"The wise woman achieves menopause. It does not overcome her."
Well, so the books say anyway. I can remember feeling very overwhelmed during peri-menopause. There's even a homeopathic remedy for that feeling: Sepia, which I took as needed.
Sometimes things get a little topsy turvy, what with lack of sleep, night sweats, PMS taking over for two weeks instead of three days, and breaking into tears at inopportune moments, like in the middle of a business meeting with your boss.
How do you handle it? Do you go for hormone replacement therapy? Do you just go to see a psychologist for talk therapy? Anti-depressants? What is going on with me?
According to Dr. Christiane Northrup, our brains are being rewired for greater intuition. We move out of the child-rearing mode where we are focussed on others, and begin to caretake ourselves. Changing levels of hormones may be what stimulates the 'Change', but the upshot is, we get encouraged to deal with a whole lot of messy emotions, collectively labelled "unfinished business". The PMS is not the cause but the trigger - it is signalling stuff you have stuffed down, swallowed, and can't digest anymore.
Sitting with a journal (or a good friend who doesn't mind listening to your litany of woes), is a good way to begin to untangle what you are feeling. What do I want? What is bugging me? What is pissing me off?
Can I dare open that can of worms and deal with it, instead of waiting for the can to explode and have worm soup all over the kitchen floor, and risk damaging my relationships with children and spouses? I think it is safer to make lists in the safety of my room, and look at my emotions from a detached place (out of the heat of the moment). Why did I fly off the handle at my daughter's request to book her a hair appointment? Am I taking on too much that is her responsibility? Can I let go of the 'mothering' I do and let my kids take on more of the household tasks? Why can't I value my own self enough to make room for me, my needs, my work, my space.
Myspace - funny that all the kids are creating their myspaces on-line. That's a good metaphor for what menopausal women need. A My space blocked out somewhere in the virtual world or the physical world in 3 dimensions. Sometimes I fantasized about a white room, with no distractions, no radio or tv, no interruptions, no puppies to walk, no cats to feed, no demands on me....somewhere I could let my writing flourish in....then I realized what I was imagining was a little padded cell.
Maybe it's also time to release some demons, release the past, face the present moment. I make visualisations and affirmations a part of my ritual now: I can do it. I am worth it. I believe in myself. I have something worth saying.
There is deep siginificance to this Change, on a psychological level and a spiritual level.
It is initiation by fire.
It is awakening my own feminine self.
It is empowering me.
It is burning through me with the energy of a forest fire.
Find out what is feeding the flames.
Be your own best friend, and show some compassion.
Let the power surges support you, not freak you out.
namaste,
jenn
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Reuniting with the Feminine, the Work we have to Do
(In breaking with our mothers, we break with our femininity)
"There are countless women of the sixties and seventies who so deeply resented the patriarchy which had destroyed their femininity and that of their mothers that they lashed out against that patriarchy, but in doing so they identified with the masculine side of their own psyches. In some cases they turned into the very thing they most feared -- the witch side of their mothers, or in Jungian terms, the negative animus.
…the natural feminine way to feminine maturity is through the body. This is essentially what the ancient initiation rites were about. The rites grounded the girl in her own body which was then recognized as part of the feminine cosmos – a vehicle for fertility the container which made her one with the Goddess, through whom life moved eternally.
In our society, however, we have no rites and there are few older women who can initiate us into our own femininity. Most of us, men and women, are unconsciously identified with the masculine principal (the conscious value system of our mothers) with little or no consciousness of our own feminine instincts. So we flounder.
…In such situations, the genuine masculine principle is not present. ...Where the masculine and feminine are undifferentiated, the act of union is merely an identification...She may believe she is an androgyne, an independent woman, but in fact she has given up on ever being a woman and unconsciously decided to be nothing instead. …[She is] polarized against her mother and ultimately against herself and her own feminine nature; plus against her man whom she has made into her mother. Such a woman may end up in despairing conflict or in conflict which manifests as disease, or she may go on driving through life on her phallic broomstick hating or fearing every man she meets.
To be fully differentiated in the full feminine, in relation to the mature masculine: we need to make that rite of passage. We have to pay in blood. Every rite of passage involves a death and a rebirth. The price is the sacrifice. Part of that sacrifice is giving up of old securities and illusion. ...The masculine principle (in men and women) is not a healthy ego strength but ruthless will power….giving up that driven-ness is part of our blood sacrifice. And it begins to feel like giving up life itself when an individual has lived life in a frenzied round of goal-oriented activity, leaving no room for loving. As Jung says, 'Where love reigns, there is no will to power; and there the will to power is paramount, love is lacking.'
… instead of being terrorized by her aloneness and her feelings of abandonment and rejection, she can use this time to work on herself. One of the things she will surely face is her own inner killer – the overdeveloped masculine in herself that kills her femininity (and put a bullet through the heart of her King Kong animus) [in dreams].
…
First I believe that femininity is taking responsibility for our bodies, so that the body becomes the tangible expression of the spirit within. For those of us who have lived life in the head, this is a long, difficult and agonizing process, because in attempting to relese our muscles, we also release the pent-up fear and rage and grief that has been buried there, probably since or before birth. …it acts at first like a wild neurotic creature that hasn’t known love. But gradually it becomes our friend, and because it understand the instincts better than we, it comes our guide to a natural, spiritual way of life.
…
Secondly, femininity is taking responsibility for who I am – not what I do, now how I seem to be, not what I accomplish. When all the doing is done and I have to face myself in my naked reality, who am ? what are my values, needs? Am I true to myself or do I betray myself? What are my feelings?
Working on these questions day after day is what I call differentiating the feminine.”
from Addiction to Perfection, Marion Woodman, chapter, The Myth of Ms.
If you don't mind the Jungian jargon, I highly recommend this book, published in 1982 by Inner City books, Toronto.
While is is on the surface a study of her analysands with eating disorders, at the base of it is the identification with the negative animus or unhealthy masculine priniciple, and our disconnection with our female bodies.
have a great Sunday,
Jenn
"There are countless women of the sixties and seventies who so deeply resented the patriarchy which had destroyed their femininity and that of their mothers that they lashed out against that patriarchy, but in doing so they identified with the masculine side of their own psyches. In some cases they turned into the very thing they most feared -- the witch side of their mothers, or in Jungian terms, the negative animus.
…the natural feminine way to feminine maturity is through the body. This is essentially what the ancient initiation rites were about. The rites grounded the girl in her own body which was then recognized as part of the feminine cosmos – a vehicle for fertility the container which made her one with the Goddess, through whom life moved eternally.
In our society, however, we have no rites and there are few older women who can initiate us into our own femininity. Most of us, men and women, are unconsciously identified with the masculine principal (the conscious value system of our mothers) with little or no consciousness of our own feminine instincts. So we flounder.
…In such situations, the genuine masculine principle is not present. ...Where the masculine and feminine are undifferentiated, the act of union is merely an identification...She may believe she is an androgyne, an independent woman, but in fact she has given up on ever being a woman and unconsciously decided to be nothing instead. …[She is] polarized against her mother and ultimately against herself and her own feminine nature; plus against her man whom she has made into her mother. Such a woman may end up in despairing conflict or in conflict which manifests as disease, or she may go on driving through life on her phallic broomstick hating or fearing every man she meets.
To be fully differentiated in the full feminine, in relation to the mature masculine: we need to make that rite of passage. We have to pay in blood. Every rite of passage involves a death and a rebirth. The price is the sacrifice. Part of that sacrifice is giving up of old securities and illusion. ...The masculine principle (in men and women) is not a healthy ego strength but ruthless will power….giving up that driven-ness is part of our blood sacrifice. And it begins to feel like giving up life itself when an individual has lived life in a frenzied round of goal-oriented activity, leaving no room for loving. As Jung says, 'Where love reigns, there is no will to power; and there the will to power is paramount, love is lacking.'
… instead of being terrorized by her aloneness and her feelings of abandonment and rejection, she can use this time to work on herself. One of the things she will surely face is her own inner killer – the overdeveloped masculine in herself that kills her femininity (and put a bullet through the heart of her King Kong animus) [in dreams].
…
First I believe that femininity is taking responsibility for our bodies, so that the body becomes the tangible expression of the spirit within. For those of us who have lived life in the head, this is a long, difficult and agonizing process, because in attempting to relese our muscles, we also release the pent-up fear and rage and grief that has been buried there, probably since or before birth. …it acts at first like a wild neurotic creature that hasn’t known love. But gradually it becomes our friend, and because it understand the instincts better than we, it comes our guide to a natural, spiritual way of life.
…
Secondly, femininity is taking responsibility for who I am – not what I do, now how I seem to be, not what I accomplish. When all the doing is done and I have to face myself in my naked reality, who am ? what are my values, needs? Am I true to myself or do I betray myself? What are my feelings?
Working on these questions day after day is what I call differentiating the feminine.”
from Addiction to Perfection, Marion Woodman, chapter, The Myth of Ms.
If you don't mind the Jungian jargon, I highly recommend this book, published in 1982 by Inner City books, Toronto.
While is is on the surface a study of her analysands with eating disorders, at the base of it is the identification with the negative animus or unhealthy masculine priniciple, and our disconnection with our female bodies.
have a great Sunday,
Jenn
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Women's Circles and Awakening to Your life's purpose
Today, I woke up wanting to stay in bed. It's not that there's 6 feet of snow outside my front door, nor that winter is dragging. I just got back from a week in the sun and sand on Grand Cayman Islands, and my skin drank alot of sunshine there, more than my dermatologist would have liked.
No, it's the old hamster in the wheel of thought, circling my brain with the same old query: what do you want to do with your life? And when are you going to start?
As I told my women's circle today, I have already re-invented myself at least twice. The last time was going back to school after getting married, in my early 30's, to study something impractical, just for me: creative writing. It lead to a Master's Degree and a book of poems being published, plus something to keep me busy at night while the babies were sleeping in between feedings. Think of all those 4 a.m. poems that would never have seen the light of day!
Now that I am a mother, and a post-menopausal one at that, I am feeling this huge itch to reinvent myself again. It's been like this for over five years now - the seeking, reading, researching, going to workshops. At first I assumed it was a new mentor, another poetry workshop, a new technique for writing poetry. Then I kept hearing, maybe you should write non-fiction or a novel. Don't have the stamina for a novel. But I enjoy teaching workshops and working with women, so I started teaching the odd workshop here and there at a women's centre, or with a yoga teacher. Still, I kept on reading and researching menopausal information, female centered religions, sexuality, menstrual cycles and so that all came into the courses I was teaching.
But lately, the bug has bitten again. What is my real life purpose? what is the one thing I could do that would help the world, help me feel fulfilled (besides mothering two teens who don't seem to need much help anymore except where to find the peanut butter).
In spite of my lethargy, this morning I picked up Eckhart Tolle's book A New Earth, yes, the one Oprah is pushing as book of the year, and opened it to one of the last chapters. Here is what I read about inner purpose and outer purpose:
"Without living in alignment with your primary purpose, [conscious awareness] WHATEVER PURPOSE YOU COME UP WITH, EVEN IF IT IS TO CREATE HEAVEN ON EARTH, will be of the ego or become destroyed by time. Sooner or later, it will lead to suffering. ...In other words, not your aims or your actions are primary, but the state of consciousness out of which they come. Fulfilling your primary purpose is laying the foundation for a new reality, a new earth. Once that foundation is there, your external purpose becomes charged with spiritual power because your aims and intentions will be one with the evolutionary impulse of the universe."
Maybe taken out of context this doesn't mean as much to you as it did to me, but it hit me over the head, that my happiness and fulfillment can never be somewhere off in the future. My goals have to be much closer to the now, to the present moment, to live with attention to this life energy inside me, to be so close to that, that I am not distracted by my thinking, or by my fantasies of being a Workshop Leader who changes the world.
How is this related to women's friendships? Today was our circle chat, and eight of us showed up at one member's house. A few of us were resistant to coming today, knowing we might have to open up and talk about ourselves, feeling a bit fragile. But after the third person had spoken, the fourth woman said, "Thank you for being so open and sharing yourselves this way. It's so inspiring. It means you trust us." And it reminded me again of how precious it is to have this sense of community or friendship amongst women who are looking for meaning.
We started this circle to invite speakers on alternative health topics, on everything from shamanism, emotional healing, PMS, menopause, the environment, to building schools for girls in Africa, on any topic that opens our minds and our hearts to learn more, grow more, heal more. But now, we have found our most precious resource is our own stories, our own learnings in our lives, the lessons learned, the questions, the doubts, the yearnings, the hopes, the tears and frustrations. We are sharing our journey.
We are holding hands in a circle, so we feel less alone.
And that, is one of my 'outer purposes', to help empower myself, and empower other women.
nameste,
jenn
No, it's the old hamster in the wheel of thought, circling my brain with the same old query: what do you want to do with your life? And when are you going to start?
As I told my women's circle today, I have already re-invented myself at least twice. The last time was going back to school after getting married, in my early 30's, to study something impractical, just for me: creative writing. It lead to a Master's Degree and a book of poems being published, plus something to keep me busy at night while the babies were sleeping in between feedings. Think of all those 4 a.m. poems that would never have seen the light of day!
Now that I am a mother, and a post-menopausal one at that, I am feeling this huge itch to reinvent myself again. It's been like this for over five years now - the seeking, reading, researching, going to workshops. At first I assumed it was a new mentor, another poetry workshop, a new technique for writing poetry. Then I kept hearing, maybe you should write non-fiction or a novel. Don't have the stamina for a novel. But I enjoy teaching workshops and working with women, so I started teaching the odd workshop here and there at a women's centre, or with a yoga teacher. Still, I kept on reading and researching menopausal information, female centered religions, sexuality, menstrual cycles and so that all came into the courses I was teaching.
But lately, the bug has bitten again. What is my real life purpose? what is the one thing I could do that would help the world, help me feel fulfilled (besides mothering two teens who don't seem to need much help anymore except where to find the peanut butter).
In spite of my lethargy, this morning I picked up Eckhart Tolle's book A New Earth, yes, the one Oprah is pushing as book of the year, and opened it to one of the last chapters. Here is what I read about inner purpose and outer purpose:
"Without living in alignment with your primary purpose, [conscious awareness] WHATEVER PURPOSE YOU COME UP WITH, EVEN IF IT IS TO CREATE HEAVEN ON EARTH, will be of the ego or become destroyed by time. Sooner or later, it will lead to suffering. ...In other words, not your aims or your actions are primary, but the state of consciousness out of which they come. Fulfilling your primary purpose is laying the foundation for a new reality, a new earth. Once that foundation is there, your external purpose becomes charged with spiritual power because your aims and intentions will be one with the evolutionary impulse of the universe."
Maybe taken out of context this doesn't mean as much to you as it did to me, but it hit me over the head, that my happiness and fulfillment can never be somewhere off in the future. My goals have to be much closer to the now, to the present moment, to live with attention to this life energy inside me, to be so close to that, that I am not distracted by my thinking, or by my fantasies of being a Workshop Leader who changes the world.
How is this related to women's friendships? Today was our circle chat, and eight of us showed up at one member's house. A few of us were resistant to coming today, knowing we might have to open up and talk about ourselves, feeling a bit fragile. But after the third person had spoken, the fourth woman said, "Thank you for being so open and sharing yourselves this way. It's so inspiring. It means you trust us." And it reminded me again of how precious it is to have this sense of community or friendship amongst women who are looking for meaning.
We started this circle to invite speakers on alternative health topics, on everything from shamanism, emotional healing, PMS, menopause, the environment, to building schools for girls in Africa, on any topic that opens our minds and our hearts to learn more, grow more, heal more. But now, we have found our most precious resource is our own stories, our own learnings in our lives, the lessons learned, the questions, the doubts, the yearnings, the hopes, the tears and frustrations. We are sharing our journey.
We are holding hands in a circle, so we feel less alone.
And that, is one of my 'outer purposes', to help empower myself, and empower other women.
nameste,
jenn
Friday, February 29, 2008
Self Care for Menopausal Babes
originally published on Musemother, Tuesday, May 08, 2007
If you are menopausal or peri-menopausal, as so many of my friends and acquaintances are realizing they are, you have been or will soon be confronted by some form of fatigue - either from insomnia, night sweats or nurturer burn-out. Perhaps you are working as a teacher, nurse, secretary or in some other helping profession. Perhaps you have full-time work at home, or perhaps you have an ailing parent you are caring for as well as your children.
The most important Mother's Week (I've just extended it from one day to one week!) message is the one I received in my in-box this morning from Dr. Christiane Northrup, author of Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom and Mother-Daughter Wisdom. I think it's so important I'm passing along an excerpt to you:
"One of the biggest challenges women face is learning how to care for themselves while caring for others. It requires a delicate balance between what often feels like polar opposites. I’ve spent a lifetime studying self-care. And I’ve come to the conclusion that good self-care is the single most important aspect of our health, period. The programming of self-sacrifice leads ultimately to health-destroying sentiments, such as guilt, resentment, anger, and other emotions linked to high levels of stress hormones. Self-sacrifice feels wrong to us on a soul level—our spirit gravitates naturally to joy and happiness. That’s why self-sacrifice ultimately makes us sick and keeps us stuck in dead-end situations."
Dr. Christiane Northrup's e-health newsletter excerpt
Unforunately some of us have been programmed to be good girls, and give selflessly to others without thinking about ourselves. Sometimes it takes a major health challenge, like burn-out or chronic fatigue syndrome or breast cancer, to make us stop and take a look at how we are emptying our feminine container, giving our energy away, and losing our joy.
My wake-up call was a broken leg, and a small cyst in my left breast (which turned out to be filled with a thick creamy substance!) The message took me a while to figure out - but while I was lying in bed with a cast, I had time to think and reflect. I also had time to listen to how my husband was dealing with a busy household, and time to talk with him in the evening about my feelings. I learned I had to speak up and ask for what I wanted (help with kids, help in household), especially in the sensitive area of sexual pleasure. I learned a lot of things.
I learned I was not superwoman, and could not do it all alone.
I learned that nobody else wanted me to be self-sacrificing anyway.
I learned through therapy (after my father passed away and more emotions came up) that I had always felt I wasn't 'enough', not good enough, not pretty enough, etc. And that I overworked myself out of needing to feel worthy. I had a hard time saying no to volunteer jobs for instance, especially if they had a nice title attached like 'coordinator' or 'vice-president'. My self-worth was lower than I imagined. And I was keeping myself too busy to wonder why I felt depressed, stressed and over-extended.
It's a long slow process towards self-honesty, and learning to be true to myself. On the road, I am learning how making myself invulnerable cuts me off from feeling close to people. How controlling others is a technique that used to work for me in my dysfunctional childhood home, but how it doesn't work with my own family now. How pushing myself beyond my comfortable limits makes me end up going over the edge and useless to those who rely on me.
Self-care involves dumping a lot of old baggage that doesn't serve me anymore. Guilt, resentment, anger and stress were making me a very cranky person. That's not the woman I want to be. Menopause has been a gift for me, in that it has forced me to pause and reflect, and dig deep. In that descent into murky waters, I have found some healing. I have begun to accept myself, know my limits better.
I hope you will not wait until something breaks. Heed the warning signs, the tension in your neck and shoulders, the explosive anger and PMS, the extreme fatigue and insomnia, and take action. Slow down. Be kinder to yourself, and that will increase your capacity for kindness to others. If you lose yourself, or your health, you can't help anyone anyway.
One way you can do this is to be mindful of your own body rhythms. See the Women's Wisdom blog (link on the left) for Seven Tips for body guidance.
If you are menopausal or peri-menopausal, as so many of my friends and acquaintances are realizing they are, you have been or will soon be confronted by some form of fatigue - either from insomnia, night sweats or nurturer burn-out. Perhaps you are working as a teacher, nurse, secretary or in some other helping profession. Perhaps you have full-time work at home, or perhaps you have an ailing parent you are caring for as well as your children.
The most important Mother's Week (I've just extended it from one day to one week!) message is the one I received in my in-box this morning from Dr. Christiane Northrup, author of Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom and Mother-Daughter Wisdom. I think it's so important I'm passing along an excerpt to you:
"One of the biggest challenges women face is learning how to care for themselves while caring for others. It requires a delicate balance between what often feels like polar opposites. I’ve spent a lifetime studying self-care. And I’ve come to the conclusion that good self-care is the single most important aspect of our health, period. The programming of self-sacrifice leads ultimately to health-destroying sentiments, such as guilt, resentment, anger, and other emotions linked to high levels of stress hormones. Self-sacrifice feels wrong to us on a soul level—our spirit gravitates naturally to joy and happiness. That’s why self-sacrifice ultimately makes us sick and keeps us stuck in dead-end situations."
Dr. Christiane Northrup's e-health newsletter excerpt
Unforunately some of us have been programmed to be good girls, and give selflessly to others without thinking about ourselves. Sometimes it takes a major health challenge, like burn-out or chronic fatigue syndrome or breast cancer, to make us stop and take a look at how we are emptying our feminine container, giving our energy away, and losing our joy.
My wake-up call was a broken leg, and a small cyst in my left breast (which turned out to be filled with a thick creamy substance!) The message took me a while to figure out - but while I was lying in bed with a cast, I had time to think and reflect. I also had time to listen to how my husband was dealing with a busy household, and time to talk with him in the evening about my feelings. I learned I had to speak up and ask for what I wanted (help with kids, help in household), especially in the sensitive area of sexual pleasure. I learned a lot of things.
I learned I was not superwoman, and could not do it all alone.
I learned that nobody else wanted me to be self-sacrificing anyway.
I learned through therapy (after my father passed away and more emotions came up) that I had always felt I wasn't 'enough', not good enough, not pretty enough, etc. And that I overworked myself out of needing to feel worthy. I had a hard time saying no to volunteer jobs for instance, especially if they had a nice title attached like 'coordinator' or 'vice-president'. My self-worth was lower than I imagined. And I was keeping myself too busy to wonder why I felt depressed, stressed and over-extended.
It's a long slow process towards self-honesty, and learning to be true to myself. On the road, I am learning how making myself invulnerable cuts me off from feeling close to people. How controlling others is a technique that used to work for me in my dysfunctional childhood home, but how it doesn't work with my own family now. How pushing myself beyond my comfortable limits makes me end up going over the edge and useless to those who rely on me.
Self-care involves dumping a lot of old baggage that doesn't serve me anymore. Guilt, resentment, anger and stress were making me a very cranky person. That's not the woman I want to be. Menopause has been a gift for me, in that it has forced me to pause and reflect, and dig deep. In that descent into murky waters, I have found some healing. I have begun to accept myself, know my limits better.
I hope you will not wait until something breaks. Heed the warning signs, the tension in your neck and shoulders, the explosive anger and PMS, the extreme fatigue and insomnia, and take action. Slow down. Be kinder to yourself, and that will increase your capacity for kindness to others. If you lose yourself, or your health, you can't help anyone anyway.
One way you can do this is to be mindful of your own body rhythms. See the Women's Wisdom blog (link on the left) for Seven Tips for body guidance.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Resources for Menopausal women
I have bought two new books today, about menopause.
The first is The Secret Wisdom of a Woman's Body (about aging fearlessly and listening to the body's signals), by Pat Samples. A title I wish I could have dreamt up myself!
The second is Our Bodies Ourselves, Menopause from the The Boston Women's health Book collective. This book is like a dictionary, chock full of the latest studies, myth busting, pro-wisdom but not anti-medical establishment, yet anti-medicalization of menopause.
There is too much to quote, but one chapter that screamed at me is Emotional Well Being and Managing Stress (my personal bugaboo these days). While menopause may be a challenging time emotionally, it is also the best time of our lives! If our health is good, our systems of support, adequate income, then, yes it can be wonderfully liberating to hit menopause.
Some of us, however, have the stress response on automatic overload. It never turns off. Calming rituals like yoga, drumming, dance and meditation have been around for thousands of years and help us relax.
"eliciting the relaxation response" covers many different techniques, like mini breaks and mindfulness, contemplation and acceptance.
Here's some helpful info:
Deep breathing techniques can reduce the intensity of hot flashes - myth or reality?
"Reality: researchers have found relaxation techniques involving progressive muscle relation and deep breathing exercises reduced self-reported hot flashes by about 50 percent." now that's worth looking into.
"Taking care of ourselves is key. There is a difference between selfishness and self-care. Self-care means moving away from the belief that your needs come last. It means caring enough about yourself to prioritize those activities that will promote your own health: taking time for socializing, fore relaxation, and for embracing what is meaningful to you. Many of us lead busy lives, and the hours of the day evaporate. We reap many benefits when we realize that scheduling time for ourselves is essential to our health."
So there you have it - two more books for your bedside reading table. A good friend of mine called today about her doctor telling her that at age 46 she was too young to be in peri-menopause! So much misinformation out there. So check out the womentowomen.com website, and this Our Bodies Ourselves, for correct medical advice and encouragement.
namaste,
and see you back from March break, March 8
Jennifer
The first is The Secret Wisdom of a Woman's Body (about aging fearlessly and listening to the body's signals), by Pat Samples. A title I wish I could have dreamt up myself!
The second is Our Bodies Ourselves, Menopause from the The Boston Women's health Book collective. This book is like a dictionary, chock full of the latest studies, myth busting, pro-wisdom but not anti-medical establishment, yet anti-medicalization of menopause.
There is too much to quote, but one chapter that screamed at me is Emotional Well Being and Managing Stress (my personal bugaboo these days). While menopause may be a challenging time emotionally, it is also the best time of our lives! If our health is good, our systems of support, adequate income, then, yes it can be wonderfully liberating to hit menopause.
Some of us, however, have the stress response on automatic overload. It never turns off. Calming rituals like yoga, drumming, dance and meditation have been around for thousands of years and help us relax.
"eliciting the relaxation response" covers many different techniques, like mini breaks and mindfulness, contemplation and acceptance.
Here's some helpful info:
Deep breathing techniques can reduce the intensity of hot flashes - myth or reality?
"Reality: researchers have found relaxation techniques involving progressive muscle relation and deep breathing exercises reduced self-reported hot flashes by about 50 percent." now that's worth looking into.
"Taking care of ourselves is key. There is a difference between selfishness and self-care. Self-care means moving away from the belief that your needs come last. It means caring enough about yourself to prioritize those activities that will promote your own health: taking time for socializing, fore relaxation, and for embracing what is meaningful to you. Many of us lead busy lives, and the hours of the day evaporate. We reap many benefits when we realize that scheduling time for ourselves is essential to our health."
So there you have it - two more books for your bedside reading table. A good friend of mine called today about her doctor telling her that at age 46 she was too young to be in peri-menopause! So much misinformation out there. So check out the womentowomen.com website, and this Our Bodies Ourselves, for correct medical advice and encouragement.
namaste,
and see you back from March break, March 8
Jennifer
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Where is the deep feminine space?
Rereading my own entries about the masculine and animus on this and wisdomforwomen blog, it strikes me that my dis-ease with myself is really about missing the feminine space, the deep sense of groundedness that comes from being still, alone, either reading or writing or meditating, the best times for me are when I am alone.
I have always been a loner, and a social animal too. Not a complete introvert, but as menopause has gradually acclimatized me to my own nature, I realize I need time alone to be well.
Lately I have been overbusy with some volunteer work that involved lots of computer time, emails and phone calls, deadlines, kind of an HR position. It nourished and fed part of me, because it was a good cause. Helping spread a message of peace in the world. But somewhere in the busyness, I lost my own peace, my own depth or root of stillness. Part of me loves to be busy, to feel important, to have a 'job' to do besides being mom, cook, and laundry person.
The challenge for me is always to find balance: time to write vs time to be 'out there' doing stuff, keeping the wheels in motion.
So I've stepped down from my post, which had turned into a part-time job, timewise. And here I am back on my blog, back with my books, reading The Dance of the Dissident Daughter - which just popped up on my Amazon screen one day as a book I might like to buy. Sue Monk Kidd, the author of The Secret Life of Bees, one of my favourite novels, describes her own journey from daughter of a Christian, patriarchal mind-set to woman on a journey to find the sacred feminine.
All my readings these days tend to be about the need for contact with the deep feminine, silent space. The space of nothing, in my life. Recently I dreamt that I checked myself into a hotel and just slept for a few days.
Fighting off a flu bug, everyone around me is hacking and coughing and losing their voice (even in my Singing Valentine's quartet group). Trying to lay low and beat off the illness that stalks me. I find myself alone, at home, on a very snowy day, and happy to have a day off.
I remind myself, I don't need to get sick to have a day off. It reminds me of the winter I broke my knee skiing, and got to lie in bed for a few weeks. Some times the best moments were just lying there at dusk, watching the sun set in the field behind my house, out the window, and feeling a surge of life energy up the middle of my body, just humming. And I want to be held by that hum, to be surrounded by that comfort and feel connected to my source.
Dizzy with busyness, I stop. I put my feet up. (my kids are teens and away in school all day, so this is allowed, no toddlers pulling at my jeans anymore, saying, pick my up mommy). Menopause. Pausing into stillness, to find the deep source within. The feminine or yin place, the openness to nothing, to emptiness, to stillness.
This is nourishing my soul right now.
Make yourself a short retreat today, or this week. Hibernate with the bears, and return to the source. Rest, retreat and renew, however you can, even if it's while your son or daughter makes a play house around you with blankets. Snuggle down, and in. Read stories, walk in the snow, make snow angels. Be simple.
thanking the universe for this gift,
jenn
I have always been a loner, and a social animal too. Not a complete introvert, but as menopause has gradually acclimatized me to my own nature, I realize I need time alone to be well.
Lately I have been overbusy with some volunteer work that involved lots of computer time, emails and phone calls, deadlines, kind of an HR position. It nourished and fed part of me, because it was a good cause. Helping spread a message of peace in the world. But somewhere in the busyness, I lost my own peace, my own depth or root of stillness. Part of me loves to be busy, to feel important, to have a 'job' to do besides being mom, cook, and laundry person.
The challenge for me is always to find balance: time to write vs time to be 'out there' doing stuff, keeping the wheels in motion.
So I've stepped down from my post, which had turned into a part-time job, timewise. And here I am back on my blog, back with my books, reading The Dance of the Dissident Daughter - which just popped up on my Amazon screen one day as a book I might like to buy. Sue Monk Kidd, the author of The Secret Life of Bees, one of my favourite novels, describes her own journey from daughter of a Christian, patriarchal mind-set to woman on a journey to find the sacred feminine.
All my readings these days tend to be about the need for contact with the deep feminine, silent space. The space of nothing, in my life. Recently I dreamt that I checked myself into a hotel and just slept for a few days.
Fighting off a flu bug, everyone around me is hacking and coughing and losing their voice (even in my Singing Valentine's quartet group). Trying to lay low and beat off the illness that stalks me. I find myself alone, at home, on a very snowy day, and happy to have a day off.
I remind myself, I don't need to get sick to have a day off. It reminds me of the winter I broke my knee skiing, and got to lie in bed for a few weeks. Some times the best moments were just lying there at dusk, watching the sun set in the field behind my house, out the window, and feeling a surge of life energy up the middle of my body, just humming. And I want to be held by that hum, to be surrounded by that comfort and feel connected to my source.
Dizzy with busyness, I stop. I put my feet up. (my kids are teens and away in school all day, so this is allowed, no toddlers pulling at my jeans anymore, saying, pick my up mommy). Menopause. Pausing into stillness, to find the deep source within. The feminine or yin place, the openness to nothing, to emptiness, to stillness.
This is nourishing my soul right now.
Make yourself a short retreat today, or this week. Hibernate with the bears, and return to the source. Rest, retreat and renew, however you can, even if it's while your son or daughter makes a play house around you with blankets. Snuggle down, and in. Read stories, walk in the snow, make snow angels. Be simple.
thanking the universe for this gift,
jenn
Friday, February 1, 2008
Cut off from her depths
"It is difficult in life to find the Feminine Realm. The drawing of the water, the gathering of the grains no longer are performed under an open sky. ...The sense of her task as consecrated and necessary to the cosmos is gone. And I fear for women yet to come. For under the pressures of modern life, time has become compressed. The feminine sense of time has all but disappeared. Yet woman cannot exist with only a linear awareness of time, for her sense of sacred Kairos time is the precious essene of life. there must be time enough for her to experience the sacredness within each moment and within herself...." Judith Duerk, I sit listening to the wind (also author of Circle of Stones)
According to Duerk, we have modeled ourselves on the Masculine, but the heroic task/journey of the Masculine can not provide what a woman needs to complete the journey of the conscious and devleoped Feminine.....
"When a woman uses her energy only to reinforce what is outside of herself, she becomes cut off from her depths. her own feelings and life values become inaccessible to her. She molds herself to external standards and loses touch with her individuality. She is cut off from all that is uniquely her own that could nourish her and those around her, cut off from the creative new answers so badly need in the world today.
Cut off from her deeper sense of life, from the wisdom of her own unconscious, she lives in an arid approvable way. and her depths become enraged! the whole wellspring of womanly creativity within her is furious for not being tapped. and the greater the individuality and insight that have been dammed up, the greater the rage!
A woman speaks: My grandmother, my mother and me...only allowed to smile and agree. Only allowed to affirm what was initiated around us, never allowed ourselves to initiate.
If grandmother tried to disagree, she became hysterical. And mother swung between hysteria and opinionated animus, with no grounded Feminine ego between them. She was enraged that the men could never hear what she was unable to say.
All those generations of women in my lineage using our energy in service to a system that had so litle tolerance for Feminine feelings and values. Caught amidst all this, I was depressed and cut off from myself, with no energy for the causes I had believe in only haf a year before. then my judging animus did its foul double-play, first dmaining me for my depression, than blaming me for having served so long what had not served me."
I Sit Listening to the Wind, Judith Duerk
I am living this battle with the animus this week, judging myself harshly, striving to compete, prepare, be on time, get things done, and running steamroller over my own feelings, tiredness, need for quiet time.
Finally, today, I opened this book, and felt a tear trickle down on reading the first opening paragraphs. yes, my body is saying, you have been tricked into this harsh attitude of performance and perfectionism, and you whip yourself, because you put no faith in your own feelings, emotions, or heart side. Focused on doing instead of being, you hurt yourself, and the neck acts up. Freezes up, cramps and gets so sore, I have to quit working and rest.....
ah, rest. It's a snow day today, go back to the circle of light under the lamp, the comfy gold suede chair, and the warmth of a puppy lying beside you, relax and read, and dream your own thoughts.....
nameste,
musemother
According to Duerk, we have modeled ourselves on the Masculine, but the heroic task/journey of the Masculine can not provide what a woman needs to complete the journey of the conscious and devleoped Feminine.....
"When a woman uses her energy only to reinforce what is outside of herself, she becomes cut off from her depths. her own feelings and life values become inaccessible to her. She molds herself to external standards and loses touch with her individuality. She is cut off from all that is uniquely her own that could nourish her and those around her, cut off from the creative new answers so badly need in the world today.
Cut off from her deeper sense of life, from the wisdom of her own unconscious, she lives in an arid approvable way. and her depths become enraged! the whole wellspring of womanly creativity within her is furious for not being tapped. and the greater the individuality and insight that have been dammed up, the greater the rage!
A woman speaks: My grandmother, my mother and me...only allowed to smile and agree. Only allowed to affirm what was initiated around us, never allowed ourselves to initiate.
If grandmother tried to disagree, she became hysterical. And mother swung between hysteria and opinionated animus, with no grounded Feminine ego between them. She was enraged that the men could never hear what she was unable to say.
All those generations of women in my lineage using our energy in service to a system that had so litle tolerance for Feminine feelings and values. Caught amidst all this, I was depressed and cut off from myself, with no energy for the causes I had believe in only haf a year before. then my judging animus did its foul double-play, first dmaining me for my depression, than blaming me for having served so long what had not served me."
I Sit Listening to the Wind, Judith Duerk
I am living this battle with the animus this week, judging myself harshly, striving to compete, prepare, be on time, get things done, and running steamroller over my own feelings, tiredness, need for quiet time.
Finally, today, I opened this book, and felt a tear trickle down on reading the first opening paragraphs. yes, my body is saying, you have been tricked into this harsh attitude of performance and perfectionism, and you whip yourself, because you put no faith in your own feelings, emotions, or heart side. Focused on doing instead of being, you hurt yourself, and the neck acts up. Freezes up, cramps and gets so sore, I have to quit working and rest.....
ah, rest. It's a snow day today, go back to the circle of light under the lamp, the comfy gold suede chair, and the warmth of a puppy lying beside you, relax and read, and dream your own thoughts.....
nameste,
musemother
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