Compassion helps us cope on difficult days

And simple ways to bring it into your life

Today is World Menopause Day and Cognition and Mood are themes for this year. As someone who struggled with anxiety and panic attacks, I know how tricky our brains can be in perimenopause.

For me, a part of the turning point was addressing my lack of self-compassion. If I could criticize myself for anything I would. My inner critic had deep roots and I once heard it described not as a small voice on your should but more like a gorilla in a dustbin that keeps wanting to break out and create havoc in your life. Visualize that for a minute😁

Cultivating compassion isn’t always a walk in the park but it was in a beautiful park, Sydney Botanic Garden, that the change began to take hold with the help of Christopher Germers amazing book The Mindful Path to Self Compassion

In the Buddhist tradition, there is a mythical bird where one wing represents wisdom (mindfulness), and the other represents compassion. It is out of balance to have one without the other. Therefore Mindfulness and Compassion are of equal importance in helping us to develop, to grow, and to help you move forward in a very different way.

I feel passionate about this and how the compassionate element has brought a different quality to me personally and why I have a strong focus on compassion within my menopause coaching work.

I know, on a profound level, how life-changing compassion can be. During my perimenopause, mindfulness was extraordinarily helpful because I didn’t get caught up in catastrophizing, layering up the distress, and creating secondary suffering.

However, I clearly remember crying and sobbing because I was so aware of the intensity of the emotional pain and mental trauma. I recognized that I was wracked with a sense of blame and guilt. I felt fear and grief, and I needed to do something different to move forward with my life in a completely new way.

It was the compassionate element, being kind to myself moment by moment. I just kept bringing compassion to what I was going through, and the primary way I was doing that was through self-soothing practices.

Here are some approaches that I use with my clients on their peri to post-menopause transitions when they are coping with labile or low moods, anxiety, or strong emotions like rage, sadness or shame.

Terms of Endearment

Something beneficial for me was thinking about myself with a term of endearment and if I started to feel that distress was arising, I was then able to say to myself something like “It’s okay hun to be feeling not OK right now, it’s only natural, these feelings will pass with time, be gentle on yourself right now”.

I know it feels ridiculous to start using terms of endearment, but I would strongly recommend that you practice it over and over as the more you do this, the sooner it starts to become habitual and second nature.

Be Your Own Best Friend

I also think of what my best friends would say when I had negative thoughts and feelings arising. My husband is my best friend, and he’s the opposite of me – a very chilled person.

If I started to sound like I was blaming myself for menopause symptoms, I could image my friends would always say to me something like, “Be kind to yourself, go for a nice walk or have a lie down.”

For instance, if I am working late, and I feel I’ve just got to write another email I will start to hear their voices saying; “Clarissa, time to let work go, it will still be there tomorrow, now it’s time just to relax and enjoy”, in a very soothing tone.

Give Yourself A Hug

Another way of doing this is through physical touch, hugging ourselves, stroking our hand or arm, or experiencing the sensations of gentle movement (restorative yoga is perfect for this). What we are doing is stimulating oxytocin, which is a bonding hormone that helps us to feel connected and kind to ourselves.

Including Self-Compassion with Menopause Clients

So, I started to work much more precisely with incorporating compassion practices with clients and began to see the genuinely transformative effects. In my Qigong, I am working with listening from the heart more than from the head which takes away the constant need to judge and instead to BE.

I had the great privilege to undertake Compassion Focused Therapy training with Dennis and Laura Tirch and gained in-depth insight into how seemingly simple compassion practices can transform our relationship to the menopause transition and make profound shifts in how they experience symptoms and the whole transformation that is menopause.

By bringing that sense of mindfulness and compassion to all we do, what we think and feel about ourselves, we become kinder and more empowered, which feeds into our understanding of health and wellbeing and a sense of our purpose when life throws us the curveball of menopause.

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This week on the podcast check out a gorgeous conversation with Gwen Floyd founder of Wile about the midlife journey and why ‘Grown’ is a great way to describe who are in our 40 and 50s before we transition to the Crone.

Join me next week when I hook up with 3 other amazing humans Amanda Laden CEO and founder of Period to Pause, Cynthia Davis from Diversifing in the UK and Jay Pryor LGBTQ+ educator. Sign up for the live stream here

Starting on October 30th for 7 days my friend and expert Coach Tenille Hoogland shares interviews of 20 internationally renowned experts. Exercise physiologists, heart health educators, registered sport and menopause nutrition specialists, mindfulness experts and coaches translate the latest science in mental and physical resilience and female physiology for you, so you can unlock your best performances in sport and in life. If you love movement, if you are an athlete or coach athletes 35+, if you deliberately put exercise into your day, then the time to show up fully for yourself in life and in sport is now. By joining this FREE event (I’m part of the speaker panel!!), you will not have to say “if I only knew …!”

Thank you as ever for your support. Till next week