Dancing with change: Somatic practice through perimenopause

“I suddenly realized that the wild part of me was dying, and I desperately needed to reclaim her,” writes Lara Heppell, Somatic Facilitator, Educator and Therapist.

By Lara Heppell

Four years ago, I found myself in South West France, having moved from Northern England during the height of COVID. This wasn’t just a change of address – it was a complete transformation spurred by an inner knowing that had come to me months earlier during an authentic movement practice. While exploring a myth, I had received a sudden, powerful insight: the wild part of me was dying, and I desperately needed to reclaim her.

This realization drove our move, though at the time, I hadn’t fully understood that much of this knowing and desire for “wilding” was coming from the changes happening inside me as I was moving out of the mother phase of my life into my wise woman, enchantress, witch time of perimenopause.

A new landscape

The move transformed my entire life landscape – new language, new community, new professional identity after 20 years as an established yoga teacher. And beneath all these external changes swirled something even more profound: my body was beginning its own journey of transition. It was a complete shedding of skins and identities that happened very fast – an annihilation of sorts – and I wasn’t fully prepared for it and hadn’t really thought it through. Here I was in a new country, not able to speak the language fully, unsure of who I was anymore as the old labels and roles fell away.

It became clear that while I had physically arrived in France, my body was still catching up with me, in a state of shutdown and shock, still processing and catching up. I spent a good amount of time walking in the region, swimming, and orienting to the landscape – this new home of mine. I needed to find my place and sense of belonging in this new terrain, a process that took far longer than the physical act of relocating. Thankfully, it wasn’t a hardship to get to know the land here – I live close to mountains and sea, and it’s warm and welcoming.

Though I’ve never much liked being put in a box or labelled too clearly. As a lover of mystery and the unseen, I’m comfortable sitting with the unknown. I like what Sophie Strand has to say about this:

“Identity is how we find temporary safety by diluting ambiguity.” – Sophie Strand

And so holding onto these words and this approach really helped me find some ground at times when I needed it too and provided me with more space, more freedom and expressiveness. An allowing for this continuous evolution and shifting – and that is what truly fascinates me in everything I do and drives my work.

I needed something different

It was during this convergence of transitions that I found myself drawn to Peter Appel’s Movingness teacher training. As someone with extensive background in various somatic practices – from Scaravelli-inspired yoga to Hanna Somatics, Feldenkrais, Body-Mind Centering, and Authentic Movement – I wasn’t new to embodied awareness. But perimenopause demanded something different from me: a practice that could meet the wild oscillations of energy, mood, and physical sensations that seemed to change not just monthly or weekly, but sometimes hour by hour.

I loved how the different practices from the evolving segments of the Movingness training provided exactly the right container of support that I needed at just the right time. They slowly brought me back home to myself and then helped me to uncurl, unravel bit by bit, and open up again to life.

Many of the practices were familiar to me, but with Peter’s teaching approach, they felt fresh and new. I also deeply appreciated diving into the research and background behind each section of the training.

Altar space from a women‘s circle.

The dance of cycles within cycles

We are always moving through different cycles of change – cycles within cycles, overlapping, interweaving, endlessly unfolding, within us and around us as life moves through us and we move with life.

Perimenopause brings us face-to-face with the very essence of change. Our familiar monthly cycles begin their own dance of transformation, becoming less predictable and more varied in their expression. One day might contain all four seasons: waking with summer’s heat, sliding into autumn’s contemplation by afternoon, experiencing winter’s need for rest at dusk, and lying awake in spring’s creative surge at midnight.

This intensified relationship with our internal seasons calls for a somatic practice that can adapt and evolve alongside us. Through my training with Peter, I’ve come to understand that somatics offers us precisely this flexibility – a way to meet ourselves exactly where we are in each moment.

Perimenopause brings us face-to-face with the very essence of change.

Grounding in the winds of change

In Ayurvedic terms, perimenopause often brings an increase in vata energy – the element of air and movement. This can manifest as anxiety, restlessness, and a feeling of being unanchored. Here, somatic practice becomes our anchor, offering ways to literally find ourselves in space.

When anxiety rises like a wind within, rhythmic movements become medicine. Simple, repetitive patterns help regulate our nervous system and remind us of our relationship with gravity. These might include:

• Gentle rocking movements that echo the soothing rhythms of our earliest experiences
• Slow, mindful walking practices that emphasize the connection between feet and earth
• Fluid, wave-like spinal movements that help us feel the continuity of our own structure

There is so much out there about what we “should” be doing with our bodies – weights, physical exercise, step counts – but what I’ve found during this often turbulent transition is that my needs adapt and change with my energy levels, which can vary wildly day by day, moment by moment. The beauty of somatic practice is that it supports this fully: we have options to bring strength and fire on energetic days, while finding earth and support on slower, more vulnerable days. And crucially, it doesn’t have to be hard – it can feel like pleasure and play, elements we desperately need more of as we age and life fills with responsibility.

You might also find these blog posts inspiring:

”Somatic movement helped me let go of my anxiety”

“I love my body for what it can do“

Meeting fire with fire

Perimenopause can also bring intense heat – both physical and emotional. Rather than fighting against these flames, somatic practice teaches us to dance with them. Sometimes this means meeting fire with fire: using dynamic, expressive movements to channel and transform intense energy. Other times, it means finding the cool pools of rest within ourselves.

The beauty of somatic practice lies in its inherent adaptability. Unlike more rigid movement forms, it encourages us to develop a dialogue with our changing needs. When hot flashes surge, we can respond with cooling breaths and expansive movements. When anxiety spirals, we can find ground through weighted movements and conscious yield.

I’ve found that my teenage rebel is quite present in this perimenopausal transition (the hormonal picture is remarkably similar to our teenage years). With this has emerged a need for inner reconciliation work – recognizing times in my younger life when I experienced boundary violations, partly because I had been conditioned, as many women are, to please, appease, and be a “good girl.”

Part of my healing during perimenopause has been unraveling this conditioning, learning to stand in my power, be more predator and less prey-like, own my boundaries, and communicate more directly. Somatic practices – proprioception, interoception, orientation, self-touch, vocalization, authentic movement, and exploring more animalistic, tiger-like movements that connect me more deeply to my core – have helped me be more present in my body, more vocal, more connected to my natural animal self, and more able to respond authentically about what I am and am not willing to do.

Part of my healing has been learning to stand in my power and communicate more directly.

The wisdom of listening

Perhaps the most valuable gift of combining somatic practice with the perimenopausal journey is the deepening of our capacity to listen to and trust our bodies’ wisdom. As hormones fluctuate and familiar patterns shift, we’re invited to develop a more nuanced relationship with our internal experience.

This isn’t always comfortable. There are days when our bodies seem to speak in tongues, when familiar practices no longer serve, when we need to pioneer new ways of moving and being. Yet this too is part of the somatic journey – learning to stay present with what is, rather than what we think should be.

The eye-opener for me has been the lifting of oestrogen’s rose-tinted glasses, revealing the many times I didn’t stand my ground or fully express what I wanted. As women, our nervous systems often need the up-regulation, the fire, the more animalistic movements and flows as much as – perhaps even more than – we need to down-regulate and relax. We’re often not encouraged to get angry, speak up, or stand our ground, and many of us know it hasn’t always been safe to do so.

Somatics reminds us that our bodies are not problems to be solved but landscapes to be explored with curiosity and care.

A practice of presence

In my own journey through perimenopause, I’ve found that my somatic practice has become both anchor and wings. It grounds me when vata energy swirls strongly, and it gives me ways to express and channel the intense creative and emotional energies that arise. Some days this means gentle, grounding movements. Other days it means vigorous, heat-releasing practices. Always, it means listening and responding with compassion to what each moment brings.

This is the heart of somatic practice– not a fixed set of movements or techniques, but a living dialogue with our own experience. As we navigate the profound changes of perimenopause, this dialogue becomes ever more precious, offering us ways to remain present and responsive to our changing needs.

Through this time of transformation, somatics reminds us that our bodies are not problems to be solved but landscapes to be explored with curiosity and care. Each symptom, each change, becomes an invitation to listen more deeply and respond more skillfully to our body’s ever-evolving wisdom.

As I age and move from mother into wise woman and eventually crone and elder territory, I look forward to how my somatic practice will continue to adapt and support me. I’m blessed to have teachers who are older than me – men and women like Peter Appel, Angela Farmer, and Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen – some now in their 80s who haven’t lost their fluidity and mobility. In fact, these qualities have expanded. They still have a twinkle in their eye, passion in their heart, and a directness that isn't overbearing but comes from a deep, connected knowing and authenticity of being.

That continued evolution is what I look forward to developing more of. With somatic practice, the journey never ends – it’s like an onion with endless layers to explore, which is precisely what keeps me forever learning, forever curious, forever dancing with change.

Lara Heppell

Photos by Jo Kemp Photography 

About Lara: Lara is a Somatic Facilitator, Educator and Therapist. A Threshold Doula and Mentor with over two decades of experience. Based in South West France and the UK, she walks alongside women through life’s profound transitions, holding space for the mystery and messiness of transformation.

Previously a birth doula, Lara now supports women in their re-births as they journey through different stages of womanhood. She weaves together somatic therapeutic movement, embodied wisdom, and earth-based practices to help women navigate everything from menstrual health to menopause, fertility to cancer recovery.

Lara offers one-to-one support, mentoring & supervision, women’s circles, petite re-wilding retreats, and training programs both online and in-person.

Learn more at my home page.

Or follow my journey on Instagram.

You can find more of my writing on Substack, too.