Your Body Is Not The Punchline

Why mocking our bodies silences the very system trying to save our lives

My feed has been full of menopause reels lately. Jokes, comedy clips, women laughing at themselves and at what they’re going through. I mentioned only a few days ago that something about it didn’t sit right with me. So I wasn’t surprised when another one appeared. This time, a comedian defending her right to laugh about menopause, saying women should be allowed to laugh and that anyone who disagrees should simply “jog on.”

And I paused.

Because this is not really about laughter. This is about what that laughter is doing.

Now, I do get it. I truly do. I am not the anti-fun police. Laughter reduces stress. It raises endorphins. Laughter really is the best medicine, but there is a difference between laughing to release pressure and laughing in a way that makes your “body” the joke.

And I want to be really clear about this because, as I said, I understand the humour, I can laugh, I can take a joke, but I choose not to accept this as my reality. Our brains and bodies are incredible. They are not faulty, they are not failing and this constant mockery of women’s experiences is part of a much wider diminishment of our power. It suggests we are broken, that decline is our destiny and I refuse to tolerate or subscribe to that belief.

Your body is not a joke, ok?! Your body is desperately, desperately trying to help you.

So yes, laugh, but do not make fun of the very thing that is trying to protect you. Instead start looking at the truth of what you are saying and why you might be saying that, because there is a perception being created that menopause is the problem. That it is this curse we must endure. That our bodies are going downhill. That this is just what happens to women. And women are fulfilling this prophecy because they have been conditioned to believe this story. A story we did not choose, but absorbed from every direction - culture, media, conventional medicine, even the women who came before us.

Women are now experiencing “menopause symptoms” younger and younger, because everything is being pinned on menopause. Every symptom. Every ache. Every emotional wobble. Every change in the body. Depression. Not sleeping. Feeling hot. Dental issues. Carpal tunnel. Breast cancer. Dementia. Heart disease. Osteoporosis. The list goes on. Everything is being labelled menopause, and it is not menopause.

These issues did not begin at menopause. They were there long before. Menopause simply reveals what has been imbalanced, ignored or overwhelmed. But menopause has become the easiest scapegoat. It is convenient. It gives a name, a label, a story. And while women are encouraged to believe their bodies are failing, entire industries benefit from that belief. The more a woman fears her body, the more likely she is to medicate it, silence it, or hand over authority to someone else. There is a great deal of money to be made and power to be assumed in keeping women dependent, doubtful and disconnected. And this is what frightens me. Because the moment we believe our bodies are the problem, we stop listening to them and that is where the real harm begins.

Can you see it?

This isn’t about menopause. This is what has been happening to women’s bodies long before menopause ever arrived. We know this because women in their 60s and 70s are still experiencing hot flushes. Some are still using HRT purely to manage those symptoms, but if menopause itself were the cause, the symptoms would have ended. The body would have moved through it. So the continuation of symptoms tells us something important: the symptoms are not simply caused by menopause. They are signals of an underlying imbalance that has not yet been addressed.

Menopause is not happening to you, it is happening for you - a line that I will receive backlash for, for sure! But when women say, “This is happening because of menopause,” I have to ask: Why would menopause do that?

Why would something natural, built into your biology, designed into your being, cause you harm?

Nature does not make mistakes. 

This is not luck of the draw. This is not punishment. This is not destiny. It is the result of choices made, environments created, loads that have been carried and the support that was or wasn’t received. 

The body doesn’t create symptoms because it has got nothing better do and wants to cause problems, it does it to self-regulate, to make up in one area what's been lost in another. So ask yourself: What am I doing or not doing to contribute to this imbalance? And: How might I support my body so it doesn’t have to scream for my attention any more?

Because the answer always lies with you. Not in blame. Not in shame. In ownership.

Menopause is not happening to you. This time of change is a gift for you. And you might be seething right now reading this wondering what the hell do I know, but I actually know a lot and I speak from experience.

And so I say this from the deepest part of me:

I am not blaming you. I am not shaming you. I say this with love because I cannot bear to watch women’s health and lives diminish.

I spent most of my life in that place. Disconnected from my body. Highly stressed, sick and constantly trying to cope. Trying to make sense of what was happening inside me. Medication did not fix anything, it made me worse. I understand how it feels when your body seems like the enemy. I understand the relief of having something to blame. A diagnosis can feel like closure, like now you know what to call it, you can manage it. But you cannot medicate your way back to health if the cause is still present and that is why the problems persist.

That is why women get heart disease and osteoporosis. Not because menopause causes it, but because the reason the body was struggling was never addressed, and instead of looking at the big picture - and there is a big picture - they are medicated, given countless drugs to numb symptoms and brainwash them further into believing that their hormones are faulty and the only fix can come from a source outside of themselves.

Let’s be clear. You cannot return a poisoned body to health by adding more poison.

And you most certainly cannot poison yourself into wellness.

So what is the answer?

It is a combination. It is always a combination.

Your gut, your nervous system, your emotional load, your environment, your habits, beliefs. They work together as one.

We have to remember that the body is not a machine made of separate parts. It is an ecosystem. A living terrain. Everything inside us is in relationship with everything else. Our inner worlds, our outer worlds, it all shapes our health.

We are nature. And in nature everything is designed to work together in balance, in flow, in constant exchange. When that balance is disturbed, when something stagnates, when energy cannot move, the body responds. Symptoms are the body’s attempt to restore harmony.

This is why treating the body in a reductionist way does not work. Patching symptoms is like putting a plaster over a warning light. We interfere with the body’s intelligence and often the long-term harm is greater than what we started with.

Menopause did not happen because of a lack of drugs. So administering drugs can not resolve it. In the same way heart disease and osteoporosis do not appear out of thin air. And if these conditions were truly caused by menopause, then men and young women would not experience them too. But they do. Which means the cause is not menopause, it is what’s been culminated in the terrain of the body - the accumulated stress, depletion and overwhelm carried through years of survival. Menopause simply brings it into view.

So instead of treating just the symptoms or silencing the body with medication, take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Not to dismiss what you feel, but to expand how you understand it. Because if we keep interpreting these signals through the same lens then we keep repeating the same harm. This is for your own health and for the health of the children who will one day learn how to treat their bodies by watching you.

And here is the part no one tells you:

You do not need more.

You do not need more supplements, more information, more appointments, more effort, more forcing. You are already carrying too much.The answer is not adding, but unloading.

This is the time to strip things back. To peel away the noise. To slow down. To create space. To let the body do what it already knows how to do when it is no longer overwhelmed and overrun.

And the beauty in all of this is that nothing new needs to be added to your plate. You are full enough already. Another pill, patch, powder or injection is not going to create the safety your body is asking for.

You simply need less: Less input. Less pushing. Less fixing. Less forcing. Less doing.

Because less is what allows the body to come out of defence and when the body is no longer in defence, it’s no longer tightly wound up by stress. And when that stress starts to unwind the body can finally repair.

It is stress that sits at the centre of all of this. Not stress as in “feeling busy” or “having a lot on.” I mean stress at the cellular level.

Most women have never known cellular rest. Not in sleep. Not in their bodies. Not in their nervous systems. Rest has been replaced by collapse, coping, distraction or by taking something to keep going, because we were conditioned to push through everything, to carry everything, to never stop, to never soften, to believe that rest is weakness.

But the body cannot heal in defence mode. It needs safety and stillness that reaches the cells. Until that happens the body will continue to send symptoms, not to punish you, but to protect your life.

Our health is layered.We are physical, emotional, mental and spiritual beings. We are shaped by environment, memory, lineage and experience. We are powered by light, air, water, minerals, connection and rest. So the most powerful shift is incredibly simple:

Move from more to less.

And in doing so, the body can shift from defence to de-stress.

Simple. Yes.But easy? No. Because when I say “rest,” most women say, “I can’t” and that is the response of a body that has never known rest to be safe.

So we have to learn to cultivate safety in the body again. Not by targeting or controlling the body, but by relieving the pressure we have been carrying for years. Because constantly targeting the body is not helpful. It is harmful.

And so, about the laughter:

Please laugh.

Laugh often. Laugh loudly. Laugh with your whole chest.

Let laughter move through you. Let it open you. Let it be your medicine.

But know this: the type of laughter matters!

There is laughter that brings you back into your body. And there is laughter that disconnects you from it.

Laughter that comes from warmth communicates safety to the nervous system. It tells the body, “It is okay to soften now” and when the body feels safe, healing can begin.

But laughter that comes from self-mockery tells the body, “You are the problem”. It keeps the nervous system in defence, it keeps the body tense, it keeps repair on hold.

Only one of those leads to restoration.

So yes, laugh, but do not make your body the punchline.

Do not mock the very thing that is doing everything it can to keep you alive.

Your body has never been against you. It has only ever tried to protect you.

Your body is not the joke.Your body is the miracle.

How about making reels about that instead?

Much love x