To everything there is a season — Middle Years Monday

If this is your first MYM newsletter visitation then I send you an extra big virtual squeeze. It's been a while since I was last here and it feels great to be back. I hope that you have been able to welcome some ease into the start of this new year and that some of the tools and resources that you received during the Advent Illuminations are still offering you warm companionship. All 24 of the Illuminations are here (together with a summary of what you can expect from each of them) for you to dip into at any time.

It's been an extraordinary month for me. The MYM Membership community went live on January 9th - and typing those words still feels surreal. I've been receiving some glorious feedback from our Members and am feeling very fortunate to have been able to bring all these wonderful women together - witnessing the ways in which they are cultivating such real and intimate connections with each other is a privilege. There is much more that I could say about how Life is eternally surprising - and I'm sure I'll dig around in that subject and share further thoughts another time. But for now I would simply like to lovingly invite you to always leave room for hope and for the whisper of possibility that your life today absolutely does not need to be your life 12 months from now - unless you want it to be.

On the subject of MYM Membership, it feels like there's a balance to be found in these newsletters. For those of you who are feeling a pull towards it and would like to gain some insight into what it's like to be part of our private community I want to do what I can to help with that, so that when our doors open briefly next month to allow a small group of new Members you are ready to decide whether or not it feels right for you to join us then. And for those of you who are not at all interested in M'ship I don't want to frustrate you by talking too much about it! The compromise I think I'll strike is to include some M'ship news at the end of some of these Letters of Love (but not today's!) - so that it's super easy for you to either soak up those tidbits or avoid them altogether.

It's also worth sharing my intention with you here that even if you choose never to be part of that community, you will still benefit from its existence because I'll endeavour to pass on to you some of the key learnings that emerge from the webinars and discussions that take place within the M'ship. Which segues perfectly into what I'm writing to you about today...

The kindness of seasonal living

The ex part of being an ex-Catholic is very pronounced for me (I'm not at all religious now), so I've surprised myself by choosing to begin this email with a quote from the Old Testament (Ecclesiastes 3). But as some of you will already know, it's part of such a beautiful passage - and felt so fitting for today's letter to you.

The first of the MYM Members' live sessions led by our resident wellbeing practitioner, Gemma David (who you may know as @thequietheart), was called Living with the Seasonsand in truth it had a far more profound impact on me than I was expecting. It's funny, isn't it, the way you can hear a particular message a billion times before it is expressed in a way that you can actually listen to?

I suspect that one of the things you and I probably have in common is that we follow a number of inspirational people on social media who talk convincingly about self-love, slow living and seasonal living. But there can be quite the gap to bridge, can't there, between understanding the theory of something and having an actual 'A-ha!' moment which then turns into action. For various reasons I have been pretty resistant to creating rituals and rhythms in my life - partly due to a hangover from my fairly authoritarian upbringing which has morphed into an unhelpful belief that routine = lack of freedom. I've been labouring under the mistaken idea that my somewhat chaotic way of doing things is proof of my liberated existence; that working, eating and sleeping whenever I want is me exercising my free will and is something to be celebrated. But if that translates into working All. The. Time. (and not sleeping until crazy o'clock) then obviously something is awry. What I've actually done is create a pretty harsh existence for myself in which I am a cruel mistress. And it's time for a change. So - and especially as one of the key aims of MYM is to help us all to welcome more ease into our lives - I'm going to gather together here various reflections on seasonal living, some drawn from Gemma's session, and others based on reading and thinking I've done since. I hope that there will be some gems for you...

Seasons are not just annual events

It's kind of embarrassing that as a 49 year-old woman who has lived through over three and half decades of menstrual cycles (the clue is in the word, Pip), I've paid zero attention to the whole idea of intentionally living in alignment with my rhythms. I have basically pushed on through, ignoring every kind of season that there is and paid no heed whatsoever to the calling of my body - and in fact my whole self. I have completely disregarded circadian rhythms; my natural sleep cycles; the energy peeks and troughs of my menstrual cycle; the waxing and waning of the moon; the annual seasons; and Yin and Yang. If you too have treated yourself like a piece of indestructable machinery rather than an exquisitely sensitive and miraculous living creature, this is my loving invitation to you to consider that there might be an alternative.

So what does it mean to live with the seasons?

In Gemma's words: "fundamentally it's coming back to living in connection with - or with a rootedness to - what's happening around us with nature."And this is not just about aligning our life and behaviours with winter, spring, summer and autumn, it's about paying attention to our own internal daily and monthly rhythms. Gemma tells us that "ultimately if you can really connect with this rhythm then you can still live your busy life but you can also give up a little bit to what's happening around you and what you need to do... It's about engaging and connecting with the differing energy between seasons, noticing how our bodies respond and adapt to this, enjoying seasonal rituals - and ultimately it's an act of acceptance and flow."

How does it help us - what’s the point?

Because it helps us on a physiological level, including supporting our immune system, our nervous system and our sleep…

Circadian rhythms - We have a kind of internal 'master clock', which is a group of neurons within the area of the brain called the hypothalamus that govern our circadian rhythms. Triggered by external cues it determines certain processes in the body. For example, our eyes detecting sunlight results in melatonin production, which in turn later causes sleepiness. We disrupt these circadian rhythms at our peril, paying a high price with our physical and mental health. A compelling example of the potent impact of harnessing or ignoring these rhythms (which I read about in this Guardian newspaper article) is that "a study on nearly 300 pensioners at 24 GP practices in England has found that the best time to have a flu jab is probably in the morning, as this is the time when the immune systems of older people are better able to produce virus-fighting antibodies. Scientists believe that up to 2,400 lives might be saved if all winter flu jabs were given to older patients before noon, as this is the time when their immune defences are at their best." Wow, perhaps it really is time to start introducing some routine into our lives when it comes to the hours during which we eat, sleep, go outside, exercise (and - of course - stimulate ourselves with phone screens).

Today I've disappeared down a whole other rabbit hole because, on the recommendation of a friend (hi Jo), I've been listening to Dr Michael Breus' Better Sleep masterclass on the Calm app. Wow it's interesting and there is lots of fascinating info to absorb and changes to try out (boiling up banana tea being just one of them!). I haven't listened to enough of it to be able to comment further here, other than to say that he too speaks super compellingly about the benefits of harnessing our own personal rhythms when it comes to when and for how long we sleep. If you are already a subscriber to Calm then do have a listen and I'll be really interested to know what you think.

Monthly cycles - My very first period was greeted with pragmatism and efficiency and no further thought beyond how I was going to work around it so that I could still go to the beach and swim in the sea that day (I grew up not far from the coast in the beautiful English county of Dorset). So I was shown how to insert an applicator-less tampon using KY jelly and off we went into the sunshine. Until recently, my only real interest in tracking my cycle was a decade ago during our attempts to get pregnant. I have paid no heed to how I feel at different times of the month and what steps I might want to take to align my activities accordingly. Like many of us, I suspect, I've just pushed on through with painkillers and ignorance.

It seems that as I fast approach menopause, my periods are having a kind of swan song and are making themselves much more strongly felt. They are much heavier and more painful and my PMS symptoms more pronounced. For the first time in my life, there are several days a month during which the basic activities of daily living are a struggle. So, it's time for me to start trying to harness my cycle rather than working against it - and the copy of Maisie Hill's Period Powerwhich has been gathering dust on a shelf is now being eagerly pored over. At the heart of Maisie's book is the premise that: "Your energy, moods, appetite, sleep, sexual desire, creativity, productivity, ability to focus, interest in socialising, and need for movement and rest are all hugely affected by where you're at in your cycle." She states this on page 47 and I'm immediately hooked because suddenly it's not so weird that there are (at least) two very different versions of me - one that can't bear to answer the phone to even my closest of friends let alone go out into the world and socialise, and the other that will gladly talk the hind legs off a donkey given half a chance. Sometimes it feels like the world is my oyster and I'm brimming over with creativity and a sense of possibility and limitlessness - those are the times when I do things like conceive of Makers 4 Refugees and Middle Years Monday. And then there's the MUCH more subdued and insecure version of me that's like "Pip, what have you done?!"How amazing it will be for me if I can work out when these 'different Pips' are likely to occur so that I can factor that into my social and work plans.

In essence, Maisie splits the menstrual cycle up into the four seasons of the year with the time of menstruation being Winter; the pre-ovulation phase being Spring; ovulation is Summer; and the week or so before our bleed is Autumn. She tells us that "Each season of the cycle has its own set of superpowers and dangers..." and that"...being in tune with your inner seasons will enable you to respect where you are in your cycle so that when it comes to the aspects that you can't move around or skip entirely, you can at least be aware of what's going on and take care of your needs so that there's less anguish and catastrophes. It's a bit like when it's cold, wet and windy outside and you've got somewhere to go. There will be times when you don't want to go outside and when you'll be able to change your plans, but there'll be plenty of times when you just have to dress appropriately, take an umbrella and get on with it, and that's exactly what The Cycle Strategy is."

And when we no longer menstruate, Maisie suggests that we can work with the 29.5 day lunar cycle instead: "Paying attention to the phases of the lunar cycle and living in tune with them allows non-menstruators to benefit from the containers created by cyclical living, the most beneficial of which is often time dedicated to rest and rejuvenation." Maisie draws on the work of Sarah Gottesdiener (author of Many Moons) who says that when using the lunar cycle the new moon is Winter/menstruation; the waxing moon is Spring/pre-ovulation; the full moon is Summer/ovulation; the waning moon is Autumn/premenstruum; and the dark moon is "the hours and days before and at the start of Winter".

This ‘Optimum times’ diagram is NOT from Maisie's book - it's something I found online (and I can't find an image credit unfortunately). But I think it's a really interesting and thought-provoking way into the whole issue of how to start recognising and then harnessing the different phases of our monthly cycles - whether we are using our menstrual or lunar cycles as a way of tracking and noticing our own unique rhythms.

Traditional Chinese Medicine

Gemma's webinar included an introduction to Traditional Chinese Medicine (in which she has a first class degree) and I found hearing about the concept of Yin and Yang particularly fascinating - which Gemma told us is based on the concept of duality, opposing forces, interdependence and complementarity. For the purposes of this missive here's a helpful summary that I came across: "Every individual needs to find the balance of yin and yang depending on their own constitution, climate, season, occupation and even emotional environment. An imbalance in the yin-yang ratio can cause illness. If in perfect health, the individual should be able to adapt to any of the inevitable changes of life."

Gemma talked to us about Qi, the Five Elements, acupressure point exercises, nutrition, specific recipes and supplements and all sorts of things we can do to live seasonally. I did have the lofty ambition of summarising for you the whole of Gemma's session, but in truth I would not be able to do it justice and I don't want to risk misleading you with misinterpretations. Plus, this would make this newsletter even more epic in length than it already is! So, what I will share with you here are three diagrams that illustrate better than my words could some of what Gemma told us about Yin and Yang - and made a big impact on me as a wake-up call about the extent to which I have been inclined to live against, rather than in alignment with, these daily and annual rhythms.

The first diagram illustrates the key characteristics of Yin and Yang; the second shows how Yin and Yang ebb and flow over the course of a year; and the third over the course of a day. For me, the impact of these illustrations is to invite me to consider whether I want to go with these natural rhythms, or against them?

One of the things that has most resonated with me is the way these visual representations help me understand why launching both Makers 4 Refugees and Middle Years Monday in the winter left me feeling majorly depleted. I wonder whether you too are better able to make sense of how some things for you have perhaps been more of a struggle than they needed to be - and how you might be able to better support yourself to live with, rather than against, your natural rhythms in the future.

So my friends, that's it from me for today. I would usually include a Middle Years Monday Illuminations section in every newsletter, but I'm coming to realise that there is definitely such a thing as too much information - and I've probably already pushed my luck with the length of this letter to you :)

I do hope that there might be something that you've read here today which perhaps gives you the gentle nudge you need in order to start treating yourself with the gentleness and compassion that you deserve. What adjustments might you be able to make that will invite more ease, flow and balance into your day, month and year? Let's keep talking about these things - and do share with me any seasonal living 'A-ha moments' of your own.

With love to you,

Pip x

Disclaimer:
Everything here is shared in good faith with an intention to support and inspire. However, neither Pip nor Middle Years Monday claim to understand your personal circumstances, we are not dispensing medical advice and you should not take anything here as a replacement for advice from a qualified health practitioner.