The Perimenopause Journal: Unlock your power, own your well-being, find your path - Hardcover

Codrington, Kate

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1446313581 ISBN 13: 9781446313589

Publisher: David & Charles, 2024

Synopsis

Get ready for a positive perimenopause with The Perimenopause Journal, a gorgeously illustrated, 52 week, undated journal that supports you to refine a bespoke self-care plan to ease you through your perimenopause and into a vibrant postmenopausal life.

• It shows how understanding your ‘inner seasons ‘ is a fast track to self-compassion

• Gives you prompts and enquiries for appropriate self-care

• Charts to track your energy with the moon phases

• Intention setting meditation to clarify your focusYoga Nidra guided meditations to rest, integrate and regain calm

• Each month there is space for reflection and intention setting to focus on small, do-able changes in your life, to ease your symptoms, access your power and find your path.

It’s created for the bold and curious who are interested in personal growth and want to understand and care for themselves while they go through the process of perimenopause. If you go to yoga, but cringe at the chanting or follow your mindfulness class with a glass of prosecco... this is for you.

You are not deficient or in need of fixing. At last, there is a non-patronising, feminist, reassuring guide to managing your symptoms and investing in the self-care you need to blossom into a creative postmenopause.

A beautiful gift for a dear friend, The Perimenopause Journal gives a kind cosy nest to reflect on how we can care for ourselves, instead of what is going wrong with us. Through this emphasis of care, we can nourish ourselves and fill up from exhaustion to see the way forward.

About this title

About the Author

Kate is a mentor, author, speaker, facilitator, artist and podcaster. She is the author of Second Spring: the self-care guide to menopause, which is part of the 'menopause cannon' according to the New York Times. Kate mentors people in perimenopause and beyond, 1-2-1 and in groups, is a nature-based Yoga Nidra meditation guide, hosts Life - An Inside Job podcast, has been a therapist for more than 30 years and creates multi-level art textile projects. When she’s not doing these things you’ll find her playing in her compost heaps.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Perimenopause is not a hormone deficiency, it’s the time before your last period, a normal life stage and transition to a more liberating time of life. Perimenopause need not be a crisis, but lots of people talk up a fearful narrative that creates stress and confusion, which will make symptoms worse. Lots of people can make lots of money by suggesting that your body is failing and falling apart. Perimenopause is a time of growth that is asking you to love yourself more. But there’s not much money to be made in us blossoming on our own terms. So what’s going on?

It is clear that we have not been living in a sustainable way: our exhaustion, the planet’s crisis, the lack of care for our wellbeing, especially in perimenopause, the endless misogyny and the way we fear ageing show us clearly that we are working out of step with the natural rhythm of life. It’s not us malfunctioning here, it’s the system that’s at fault. We know this in our bones, but nevertheless we resist and fight against the natural ebb and flow, and continue to suffer.

Living with the seasons, known as cyclical living or cyclical awareness, brings us into a more caring relationship with the earth and with ourselves. The seasons also appear as ‘inner seasons’ through our reproductive lives in the menstrual and moon cycles. We become increasingly expansive through our inner Springs and Summers, and more reflective and inward-looking through our inner Autumns and Winters. Since your first period you’ve been in an expansive Spring and Summer phase, and the more reflective Autumn and Winter of your perimenopause has likely come as a shock because we were told the expansion was limitless: we should keep on giving and multi-tasking forever. But there has to be a time of reflection, releasing and rest before we can emerge into postmenopause, also known as your Second Spring, with the energy to start a fresh cycle. To put it simply, if you want to emerge into a badass Second Spring, you’ll probably need to drop some less helpful habits and beliefs.

These same inner seasons are present in the menstrual cycle, and paying attention to what trips you up and what supports you in your premenstrual phase will show you how to care for yourself in perimenopause.

Edition details

• Publisher: David & Charles
• Publication date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1446313581
• ISBN 13: 9781446313589
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 196