Why I’m Writing a Book Called Sexy Menopause

And Why It's Not What You Think

I never thought I’d write a book with the word sexy in the title. Let alone Sexy Menopause. It may sound like an oxymoron to some. Controversial? I agree. And yet—as a pelvic and sexual health advocate—I’m summoning all my courage to put these words together. For so many important reasons.

Lisa Fitzpatrick photographed by Kate Nutt

This is one of those photos where I look like I have it all together — but the truth is, I’ve walked through heartbreak and soul fire to arrive here. Sexy Menopause isn’t about having it all figured out. It’s about reclaiming what’s always been sacred, even in our most broken moments.

The more I research and write, delve and play in the depths of this subject, the more convinced I am that these words together form an alchemy that is deeply yearned for.

There are approximately 1.01 billion women over the age of 45 on this planet—around 25% of the global female population—who are either experiencing, or have walked through, their second spring. Many of these women are still sexually active, yet their deeper desirous nature is barely represented in mainstream media.

For years, women have arrived in my clinic and workshops—smart, soulful, experienced, accomplished. They lean in and whisper their confessions. I’ve learned to keep the tissues close by for these moments. Because what they reveal, they reveal in layers:

“I don’t feel like myself anymore.”
“My libido has disappeared.”
“I don’t understand why sex feels different.”

“Am I the only woman with these concerns?”

“Am I broken?”

“Is this permanent?”

These aren’t women who are broken. These are women who’ve never been given permission to understand age with agency. Women who’ve internalised the cultural lie that sexuality has an expiry date. Women who light up when they’re told:

There is no expiry on desire.
Yes, things change. But that change holds immense power.
Sexuality can be reclaimed—no matter how long it’s been dormant, disrupted, or denied.

Somewhere in those quietly poignant conversations—the kind only women can have with one another—I realised:
This isn’t just about vaginal changes or hormone shifts.

This is about identity. Power. Desire.
This is about redefining what it means to be alive, embodied, and unashamed in midlife and beyond.

It’s about discovering a new vitality—one rooted not in youth, but in reverence.
In surrender and wholeness.

And I’ve come to realise that we are wiser - especially when we choose partners who honour our depth. This may take a few counterfeit relationships and false starts.
We are more alive when we realise that sexuality doesn’t always require partnership—it may simply be a deeper intimacy with ourselves, or with the divine.

And perhaps most liberating of all:
We are free when we stop tolerating immature, emotionally abusive or unsuitable partners—and choose peace instead.

Here’s what I’ve come to know—through a lifetime of clinical work and my own unfolding:

Sexy doesn’t disappear with age.
It transforms.
Often into something richer, slower, deeper, more fulfilling than we ever experienced in our youth.

Personally, midlife has freed me from many of the constraints I felt as a younger woman. Self-consciousness and Catholic guilt have been replaced by confidence and clarity. I know my body. I know what feels safe, what feels sacred, and when to say no.

Menopause has brought with it a deep I-couldn’t-care-less-what-you-think energy.
This is the spirit I want to carry into the public conversation about sex and aging.

Because so many of my midlife patients arrive with their sexual identity in crisis. They feel misunderstood, invisible, unrepresented. They don’t know where to turn with their questions about sex, desire, and the body.

They might lead in their workplaces. Raise children and care for elderly parents. Survive heartbreak and betrayal. But this one part of their identity—their sexual self—feels like uncharted territory.

The Maga woman’s version of sexy is no longer about being youthful, thin, or pleasing to the male gaze.
Sexy in menopause is deeper. Wiser. More sovereign.

It’s sensuality as sacred communion.
It’s confidence born from lived experience.
It’s pleasure without performance.
It’s grief and rage transmuted into power - when given the right support.

It takes into account the stories the pelvis holds.
The traumas. The joys. The untold aches and betrayals.

Menopause and sex are ingredients in a sacred cauldron—when simmered with care, they alchemise past the betrayals, traumas, and inauthentic connections into spiritual sovereignty.

To truly meet a woman in her midlife erotic power is a crucible—and a crown—for the healthy, awakened masculine.
We need more of these men.
And we need more women in midlife and beyond, to claim their thrones.

When women are seen, supported, and lovingly witnessed, sex in the menopausal years becomes an opportunity for radical self-prioritisation. For desire and self-care. For boundaries. For healing.

For many women, menopause is not a closing down—it’s an initiation.
A surrender to mystery.
A homecoming to the body as a temple.
A shedding of what no longer serves.
A redemption of the feminine spirit.

Reclaiming sexual power in mid and later life may well be one of the most peak spiritual experiences of a woman’s life.

Sexy, in this context, is not a look.
It’s a frequency. And a form of grace.

It is a return.
A homecoming.
A surrender into something deeper, more elemental, more spiritually embodied.

And menopause? It’s not the ending we were taught to fear.
It’s the portal no one prepared us for.

It asks us to let go of who we were, so we can rise into who we truly are in the eyes of our Creator.

When we stop bleeding, we don’t stop being women.
We become the medicine.

We become co-creators instead of pro-creators.
Vision-holders.
Wisdom-keepers.
Role models of intuition.

This phase isn’t sterile. It’s sacred.

Because when the hormonal noise quietens, soul starts to speak.
Our bodies reveal how divinity wishes to express through us.

And yes, this awakening touches sex too.

Not as performance.
Not for validation.
But as sacred revelation.

We’re not here to be consumed. Or contorted. Or proved. We have nothing to prove - to anyone.

We’re here to connect.
To explore intimacy.
To merge with the divine in our own skin.

Partnered or unpartnered. Queer, straight, or still discovering.

We’ve been taught that aging women should become quieter, smaller, less provocative.

That our sexuality fades—or worse, becomes inappropriate—with time.

But what if that’s the lie?

What if our desire doesn’t die—it just deepens, waiting patiently beneath perfectionism and people-pleasing?

What if menopause strips away the striving so we can feel the truth of our sensual, sovereign, spiritual selves - beyond the physical changes?

Last week, I received a phone call from a patient. She thanked me.
We had worked through her menopausal sexual health challenges in my clinic—including painful sex due to age-related vaginal changes.

She and her husband were singing my praises, she confessed.
Because their intimacy had been restored.
Because their marriage was thriving again.

That call was one of the highlights of my career.
And it’s what inspired me to keep writing.

So yes, I’m writing Sexy Menopause even though my voice is shaking.

Because midlife is not the death of desire—it is the birth of a deeper, more devotional intimacy.

With our bodies.
With our lovers.
With the divine.

This book is not just a how-to manual.
It’s a reclamation and a redemptive conversation.
A love letter to the women who were never told they could feel radiant, raw, or ravished beyond 40.

And I want you to be part of it.

I’d love to know:
What do you want to see in this book?
What’s missing from the conversation around menopause, sex, aging, and feminine embodiment?
What truths have you carried in silence?

Please like, comment, and share your thoughts below.
Forward this post to someone who needs to know she’s not alone.
Hit Subscribe to follow the journey as this book comes to life.

Because we are not invisible.
And we are only just beginning to awaken.

A Letter to the Woman Who's Just Realised She's Not Safe

Dear Love,

If you’re reading this, it’s because a small — perhaps trembling — voice inside of you has started whispering something terrifying and uncertain:

“I don’t think I’m safe here.”

Not necessarily in a bruises-and-emergency-room-wounded kind of way.
But in a soul-safety, emotional stability, my-body-feels-numb-and-shaky kind of way.

Maybe your body contracts when your partner’s mood shifts.
Maybe you rehearse conversations in your head before speaking.
Maybe you've started apologising for things you didn’t do, and feeling yourself shrinking to take up less space.

You’ve stopped talking to friends because it feels easier not to explain. It’s complicated. You’re not sure they’d understand. You don’t want to burden them with a hunch and you doubt your reality.

Your body has started to freeze, guard or numb when he touches you, and it feels impossible to relax in his presence.

Maybe you’re wondering:

“Is it me?”
“Am I over-reacting?”
“Is this just how all long-term relationships are after a while?”

No, it’s not you.

Your body knows.
Your nervous system is telling you the truth.
And the truth is: you do not feel safe.

I know what it’s like to stay.
To justify, to minimise what is happening, to hope it’s just your imagination.
To romanticise someone’s potential.

I know what it’s like to make a sacred commitment
To cling to breadcrumbs of kindness, because you're starving for the version of them you met in the beginning, who presented everything you’d ever looked for and dreamed of.

I know what it’s like to believe that everyone you meet has genuine empathy and care.

I know what it’s like to filter out the emotional abuse, because you see the wounded child in them and you believe your love can heal anything.

I know what it’s like to feel too scared to leave but to be stuck in a trauma-bond that binds you like an addict.

But here’s the truth:
Love shouldn’t feel like walking on eggshells.
It shouldn’t erode your self-worth, or silence your brilliance, or turn you into a ghost of the woman you used to be. You should not be looking in a mirror with utter self-loathing, seeing a version of yourself that is barely recognisable.

Love should not feel as though you are performing. Striving to be noticed and desired, like you were in the beginning.

Love should not feel like trying to put a snake in a bag.

Even if he’s never laid a hand on you.
Even if you still cling to beautiful memories.
Even if you’re scared to leave because he conditioned and brain-washed you to believe that he was your rock and sole source of sanity.

“Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.” — Matthew 7:15

I’m not here to tell you what to do.
I’m here to tell you that your knowing is real. You can trust that deep, small voice, even though she is shaky right now. There is something not quite right here and you are allowed to question it. In fact, I encourage you to, because truth will always set you free.

Let me tell you something important. Your life, your light, your entire being is too sacred to stay in a place where your safety — emotional, spiritual, or physical — is not honoured and cherished.

Your soul-force is too powerful to be drained by the energy vampire who has been piping out and emptying you insidiously, methodically, strategically.

If you need permission, let this be it:

You are allowed to leave.
You are allowed to grieve.
You are allowed to protect your peace more fiercely than another’s feelings.
You are allowed to choose yourself — even if no one else understands.

Freedom isn’t always a grand or elegant exit.
Sometimes, freedom is just one brave moment at a time towards faith and trust and truth. Sometimes it’s choosing your peace - and then watching as your healthy boundary eliminates the energy vampire, who was never capable of genuinely empathising with your feelings, from the beginning.

One step at a time. One truth at a time.

One deep breath that finally, fully exhales and declares:
“I’m not crazy. I’m waking up and this is reality with the torchlight of truth shining upon it.”

In your awakening, please ask these three questions -

If someone you loved (a daughter, a niece) was being spoken to and treated like this, what would you tell her?

If someone told this inverse love-story backwards, would it reveal a continuous, exhausting cycle of discard, devaluation, love-bombing?

What would love do?

With fierce love and a core belief in your ability to heal completely,
Lisa
Someone who knows the path back to herself

Join me on Substack

The Feminine Shift is a reader-supported publication.
To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

The Quiet Power of Post-Traumatic Growth Factor (PTGF)

An Unexpected and Often Unexplored Part of Healing from a Toxic Relationship

Emerging from a season of deep emotional upheaval and betrayal — the kind that leaves you gasping and being rearranged from the inside out — is disorienting. Especially when the trauma has come from someone you once trusted, loved, or built a life and future around.

The dismantling of reality may have already been in motion from the gas-lighting, subtle and insidious put-downs and a deeply unsettling sense of confusion that are a hallmark of a toxic relationship. These are no foundation for a healthy relationship. They cause a deeply traumatic aftermath as the trauma bonds break apart post-relationship. For anyone who has ever experienced this type of break-up, it is so very different to a normal break-up. It is fire and brimstone like no other. Akin to turning all of your hopes and dreams to ashes. There are no words to adequately describe the pain when someone you thought you knew, becomes a stranger overnight.

If you are brave enough to sit in the quietude of this season, listening to the deeper sounds of life rearranging itself oh-so-delicately around your new and unasked for normal.

Slowly, something starts to shift.

And it is unexpectedly beautiful, nourishing and glorious.

Give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness - Isaiah 61:3

It doesn’t happen all at once. Or dramatically. Small flickers of insight, clarity, and inner knowing start to take root and grow. There is a small, reassuring sense of deep peace in the heart. A stillness that craves to be savoured. A sense of liberation from bondage. Wings that move across the heavens to elevate your awareness above the white-noise of the world at large.

This healing is what psychologists call Post-Traumatic Growth Factor (PTGF).
It’s the idea that, after trauma, we don’t just return to “normal.”
We rise.
We rebuild something stronger, deeper, and often far more aligned with who we truly are.

So what is Post-Traumatic Growth?

PTGF is a research-based phenomenon where individuals experience positive psychological change after enduring adversity. It doesn’t mean the trauma was “worth it” — but it does mean that something profound can still emerge because of it.

People report:

• A deeper appreciation for life

• Stronger relationships and boundaries

• Greater spiritual connection

• Renewed life purpose

• Inner strength they never knew they had

If this sounds like a contradiction and paradox, it is. But it’s also very real.
Growth doesn’t erase grief — it grows beside it.

How this looks in real life:

For me, it meant acknowledging I had tolerated emotional discontent and compromise for far too long — not because I was weak, but because I was loyal, loving, and hopeful.

My template for love had been wired for a healthy side plate of emotional turmoil since childhood.
Growth and healing meant understanding that my body, my intuition, and my nervous system had always known the truth — even when my mind wasn’t ready to admit it.

Even now, I find myself in the cognitive dissonance of what I thought was real and what reality turned out to be.

Healing meant beginning the work of putting myself back together, not as I was in the old life of naively trusting, but as who I was meant to be all along - discerning, wise, protected.

It’s still happening. But I never would have imagined that so much pain and heartbreak could come with the side effects of greater trust, faith and deeper connection to my own divinity.

If you’re in the ashes of your own pain right now…

You don’t have to have all the answers.
You don’t have to explain anything to anyone.
You only have to listen to the small quiet reassurance that whispers from me to you now:

“There is life on the other side of this and it is honestly, a better one”

You are not broken. You are becoming.
Even now, growth is unfolding beneath the surface.

True faith relies upon us NOT seeing what is on the other side.

There are riches beyond measure for those who exercise faith and trust when the material, external world is suggesting otherwise and life plunges you into a darkness that you didn’t see coming.

After-all, faith and trust cannot exist where there is complete certainty.

And I am all for a world where faith and trust is no longer so under-rated.

My gentle invitation:

What might be quietly growing in you…
after heartbreak?
after loss?
after this shattering betrayal?

What if it’s something sacred?
What if your healing is a gift that delivers you to a life that is far greater, better, more than you could previously have imagined?

What if this entire experience was pre-destined to awaken you to your greater life purpose?

With fierce loving-kindness,
Lisa
Your sister in post-traumatic rising