Wise Woman Tea: What It's For and Why Perimenopause Deserves Its Own Ritual

Wise Woman Tea and the Truth About Perimenopause

It took me a while to even say the word “perimenopause” about myself. “Midlife” felt okay. “Cycle changing” was acceptable. But “perimenopause” felt like a brutal admission. It surprised me to realize that aging, somewhere in the recesses of my psyche, still felt like failing.

I’d always pictured myself as a woman who would age fiercely, claiming my wisdom and my power and my agency. And yes, that’s there. But there has also been grief, and sadness, and if I’m honest, even a little despair.

I go deeper into all of this in my Midlife Mystery Circle and in my coming-soon book, The Empress Phase. Here, I want to answer as simply as I can the very complicated question so many of us are asking: What is happening to me, and is there anything I can do about it?

Short answer: yes. There’s so much we can do.

What’s Actually Happening

Perimenopause is that stretch of years, sometimes a decade or more, when your hormones start to shift before your cycle actually stops. The early signs often look like:

• Cycles that are shorter, longer, heavier, or lighter than they used to be
• Sleep that doesn’t come as easily, or doesn’t deepen
• Mood swings that feel sharper or less predictable
• Hot flashes or night sweats, even occasional ones
• A libido that’s doing its own unpredictable thing
• Brain fog, or words that vanish mid-sentence

If this sounds like you, nothing is broken. It can feel like a crisis. It felt like one to me some days. But it’s a transition, and transitions can be walked through.

What Changes Energetically

If you’ve read my posts on the four phases of the cycle (Blood, Yin, Qi, Yang), you know I think of our cycle as a monthly map of the seasons. Perimenopause is when that map starts to blur at the edges.

Your Yin phase, which used to build so reliably in the first half of your cycle, may not build the same way. Your bleed might come heavier, or lighter, or whenever it wants. Your Qi might feel erratic: more irritability, more fog, less patience for things that used to roll off you.

Here’s how I’ve come to understand it. The body is slowly releasing its grip on the monthly cycle of creation so it can redirect that same Creatrix energy inward, toward what nourishes you. Your art. Your wisdom. Your passion. Instead of releasing that energy every month, we start recirculating it, like a tide coming back in.

That reframe doesn’t make 3am hot flashes any easier, I know. But it has helped me, and a lot of the women in our community, stop treating this phase like a malfunction.

Why We Hear So Little About It

Our culture has built an entire industry around fertility and conception, then goes almost silent as a woman approaches the other end of her reproductive life. That silence is its own kind of harm. It tells us our hormonal experience matters less once we’re no longer trying to conceive.

Our culture has also built several industries out of women feeling bad about themselves: diet culture, the “beauty” industry, much of pharma marketing. I often think of the scholar Gail Dines, who said that if women woke up tomorrow and decided they really liked their bodies, think how many industries would go out of business. And the artist Caroline Caldwell: “In a society that profits from your self-doubt, liking yourself is a rebellious act.”

I know, I’m about to tell you about a tea I make. I’m aware of the irony. But I don’t believe the answer is to stop caring for our bodies in this phase. I believe whatever we offer her, whether it’s herbs or HRT or even Botox or a facelift, should come from love. From deeply loving these wise and wild bodies.

Where Wise Woman Tea Comes In

That’s why I made Wise Woman Tea. I wanted women to have a daily ritual that honors this phase instead of fighting it. 

Many of the herbs in this blend have long been used in Chinese medicine to nourish Kidney Yin, move Blood, and calm the Shen, the spirit that gets rattled by a 3am hot flash or a mood swing out of nowhere. It’s especially supportive if your estrogen is running low. If estrogen dominance is more your picture, think heavy, painful periods or breast tenderness, our B*tch’s Brew is likely the better fit. Reach out and we’ll help you figure out which one.

The tea isn’t a hormone, and it doesn’t replace your doctor’s care. Many women drink it alongside their care team’s protocol or their HRT. If your symptoms feel intense or confusing, please loop in your doctor, because some of what shows up deserves a clinical eye alongside the herbal one.

What the tea offers is a pause. A cup you sit with in the morning or at night. A way of walking through this with a little more softness. A reminder of the wildness of our body rather than a clinical or medical experience.

What Else Helps

• Acupuncture, to help your nervous system through the shift.
• Strength training, which becomes more protective for bones and hormones in this decade.
• Sleep as a non-negotiable, even when it’s hard to come by.
• Cutting out alcohol, which goes hand in hand with protecting your sleep. All of it. I’m sorry. Also, you’re welcome.
• Community. My women friends have been my lifeline. I never thought I’d have so many conversations about our vaginas, but they bring me so much joy. My wish for every woman is as many nourishing vagina conversations as she needs. Kind of joking. Not really. Try it.

Not Decline. Descent.

I started this by telling you that aging still felt like failing to me. What I’ve realized is that even though I know descent isn’t the same as decline, I was still experiencing this inward pull of midlife as a decline. As a lessening.

But think about the shift from summer to autumn. Autumn isn’t less valuable than summer. It’s just different. Quieter, deeper, more magnetic. Less Leo season, more Scorpio.

Whenever I start being hard on myself about aging, I think of my favorite Scorpios. They’re the women who go deep, who aren’t afraid of the dark, whose power is in what they feel rather than what they show. And I come back into myself a little. It feels less like a decline and more like a homecoming.

The energy that once built follicles and prepared a womb is still in me, still in you. It’s just circulating differently now. And once we get the hang of it, I believe we can harness it.

Questions Women Ask

What is Wise Woman Tea used for?
It’s formulated for women in perimenopause, especially those whose estrogen is running low. If estrogen dominance is the main issue, B*tch’s Brew is usually a better fit.

Is it a hormone replacement?
No. It’s an herbal tea rooted in traditional plant use, meant as a supportive ritual alongside whatever care you and your doctor choose.

Can I drink it if I’m still having regular periods?
Yes. Many women start in their late 30s and 40s, before cycles become irregular, as a way of easing into the transition.

How is perimenopause different from menopause?
Perimenopause is the winding-down phase, when your cycle is still happening but shifting underneath you. Menopause is the point after your periods have stopped for a full year.