Mindfulness & Menopause Part 1

As season 2 comes to a close on, the final subject is all about how mindfulness can help you in menopause.  I am joined by Ruth Rosselson a mindfulness instructor who has created a mindfulness menopause course with Manchester Mind.  Ruth guides me through the course, the reasons behind it, how it helps and the outcomes most participants reach.  I too joined the course for one session and I reveal my feedback during the podcast.

In part 2 I chat more with Ruth, an audience is present with some questions and there is also a guided meditation for you to enjoy!  It wouldn't be menopause dinners without the food and I think I have saved the best for last, so do come back!

Please get in touch if you would like to be on the podcast, either as a guest or in the audience.  There is absolutely no experience needed, no professional talking, I am looking for the average female who is going through their menopause and would like to talk openly about it.  If this sounds like you or you would like to be around other women to feel supported, then please get in touch through any of the details below.  This can be online, in person or at IG6 3HD
 
 Email - ⁠⁠menopausedinners@gmail.com⁠⁠
 
 Website: https://www.menopausedinners.co.uk
 
 Instagram & TikTok @Menopause_dinners
 
 Facebook / You Tube - Menopause Dinners
 
 Sponsored by: Fitness Therapy 4 you: ⁠⁠https://www.fitnesstherapy4you.co.uk⁠⁠

Guest Details:

ruth_in_chorlton on threads and Instagram

Insight Timer: (free meditations)

https://insighttimer.com/ruthrosselson

Manchester Mind info:

Instagram: manchester_mind/

www.manchestermind.org

https://www.manchestermind.org/meditation-and-relaxation-resources/

https://www.manchestermind.org/our-services/wellbeing-hub/menopause/

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:15

Welcome to Menopause Dinners. My name is Sarah and I'm your host. Not only is it me, but I have some incredible guests with me today. You can expect real stories, laughter, a few tears, and some facts to help you feel not alone in this shed storm called the Menopause. So sit tight and let's ride this storm together. Welcome to Menopause Dinners. Oh my god, I'm so very excited. And I think I've saved the best for last. But before I tell you all about the subject that we've got today and introduce our amazing guest, let me just give you a little bit of a background. So in menopause, whether you're in peri, whether you're in your menopause or in your post, mood swings, feeling erratic, panic attacks, depression, overthinking. Yes, lots of overthinking. Going from zero to a hundred are all of some of the symptoms that we can experience as women, and this can be very challenging for lots of us. Yes, you can take supplementations, you can take medication, but there is also another way that can help you, and that is today's subject, which is mindfulness and menopause. That's right, we are going to be talking orphans mindfulness, which is why it's going to be a really chilled session today. So I can't do this on my own, and I've got an incredible lady coming today. She is a mindfulness teacher. She does a lot of work with mind in Manchester. I attended one of her sessions last night, and I'm going to tell you all about that later. So here we go. Come introduce yourself, Ruth. Hello. Thank you so much for joining us today. Um, so before we introduce you a bit more, I always like to start with the guests to kind of find out where in your menopause you actually are, so our listeners can understand. So um I'm post-menopause, uh, three years and not on HRT, just hoping for the best. What about yourself, Ruth?

SPEAKER_00 2:45

I don't know. Well, I'm guessing post. So uh around five years ago, uh I was still having regular-ish periods, and I had a coil put in. And so obviously, when you have a coil put in, a marina coil, you don't menstruate. So I went from kind of regular, regular periods, but a whole host of symptoms, uh, to no periods. And uh so I'm guessing at my age, I'm now 55, I'm probably post, um, but I don't get to mark the occasion because it will have happened at some point.

SPEAKER_01 3:19

Okay, yeah, great. All right, so um I thank you very much for that, and we are gonna go straight into a quiz. Now, this quiz I don't want you to stress about, it is literally a little muck around. We're gonna throw around some suggestions today, and the quiz is reasons to meditate. Oh, okay. Oh, all right, so you can go first. Are you ready? 20 seconds start now.

SPEAKER_00 3:44

Reasons to meditate? Um, because as a tool, it's really helpful for all of the tricky times in life and the challenges. 10 seconds for me. Helps you get most from your life. So enjoying all the good times and being present for those.

SPEAKER_01 4:00

I think I can say one thing. Just to piece you out. There you go. There's lots of reasons why um meditation can help, but especially in the menopause roof, um, because obviously that's that's what you do, that's what you uh specialise in at the moment. But before we come to that, I would really like to just understand uh your background a bit more. So um, can you tell our listeners how you've got into mindfulness, what you what your background is?

SPEAKER_00 4:34

Yeah, so I used to be a journalist uh quite a long time ago, and at the age of, I think I was about 34, I started experiencing really debilitating joint pain and fatigue. And the joint pain was uh, as I say, really debilitating, but very confusing because it kept moving around my body, didn't know where it was going to turn up next. Some days I could I literally couldn't walk, I couldn't type, uh, and then the next day I'd be absolutely fine. I was diagnosed uh with palindromic rheumatism, which they've now decided just is a variety of rheumatoid arthritis, uh, sent away with some pills and left to get on with it. But the thing was nobody helped me with, well, first of all, the emotional impact of that diagnosis and those symptoms. And I was never offered any pain management. So I I was I was desperate. I was desperate. Uh painkillers didn't cut it. I'd went to my doctor and I said, Is there any pain management I can learn? And she said, Well, we don't send you on the pain management program until you've tried all the medication. Um well, that wasn't good enough. I wasn't going to wait to try all the meditation, medication. Um, but I did think, well, uh, I might try some meditation. So I went on a course specifically for people living with ill health to learn to meditate. Now I had no knowledge of meditation. I knew nothing about it. I thought, oh, this is a bit woo-woo. Is this the sort of thing I would like? Um, and it was quite a challenge. It was quite a challenge at first, but I noticed quite early on that it was giving me some coping tools for when I was in pain. And really importantly, I wasn't beating myself up for finding it hard for being in pain. So I was allowing myself to struggle. And that sort of weirdly let go of some of the struggle. Um, so I'd been meditating, I did another course about mindfulness for stress and you know, kind of my life carried on, I would had different jobs. Um, and then around 13 years ago, I saw a job at Manchester Mind uh for someone to help run courses for people with physical ill health. Well, I was actually by that point doing it already as a freelancer, uh, because at no point, so already I had had my conditions for quite some time because I was also diagnosed with fibromyalgia. At no point did any GP or consultant say, How are you coping? How are you doing emotionally? How's your mental health? Nobody ever asked me that question. So it became really important to me to help support people with physical ill health, with the emotional side of living with those challenges. So I was doing the job for Manchester Mind running this course and uh started training in mindfulness techniques to actually teach those. So that became part of my job. Started um running mindfulness for stress courses, and then when my menopause or perimenopause started, a light bulb went on, and I was like, all the reasons that I meditated to help me with unpredictability, chronic pain, fatigue, the emotional impact of changes in the body, that's all going to be really useful for perimenopause and menopause, and maybe there's some mindfulness courses for menopause. No, there was no mindfulness courses for menopause. So I thought, better create one then, and that's what I did.

SPEAKER_01 8:15

That's amazing. And I I love that whole story about you because generally speaking, when someone starts delivering something like the course that you're doing, to have the the history that you've got means that you really get it and you understand it, and I think that's that's the most important part for people that come to you. Um, so the fibromyalgia, we've done a podcast on that, and some of the guests that we've got here, the audience, have actually got fibromyalgia as well. So that's gonna most probably come up in part in part two. So we know quite a lot about that and how difficult that is. And you're right, sometimes you know, diagnosing for that can go on for a very long time. So while you're waiting for that and you're not sure what to do, mentally that can be very, very challenging. So, did you find that in your own situation that doing the mindfulness it kind of gave you uh it took the edge off a little bit off of that?

SPEAKER_00 9:18

Well, the fibromyalgia, I wasn't really waiting for a diagnosis in that kind of way. I already had a health condition, uh, and it just went, you know, I I I assumed all of my symptoms were part of the rheumatoid arthritis. And then when I checked with my consultant and said, you know, it feels like my skin's on fire, it feels like I'm sunburnt all the time. Is that part of it? And they went, no. Uh and it was at that point that they said, you've probably also got fibromyalgia. So there wasn't really there was an emotional impact of going, oh, I've now got another thing. Um, but as I'd already been living with it, I I don't think there was that that difference. I think what the mindfulness was really key is I think I've already said being kind to myself for that struggle. Um and the trouble with fibromyalgia is unlike rheumatoid arthritis, which does have a medication pathway, fibromyalgia doesn't have the same kind of treatment. So I was diagnosed, but that was it. There was no kind of this is what you do for fibromyalgia, this is how we treat it. I didn't want to go on any pain pain medication, I didn't want to start taking the some of the medication that's offered. Um, so it was sort of like, yeah, there you are, get on with it. Um so by that point I'd already been meditating, I'd already had the rheumatoid arthritis for 10 years. I don't know how long I'd had the fibromyalgia.

SPEAKER_01 10:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:46

I think it it tends to develop if you've already got a pain condition, because then the body gets really sensitized to more pain. So um the the fact that I already had an existing meditation practice really helped me at the at that point, um, because I had that kind of what what my supervisor calls that scaffolding around to support me through the the new diagnosis and the and the changes in in that way, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:12

So when you went to your first meditation class back in the day, uh I like the expression that you said a bit woo-woo. Because years ago it was a bit woo, a bit out there. Same with yoga, you wouldn't go yoga because it would be people just falling asleep, whereas yoga is leaps and bounds now with different types of yoga. So, how quickly was your mind changed from woo-woo to this is this is good for me?

SPEAKER_00 11:42

Well, I think not that quickly. I was quite skeptical. I found it really challenging because, like most people, like nearly everyone, my mind was sooooo. And what I discovered on my first I I remember it really clearly was like, oh wow, I can notice what's going on in my body and do all this thinking at the same time. But am I doing it right? I don't think I'm doing it right. That's not what's supposed to happen. Is that what's supposed to happen? Oh, look, I'm thinking now, I'm not noticing what's going on in my body. Oh, I'm doing it wrong. I don't think I can do this, can I? Oh, what's wrong with me? I bet everybody else is really good at this. So, you know, you have all of that, those kind of inner thoughts when you start to meditate. And the practice, the home practice for that first course was uh quite tough. It was 40 minutes, um, which was a lot to try and fit in when I had a job and you know, trying to run my life. I don't have kids, so I didn't have that pressure, but you know, it was a lot, and I found it really, really hard to try and fit in.

SPEAKER_01 12:47

Oh, that's a lot after your first one. Oh, I won't be able to do that. 40 minutes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:53

So it took, I would say, around four or five weeks. So really the second half of the course. And actually, that's what I notice now when I run courses. You know, I try and reassure people, nothing's gonna change overnight. You know, we've we've got these thought habits that we get into, we've got these distractions that we're used to. It's gonna take time. And usually, like the first couple of sessions, I'm leading a practice and people are fidgeting, fidgeting. You can almost see that their minds are fidgety as well. And then by week five, you notice that something's happened and they seem to be a little more calm. And you can even tell it on Zoom, which you think, how how can you tell that? Um, and I think that was the case for me. It took time, and really I would say it was a couple of years of practicing, not 40 minutes. I rarely practice 40 minutes. I have a life, it's not realistic, and most courses don't prescribe that length. They, you know, they think it is a good length for people to do, it's quite a challenge, but realistically, people don't do it. So I, you know, the courses that I run, the meditations are 20 minutes, and I think that's just long enough to be challenging because actually you want it to be challenging in a way, um, and for your mind to sometimes calm down. Some people's minds sort of settle in the middle of a practice and get busier at the end. Some people's minds are very, very busy at the beginning and they settle at the end. And some people's minds are busy the whole time. And it's really important to acknowledge that that's not the point. We're not actually trying to shut off our brains. We're just trying to train them. And sometimes in the process of training them, they just get busy. And, you know, that's fine. I've been meditating now. I'm looking at looking at my date on the computer. So it we're looking at 12, 13 years now. You know, there's a period in the middle where I stopped, but you know, the last sort of 10 years it's been very consistent. Um, and there are some times where I literally spend 20 minutes, you know, planning my day, planning my meals, planning my cycle route. Oh no, I'm meditating, coming back, coming back, coming back. Um, and it's the coming back that is the important thing, not how much the mind wanders.

SPEAKER_01 15:13

Okay, so let's talk about menopause because you said that um, you know, perimenopause for you, um, and I think you're on HRT.

SPEAKER_00 15:22

I am, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:23

Yeah, so have did you find that mindfulness really um helped you with your symptoms?

SPEAKER_00 15:30

I would say that not the physical symptoms, but the impact of physical symptoms, and that's where mindfulness really does help. It it doesn't make our problems go away, our stress go away, our menopause symptoms go away, but it helps us cope better with them. So initially, my symptoms were heart palpitations. Well, you can get into a real anxiety spiral with heart palpitations. Um, you can start to worry, the more you worry, then you've got anxiety as well as heart palpitations, and you get anxious about anxiety and you get into that cycle. Once I realized the heart palpitations were part of my perimenopause, I was able to um be mindful about them when they were happening. So I'd have a heart palpitation and it would be as simple as here's a heart palpitation, and then it passes. Whereas if I hadn't got my meditation practice, I would have got carried away with a whole heap of thoughts and worries about that experience. Um the mood swings, oh my god, the mood swings. Um, I can't say that that my meditation practice has got rid of the mood swings. But when I'm sad, I just let myself be sad. I don't worry about it, I don't tell myself off that I'm weak if I need to cry. I talk to myself really, really kindly. 20 years ago, 15 years ago, I wouldn't have been able to do that. And again, the the mindfulness practice, the formal practice of meditation means that in my daily life, when I'm having a mood swing, when I'm having anxiety, when I'm feeling really fatigued, which could be the rheumatoid arthritis, could be the fibromyalgia, could be the menopause, could be a combination. When I'm really fatigued, instead of going, What's wrong with you? Why can't you be productive? Get out of bed, push, push, push. I go, Yeah, you're having a bad day. Get out your cuddly toy, sort of lie in bed, look after yourself, what's kind. And I talk to myself really kindly, and I think that just wouldn't have happened before.

SPEAKER_01 17:36

That's that's and that is really nice to hear because I think we can all resonate with that, especially in our 20s where you just have to push through. Some of us are from that generation of parents where we were told to push through, and you know, for ladies that are coming up with their uh perimenopause in years to come, it's gonna be a lot a lot different for them. They're hopefully they're gonna have more tools as they arrive rather than kind of like you know, stabbing in the dark. But um, you know, being kind to yourself is so important, but it's something that we just don't do. And I personally think that when you're in the midst, especially in your period and you can't see out, you know, would pass the trees, the trees pass the wood, whatever the expression is, you can't see it. You just something like meditation, mindfulness can really benefit someone.

SPEAKER_00 18:35

Yeah, and the I mean the other symptom that I had which still isn't completely gone is the is the sleep issues. So, you know, I know all the rules, I know all the sleep hygiene. Um, for I don't know how many years it was, three, four, five years, my sleep was awful. And till that point I'd been a really good sleeper. And again, having a mindfulness practice and a meditation practice meant that I wasn't getting too stressed about that. You know, when you're lying awake, you can get really anxious, you can tend to ruminate, you can, you know, then you make it worse. You try really hard to sleep, you don't sleep when you try really hard. It's like meditation, you need to not try. Um, and my practice was helpful because, well, what else am I going to do at three o'clock in the morning? Uh, I'm not gonna get up and do work, I can meditate, or I can do a guided relaxation, or I can follow my breath. So I again have the tools that tell me, okay, I'm not sleeping, I can't do much about that, but I am resting. So rather than getting, as I say, getting really caught up with an overactive mind, you know, and sometimes I do. I've got elderly parents, there's a lot to worry about. Um, but the majority of the time, even now, I can wake up at three. I've said, this morning was great. I slept all the way till five.

SPEAKER_01 19:59

And surprise after last night, it was quite heavy going.

SPEAKER_00 20:03

And I thought, oh, I might as well, you know, I'll probably that's it. That's all the sleep I'm gonna have. Um, but I lay there and I was relaxed and I followed my breath and I listened to an audio, and then the next thing I knew it was 20 past seven. Um, but if you're tense, if you're worried, if you're stressed, what's wrong with me, all of that, it just makes it all that much worse, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_01 20:25

Definitely. I mean, I've been very lucky that I got introduced to mindfulness around about the same time as yourself, about 12 about 13, 14 years ago, round about then, and it really it really helped me understand a lot of things. Especially like you said, when you wake up in the night. Um I know lots of people get really angry with themselves, but I just actually for me it's when I'm driving. That's that's the thing. You know, we talked about this yesterday. When I'm when I'm in a traffic jam, I'm just like can't do anything about it. I'll move when I move. Yeah, and that's my attitude. Now I don't get upset about it, I'm just like, nothing I can do about it. Um, but I really, really love mindfulness, and I'm more of a walking in the forest person now. So take my dog there, and I love all that listening to stuff, and which we'll we'll talk about uh a little bit later. But um, let's talk a bit more. Oh, sorry, Ruth.

SPEAKER_00 21:29

I was just about to say that's I mean, that's what mindfulness is, it's just paying attention to what's going on outside of us and inside of us, and it's great to to do that in nature because there's so many positive and wonderful things to notice in nature. Um, so it's a really uh great thing to do when you are out and about is to be mindful of your surroundings. So it's wonderful to have a formal meditation practice of kind of a seated, a lying down, a moving practice, but being able to be mindful in Everyday life is really what we're looking for, isn't it? Yeah. It's no good if you meditate and then the rest of your life you're getting yourself tied up in knots and getting stressed all over the place. There's something not not quite sort of happening between that. So it's really useful to take what you learn when you when you do the formal practice of meditation out into your daily life. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:21

No, I definitely agree with that. It's it's incredible. So let's talk about this workshop that you do. What's the formal practice?

SPEAKER_00 22:33

As I said, I was I was kind of recognizing that um mindfulness and a sort of mindfulness course would be really, really helpful for women in perimenopause and and menopause. And I just didn't see anything out there. So the course that I run, I run what I run a sort of a 90-minute taster workshop and an eight-week course. So the eight-week course, you were yesterday that you were there on our first session. Um the eight-week course is very much based on um the kind of mindfulness for stress course that I run at Manchester Mind. And that's based on a kind of standard format of of uh eight-week mindfulness courses where you kind of focus on different meditations each week. You learn a bit about how our minds work, how we can be mindful. We do moving practice, we do walking practices, but I didn't want to just have mindfulness for stress and and deliver it just for women. I wanted something very specific for menopause. So no one asked me to do it. Um, I had to put the business case to the trustees at Manchester Mind and said, I want to create this and this is why. And there are, you know, there are women struggling and there is no mental health support. There wasn't really anything at the time. Six years ago I put the course together and there wasn't the the kind of dialogue that there is now. So they agreed, yes, there does seem to be a you know, because they were like, why, why, what has menopause got to do with mental health? Like, this is what menopause has got to do with mental health. Um and they were like, oh, we have no idea because people weren't talking about it. Yeah. Uh so I put the course together. But the difference between the mindfulness for menopause course and the general mindfulness courses is we've got extras. So it's kind of like mindfulness plus. We've got the nervous system regulation um practices that, you know, 20-minute meditation is great, but when you're having a hot flush, when you're finding yourself full of rage, when you're feeling really frustrated, what do you do in those times where you, as you said, you go from naught to 10 or naught to 100? Well, we need to calm ourselves down. We need tools to calm ourselves down. And again, at the time I created it, there wasn't many people talking about that. How do we calm down? How do we take control of something that feels out of our control? So the course uh includes what I've called rescue remedies, uh, which are lovely little short practices. Some of them are based on breathing, but not all of them are because not everyone helps breathe, finds breathing helpful. Um, the course also includes a little bit of yoga. Now I'm not a yoga teacher, but I did speak to two yoga teachers and said, you know, what would be helpful? So we've got a very basic sequence that um the women on the course do. It's 20 minutes long, it's lying on the floor, it's not moving, it's not anything kind of dynamic. We're not being Madonna here or anyone. Um and that's a pre-bed practice. So it's just a few poses that ends up with the pose where your legs go up a wall, which is really good for blood pressure, uh, really good for kind of calming us down before bed. So we do that as well. So that's the kind of difference. And obviously, as it's a course for women going through this time, there is space for the women to share and chat with each other about their experiences and to understand why managing stress is also managing menopause because the more stressed we are, the worse our symptoms are. So if we can manage stress, some of our symptoms might might lessen. And I've we've certainly found that at Manchester Mind is that some of the women who come on the course who are highly stressed at the beginning, their symptoms levels are quite high. Some of them come down by the end of the course. That's right. And for some women, their symptoms are the same, but they say they can cope with them better.

SPEAKER_01 26:15

I think that's the key thing here, because you're saying it's not a fix, it's not like you're gonna get rid of anything, because that'd be that'd be incredible if you could. But be a millionaire, you would be more than a millionaire, you you'd have be a trillionaire, but uh to have the tools in order to help you manage it is is priceless, really, and it's a real shame that this is not something that the NHS recognises that women need. And I'm really, really shocked by that comment that someone said to you about why, you know, why do we need mindfulness? You know, I in the world.

SPEAKER_00 26:53

Well, it was it was more that as a mental health charity, um, the the trustees didn't have any knowledge of menopause. So it the question was really, you know, why should we as a menopause, as as a my as a mental health charity, be focusing on menopause, which is you know what they thought was a kind of physical experience. And you know, when I put the case together, look, here is the mental health impact, here are the reports, they were like, oh, of course it has. But it was just a lack of education, and nobody, yeah, it was before Davina's programme, nobody was talking about it, nobody really knew about it. Um, some of the people who might have been involved with the the trustees in the charity were were maybe from a generation where it wasn't talked about as well. No idea. So I think I don't think that conversation would happen now because people know now. People didn't know then. No, you're right.

SPEAKER_01 27:47

Six years ago, I mean, yeah, doesn't seem that long ago, but actually you know, it's a big gap, isn't it? Compared to obviously COVID, but menopause has gone skyrocketed with all this information that's out there. Yeah, but we are there are still some things that we are learning that that is really important, and this is one of them. So you know, I think it's I think it's incredible. So um the courses that you do, so uh we'll talk a bit more about that tomorrow if any anyone's interested. So um I think I might give you some um give you my insight to the course because yeah, uh Ruth was very kind to let me come along last night, and I thought it would be a really uh good way for me to kind of just understand it a bit more, what you offer and how how a structure. And I've got to say there are a few things that I really loved. And the first thing was the fact that when you um said about the house rules, okay, so I'm gonna break this down a little bit, and before I talk about the course, I just want to say that everything that was mentioned on the course is confidential. I'm not gonna talk about that at all today, all right. But the house rules, I love that because normally when you go and do a course, it's the tutor that gives the house rules. But you didn't do that, you done it the other way around. We we had to come up with what we found uh appropriate for the for the course, and I really like that. What was the reason behind behind you doing that?

SPEAKER_00 29:17

Well, this is just the way we work at Manchester Mind. Obviously, we we're gonna have our own house rules, you know, the some of the main ones that that I started with. Um, but generally we work in collaboration with people. It's really important as part of our values to listen to people and to include them uh in all of the kind of services that we offer rather than tell, tell people this is what you want, this is what you're gonna have. Um, and that's even extended to you know the courses that I run. People give feedback, I make changes. Um, but definitely you want the group itself to come up with what's important to them, and every group is different. Every group wants confidentiality. I don't think there is any group that doesn't want that. But then some of the finer things that come up, um, you know, some of the detail does differ group to group. And you know, it's really important to respect that. Um, and to allow people also to add to it as as the course goes on. So it may be in week two or week three, something might come up for people and they say, can you know, can we add that to the house rules? I really, you know, it might be something like I don't I don't like swearing, and it it really upsets me. And is that okay if we you know add that that has come up once, whereas other groups are like swearing is fine. I won't be allowed back on there then.

SPEAKER_01 30:36

I definitely wouldn't be allowed to come back.

SPEAKER_00 30:41

Is uh crying is fine. Tears.

SPEAKER_01 30:43

Oh, that's lovely. No, I think I think so too. There's nothing wrong with crying, it's very healthy. I love the breakout rooms, that was great, uh, because you got to know everyone. I think because it's on Zoom, it's I think we're obviously getting really used to doing Zoom now because we've been doing it a lot since the pandemic, but to go into breakout rooms with other people, you're getting to know them. So I would have thought that if I carried on doing the course by the end of the is it six weeks, eight weeks. It's eight weeks. Eight weeks, yeah. By the end of the eight weeks, I think I would have a good understanding of everyone and really um see their journey as well, which would be really nice to see how far they're coming. So yeah, the groups were great.

SPEAKER_00 31:34

And I think, you know, that's for me, that's the least satisfying part because when I'm in a room with people and I can hear their conversations, I can hear them chatting and getting to know each other. It's you know, that little eavesdropping bit. I love that. I love hearing people chat and get on, and I don't get that well on Zoom. I'm kind of sat there, just sat there while they're while they're in their private rooms chatting. But um, and some some women don't like the the breakout rooms. Uh so really important to kind of also mention that um those are optional. Obviously, we hope that most people will want to go in the breakout rooms, but sometimes people uh who might have a lot of social anxiety or uh just not so comfortable, uh, or just having a really crap day. Um say, you know, I I don't, I'm not feeling well, I'm so fatigued, I can't really talk, um, you know, uh will opt out of being in a breakout room, and that's fine. I always make sure there's enough people in a room so nobody sat there on their own going, why isn't anyone talking to me?

SPEAKER_01 32:34

No, that was that I really liked. And um, yeah, the food meditation, we talked about that, and that was that was interesting. As I mentioned to you um last night, I've done food meditation before, but it I haven't done it for a few years, but I've it really opened my eyes up to how quickly we we we're not mindful with food. We're mindful when people say mindfulness, they kind of see everything outwards. So, like I said, about going in a forest, you know, fe be mindful about the you know, the sound of the leaves under your feet, um listening to your breath, but not about focusing on the food. And that is such a good thing to to put into it. And is that from uh have where did you get that? Is that from your own experience?

SPEAKER_00 33:30

Nearly every single meditation course starts with that meditation. Wow, okay. So it's it's a it's a really uh accessible way for people to understand what what mindfulness is, and it's also um a good illustration of how we usually do something, which is usually on autopilot, we're not really paying much attention to it, how different it can be when we start to pay attention to it, when we start to approach it with completely fresh eyes. So the the um kind of food, the eating meditation, the razor meditation, some people do it with a cup of coffee, some people do it with chocolate. I've done it with chocolate before. Um, it's it's really accessible. Most people can get it. Whereas meditation itself is it's sometimes a little bit trickier for people to kind of grasp, but that I think most people can grasp it. Not everyone likes it. Um for some people, it can be really challenging to slow down something that they're so used to doing automatically and quickly. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Um, but again, it kind of illustrates the habits that we get into. Um, and it's it's also when I ask people to reflect, um, so many different things can come up that can help me uh use that as an example to illustrate um a point. So to illustrate sometimes how our minds can get lost in reverie. So if it's a raisin, people say, Oh, it reminds me of Christmas, and that's really lovely. And I remember my grand making Christmas cake, and I'm like, how easy it is for our minds to get distracted and carried away. And sometimes it's a nice memory, and that's fine. Sometimes it might not be a nice memory, yeah. And then that's going to cause upset and sadness, and how do we handle that? So it's a it's a really great practice, I think, and and that's why it's on the first one and it's it's the first person.

SPEAKER_01 35:21

Yeah, no, it's nice and easy, and I I really like it also the rescue remedy, and I must admit, so I'm trained in uh bark flowers. So when you said rescue remedy, I thought that's where it comes from. I don't know. I thought, oh, she's bringing a rescue remedy.

SPEAKER_00 35:36

Yeah, and then I was my mum, my mum always used to have the bark flower remedy that she used to give me the rescue remedy when I got upset, yeah, which I I did often as a child, very uh very highly strong. Should I have some rescue remedies, and that's why I called my little short practices rescue remedy.

SPEAKER_01 35:52

I thought that's where it might come from. That was so that was so funny. But I really like that, and actually I I tried it today. Um I come I come home from work and there was a new traffic, you know, when they put up these lights everywhere, and you're like, oh for God's sake, and I just sat there, I just thought, hmm, let me try this, let me try this rescue remedy and see what it's all about, and uh just started doing you know the breathing and and it yeah, it it was it was really beneficial, and and so for even the I've taken a few things from the session last night. I you know, it's it's it's brilliant. And the one thing that I will say, and I just want to apologise that at the end when you did the um body scan, I've got to tell you about this because I found this hysterical because I've been, like I said to you, I've started my meditation journey a while ago, and I've been listening to the same body scan for about 13 years, the same voice. Yeah, it was someone that I went counselling to, and she gave me this audio, and I've been using it since. And when you said we're going to do a body scan, I thought I might be in trouble here because I might not be able to switch off. Because when you started talking, straight away I could hear her voice, and it was just like all the way through, I thought, oh, this is this is not good. I knew I could anticipate where you were going, and she was saying one thing, and then you were saying another, and I thought, This is yeah, this is where the mindfulness comes in, but uh I was overridden by my by my lady in my life.

SPEAKER_00 37:31

Well, that's really interesting because it almost sounds, Sarah, that you've got into autopilot with your body scan meditation. So maybe it's uh time to to just try try a different one or try a different direction or or try it without without guidance, maybe. Yeah, perhaps.

SPEAKER_01 37:49

Yeah, I think you're right. It was so funny. I was like, oh God, I know it off by heart.

SPEAKER_00 37:54

Yeah. Although I don't always go exactly, you know, the same uh formulaic because it is for me a practice. I'm not I'm not reading a script. Yeah, no, exactly. No, you wasn't. Meditating as I lead it. So yeah, it's not the same every time.

SPEAKER_01 38:09

And can I just ask you, there was a quote you said about 100, 200. What was that?

SPEAKER_00 38:14

So that so that quote comes from a workshop I attended with John Kabatsin. So John Kabatsin is a very, very, very famous uh elderly American who who created the first mindfulness for stress. So it was called Mindfulness-based stress reduction mindfulness course, as well for people with ill health in America. And this was in the 70s. So he's a very long-standing teacher. And basically, nearly all mindfulness courses have him to thank because he's the one that really brought these techniques sort of out of religious, sort of Buddhist practices into a space where people who didn't, you know, didn't belong to that um particular path were able to access it. So it was a workshop where he was on, and I think it was something like uh, are you here or are you not here? Are you here 20% or 100%? And how much here do you want to be when the shit hits the fan?

SPEAKER_01 39:13

I love it. I really like that. You can put a t-shirt on. Put that on a t-shirt.

SPEAKER_00 39:18

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he's got some great quotes. He's uh um, yeah. And his his kind of most famous book is called Full Catastrophe Living.

SPEAKER_01 39:28

Ah, okay. That's I'm gonna look that up. It was just it was really resonated with me. There's a few things that resonated, and I've only just I only done the first part, and I just want to say we are we will talk about it more uh in part two, but I just want to recommend it's a fantastic course. I really enjoyed it, and it's great for anyone, definitely that hasn't experienced mindfulness. That maybe, as you mentioned earlier, Ruth, just thinks it's a bit woo, uh, maybe doesn't have that knowledge of what it is, maybe thinks that you have to sit there for hours like a Buddha. Uh, it's all changed, it's not like that anymore. And I would definitely encourage anyone don't don't even have to be in your menopause. That's maybe just needs a little bit of regulation. Um, it's worth checking out. So I'm definitely gonna give you a little bit of no honestly. Thank you so much for for letting me come. I think that's a great place to stop um for part one. So, in part two, get ready. It's going out for bang because not only have we got menopause dinners with food, as you know, we like a little bit of food in menopause dinners. I've got a great recipe, I've saved the best for last. But that's not the big thing that's happening. Ruth is coming back and she's gonna be doing a guided meditation, it's gonna be incredible. Um, you're gonna learn a lot about your body while you're doing it, and who knows, it might even get you into doing a bit of mindfulness yourself. It's really worth coming back for part two to experience that. Um, we also have an audience who are gonna be asking Ruth a question, they're gonna be participating in the meditation, so they're gonna be giving us the feedback and asking her all about it. Oh, it's gonna be great, so please return. So, don't forget that if you do want to be on this podcast, you don't need any experience. I mean, if you have got something to talk about, you can. But if you just are going for your menopause and want to come on and chat, then please do reach out via this platform or menopausedinners at gmail.com. Don't forget to like, rate, or subscribe on any of the platforms you listen to. But did you know you can send a text function via the podcast, want to let us know how we're doing, even on socials, you can get in touch. There's so many ways to reach out to us now. But there is also a monetisation button as we are now non-profit, so every little bit helps. So before you go, my final thought is menopause sucks, but with friends, it will suck a whole lot less. We will see you next time on Menopause Dinners. You take care. Any supplementation or medication we've discussed is from our own experiences. If you have a medical condition, please seek professional advice before trying anything that's been mentioned today.