While menopause is a normal, natural event for all women who live long enough, there is no universal menopause experience. However, for all women, menopause can mark the start of an exciting and liberated new time of life. There is more reason than ever to abandon old notions about menopause as the end of life as you knew it. As our society’s views of aging change—did someone say 50 is the new 30?—and as our understanding of sexuality and aging expands, there is more reason than ever before to abandon old ideas about the menopause as the end of life as you knew it. If you keep your body as active and healthy as you can, there’s no reason why you can’t enjoy satisfying sex and a good relationship well into old age. If bumps in the road come along—like vaginal atrophy or dwindling desire—remember that many treatments are out there if you ask. If you’re not yet as healthy and active as you could be, look at this time as the beginning of a programme of healthier eating, more exercise or better sleep habits. The benefits will pay off over the rest of your life and can extend beyond the bedroom. If your sex life has suffered some neglect in recent years, what better time to revive it than when you no longer need to worry about birth control or whether your period’s about to start? This time of life might also bring other changes, such as more privacy or a bit more free time, that you might use to devote to (or even redefine) your health, your relationship and your sex life. Menopause can mean new opportunities. What else do you want to do with this new freedom?

This is from April 2015. In the light of the recent shocking kidnap and murder of Sarah Everard, I wanted to revisit this video. I actually wanted to share Chris Hemmings excellent interview on the BBC News Channel but it appears that the BBC did not want him to upload it (why?). Back to this video - When Jackson Katz asks a room full of women what they do to avoid sexual assault, the list of answers he receives is endless. Some women have 911 on speed dial. Others check the backseat of their cars before opening the car door. Some use a male voice on their outgoing voicemail message or have mace attached to their keychains. When Katz poses this same question to men, the room, unsurprisingly, remains silent. Katz sat down with Mike Walters to offer a unique perspective on the fight for women’s rights through a male prism. It appears, as so many of us believe, it is NOT a female problem but a male one...how can men help other men to stop violence against women?

Social media has been full of the appalling case of Sarah Everard. Many of us recognise this violence could have happened to our sister, our daughter, our colleague or our friend. We have spent years being taught what we, as women, should do to keep ourselves safe. As young girls, we were given advice on how to avoid attack. I remember being taught to carry a key poking out of my fist as I walk home, to sit near the bus driver, to choose brightly lit streets, never take a short cut, even cross the road if a 'dodgy' man appeared. I have been given a rape alarm. I've carried mace. Haven't yet heard of any boys receiving all this. These are messages about personal safety that are often passed from woman to woman. They are well-intended and come from a place of care and love, but why is it still so widely accepted that it is a woman’s responsibility to prevent an attack? I never questioned this as I grew up. It's what we girls learnt. Yet I went on to experience groping in nightclubs, a man trying to get into my car then trying to stop my car, frequent sexual comments then verbal agression on nights out, even more recently, a man running at me late at night... In the UK, one in four women will experience domestic abuse and one in five will experience sexual assault during her lifetime. The number of rape prosecutions is falling year-on-year despite a much greater rise in the number of cases being reported, according to the Rape Monitoring Group. While we teach women to adapt their lives to keep safe, there appears to be little work being done to educate men against chauvinistic attitudes or aggressions, such as wolf-whistling, that make so many environments hostile for women. Ask your teenage girl what it is like at school. It begins young! We really do need as a society, rather than teach women to live in fear, address the attitudes, behaviour and violence that lie at the root of it. What happened to Sarah may be a rare event but that is cold comfort. It should not be luck that we make it home from a walk. Thank you to Emma Burke and her heartfelt letter in the Guardian. Friday 12 March 2021

Peter Levine has spent much of his life working with trauma and traumatised people, and has developed an approach called Somatic Experiencing® that focuses on including, and putting emphasis, on the physiological aspects of trauma. He believes that working with the trauma through the body is necessary to any trauma resolution and a required step before addressing emotional and cognitive issues. That is because trauma is experienced in the body - see the video on the limbic system. If we are are still in this hyperarousal mode of being then we cannot access our language or problem solving area of the brain so easily so we have to work through this to be able to access feelings and the words to describe them. What is good today, is we know we can do much more to help ourselves if and when we experience trauma. More about this later when I look at Stephen Porges' polyvagal theory in more detail.

Oh, John Steinbeck, I do agree with you. When I am stomping my way round the village clapping my hands together to keep warm, I just keep reminding myself that spring is right around the corner. Although I do my best to be in the present, noticing the frost on the trees and the icy patches on the pavements, I cannot help but let my mind wander to all of the outdoor adventures I have planned when the weather is warm again! This is what I am looking forward to: walking miles, picnics, parks, hot summer nights, the seaside, sandals, a cool beer, getting a tan, beaches, flowers, reading in the sunshine, festivals, ice-cream, al fresco eating, the countryside, camping, laying in the grass, t-shirts and shorts, maxi skirts …….

Why do you want to live a quiet life? Try making a list of reasons why a quieter life is appealing to you. Maybe you live in a noisy town or city and want to experience a calmer lifestyle or it could be that you find yourself spending too much time on social media and want to be more focused on in the present moment. Try creating a quiet room - no phones, no television, no laptops. Use it to meditate - just sit quietly, focussing on your breath or your body sensations. Or maybe connect with the present by noticing what sounds can be heard.

Here the fabulous School of Life introduce us to the joy of a quiet life. Quiet lives feel nowadays like lives of failure and resignation, but they may be no such thing: true ambition can lie in learning how to minimise stress and divert energy to properly important projects. 3 possible ways to consider: 1. Adjust your lifestyle - slow down, reduce your commitments, eliminate unnecessary extras and declutter. 2. Reprioritise your life - live according to your values, make realistic plans, live in the present, keep a gratitude diary, practice self-compassion and empathy, and challenge resentment with gratitude. 3. Change your world - move house, change transportation, change careers, practice well-being and take responsibility for your own happiness. Namaste!

Change can be painful but may well open up various opportunities to us. Times of adversity can also be rich growth for us though it may not feel like it at the time! Things may not always be quite what they seem. What can we learn from these difficult experiences? Change is part of life!

Self-hatred is a particularly vicious disease which destroys our ability to defend ourselves and to confront enemies. Here are some fabulous tips from the School of Life on how to make better friends with ourselves. What else can we do? Jae Song suggests: 1. Start Small Start with doing something you can do immediately and easily e.g. clean your room, organise your papers or pay all your bills. 2. Create a Compelling Vision Use the power of your imagination. Create an image of yourself as the confident and self-assured person you aspire to become. Choose an appropriate role-model. Mine is the wonderful Maya Angelou. 3. Socialize Get out of the house - setup a lunch date with a friend. Socializing with others will give us opportunities to connect with other people and practice our communication and interpersonal skills. 4. Do Something that Scares You As with all skills, we get better with practice and repetition. The more often we proactively do things that scare us, the less scary these situations will seem, and eventually will be rid of that fear. 5. Do Something You Are Good At What are you especially good at or enjoy doing? Regularly doing things that you are good at reinforces your belief in your abilities and strengths. 6. Set Goals Apparently people who regularly write down their goals earn nine times as much over their lifetime as people who don’t. By setting SMART goals, you have a clear target of where you want to be. 7. Help Others Feel Good About Themselves Help somebody or teach them something. When you help other people feel better about themselves and like themselves more, it will make you feel good about yourself. 8. Get Clarity on Life Areas Get clarity on the life area that needs the most attention. Your self-esteem is the average of your self-concept in all the major areas of your life. Write down all the major categories of your life, e.g., health, relationships, finance, etc. Then rate yourself on a scale of 1-10 in each area. Work on the lowest numbered category first, unless they are all even. Each area affects the other areas. The more you build up each area of your life, the higher your overall self-esteem. 9. Create a Plan Having a goal alone won’t do much. Get clarity on your action items. One of the biggest reasons people get lazy is because they don’t have a plan to achieve their goals. They don’t know what the next step is and start to wander off randomly. When you’re baking a cake, it’s a lot easier to follow a set of clear instructions, than randomly throwing ingredients together. 10. Get Motivated Read something inspirational, listen to something empowering, talk to someone who can uplift our spirits, who can motivate us to become a better person, to live more consciously, and to take proactive steps towards creating a better life for ourselves and our families. 11. Get External Compliments As funny as this point suggests, go find a friend or family member and ask them “ What do you like about me? ” “ What are my strengths? ” or “ What do you love about me? ” We will often value other people’s opinions more than our own. We are the best at beating ourselves up for things not done well, and we are the worst at recognising what we’ve done well in. Hearing from another person our strengths and positive qualities helps to build a more positive image of ourselves. 12. Affirmations & Introspection Use affirmations, but in the right way. Some people think that when they’re in a slump, using positive affirmations will help them get out of it. Say something like “I am sitting here being very unproductive right now, is this the ideal me? What would help me?” Your affirmations have to be the TRUTH. Once you’re honest, take the first step towards doing the thing, no matter how small. 13. No More Comparisons Stop comparing yourself to other people. Low-self esteem stems from the feeling of being inferior. Accept that it’ll serve you more to just go down your own path at your own pace rather than to compare yourself. Pretend you’re starting over and begin immediately with the smallest step forward. The other thing to remember is we are all walking our own path and most of us are focussing on that - not on what others are doing. You're doing just great!

Not a long talk, just a 'short' from the RSA from the lovely Brene Brown. Who isn't bit of a blamer - most of us are? And why should we give it up? In this witty sequel to the most popular RSA Short, inspirational thinker Brené Brown considers why we blame others, how it sabotages our relationships and why we desperately need to move beyond this toxic behaviour. And why do we do it? Blame is an excellent defence mechanism. Call it projection, denial, or displacement, blame helps us preserve our sense of self-esteem by avoiding awareness of our own flaws or failings. Blame is a tool we use when we’re in attack mode. It is, however, a destructive conflict resolution method as blame is a way to try to hurt our partners. We’re not very good at working out the causes of other people's behaviour, or even our own. The attributions we make can be distorted by our tendency to make illogical judgments. We're also just as bad at making judgments involving actions in terms of intent vs. outcome plus blame. It’s easier to blame someone else than to accept responsibility. There’s less effort involved in recognising our contributions to a bad situation than in accepting the fact that we're actually at fault, and changing so we don't do it again. People lie. It’s easy just to lie and blame someone else even though you know you’re at fault. You may think that no one will know it was really you who spilled coffee all over the staff room, so you just blame someone else who’s not there (and hope that person never finds out). The more often we play the blame game, the more we lose. Being honest when we need to own up to our part in a bad situation will help us grow from our experiences and ultimately help us achieve more fulfilling relationships. Plus, what is the worst that can happen?

Such a great quote from Professor Brene Brown. After her first TED talk, her husband warned her not to read the comments which, of course, she did and later found herself comforting her hurt feelings with peanut butter and Dowtown Abbey. Curious to see who was the president at the time Downtown Abbey was set, she stumbled upon the Roosevelt's 'Man in the Arena' speech: " It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again…who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly. " “There is my life before that quote, and my life after that quote,” says Dr. Brown. It crystalized what it meant to “be in the arena” to Dr. Brown, and she connected it to vulnerability. “Vulnerability is not about losing, it is about showing up when you can’t control the outcome,” says Dr. Brown. She explains that we are hard-wired to care what others think, but we need to be intentional about who we accept feedback from. And after reading the Roosevelt quote, Brown concluded, “If you are not in the arena, getting your ass kicked and rejected, I am not interested in your feedback about my work.” The only people Brown seeks feedback from are people who love her, but are honest with her." People who love you not in spite of your imperfection and vulnerability, but because of it."

If you’re a people pleaser, you spend a huge amount of energy trying to make others happy. You invest a lot of time in the details, and you go out of your way to make sure everyone is taken care of, often at the expense of yourself. You’re thoughtful, you get joy out of seeing others happy and you’re also probably pretty sensitive. When your well made plans don’t work out, you’re discouraged. When people aren’t happy, you fixate and worry. You try not to let other people’s comments and opinions get to you, but it’s hard. People pleasing is an exhausting and reinforcing pattern. It’s a trap. It feels great when we succeed, but it leaves us dependent on other people for our worth and happiness. Thankfully, like any habit or pattern, you can change it. With intention and effort, you can transform your people pleasing ways. In addition to the quotation above, this month’s mantra is, “I can’t please everybody...and that’s ok."