The Tao of Turning Fifty Book Launch

Now available on Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/Tao-Turning-Fifty

Also linked to www.jenniferboire.com under Books. Plus a free excerpt.

This book addresses the oftentimes overwhelming journey of the mid-life woman, and offers tips and exercises for finding calm int he middle of the storm.  It encourages you to give yourself a break, before you get a break down. There is a struggle in most women about being selfish versus beginning to take the time for self care, and inner reflection, but we benefit when we put ourselves on the agenda - take time to sort things out, write in our journal. This is also a workbook, with journal pages, calming and centering breath exercises, and mostly, encouragement that you are not going crazy. Menopause is not a disease - it's an important transition in a woman's life and part of her inner journey.

This book grew out of my research for a blog on menopause (here) and now that the book is done, I'm blogging over at Musemother. See sidebar for a link.

namaste,
Musemother/jenn

Rest is Radical

How is it we get to mid-life so tired?

I was talking with my husband last night over supper, trying to remember if I was this tired and stressed about everything when I was in my 20's and 30's.  No, absolutely not, unless memory fails me (which it does regularly, but that's another topic).

Before kids is more to the point - we started late, due to miscarriages, and I had my first child at 36, second at 38 years old. Barely time for them to hit puberty before I hit peri-menopause and more lack of sleep. My daughter had just started sleeping full nights in her own bed, when I began demanding it was time for her to tuck me in at 9:00 p.m.  I was very tired.

Now, postmenopause, I can say that my energy levels are better. I can even stay up till 11:00 p.m. without yawning too much.  However, rest days and naps are a saving grace, and I think they are wonderful medicine, and very cheap.

For example, last Sunday, I had a huge list of things to do, furniture to put outside if it was nice, bicycles to pump up, a year's worth of bills to file, and a messy home office that needed organizing.  But we had had a very rich dinner the night before at Au Pied du Cochon http://cabaneasucreaupieddecochon.com/index.html. Suffice it to say that after the gravlax and buckwheat pancakes, pork and beef tourtiere, roast chicken, lobster stuffed cabbage, omelette, fried pork rinds (oreilles de crisse), and beef tongue, oh yes and the pea soup with foie gras starter, we could barely roll into our beds let alone roll out of them Sunday morning.

So we not only slept in, we had an afternoon nap after a hot bath.  It was a first for my husband, to ignore the list of spring cleaning items and just take it easy with a good book in the bathtub, then sleep in the afternoon. But how heavenly. And I thought, make this a real Sabbath, and take care of yourself for once.  Do not get up and read emails, or turn on the computer.  Unplug!

As you come into midlife, give yourself the gift of rest, at least once a week, and if you can make time every day! Rest is a radical option, cheaper than medication, and often all you need.

musemother
ps title taken from a chapter in The Piill, are yous ure it's for you, Jane Bennett and Alexandra Pope
http://www.wildgenie.com/books_fs.html