What is the the greatest lesson a woman should learn?

Tell me what do you think it is…..

I will tell you through this beautiful quote from Rupi Kaur.

That since day one, she’s already had everything she needs within herself. it’s the world that convinced her she did not.



Ever heard of the Smush? Yeah I hadn’t either until about two years ago but I had seen it in action for years. I worked in Executive Development for many years and here is what I observed. When talking about females they were often critiqued for who they were. When talking about males it was what he does. Females Being, Males Doing. Females noun, Males verb. And often with the women it was always along the lines of her being ‘too much’ or ‘not enough’. This teacher I came across, she calls it the Smush, this either being too much or not enough.

Females have been taught to play small for a lifetime. Our grandmothers taught us and their grandmothers taught them. Why? To stay safe. Do not draw attention to yourself, keep those emotions in check. This is centuries of conditioning and trauma we are holding in here. When we have been doing this those neural networks working with the nervous system about danger; they are pretty on edge.

It also causes us to repress all those emotions. Anger is an emotion that needs to move outward. When you are constantly suppressing it - because hey lets face it women’s anger is not ok - it is exhausting and depleting. You are leaking you energy all over the place when you do this. No wonder women get so tired. Is it any wonder when a woman goes through midlife transition and her body says “OK enough of this bullshit you have to let this out and do it now, she is like a detonator about to go off. All the time. There is a lot to come out.

When you have been ignoring your basic emotional cues for a lifetime and playing it small, you start to lose touch with what you are actually thinking and feeling, you get very confused. We stop being able to see the subtle stuff, our body often screams out in pain because she wants those emotions out there, where they are meant to go. We go numb, it affects our libido, we get overwhelmed.

Bodymind connection is the key. As is learning to express your desires. Complaining and nagging, they are unexpressed desires. Say that sentence to yourself out loud again. How do I express my desires I hear you ask? Practice saying what it is you really want. If you want to start practicing you desires, write ten our tonight in your journal. Every sentence has to start with ‘I want..”. Get explicit with your description of what you want. Play big.

Learning to celebrate your successes and do it with your sisters (actual sisters if you have them and friends we call sisters) is how we learn to honour each other.

I promise you, you have all it takes to step into your power and be absolutely magnificent, right there inside of you.

If you want to learn more hit reply and ask me a question or you can pass this onto someone who may be interested. I am running my ReConnect course at the end of May. It is a six week introductory online course to bodymind, to help you discover the inner wisdom and strength that you have. If you want to know more sign up to my mail list by subscribing at the bottom of my website.

Midlife Crisis

What is a Midlife Crisis all about and why is it so destructive in so many people’s lives?

The Middle passage is a time of transition in adulthood that can happen anytime from 30s through to our 70s. Most of us are familiar with it happening in our 40s and it is commonly known by the term ‘Midlife Crisis’. It is a time of internal upheaval that some handle well by going inside to explore their inner world. Others not so well when they project it outside. Outside projection shows up as trying to fight ageing, affairs, the new sports car, working out vigorously at the gym, recurrent changing of jobs, the list is long. Without a doubt there is an increased awareness of our mortality as our bodies start to show signs of age, not quite doing what they used to. For many women Peri Menopause is whacked on top of this and it can prove to be a really challenging time in life for them. It is also a time in life where health issues start to show up for many people. It is a time of absolutely huge transition and upheaval in our life that our society as a whole does very little to support.

James Hollis, the Jungian analyst, describes it as the time where we transition to our second adulthood. Our first, which he believes is from about twelve years to forty, has been driven by ego. We don’t really know who we are and how to ‘adult’ so we just copy. Our sense of self comes via external validation. We copy our parents, external role models at work; it is a time that we are focused on establishing ourselves. At work by climbing the hierarchy of the organisation, buying property, cars, having children. Driven by the ego we constantly project outwards our unconscious parts of self we have not integrated, the parts of ourselves we split off from to survive. Our original essence that was squashed down to fit in with the demands of parents, family, culture, the world around us. Our childhood patterns created in times of overwhelm or potential abandonment to survive. There is no doubt that the cultural contexts that surround us, with their constant worship of youth, do little to support or encourage us to move toward this transition and see it as the step to emotional freedom that it is for most people.

Our second adulthood according to Hollis is about finding our purpose and realisation of who we really are. It starts when our projections start to dissolve and in search for an answer to the question, “Who am I?”. How do you know when this happens? My observation of coaching many people in this transition over the last 10 years is they start to question everything in their life. Their rose colored glasses have come off and they start to see life as it really is. They start to see through the politics and machiavellian behaviour in the workplace. They start to see side of their partner they haven’t taken notice of before. They actually start to recognise that their partner is human. They get a bit rebellious really. They yearn for change. Some people get depressed because they yearn for change but are so bogged down by the constraints of their current lifecycle they can see no way that they possibly can make changes to their life.

“‘After the Middle Passage, no one can say where the journey will take us. We only know that we must accept responsibility for ourselves, that the path taken by others is not necessarily for us, and that what we are ultimately seeking lies within, not out there’.
”

— James Hollis

The turbulence is they psyche's way of pointing us towards integration of self and wholeness. Our bodies are strong and wise, they seek wholeness and healing always. They are constantly sending us messages to point us toward this. Our psyche is saying to us you know those childhood parts of yourself you split off, it is time to go bring them back. Those emotions you were told were unacceptable, go find them and learn to experience them. That nervous system of yours, it needs rewiring so you really know what safety, love and belonging feel like in your body. I describe my body as the home I live in. The home of my soul. Do you know psyche is the greek word for soul? Our soul wants to have a good second half of life, it is telling us ok it is time for you to sort this out.

I’ve spent years studying adult development through a development psychology perspective. If I look at it through a developmental lens it is a time where we grow the shape of our thinking and change the pair of glasses that we see the world through. We move from seeing it as shades of grey to a colorful kaleidoscope of colors that move constantly in and out of each other. Do you remember Kaleidoscopes we had when we were children? I loved them. We are now starting to see the complexity of life in all its color and it is hard to learn the skills we need to thrive because it requires some big changes in our life.

The turbulence is normal and it is ok. It is perfectly normal to start to question. The answers are not outside of you, they are within. Midlife asks of us not to look outside of ourselves but within. Into our inner world. The answers will not be found outside of us. Not in a new relationship with another, not in a new car, not in a new face or new clothes. They reside within us. We are multi-dimensional beings, it is about learning to love all the parts of ourselves and accepting them. The middle passage is a journey to our 'home' and finding the divine within it. It will be hard and challenging, you will lose some friendships along the way because you will simply outgrow people. That is OK, walk away gracefully.

What are some of the ways you can partake in this inner journey? Well there is coaching of course, this is a journey I guide people through. Some people need therapy because they have a lot of trauma in their body that needs to be worked with slowly and carefully so the nervous system can be rewired ( in particular those who suffer from C-PTSD and PTSD). Somatic Experiencing and EMDR are two modalities that work specifically with trauma in a slow way. Talk therapy like Cognitive Behavioural Therapy can be useful for some people. Embodied movement particularly for women, that brings them into connection with their Yoni, all their reproductive organs and connects them with their adult feminine power is an excellent practice. Feldenkrais, pilates and ecstatic dance are different practices that bring us back into our body. Breathwork is an excellent practice to work with trauma and unwind old habits and patterns. Mindfulness practices are excellent to start us on our journey to lead us on the journey inward. Traditional meditation where one sits very still are great, they are very masculine by nature. There are more dynamic forms of meditative practice like using a jade egg or kundalini yoga that uses movement, mantra and breath to expand conscious and create capacity in the nervous system.

Finally it is helpful to do this work in groups if you can. I know that sisterhood is a powerful container for healing and growth. There are womens and mens circles that exist everywhere. You can start one up. We move through rites of passage in a more supported and grounded way when we are supported by community.

The list is long. You can find something that works for you and it maybe that you work with a couple of modalities at once. The most important thing is that when you feel the turbulence, you start doing something to set yourself up well for your transition to your second half of life.

Please forward this onto a friend who may be interested. If you are interested in being coached through this transition please contact me for a free consultation call. I will be launching a course this year on Midlife transition for Women that supports transition through Midlife and Menopause. If you are interested sign up to my mail list so you receive information about it.

Coming Home to ourselves

This year has been testing for all of us. Being locked down is not an enjoyable process but there is always a silver lining for many. Spending more time with your family, appreciating how much you enjoy your work and working with others, valuing your friendships. For some people they have realised that they really enjoy working from home and spending more time with their family; participating in helping in the home with cooking or gardening. We’ve also been illuminated about many issues that our western lifestyle allows us to live in ignorance of. Corona Virus is bad but every year thousands of children in developing economies die from diarrhoea. The environment, womens rights, racism, child abuse, domestic violence. It is all there every day, how is it that we seem to lived oblivious to it. Some people are finding this really overwhelming to have all of this in plain sight, how do you ground yourself?

Come back home, to your body. I always think my body is the house that I live in. So often we look outside or ourselves to find joy and pleasure. That big holiday somewhere exotic, new clothes, you get the picture. How do we find pleasure and joy in the ordinary and within our home? Find what is alive within you. Find the joy within you, find the support within you.

It is hard to take the perspective that values the ordinary, the boring and the everyday in our life. How do we learn to appreciate it, value it and find the joy within it?

I’ve created a little body meditation for you to ground yourself when you are feeling overwhelmed and sick of the ordinary, the boring, the everyday.