Hello and welcome to the Midlife Spirit!
This Wednesday letter and round-up offers you a regular sacred pause via the video above to centre yourself and listen to the wisdom within. (There’s a written version at the end of this post.)
This week includes a reading of ‘I Don’t Know’, from my book I Am With You: Words of comfort & strength for difficult times, (buy it HERE). It very much speaks to the discombobulation that arises in your forties and peri/menopause!
Now, read on for things to read and listen to, for your midlife spirit…
I hope the things I’ve included inform, inspire or uplift you … and please do comment with your own recommendations.
✨For Your Midlife Spirit…
Each week I’m sharing links to articles, podcasts and things that have helped me nourish my midlife spirit that I think you’ll also enjoy. So here’s the roundup.
📖Something to read
READ: Best Books on Menopause. I’ve read numerous books on peri/menopause and midlife over recent years. This blog post gives you a list & quick overview of the best ones I’ve read so far.
🎧Something to listen to
LISTEN HERE: What Death Teaches Us About Living on the Returning podcast. Author, teacher, creative & mystic Rebecca Campbell interviews author, global speaker, storyteller and teacher of courage, Bronnie Ware. After working at the bedside of the dying for many years, Bronnie alchemised her profound insights and experience into the international bestselling memoir, The Top Five Regrets of the Dying.
The conversation in this podcast travels in many directions and asks some enormous and important questions spanning creativity, purpose, motherhood, the importance of creating space, soul journeys, religion and the ultimate question: what does happen when we die?
(And if you’re intrigued about what those top five regrets are, then you can read about them HERE.)
😍Something to look at
Here’s another card from my elemental oracle deck. This one is from the FIRE suit.
LIGHTNING: Inspiration. Energy. Intuitive Flashes. Insight.
Do you need to receive this message today? What is your soul’s response? How does it feel to look at this card? What other images or words or feelings arise as you gaze at it?
…Breathe and receive these soul whispers … and trust yourself.
✍️Over to you…
Share something in the comments section that has nourished or uplifted your midlife spirit this week. Write a few words to describe your experience or perhaps share a link if it’s something you’ve read, listened to or watched.
I’m a firm believer that as we share our stories, thoughts and experience we help ourselves and each other feel less alone. So do please consider leaving a comment for me and others to read!
Thank you so much for being here.
If you wish to support my work then why not buy me a herbal tea or decaf coffee HERE? 🫖🍵☕🙏🥰💞
Video Transcript: I Don’t Know
Hello and welcome to this week’s Midlife Spirit with me, Stella Tomlinson and welcome to this short practice to centre yourself and connect to the wisdom within.
Let’s begin by invoking the Midlife Spirit: that energy within us and around us that can help and guide us in our middle years.
Heart to heart, flame to flame, Midlife Spirit we invoke your name. Flame of healing, flame of guidance, flame of self-compassion, we open to your presence and welcome you in.
In today’s practice I’m sharing with you some words from my book I Am With You that speak to the sense of discombobulation that we can often experience during our middle years, particularly during the peri/menopause transition, where we can feel like your very soul is shifting and changing and what once made sense no longer does, you want to burn your whole life down and start again, and you’re not sure who you are anymore.
The words in the poem I share came to me when I was very much feeling like that, but they also offer some hope that it’s all for a good reason…
As ever, I’ll share these words with you as part of the short Earth-Heart-Sky centring practice that I love to practise every day and love to share with you.
So, let’s begin.
Take a few moments to settle … And now invite your awareness to move down through floor…. Down into the earth beneath … The soil, the rocks the roots below… Sensing the solidity and strength of the earth … always there… An ongoing presence of support and strength … And invite a sense of calm strength to rise up from the earth into your body … into your bones … into your muscles… rising up through your spine… Peaceful strength flowing through your body…
And now let your awareness rise to sense the vast expanse of sky above you … Unlimited, expansive, free... And feel the air dancing around you… And sense golden light is shining down from the sun … light and energy and clarity… …flowing down through the crown of your head... into your body … …energising, expansive … … and soothing, nurturing … …you’re filled with golden light, sparkling through every cell of your being….
Receiving from above and below …. The energies of the earth and the energies of the sky mingling in the centre of your being … Breathe and receive…
And now you might like to gently place your hand on your heart if you wish to …. And bring to mind someone for whom you feel affection … a tender warmth… A person or maybe a pet … And notice how it feels to think of them with warmth and affection …
Notice how it feels in your body … Maybe there’s a softening… An expansiveness… Or a tingling… Maybe even a gently subtle smile softening the corners of your mouth… And now open to receive warmth and affection from them … Breathe and receive this loving connection… Tender warmth flowing out … tender warmth flowing in …
Inviting a feeling of peace, contentment and tender warmth to flow through every cell of your being… Breathe, and receive the healing balm of peace, contentment and tender love…
And let yourself marinate in these feelings as I share with you these words:
I DON’T KNOW
I don’t know who I am any more.
My body is changing, my face is ageing,
My steps feel uncertain.
I don’t know who I am any more.
All the old identities and labels I’d worked for
Are falling away.
I don’t know who I am any more.
My inner world is spinning
And I can’t make it stop.
I don’t know who I am any more.
The leaves on the tree that was once in full bloom
Are changing colour, getting ready to drop.
Yet, perhaps this not knowing
Is a gift in disguise.
A clue from the other side.
Maybe this not knowing is a chance
To stop breathe, and pause.
What if this not knowing
Is an invitation to become
Who I was always meant to be?
So yes, I don’t know who I am any more.
What a delicious opportunity
To decide to be me.
Let those words land within your heart. And just notice if there’s anything your heart and soul wish to communicate with you about this delicious opportunity to decide to be you. How can you step into your most authentic self? Even just 1%. Perhaps there’s an image, a word, a feeling, a longing … Breathe and receive this whisper … and trust yourself.
This completes today’s simple centring practice.
And we’ll finish by closing our sacred space:
Thank you Midlife Spirit, your flame is in our heart always.
Until next time, I wish you the blessings of fierce and tender self-compassion for your midlife journey,
Stella x
Books for your midlife spirit
Perimenopausal Not Knowing