over the past decade of my own inner work. But this one was the most acute. It felt like ego death ~ the culmination of an identity shift that has been unfolding slowly, in layers, alongside the perimenopause itself.

At the time, it felt like failure.

I questioned everything. After all this inner work: the inner child work, the shadow work, the subconscious reprogramming, the nervous system recalibration, how could I still be here? What was I doing wrong? Wasn't I supposed to feel grounded and clear by now?

Looking back, I understand it differently.

My psyche, my body, my whole being were clearing out the last remnants of old stories. Preparing space for what comes next. The beliefs that had run quietly beneath the surface for decades ~ around survival, around being enough, around trusting life ~ were coming up for the final time. Not to torture me. To be liberated.

The moment everything collapsed ~ and something opened

In July 2025, everything came crashing down at exactly the moment something wonderful was also unfolding.

Dr Bruce Lipton had just featured The Becoming in his newsletter. It was a moment I had dreamed of: a genuine acknowledgment from someone whose work has shaped so much of my own understanding. And in the same week, my body collapsed.

I was burning out. Aching. Spiking between anxiety and freeze. Crying constantly, without always knowing why.

It forced me to stop. Completely.

And in that stopping, I had to face the survival-based fears and beliefs I had been carrying for years ~ some of them since childhood, buried so deep I had not even known they were still there. The subconscious mind does not always reveal its layers in the order we would choose.

What felt like collapse was a breakthrough in disguise.

This is what late perimenopause can do, when we understand it rather than fight it.

It strips away illusions. It brings up what is hidden. It says, quietly and then louder: you cannot carry this any further. Not because you have failed. Because you are ready to set it down.

The nervous system in perimenopause

One of the things that helped me most during this time was understanding what was happening in my nervous system.

Perimenopause does not just affect hormones. It profoundly affects the nervous system ~ the same system that governs our sense of safety, our capacity to regulate emotion, our ability to rest and recover. The drop in oestrogen affects the way the brain processes threat. It reduces the buffer that kept anxiety manageable. It can shift the nervous system into a more sensitised state, where things that were once tolerable suddenly feel overwhelming.

This is not weakness. This is physiology.

And it means that nervous system support becomes essential during this time — not optional. Breath practices. Nature connection. Slow, intentional movement. Creating genuine safety in the body, rather than pushing through on willpower.

The heart-centred breath practice I returned to again and again during my own dark night was simple. Bring your focus to the centre of your chest. Breathe in and out through that space, a little slower than usual. Repeat, silently or aloud: I am supported. I am safe. I am becoming more of who I truly am.

This is not a trick. It is a way of speaking directly to the nervous system in its own language ~ sensation and breath ~ rather than trying to think your way to calm.

The subconscious mind and the perimenopausal threshold

What I experienced, and what I now see in the women I work with, is that perimenopause and the deeper subconscious work are not separate processes. They are the same process, moving through different layers of the self at the same time.

The subconscious mind ~ the part that holds our earliest beliefs about whether we are safe, worthy, and loved ~ responds to the hormonal and nervous system changes of perimenopause by beginning to surface what has been stored. Patterns that were adaptive in childhood. Beliefs that were formed before we had the capacity to question them. Inner child wounds that never quite received what they needed.

This is why so many women find that the patterns they thought they had resolved come back during perimenopause. It is not regression. It is completion.

The work is not to push these things back down. It is to meet them ~ with the tools, the support, and the self-compassion that perhaps were not available earlier in life.

This is what I guide women through. And it is the same work I did on myself, in the forest, in the quiet, in the sessions where I had to be held rather than holding.

Nature as a co-guide through the dark

I want to say something about the forest during this time, because it was not incidental to my recovery. It was central to it.

When I could not think clearly, I walked in the trees.

When the anxiety was spiking and the nervous system would not settle, the woodland settled it ~ not by doing anything dramatic, but by simply being. The constancy of it. The smell of it. The way it has no agenda for who you are supposed to be.

Nature is a co-regulator. This is not metaphor, it is measurable. Time in woodland environments lowers cortisol, reduces heart rate, shifts the nervous system from activation toward rest. But beyond the physiology, there is something else. The forest in autumn is stripped bare and does not apologise for it. The tree does not worry about losing its leaves. It trusts the season.

I often think of that image when I think about what perimenopause is asking of us.

The leaves fall. The branches are stripped bare. It looks, from the outside, like loss or even death. But it is preparation. Space is being created for the woman you are becoming.

A note on support

I want to say clearly, before anything else: perimenopause can feel profoundly intense. For some women, the hormonal shifts, the nervous system sensitisation, and the surfacing of old material can create experiences that feel genuinely overwhelming or fragile.

If that is where you are, please reach out — to trusted people in your life, to your GP, to a professional who can hold the space with you. This is not a time to manage alone. It is a time to be held.

The work I do is not therapy, and it is not a substitute for clinical support when that is what is needed. What it is, is a space where the deeper layers of this transition can be met with understanding, with the right tools, and with genuine accompaniment.

What becomes possible on the other side

I am now out the other side, and have been post menopause for 3 months, and I feel the most stable, secure, present, energised and whole than I have been before.

However, when I originally wrote this piece, I had another 6 months to go, I want to be honest about that. The integration continued.

But even in July of last year, I could see what was emerging on the other side of the dark night. A steadiness I did not have before.
A clearer sense of what is mine and what is not. Less noise. Less performing. A quieter, more rooted relationship with myself and with the work I am here to do.

What felt like failure was the final clearing.

What felt like collapse was the ground being prepared.

And now I can fully confirm this is my lived embodied experience… I really am grateful to have rebirthed myself in this way.

If you are in the middle of your own version of this ~ if midlife, perimenopause, or something you cannot quite name has brought you to a place of unravelling ~ I want you to know that what is happening to you is not wrong.

It is the most important work of your life.

And you do not have to do it alone.

Ways to begin

If this has landed somewhere in you, there are a few places to start.

The Becoming is the audio programme I created from my own journey through this — six modules that work gently with the subconscious mind as you drift to sleep and wake, using the brain's natural theta state to begin shifting the beliefs and patterns that perimenopause is surfacing. No extra time needed. You simply listen. It is the most accessible way I know to begin this layer of the work. Explore The Becoming

Return to Yourself is a single 90-minute online session — a grounded, unhurried space to step out of the loop and come back to yourself, wherever you are in this journey. Find out more

Becoming More You is the deeper, longer container — six months of 1:1 work where the subconscious patterns, inner child wounds, nervous system responses, and everything perimenopause is surfacing can be met and worked with over time. Application only.
Find out more

Frequently asked questions

What is a dark night of the soul during perimenopause?

A dark night of the soul is a period of intense inner upheaval ~ a sense of identity dissolution, often accompanied by grief, anxiety, exhaustion, or a feeling that everything you thought you knew about yourself is falling away. During perimenopause, these experiences can be intensified by hormonal shifts that affect the nervous system and lower the threshold at which suppressed material rises to the surface. Far from being a sign of failure, a dark night of the soul is often a profound threshold moment ~ the clearing that precedes a deeper emergence.

Why do old patterns and beliefs come back during perimenopause?

The hormonal changes of perimenopause ~ particularly the drop in oestrogen ~ affect the nervous system in ways that can reduce the capacity to suppress or manage what has been held in the subconscious. Patterns, beliefs, and emotional material that felt resolved can resurface. This is not regression. It is the subconscious offering what is ready to be finally released, in a body and nervous system that is shifting into a new phase.

What is the subconscious mind's role in perimenopause?

The subconscious mind holds the beliefs and emotional patterns formed in early life about safety, worth, love, and belonging. During perimenopause, as the nervous system becomes more sensitised and the body undergoes significant change, the subconscious often begins to surface what it has been holding. This can feel disorienting, but it is also a profound opportunity to work with these patterns at their root rather than continuing to manage them at the surface.

How does nature connection help during perimenopause?

Nature ~ particularly time in woodland environments ~ has been shown to regulate the nervous system, reduce cortisol, and shift the body from a state of stress activation toward rest. During perimenopause, when the nervous system is often sensitised and the capacity to self-regulate is reduced, nature connection offers a form of co-regulation that is gentle, non-invasive, and deeply effective. It also provides a reminder that stripping back, like the forest in autumn, is not ending but preparation.

What is the difference between perimenopause symptoms and a deeper identity shift?

Perimenopause symptoms ~ hot flushes, sleep disruption, mood changes, fatigue ~ are real and deserve care. But many women also experience something that goes beyond the physical during this time: a profound questioning of identity, values, and direction. Old roles no longer fitting. A sense that the self constructed over decades is being asked to change. This is the identity shift dimension of perimenopause, and it is psychological and spiritual in nature, not just hormonal.

With love, Delyth x

Delyth Johnson is a therapeutic practitioner and founder of Becoming Your True Nature. She supports women through midlife and perimenopause — online and in person in the Lake District and South Cumbria. You can explore her work at becomingyourtruenature.com