I recently listened to a podcast about Reiki that mentioned a regular event, which a group of people began during covid. They joined together online for a weekly silent self-Reiki practice. The speaker talked about his surprise at how many people became interested in these sessions and particularly long after the restrictions for meeting in person had lifted.

This put me in mind of the ‘Self-Reiki Shares’ that I held for my Reiki students during the long months of lockdowns and how wonderful it was to be connected in our Reiki practice at this time. My lockdown sessions tended to be fairly interactive, with me offering information about Reiki and answering my students questions. It was also helpful at that time to share a little about how we were all coping with everything that was going on at the time.
 

Women’s health has been so overlooked…
Many of the people I see in my practice are women in their late thirties, forties and fifties. For almost all these women hormonal changes are happening. It isn’t really a surprise, given we know that fertility starts dropping off in the mid to late 30’s, however menopause is a word that is often not thought about for women until they are at the later end of this age range.

It is a transitional stage of life for women that can be both beautiful and empowering as well as very turbulent, unsettling and challenging. Both my personal experience and hours of talking to other women, personally and professionally, have led me to feel increasingly passionate about the lack of support women often face at this time. It has also prompted me to do a lot of research into what kind of help is out there to enable us to navigate the peri menopause stage of life, and beyond, with greater ease.

An unlikely collaboration?
A good friend of mine, who patiently listens to me frequently ranting on about some of these issues kindly mentioned me in a Facebook post. The company concerned were requesting ideas for topics to include for a ‘Menofest’ campaign they were putting together to mark world menopause month. I gladly added some comments about some issues that I think are important and frequently overlooked and the next thing that happened was a message pinged into my inbox asking me to write an article for them!

It has always been important to me to share this kind of knowledge to help other women to educate themselves and not suffer in silence. It isn’t news that there are many inequalities within health care provision for issues particularly experienced by female bodies. Molke is an ethical and sustainable underwear company, based in Scotland. They are champions of diversity, representation and women’s health: my kind of company! It is particularly fun to take part in what can seem like unlikely pairings of different companies coming together with a good cause at their heart. Head on over to their website to have a read of my full article here.

I might be able to help…
I’m not a menopause specialist but if it is something you are struggling with, I may well be able to help give you some information to get you started and signpost you to where you can get more specific help. The work I do can also be of great benefit in helping you to adjust to and cope with any challenges you are experiencing. A range of different types of support is often needed to ease the transition of this time of life and know that I will always be speaking from the heart and from a place of having had my own challenges with chaotic hormones!

Give me a call for an informal chat or book yourself a session here.

We don't talk much about death
Grief, loss, bereavement and death are topics that we tend not to discuss very much...

They are often very difficult to talk about and can involve many fears and worries. These can be about both our own emotions as well as what we might trigger in someone else or perhaps even burden them with. We can be afraid to ask someone how they are feeling for fear of upsetting them, saying the wrong thing or just feeling awkward. Sometimes loss may be relatively straightforward yet deeply and intensely painful. Other times it can be more complex and the emotions and reactions that come with it can be very confusing, surprising or even shocking.

In this article I talk through some of these things as well as a little about my own recent experience of loss. There is a link at the end to listen to an interview I did on the same topic.

I really hope it brings some comfort...
 

I first wrote this article in 2017 and revisited it in 2020, just before the chaos hit us all! I think it still stands so I have again given it a little update and I share it with you once more, as we make our way through the first month of this new year.

Half way through January, is often the time that an initial burst of enthusiasm starts to wane. It is still dark and, in the UK at least, it has been very wet and grey and some days have seemed to barely get light at all. Even for the UK it has been a little unusual. 

If your thoughts have been turning to ideas of making changes and setting goals I'd be curious to know how that is going? The beginning of the year may often be the time that you decide, indeed we are encouraged to decide, to finally get round to getting fitter, losing weight, starting to looking for a new job, learning a new skill or making a myriad of other changes. Even if you have long-since decided that setting New Year’s resolutions is a pointless activity it is hard to be completely immune to the idea that you should have things, 'goals', that you are going to aim to achieve this year. There can also be a tendency to aim unrealistically high, (an attempt to kick-start yourself off the back of the festive overindulgence perhaps?). Sustaining that enthusiasm can be a very different ball game and you may find you fall off the wagon of working towards those goals pretty quickly.

Maybe that ‘New Year feeling’ hasn't quite kicked in yet....?