Ep 30 Menopause - all the aspects of it that no one talks about

Today I’m on my own. I decided to do a shorter podcast in honour of world menopause month and in fact this week the 18th October being world menopause day, about all the stuff related to menopause that no one talks about. Believe me there is a lot. Menopause is larger sold as a disorder. It is a natural part of life for people in female bodies and most people think its just a whole host of physical symptoms.

Menopause is a rite of passage that is an identity change and a spiritual change. It is an awakening to purpose and meaning in our life and welcomes us into our wise woman power. So in this episode you will hear my talk about different aspects of it that are not often talked about or well explained.

So in this episode I talked about:

• How hormonal changes impact on your HPA axis. The HPA axis maintains feedback loops to maintain homesostasis in the physiology of your body. Changes in those feedback loops impact your neuro-endocrine, behavioural, autonomic and metabolic functions

• That hormonal changes will then impact your autonomic nervous system states and this in turn influences your behaviour,

• That perimenopause often highlights vulnerabilities that we have physically and mentally. What if we approached the physical symptoms as signs or messengers of area we should focus on and pay attention to,

• That cultural belief systems we have internalised around ageing, sexuality, sensuality and femininity come under scrutiny and they may very well be holding us back from growing intot he next evolution of ourselves,

• That our libido may be affected and how you might manage that if you are in a relationship,

• That the flow of your kundalini energy changes. Kundalini is your life force energy, this is also sexual energy.

• That you can review and reinvent how you do transitions and deal with change,

• That grief pops its head up in most transitions and it has a role to play in allowing us to let go of parts of us that we don’t need anymore. This is super important in menopause as often shadow work is required to grow into your wise woman power.

• There is no road map for this and every person’s journey is unique. There is however a requirement for slowing down, resting and taking time out for yourself,

• Relationships can be heavily impacted during this transition and learning to be vulnerable and talking about how you are feeling and what is coming up for you will go a long way toward building intimacy and connection in your relationship.

I hope you enjoy this and if you want to explore more reading on this I have a list of great books in my resources page. You could also reach out to me for coaching and book a clarity call if you need support during your menopause transition.

Ep 27 Feeling the wild belly of grief with Ellen Clarke

Grief is one of the toughest emotions that most of us have to feel and work through. In our culture we seem to have lost our way when it comes to expressing grief. We have really narrowed our understanding of what being human really means and that includes the emotions we let ourselves feel. Establishing a relationship with our grief and being able to stay present with it in our adult selves is one of the learning challenges of working with sorrow, sadness and grief. It is part of our maturation into our elderhood that we learn to befriend and express grief. To develop structures that support us to hold it and work with it in the community.

In this episode my friend and colleague Ellen Clarke and I talk through all the ways that grief can come into our lives and the challenges we have in being able to let ourselves fall into the belly of it.

In this podcast you will hear us talk about:

• Death and how in the western world we expect to wake up and be alive each day;

• Grief is part of our transition through our rites of passage in life that the expression of it helps us let go of parts of ourselves that we don’t need anymore and birth new parts of ourselves. That in midlife learning to connect with our emotions allows us to transition into our emotional adulthood;

• We can experience grief after severe illness or life threatening experiences in conjunction with gratitude and this can be a lonely and confusing experience;

• Without any structures, supports or containers to hold us, it feels too wieldy and scary to let it flow. If we had someone who is a non-griever shepherding us through it how might that be for us?;

• If we got good at letting ourselves feeling the little moments of sadness and disappointment each day this might help us deal with the bigger feelings of grief and it might actually be a highly connected experience for us;

• Grief can feel like an emotional rollercoaster (we both hate rollercoasters by the way) and pinging all over the place in our nervous system can feel like we have no foundations;

• There is often fear and shame wrapped over the top of those emotions that we stuff under our proverbial rug and this can make what we are feeling feel really murky and hard to connect with.

You can find Ellen at her website www.ellenmay.com.au on instagram at @ellenismagic or on facebook