212 Menopause as Art: Trusting The Design

I currently have six paint samples on my living room wall.  They are all technically blue. None of them are the same.  Which feels… symbolic.  In this episode, I’m thinking about menopause not as art and refinement. As the shift from fluorescent to tonal. From performance to composition.  There’s a turtle.  There’s London. There’s a river that looks like it’s meandering but absolutely knows where it’s going. And somewhere in the middle of all that: the quiet realisation that midlife might not be demolition, it might be editing.

If you’ve ever stood in front of a wall thinking, “This one almost works… but not quite,” this conversation might feel familiar.

Bring your undertones :)

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Transcript

Sally Garozzo (00:21.158)
six paint sample pots on my living room table at the moment. You know those little tester pots from Faramund Ball? my god they're so addictive. And I've got these painted squares of each colour catching different light at different times of day. And I keep walking past them assessing. Morning light, they look one way. Afternoon light, they look a different way. Evening light, different again. And I've realised something that I'm not

rushing the decision, which is quite new for me. Even as late as about three years ago, I would have chosen the boldest one pretty much immediately. The brightest teal, the most saturated color, the one that made the biggest statement.

And if you've been listening to me for a while, you know that I've had a proper love affair with big fluorescent colors in the past. Proper unapologetic, look at me tones. I really didn't understand subtlety and I didn't understand how undertones worked together because I just wanted impact. I needed to be seen. Of course, there's probably some deep Freudian stuff in there somewhere, but we won't go into that today.

But now, out of nowhere, I'm standing in my living room staring at what is essentially blue, not bluey blue. One is slightly mushroom, one leans a little bit olive, one has like tiny whispers of pink in it that only shows up in a certain light. And I am absolutely fascinated by the difference, not just in the paint, but in me, because it's not stressful anymore like it used to be.

At the beginning of this whole interior design journey that I've been on for a couple of years, I have to say it was a bit chaotic. It was a bit stressful. I had so many ideas, so many Pinterest boards, way too much energy around it and probably a bit too much enthusiasm. But now it feels refined. It feels a bit slower. It feels way more deliberate, almost like I'm composing something rather than...

Sally Garozzo (02:37.81)
yelling out there in this big announcement. And it's made me think about how much of my earlier creativity was really just about that, know, being seen, being noticed, demanding attention. And you may or may not know this about me, but I actually have a songwriting degree. If you put my name into Spotify or Apple Music,

Yes, of course, this podcast will pop up, but also so will my albums and the songs I've written from yesteryear. Songwriting was absolutely brilliant. I loved it. It was like the halcyon days for me. But if I'm honest, there was always this thread of if this works, I'll arrive somewhere, I'll get somewhere, I'll become someone. And when I'm there, I'll feel like I'm enough.

Whereas this interior design journey, still creative, but this feels way more personal. It feels so much quieter because no one needs to see my living room walls. Yeah. This is about how the light feels at 7 PM, how all the tones work in harmony together, whether one tone is popping out just a little bit too much. It's about whether the color

holds me, cocoons me or agitates me because it's not quite lux enough or doesn't quite blend with the curtains. It's about atmosphere. It's way more subtle like those high frequency tuning forks. And I keep coming back to this idea of authorship. I want to narrate my environment skillfully because it

means something. And this isn't about wild reinvention or big overstated energy anymore. It's about the edit. It's about refinement. It's about choosing carefully. And that shows a totally different nervous system response from the way I used to do things. It shows the nervous system energy has changed.

Sally Garozzo (05:01.315)
And then something really strange started happening alongside all of this. A few months ago, I did a shamanic journey with my supervisor. I'd never done one before, it was the first time, and it was really powerful. And right at the end, a new power animal popped into my head. It was a turtle. And at the time I thought, okay.

what is this? It's like yeah okay home on your back that feels quite obvious but I didn't really get any of the other subtleties and it just felt a bit random. It didn't land at the time and I was a bit confused by it. thought to myself okay maybe sometime in the future that will make more sense. So then fast forward to last week I was out in London with a group of therapist friends and someone else.

mentioned a turtle from their shamanic journey and suddenly I remembered my god yeah I had that turtle too like back in I think it was like I think it was yeah last summer actually because I was having the kitchen done but it's still I still didn't fully understand what it was and I wasn't particularly motivated to look into it further so then I get back home that night and I put Big Bang

theory on as I usually do and it was the episode where Sheldon and Amy make this big announcement they go we're getting a turtle and everyone was like expecting them to say we're getting married or we're pregnant or we're moving in together but no we're getting a turtle and I'm like okay the plot thickens even more and

They go into the pet shop and Sheldon says, I was going to call him Seth, but he actually looks Italian. So my ears prick up again. I think I'm going to call him Giuseppe, which is my dad's name. And I sat there thinking, okay, okay, okay. I've got to listen now. I've got to start listening now. I need to try to understand what this is pointing to. I get it.

Sally Garozzo (07:22.516)
no more ignoring the energy medicine of the turtle. So a few days later, I have my regular appointment with my therapist and I was chatting to her about these restless legs that I've been having and how I, how it sort of accompanies this weird feeling that feels like slightly out of body sensation, like a displaced feeling. And I

remember having this feeling when I was a little girl, like I'm here but I'm not fully here and this weird displaced feeling is kind of coming up in me again, very very physical like full body sensation and just in the middle of all of that kind of random conversation I found myself talking out loud about something that quite surprised me, I was talking about London and how

Going out in London the other night to meet my friends felt absolutely amazing. I was walking along the South Bank and I hadn't been out in London in the evening for ages and it felt like a real sense of being reunited with my home city. Yeah, and you know, I'm from London so it makes sense.

And if you've been watching my Instagram stories, you'll see that my husband and I, do pop up to London quite frequently for our little urban hiking days. You know, we've been to Battersea, little Venice, King's Cross, Brick Lane. And I just love it. I love it. I love it so much. More and more, starting to feel like, you know, holiday on my doorstep. It feels like home. It's like, you know, I am a Londoner. I was born there. And suddenly,

the turtle didn't feel so blah blah blah anymore. It started to feel more precise. I started to get it because when I first saw it on the shamanic journey, I thought, okay, yeah, home on your back. Home is inside if you got it, fine. But I think I was still interpreting it from my old lens, know, like self sufficiency, being independent, and maybe if I'm honest,

Sally Garozzo (09:39.032)
this idea of autonomy, there's a little bit of armour, but now it was starting to feel different. Cause when I think about it, a turtle isn't fast. It doesn't, you know, doesn't panic about the horizon. just moves at a pace that assumes it will get there. Like it carries its own structure with it. Not as a defence mechanism necessarily, but as a design.

design, that word design keeps coming back. And there's something about that which feels very deeply midlife to me, not necessarily about retreating or hiding. Yes, that, but also no longer scattering energy and throwing it in every different direction, like a fluorescent color, hoping that someone's going to notice you or that something's going to stick. This kind of energy,

at the moment feels contained, it feels intentional, it feels self-housed and the Giuseppe moment in Big Bang Theory that felt way more than a coincidence because my dad did something very particular when he chose London to settle in after moving from Catania to Sicily he was actually heading to

one of the Scandinavian countries. I think it was Sweden, that's right. He was on his way to Sweden and stopped over in London and stayed here. He planted me in this place and it was a beautiful moment of recognition of again, that coming home feeling that I was meant to be here and real deep gratitude, real deep appreciation.

for him following his heart. Because this place, London, is very layered, it's complicated, it's deep, it's alive, it's full of history, it's full of commerce, it's full of fashion and contradiction. A lot of people love it, a lot of people hate it, but I love its complexity.

Sally Garozzo (12:05.302)
And I didn't fully appreciate that properly until very recently, until that walk along the South Bank to where was I going to Skylon at the Royal Festival Hall, the restaurant there. And when I go back to London now, I don't feel like I'm visiting a city. I feel like I'm stepping into a frequency that matches mine. It deeply feels

It deeply feels like home. It's the sound of the tube pulling in. It's the way the people stand on the escalators without being told. It's someone calling you, all right love, in the corner shop. And you know, they really mean it. It's the bluntness. It's how EastEnders chat to you like they've known you for years. The pace of it all, the wit, the bagels on brick lane. It's walking past the Houses of Parliament and

not needing to take a photo because you've already internalised it. It's like, it's in you. It's the fashion, it's the tailoring on Savile Row, you know, it's like the way someone can look both thrown together and impossibly curated at the same time. To me, it's depth without a kind of sickening sentimentality alongside or a sickly sentimentality, I should say.

When I say London feels like wearing my really comfy on-cloud trainers, I mean that physically. My shoulders drop, my walk changes, my voice changes. I'm more direct, more chatty, less held in. And there was even a moment in the doctor's surgery the other day, and there was a little boy sitting there. He was just smiling, had a really cute face, and he was just staring at me with these beautiful wide eyes. And I just said, hello, you lovely little thing.

without thinking it just popped out like the market trader on brick lane. And for a split second, I wondered there if I was performing something, if I was like, you know, over being overly outward, but it didn't feel performative. just felt unfiltered. It felt free. It felt natural, home-like, which is so interesting because as I said before, at the same time I've been experiencing this

Sally Garozzo (14:35.213)
which is interesting because as I said before, at the same time as all of this is going on, I've been experiencing this slightly disorientating feeling, this echo from childhood, that displacement, that not quite in my body feeling. And I've been trying to work out whether that's a sort of regressive thing, whether that's something to worry about, or if it's simply something just coming up that wants to be healed, something that wants to be looked at, something that wants to come full circle.

And of course it's the latter. Because what if the turtle isn't trying to tell me to be more self sufficient? I don't really need much more of that. What if this is about stopping trying to find home in speed? Stopping trying to find home in visibility? Stopping trying to find in ways that are always trying to get me somewhere?

And then I realized I've been carrying home.

Sally Garozzo (15:43.523)
And then I realized I've been carrying a home, literal location, AKA London, inside of myself all along. London feels like home to me, not because it's impressive, but because I know how to move in it, like linen. It feels natural to me. And maybe that's what's happening internally too. Maybe this early post menopause phase that I'm in isn't

quite expansion yet it's consolidation. Maybe it's editorial, maybe it's like pairing back, like the paints I'm choosing. And something really powerful popped into my head too. The turtle doesn't need to prove how it moves through its space at its own pace. It trusts its own design and it moves naturally with its own design.

And I want menopause to be like that too for everyone. Something that we trust. Trusting our own design. Trusting our own unique menopausal journey.

trusting that our own unique menopausal journey is by its own design, a design that is so unique to us. And in that, I really think there can be a grace, a poise, and I think it can be less frantic. Because what I'm noticing right now in this new phase that I'm in is this particular quality of discernment, is the ability to be able to stand in front of

six near identical paint samples and actually feel the difference. To notice the undertone, to sense the way the light shifts across the wall at 7pm, to recognise when something almost works but not quite. I couldn't do that in my 20s. I couldn't even do that three years ago. I couldn't do that in my 20s.

Sally Garozzo (17:49.548)
I couldn't even do that three years ago. Everything needed to be louder, broader, more obvious, bigger strokes, more fluorescent. It had to be because I couldn't tune into the subtleties. My radar wasn't as sensitive. And now it feels like my system can absolutely tune into them. And I wonder if that's what this part of menopause really is about, not just...

hormonal transition but this postmenopausal phase feels like more of a refinement of my electrical signal. Less noise, more clarity. A kind of architectural phase of life where you stop adding rooms and just start editing the ones that you already live in, that you've already built. And if we're relating it to interior design or art

It's got to be about composition, hasn't it? It's got to be about arrangement, editing, refinement, choosing what stays really carefully and intentionally and choosing out what and choosing what goes, placing things deliberately. And that's why the turtle suddenly made sense. It isn't slow for the sake of being slow. It's actually precise.

it moves in alignment with its own structure. It doesn't try to inhabit spaces that it wasn't designed for. And that felt...

Sally Garozzo (19:33.292)
And that feels very different from how I used to live. There's something about this stage of life that feels like internal authorship. Not reacting, not performing, not amplifying myself to be heard, but arranging, curating, composing.

And then the other night after that strange therapy session, after talking about London and putting all the pieces back together again, know, feeling like home, having that recognition, I pulled a card from the Sharon Blackie deck that I have because I wanted some more insight. I wanted some more confirmation. And the card was River.

And what struck me wasn't the idea of flow in that... And what struck me wasn't the idea of flow in that sentimental sense.

Sally Garozzo (20:40.47)
Ahem.

Ahem.

And what struck me wasn't the idea of flow in the sentimental sense, it was the inevitability of where the river was heading to the sea. A river's path can look erratic if you look at it from above. It bends, it loops, maybe it double backs on itself. But it's...

But it's exquisite, but it's exquisitely responsive to the terrain around it. It reads the landscape. It adjusts its course with its unspoken intelligence, with its knowingness. It doesn't fight. It doesn't force a straight line if the earth doesn't allow it. And maybe that's what refinement really is, not speed, not expansion, but the capacity to

Just read your own terrain and read the environment that you're in to feel where you fit, to sense what's misaligned, to choose the undertone that holds the room and supports the context rather than dominating it. And the river doesn't need a straight line to the sea. It trusts that the twists and the turns will eventually take it there.

Sally Garozzo (22:10.275)
And when the river does meet the sea, doesn't just disappear, it expands into more of itself. Is water meeting water? It becomes something larger without losing its source. The fresh water doesn't panic as it touches salt water, it merges. And maybe that's what this stage of life is, integration.

All the fluorescent years, all the ambition, the noise, the proving, they don't get thrown out, they get absorbed back in. They get refined through our finer perspective that we have. They get placed into a larger body of water. And suddenly you're not trying to arrive anywhere, you just recognise where you're already belonging inside yourself. When that happens, you feel it.

you feel it deeply and it gets mirrored in the outside world back to you. That's why London started to make sense to me, not because its resonance had changed, but because mine had. It's all been very, very interesting. And that brings me to my membership, my new membership becoming.

If you've been listening to these solo episodes for a while now, you'll know that it's not a program, it's not a course, it's not coaching. I don't want it to be loud. I want it to feel like this phase, curated, intentional, composed, even elegant, like a boutique hotel in Holborn. And I'm doing something slightly different now. The wait list for Becoming will stay open until the 27th of March, 2026.

After that, it's going to close for this round. And from that list, I'll invite you into like a private opening salon, a one-off gathering where we shape what this space wants to become together. It won't be announced publicly. It won't be pushed on social media. It's going to form quietly among us.

Sally Garozzo (24:18.382)
those of us who really get it. And if you'd like to join that first room, you just need to be on that wait list before the 27th of March. And if you've been listening for a while, perhaps circling, maybe thinking maybe later, well later now has a point. And that point is the 27th of March. You can just go to salligorazzo.com forward slash becoming.

to join the wait list. And of course that link will be in the show notes. Now, as for the paint samples, they are still on the wall. One of them shifts almost imperceptibly as the light fades in the evening. It doesn't demand attention like those old fluorescent colors. It holds the room, it nourishes it, it contains it, it cocoons it and

I think that's the one I'm going to be choosing. Not the loudest one, the one that feels like home, the one that makes my nervous system go, yes, that's it. Thank you so much for listening and I'll see you next time.