Episode 88: When There’s No Old Version to Go Back To

Today’s episode is a Midlife Living Journal entry from one of those tender, heavy days. The kind where you feel flat, two days away from your bleed, emotions sitting close to the surface, and your body asking for softness instead of productivity. I watched part of the documentary BALANCE: A Perimenopause Journey, hoping for clarity around perimenopause and HRT, and instead, it stirred up the questions so many of us carry quietly: What if I’d started earlier? What if I’d known sooner? What if I could feel more like me by now?

But here’s what landed as I sat with it. I don’t actually know what normal feels like. For more than two decades, my baseline hasn’t been calm, regulated, or even neutral. It’s been survival. Responsibility. Hypervigilance. Being the one who holds it all together. So two months into HRT, the question isn’t just is this working? It’s deeper than that. Because there is no old version of me to return to. I’m not restoring anything. I’m creating something new: a nervous system learning safety for the first time. Hormones finding rhythm. A body recalibrating after years of running on pure capability.

We also talk about what it’s like when chronic hip and leg pain makes your world smaller, when winter feels long, and when surgery sits in the background like a quiet drumbeat. You’ll hear how I’m preparing in a practical, loving way by simplifying my home, making life easier for Khushi, and building a bridge between who I am now and the woman I’ll be on the other side of recovery. And if you’ve been feeling more inward lately, less interested in crowds, events, and being on, I share why that might not be avoidance at all. It might be discernment. Conserving your energy for what truly matters.

This episode is an invitation to stop forcing your way through discomfort just to prove you can. To let the questions exist without urgency. To soften into the truth that you’re not behind, you’re becoming.

If this resonates, take five minutes after listening and ask yourself: What do I need right now, if I’m being completely honest? Write what comes up. No judgement. Just truth. And if you want more reflections and support as you navigate your next chapter, come and join me at Kiransinghuk.com and on Substack. Subscribe, leave a review, and share this with a woman who needs a soft place to land today x

With love,

Kiran x

Kiransinghuk.com | The Sattva Collective