Most women arrive at perimenopause believing something has gone wrong with them. The rage feels disproportionate. The exhaustion goes beyond tired. The grief doesn't have a clear source. And yet the people around them — sometimes even their doctors — hand them strategies for coping with symptoms rather than language for what's actually happening.

In this episode, Philippa Scott introduces The Mother Awakening Cycle: a six-stage developmental framework built on more than two decades of work with mothers across every stage of life. The cycle describes the identity and nervous system transitions that motherhood initiates — not once, but repeatedly — and explains why perimenopause is not the origin of the crisis. It is the moment the crisis can no longer be ignored.

The six stages are: Initiation, Accommodation, Fragmentation, Awakening, Reclamation and Integration. Each stage is explored through the specific lens of the perimenopausal woman — the one who held everything together for decades, who is only now beginning to understand what that holding cost her, and what becomes possible when she finally stops.

What You'll Hear in This Episode

Why perimenopause is one of the most significant Initiations a woman will ever move through — and why nobody prepares us for it as a developmental threshold rather than a medical inconvenience.

The Accommodation stage: the years of stretching and adjusting and coping that look like capability from the outside while the nervous system quietly tightens beneath the surface.

Fragmentation: what it actually is when the system can no longer hold the load — and why it is the signal, not the diagnosis.

The Awakening: why perimenopause and psychological awakening so frequently arrive together, and what becomes possible when a woman understands that the cracking open is the invitation, not the collapse.

Reclamation and Integration: what it looks like on the other side — not perfect, not fixed, but regulated, grounded, and finally done with a life that stopped fitting.

The One Sentence to Take Away

Motherhood is a cycle of awakening. Not a role to survive.

Mentioned in This Episode

The Mother Awakening Cycle — Philippa's six-stage developmental framework for maternal transition

The Regulated Mother Method — the methodology supporting nervous system regulation and identity reclamation - https://www.fantasticfuture.com.au/mother-awakening-regulated-method

Burnout Audit — free diagnostic tool for women in perimenopause: LINK

Sacred Reclamation Challenge: LINK

Next Week

Week 2: The Accommodation Trap — how perimenopause collides with years of invisible stretching, and why the most capable women are often the most at risk.

Connect With Philippa

Website: www.uapologeticedge.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/unapologetic_edge/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61580380703849

YouTube: www.youtube.com/@unapologeticedge-perfectstorm

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