SECOND SPRING EB

Kate Codrington

• Publisher: HQ
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9780008469771
• eBook ISBN: 9780008469764
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Nutrition, Dietics & Bariatrics

The ultimate positive, practical guide to menopause.

'The 'Artists Way' of menopause' Sophie Fletcher, author of the bestselling Mindful Hypnobirthing, Mindful Mamma and Mindful Menopause

It's time to re-frame menopause.

Perimenopause can sometimes feel like the rug has been pulled from under our feet and this can leave us feeling disempowered and lost. Second Spring is a new kind of menopause book, bringing the radical notion that with small changes and a clear-eyed look at what's no longer serving you, you can reclaim your vitality and joy in life.

Second Spring offers a new vision for menopause, mapping the psychological phases and showing how this period in your life can be a time of personal growth. Like your slightly sweary best friend, Kate Codrington guides you through managing physical challenges with lifestyle changes and understanding what might be causing them. Whether you choose a natural route, HRT or a combination of both, there's a wealth of self-care practices available here to soothe your symptoms. These include journaling prompts, practical tips and soulful enquiries real-life solutions for managing symptoms with kindness, helping you to become the person you always longed to be.

What we need in challenging times is not shame or pushing through, but to treat ourselves with care and compassion.

Separation

17 Separation: the first phase of menopause

‘IT WAS LIKE WALKING A TIGHT ROPE OVER A LARGE PRECIPICE.’

Liza

Separation is the call to ‘Marie Kondo’ your life, except that life decluttering is much, much trickier than reorganizing your knicker drawer. Separation, which equates to perimenopause, marks the beginning of the shift from Summer to Autumn; you know those early September days when the sun is shining, but there’s a little chill in the air? The roses are looking tired, the trees dusty and sad? That’s the beginning. You feel subtly off, your spirit is looking a little dusty and tired, and you start creating distance from your life, feeling removed or detached. Because it’s not comfortable at all, we tend to react negatively as the challenges appear:

• tiredness
• stress
• feeling lost
• you see what is not working in your life
• grief
• anger
• random illness, injury, and misfortune show up

You will feel tired. Very tired. This does not mean there is something wrong with you necessarily, it means that you have been working bloody hard at being alive. My punt is that if the world supported menstrual cycle awareness and we could easily follow our natural need to rest for a few days every month, we would not be so knackered at menopause. Unfortunately, many of us arrive at the gateway on our knees already, under-resourced to face the challenges that await us.

The hormonal changes at menopause make us super sensitive to stress. It’s so unfair! We also become highly sensitized to noise, foods, and all kinds of things, just at the point where we are experiencing seismic physical and psychological change. Added to this, high stress levels will make every single menopause symptom worse. It’s totally unfair!

Separation also makes us feel lost and confused. This has a psychological purpose, because we have to lose ourselves in order to find a juicier version of ourselves in Second Spring. It can feel very frightening for sure, and it can be a comfort to know that you are held in a process here. It’s very uncomfortable because as humans, we like to know where we’re going, to be in control, including a satnav to guide us and a nice Instagram photo of our beautiful destination.

Think of it as the archetypal hero’s journey, where the narrative takes us away from our safe home and sends us into the wilds of nature, where we are required to use our courage and intuition to get the help we need, so we can return home changed. There are many, many stories you can use as a guide; for example, Hansel and Gretel left their family and got lost in the woods, gathering their wisdom before they could follow the trail of breadcrumbs back home. Red Riding Hood faced the wolf. In the Russian Baba Yaga story, Vasilisa had her doll to help her complete the tasks before she went home to set fire to her family … There’s a story for everyone! All of them say the same thing: ‘You will be lost, but you will return wiser, stronger and happier.’

One of the gifts of Autumn is discernment. You are treated to a clear view of what is not working in your life. This often brings divorce, crisis, and rage. This is part of the de-cluttering process that is necessary. Mostly it hurts.

‘AT 45, I CONCLUDED THAT I COULD NOT STAY WITH THE MAN I WAS MARRIED TO BECAUSE I COULDN’T BE MYSELF. I HAD FOUR CHILDREN TO SUPPORT, SO I WORKED OUT A PLAN OF HOW I COULD PAY ALL THE BILLS AND SUPPORT THE CHILDREN IF HE WOULDN’T SUPPORT US. I WAS 48 WHEN I TOLD HIM OUR MARRIAGE WAS OVER. HE WAS ABUSIVE IN MANY WAYS, SO IT WAS QUITE A SHIFT FOR ME TO ACTUALLY SAY I’VE HAD ENOUGH. IT TOOK ANOTHER EIGHTEEN MONTHS BEFORE HE ACTUALLY LEFT THE HOUSE, AND THAT WAS THE START OF MY EMPOWERMENT. THEN WHEN I WAS 50, I FOUND YOGA. WHETHER IT WAS THE YOGA OR ME BEING POSTMENOPAUSAL, I STARTED MAKING DIFFERENT DECISIONS, AND I CAME INTO MY POWER.’

Cryn

Historically, menopausal women have been ridiculed as either mad or angry, but as we’ll be dealing with the former possibility in more detail in chapter 20, let’s deal with the anger now. I’d like to reassess that judgement from a feminist angle and suggest that there are many things in our lives that we are entirely justified in being bloody furious about. The endless sexism, the way we have messed up our planet and the fallout from that, the opportunities lost, the abuse and trauma, financial loss. Maybe we should be even angrier? Anger is the precursor for change, for movement, and without it, we are in stasis. Imagine if our anger were continually stuffed down and not expressed? It doesn’t bear thinking about the pain that this causes in terms of depression and as repressed anger is also a contributor to heart disease, stroke, anxiety, and can even shorten your life.

I find myself particularly enraged by the way menopause is ridiculed by people of all genders. It denies us the right to our fear, our rage. It cheats us from the reality of this extraordinary shift in consciousness. Not that I want to eliminate humour, far from it – there’s a daftness that arises to pierce pomposity and call out the bullshit. I long for a time when Separation is dignified as an important rite of passage, and we’ll be given the peace we need to pay attention to this magnificent transformation.

It’s a bit like when you’re going on holiday. Before leaving, all the long-avoided admin and domestic tasks acquire a sudden urgency. In menopause, time and again, women share that they have had accidents, injuries, family crisis, financial crisis, and all kinds of random stuff that makes us say, ‘This can’t be related to menopause, can it?’ What’s happening is that old wounds are demanding our attention before we move on. Call it emotional admin: issues around vulnerability, early attachment issues, security, abuse, and trauma all surface in various guises for us to have another go at healing a bit more. This is exhausting to say the least, but it’s essential to remember it’s not a punishment. I am saddened when I hear people say, ‘I think it’s hurting because I’m not doing it right!’ Transforming into something else is a tender process, and it’s supposed to be messy.

As menopause is a natural time of decluttering, the flip-side of this is grief. Grief for the things that are passed, things you have not done, things that you have done and would rather you hadn’t. Youth has gone. There’s no getting around this and inevitably you will feel a degree of sadness about it. Grief and sadness are just part of the process and if you can honour them, you’ll feel so much lighter on the other side.

In the graphic of the Life Seasons here, you’ll have seen that the phases look like nice orderly slices of cake for you to munch your way through. In real life, growth doesn’t happen neatly. You’ll find yourself in Separation one moment and Surrender the next, with whiffs of Emergence arriving in the morning and a side of Second Spring with your dinner. When you look back in retrospect from your Second Spring clarity, you’ll probably be able to track how the broad arc of the phases played out over the years, but meanwhile, day to day, they will all be present in your daily life.

The fabulous power of the phases is that once you can recognize and name them to yourself, you can bypass any self-criticism and go straight to the self-care they demand. I remember one night when I was desperately trying to marshal my children to the dinner table to eat the food I had resentfully made and didn’t want to eat; I realized I was about to lose it and, for once, caught myself: ‘Aha! Hello Separation!’ Knowing that the medicine for Separation is to have space to myself to withdraw, I disappeared and left them to it. A small domestic incident for sure, but isn’t that what life is made up of – a series of small incidents?

Separation is the longest phase of menopause and arguably the hardest. The following chapters in this section are devoted to aspects that you may encounter, along with practical self-help and enquiry to deepen your relationship with yourself, and move through it all with style.

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PRACTICE

• Use the Circle (see chapter 16) with an intention that addresses your current symptoms.
• Rest with the Yoga Nidra for Separation, which you’ll find next.

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If it’s messy, you’re doing it right.

Yoga Nidra for Separation

This nidra will give you about 15 minutes of deep rest. Find a cosy space where you can recline undisturbed, with all the cushions and blankets you need, and as you read the practice through to yourself, let yourself be open to what feels good for you. You might like to prop the book on a cushion, for example, so your arms and hands can relax …

GETTING READY

Welcome to the practice of yoga nidra.

Welcome to this safe, protected place of rest, your true home.

Just arriving here is enough, we’ve burned the to-do list and the hard part is over.

There is no wrong way to do this.

This is all just an invitation – if there’s anything that doesn’t sit well with you, you can let it go.

GETTING COMFY

The intention of this practice is to accept the process of Separation.

Hang up your ‘do not disturb’ sign, turn off your phone, and create a space to rest, gathering all the cushions and blankets you need to recline comfortably.

Wriggle around to find a position where your shoulders can release a bit more, softly settling back …

Releasing the jaw with a yawn or a sigh.

Sinking into your resting place.

Letting your eyes soften.

Noticing the sounds beyond the place you are resting in.

Noticing the sounds in the space around you.

Drawing your atte...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Praise
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Note to Readers
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Life Seasons
• Separation
• Surrender
• Emergence
• Second Spring
• Acknowledgements
• Notes
• Resources
• About the Publisher