Hello and welcome!
This week’s video includes the Self-Compassion practice from my book I Am With You: Words of comfort & strength for difficult times, (buy it HERE) - an essential tool in your kit for the challenges of the peri/menopause transition! As ever there’s a written version at the end of this post.
Now, read on for the best things I’ve read and listened to of late.
✨For Your Midlife Spirit…
Here’s this week’s round up of a few things that have helped me nourish my midlife spirit that I think you’ll also enjoy.
📖Something to read
READ: Rest in Center by Rick Hanson, PhD - I love the work and writings of Rick Hanson. So wise, so compassionate, so practical. And what he teaches works (it’s based on the principles and practice of positive neuroplasticity). This piece, from his weekly newsletter, is all about resting in centre - why to do this and how.
🎧Something to listen to
LISTEN HERE: Honouring Grief on the Intuition Conversations podcast - a conversation between host Meghan Field and writer, speaker, BANT Registered Nutritional Therapist, Maturation Coach, Executive & Organisational Coach and Reiki Practitioner Nicola Duffell.
I’m drawn to exploring grief, sorrow and longing. I think I’ve always been a bit that way inclined … but as I traverse midlife I find it’s an inevitable part of the terrain of this journey. We lose people and things we loved. Youth has passed. Some hopes and dreams simply haven’t come to fruition in the way we’d hoped for. These are just a few ways grief shows up in our lives.
This conversation explores how to make space for grief, the many forms of grief we may experience, how grief is part of being alive, and the importance of embodying grief.
Listen via the link above or wherever your get your podcasts.
🤔Something to reflect on
One way of invoking self-compassion that I have found to be both tender and gently powerful is to connect to ‘Good Mother’ energy.
To evoke in my mind’s eye a figure of unconditional love and to marinade in a felt sense of being held and loved.
If it feels safe and nurturing for you, you can imagine or own mother. Or, like me, you might prefer to imagine an archetypal figure or an image of Mother Mary or other Goddess or female deity.
Here I’m sharing with you a card I made for myself to do just this.
If you feel called to, reflect on this image (or your chosen Mother image) and imagine her gazing upon you with eyes of comfort, tenderness, acceptance, and love… And breathe and receive feelings of being loved into every cell of your being.
✍️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: Self-Compassion Practice
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 and to remind you of the ever-present light of compassion that shines within your heart.
Heart to heart, flame to flame, Midlife Spirit we invoke your name. Flame of healing, flame of guidance, flame of compassion, we open to your presence and welcome you in.
In today’s practice I’m sharing with you a practice that is at the beginning of my book I Am With You.
It’s a practice of self-compassion based on one shared by worldwide self-compassion expert Dr Kristin Neff, but I’ve given it a little twist towards the end from what I’ve learned from positive neuroplasticity.
Because self-compassion is certainly a foundational practice to bring into our lives everyday, particularly during this midlife peri/menopause journey where you’re changing in every cell of your being. It can be deeply challenging. Yes, rewarding and liberating too, but challenging along the way.
So you’re going to need kindness, you’re going to need self-compassion to be easier with yourself. Because your workplace might not get it. Your family and your friends might not get it. Certainly our society doesn’t make space for menopause beings to go through this deep level of change in your body, mind and soul.
So, self-compassion is the #1 tool in your kit for navigating these middle years with a bit more grace and to let it do it’s alchemy, it’s liberating work on your soul.
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 …
And now I’ll take you through this ‘Self-Compassion Break’ practice.
So, you might want to call to mind something that feels a little difficult at the moment. Maybe you’re struggling with hot flushes, with frustration, anger - very real and valid emotions… Something you’re struggling with and perhaps you’re a little harsh with yourself about it.
1. Acknowledge the painful feeling
Say something like: ‘this is difficult’ or ‘this feels challenging to acknowledge’ or ‘this hurts’.
Connect to and acknowledge the feeling – perhaps place a hand over your heart as you mindfully acknowledge it.
2. Connect to a sense of common humanity
Remind yourself that you are not the only person feeling like this. Acknowledging our common humanity can be immensely comforting.
Say to yourself something like: ‘I’m not alone in this’ or ‘other people feel this way too’.
With your hands over your heart, feel their warmth and the sensation of kind gentle touch (or whatever soothing touch you might prefer such as placing a hand on your cheek or on your shoulder).
3. Be kind to yourself
Ask yourself, ‘What do I need to hear right now to express kindness to myself?’.
For example: ‘I’m doing the best I can’ or ‘may I forgive myself’ or ‘may I learn to accept myself as I am’.
And now notice how it feels to be kind to yourself.
How does it feel to be warm and tender towards yourself? What sensations are present in your body? Perhaps there’s a softening of your eyes, maybe your jaw releases … your shoulders relax. Perhaps there’s a spaciousness in your chest… Maybe a warm feeling spreads internally through your abdomen… Maybe your whole body feels more settled … supported.
Notice how offering yourself kindness and compassion feels … and take a few more breaths letting that feeling sink into you as you sink into it... Like a soothing balm or a golden mist settling into your heart … into your bones … into the lonely and hurting places inside you.
Breathe and receive this feeling of kindness into every cell of your being.
Let this practice within your heart.
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
Be Kind To Yourself: Feel Better