Author: Adele

What a ride. Some breeze through it, some feel like every cell in their mind and body is changing – cause it kinda is!

It can happen early or late, and it can happen naturally or due to health reasons, much earlier than expected. 

I guess this post is for those who are struggling through it. Who don’t find it easy. Who feel it or felt it all the way back at peri menopause as early as your late 30’s! It’s for people like me. 

Sudden changes in emotion. Past wounds rearing their heads saying, pay attention to me! Feeling way more emotional than normal, either more teary, more irritable, less tolerant. Physical changes like weight gain, low energy, bloating, hot flushes, feeling flu like, fluid retention, headaches, brain fog, body shape changes, sore joints and the list goes on and on and on….

I experienced all the above and more, as most of you have as well. There’s a lot going on! 

As our body sheds what it no longer needs, so do we in our heart and soul. This is an empowering time. This is a time if you choose to, to really feel into what’s surfacing for you. To support yourself through one of the biggest unavoidable changes and embrace it. 

It’s such a personal time! For some they rejoice in the freedom of no more periods. For some there will be grief at the loss of no more periods and all that represents. Most of us will feel both, I know I did. 

For me, so many emotions and physical changes happened, I put my hand up and got support. I went within and used my knowledge with Reiki and meditation and counselling. But. We can’t always see ourselves clearly. So when I couldn’t see my way through it on my own, I reached out. 

I googled, yep, there’s so much amazing info out there! I spoke with my doctor. I saved up and saw a naturopath. I saw my own reiki and counselling person and spoke about all I was feeling. I tried potions and products and diets etc. I embraced my cranky and furious stages and equally embraced my softening, my grief, my emerging heartache at things I hadn’t voiced enough. I got to know myself really well. And I really embraced my joy, my worth, my potential and my creativity. 

I used meditation A LOT and journaling and movement and nature and sound and energy healing. 

I acknowledged the privilege to go through this and be aging, as I honoured and remembered some incredible friends I’ve lost along the way who didn’t make it this far. 

I gave myself permission to really be present through this experience, warts and all. The good, the bad and the ugly lol. I talked openly with my friends so I and we, felt less alone with the experience and heard lots of omg me too! What have you tried etc? Women, when we choose to, are each others greatest support! 

Mostly, I felt it, accepted it, embraced it, loved it, supported it,released it, sat with it, saw it, buckled up and had the ride of my life. Because “it”, is ME. 

So … A few months back now I had a moment. I had a bit of a panic attack and it was rough. Even though I know it was hormone related (thanks menopause lol), and I have loads of tools in my toolbox to navigate these moments, the after affects weren’t great. I got through it pretty well and had the support of my daughter and partner but the day after, I was tired, I was nauseous and had that foggy brain feeling – I call it the panic attack hangover!

When you have a panic attack or anxiety attack, your body is doing everything it can to help you survive. Rapid heart rate, your nervous system goes into overdrive, muscles get ready for fight of flight, so basically, you’re ready to run, fight or freeze – whatever it takes to keep you safe! It’s physically, mentally and emotionally exhausting!

So what can you do? These are the things I do to help me through and help me recover after:

1. When you’re in the midst of a panic attack, ride it out. Remove yourself and go someplace quiet IF you can. It’s got to work it’s way through you so you need space and time to honour that if you can.
2. Breathe. Slow and steady wins the race here. Breathe mindfully. Count your breath, breathing out slower than the in breath. In for 4 out for 4, in for 4 out for 6, in for 4 out for 8. Or box breathing, in for 4, hold for 4, out for 4, hold for 4 and repeat. Honestly it’s what works for YOU. There is no hard and fast rule here, whatever you can for slowing down your breath.
3. Touch – connection IF this soothes you. It helps me when I do this but it’s not for everyone! Hand on heart. Hand on shoulder. Hands on your belly. Connect with yourself.
4. Start to become aware of your surroundings. This helps your brain disengage from the “threat”. What can you see, smell, feel and hear. For example – find 5 blue things near you (the sky, blue car, blue dress, blue vase, blue book cover); name 5 things you can smell (toast, coffee, rain, flowers, cut grass); name 5 things you can hear (birds, cars, planes, dog barking, water running); name 5 things you can feel (your watch on your wrist, the tshirt you’re wearing, the chair underneath you, your feet on the ground, the ring on your finger).
5. Depending on the severity, sometimes you’ll be able to grab something cold to put on your chest or behind your head, grab a drink of water, step outside and connect to the earth, breath in an oil you like. These are things you can do while your pulse is returning to normal.
6. Move your body to release the nervous energy if you need to. Just like a a gazelle runs and shakes off its body after narrowly escaping certain death from the lions jaw, we too need to expel that “I survived energy”.
7. Rest. Afterwards you will feel like you have just run a marathon and physically you pretty much have! Rest when you can.
8. Recover. The day after you may feel awful. As I mentioned above, it can be like a hangover! Be kind to yourself, drink plenty of water, rest where you can, or do something nice for yourself, honour what the body needs where you can. It just kept you safe and now it needs to repair. This takes energy too!
9. Once it’s over, check in with yourself. What triggered it? How are you feeling now? Do you need support? What do you need?
10. And most importantly, remember you are human. You are not weak or weird because you had a panic or anxiety attack! Once you feel settled, finding the root cause and being self aware will help you recover, and gain insights into your why so you can support yourself.

I’ve had a few people in my life say “I am a truth teller” or, “I am gifted with speaking the truth” or, “I say it like it is” or, “I’m an empath I just know things and speak the truth”…

Any version of this was met with a big bombshell, hurtful words, words they believed I needed to hear, a decision I should make based on the truth they believed was mine or, a way of thinking I didn’t know I had but they saw as my truth. Literally anything that they believed they had the right to tell me whether it hurt me or not, because you know, they’re speakers of truth. And I believed them! I believed they knew more about me than me and they were smarter and better than me because of the way they delivered that “truth” and my then limited self worth. 

Some of these people were under the guise of “spiritual healers”, some were “friends”, nearly all were people who said they loved and cared for me. All of these peoples words and actions caused me immeasurable hurt. They also gifted me invaluable lessons. 

None of those people are in my life any more. 

Why? It’s not because I’m precious and can’t handle any truth when I hear it. It’s because I finally learned about healthy boundaries. Self worth. And. Learned to hear my own voice the loudest. 

Oftentimes people will truth slay you because it makes them feel important. It makes them feel powerful. They’re under a false belief that they know better than you and, maybe you believe them because you haven’t healed from your trauma. They like/need to be the dominant or “wiser” person in the room. Sometimes they genuinely believe they have a gift and therefore need to share their knowledge with everyone else, no matter the consequence. 

Full disclosure, I’ve done it too in some form or another! I remember when I started to tap into my energy healing and started to see things and receive messages, I just “had to” share my knowledge whether you wanted to hear it or not! Apologies to all who suffered through my early days of “I just leaned blah blah and have to share it with you”.  Soon after I realised it’s not my place to force my beliefs or insights of what I believe or think I know on anyone!!! Anyway….live and learn! 

One day I met the person who would become my mentor. He genuinely could read a person, he genuinely could see your truth, he genuinely had a spiritual gift to see into you and all of you. And he never slayed me with cruel words. He never uttered the words I’m a truth teller that’s my gift. He quietly and lovingly held a space so I could eventually be able to see my own truth. Even if he could see I needed a kick up the bum, his way was to ask questions – for myself – and by his questioning, I learned the skills I lacked for inner reflection and self ownership etc to see my way to truth. The only time he ever spoke up about anything was if he felt I was in danger of being harmed. 

There’s a difference between a truth teller and speaking from wisdom, with kindness and for empowerment. Be cautious when you hear words directed your way from the person under the guise of truth teller. Are they telling you their truth? Are they telling you words from a place of superiority? Are they speaking these words to protect you and build you up? Or are they speaking these words to appear all wise and powerful, to keep you looking to them for all your answers while diminishing your light. There’s a difference between speaking truth with love to protect someone, and speaking truth without love to disarm someone and keep them powerless. 

Speaking from personal experience, I gave my power away to people like this in my life for a long time. It came from a place of low self worth and a wounded place of past trauma. The last person who sat across from me and looked me in the eye and said I’m a truth teller, was the last person to ever say it to me and have me believe them over me. I sought help, I went within, I dug super deep and unearthed all of my own treasures and found that I had a well of wisdom and truth of my own. And. 

I could trust it. 

I could trust me. 

I finally heard my voice the loudest. 

What’s your belief system around resting? How often have you heard the saying, I’ll sleep when I’m dead? How often do you tell yourself, I don’t have time to rest?

Chronic Fatigue and Fibromyalgia were once my constant companions. Debilitating doesn’t even begin to cover the experience of living with these conditions. So when I talk about rest, it’s because I have learned the hard way, the value and wisdom of listening to my body and giving it rest.

Having good self-awareness and recognising when it’s time to nurture yourself is one of the kindest gifts you can give yourself!

Give yourself permission to rest when you need it. It’s not being lazy. It’s not a waste of time! It’s good economy! It’s banking energy stores. It’s an act of self love.

And resting will be different for us all. Some need complete bed rest. Some will find rest in being in the garden. Some just sitting in their favourite spot and reading. Some heading to their special place and immersing themselves in that space. Whatever rest is for you, honour the call when you hear it! Your body mind and soul with thank you.

Doing inner work is a wonderful gift!!! When you put the effort in and make those changes, life is just, different.

One thing I’ve noticed and I’ve seen it happen with others as well, you find yourself seeing things not just in yourself, but also in people or relationships you may not have noticed before. When you remove old habits or beliefs, when you are healing from those inner wounds, you’re implementing new beliefs within yourself – AND within your existing relationships!!

If you find yourself noticing a behaviour within a friendship or relationship that was based on the old you, here’s some things to remember. One is, don’t be hard on yourself when you realise you’ve been or done things the new you would never allow, it’s gonna be a process to unravel what was to what is!

Next thing is, just as it has taken time for you to change those things in you, it will take a little time for those changes to flow on into your relationships. Those around you are getting to know and love this healthier version of you. They too, are doing their best until they know better.

With understanding and love, just as you took time to “know better then do better”, do your best to give those you love a chance to do the same while they meet the healed version of you

“Be grateful for your triggers, they point where you are not free” – Dolores Cannon

Triggers can be an absolute b**ch. There’s no sugar coating this one. They are uncomfortable, can be life changing, and can reveal a truth either about yourself or another person in your life you were not aware of. Mostly, they shine a big blinding light to an area of your life that needs compassionate awareness. 

Once you’ve figured out what the heck is going on after you’ve been triggered, guaranteed there’s going to be a lot of healing required. You may have lashed out at someone, you may have had an emotional breakdown (before the breakthrough), you may have ended a relationship/friendship because of it, you may have seen parts of yourself you really really dislike. As Dolores says, it will show you where you are not free. 

Whenever I’ve been triggered it’s shown me the unhealed parts of myself. It’s shown me where once I may have behaved a certain way to protect myself because of something from my past, it now no longer serves me and suddenly, someone else’s finger pointing becomes unacceptable. I now know my worth. It’s highlighted a value I didn’t have in place, that without someone ”pushing my buttons”, was not in my conscious awareness, was not fully activated, and that person just tried to cross a boundary that showed me is now there. It’s highlighted parts of my ego/personality that I truly truly dislike and now am ready to let go of. 

The biggest gifts I received from the last times I have been triggered:

*People saying all the right words but not backing it up – this was also in me (what we see in others is often in ourselves): say what you mean and mean what you say.

*People saying they’re speakers of truth but were really using words to wound others to make themselves feel better – this was not in me but it showed me that: my words need to be a truth, not my opinion. Being authentic. 

*I was accused of being inauthentic. This was true. I was deceiving myself and tolerating things that went against my values, or saying one thing but feeling another, but I wasn’t speaking up. It’s ok was coming out of my mouth, but it wasn’t ok: I learned what my values are and began honouring them. 

*I found the wounded vulnerable parts of myself I’d shared with a person wasn’t as sacred to them as it was to me – by way of having my words thrown back at me in a nasty way: Know and trust yourself well so you know who you can trust and share your vulnerabilities with.

*It showed I trusted more in others than in myself by baring my soul to them, asking them “what should I do?” because I had lost the art of listening to and trusting in my own inner wisdom. They knew more than me right? See above for the result this one: Understanding that my past hurts left me feeling like I’m not enough, forgiving myself for the times I gave my power away, again, and work on healing. Becoming my own secure and safe place within. Learning to trust my own voice!

*I learned that grief takes a really really long and winding road, which can carry its own wounds, all while intertwining with living life! It takes as long as it takes. We can be easily triggered when grief is raw. I gift myself compassion and kindness, I will not try to “fix” myself as I’m not broken, just wounded and hurting, so I lovingly hold myself while I navigate my way through the grief. 

These are just some of the things I’ve learned from being triggered. Is it uncomfortable? Yes! It’s also really empowering, freeing and enlightening. And it’s a part of life when you choose to grow and heal. Now when I’m triggered, I take a breath before I act out, check in with myself first. If I need to speak out then I do. If I recognise a part of me that needs my attention, I give it willingly and lovingly. Because on the other side of it all, the healing can be AWESOME! 

🤍please note – this is not relevant for severe or complex trauma or severe PTSD triggers. This is in relation to every day triggers – not trauma related. Complex trauma triggers need great care and support🤍

Procrastination is something I think we all fall prey to sometimes. I know at differing times I have been known to be extremely good at it😉

Some of the reasons we procrastinate can be:
•we lose our vision
•we haven’t figured out our why (super important)
•we get lost in the steps we need to take
•we have lost that purposeful feeling

So how do you find your purposeful feeling?

One of my mentors once said to me: “walk through life feeling purposeful instead of looking for a purpose”.

A few things that help you feel purposeful can be:
•self awareness – aligning your life with what you care about
•discovery – knowing who you are, your interests and what you care about, your passion in life
•knowing your why- your reasons for doing what you’re doing
•making a difference or acts of kindness

Ask yourself, what’s my why and what feeds my feelings of purpose? Kick procrastinations butt!!

Let’s talk zen meditation. It’s quick..it’s easy to do…and it can be done literally anywhere. Zen meditation uses your breath and your senses. Taking the focus off your thoughts and placing awareness on the present moment, it can bring a surprising amount of stillness and peace. It can help in the everyday tasks, in feelings of overwhelm, quieting the mind or just to enjoy it for it’s own “zen-ness”. 

You can do this while you’re cooking dinner, in the shower, sitting outside, walking to your bus – the list is endless! It can be as long or as short as you like.

Focus your attention on your breathing..feel the air as it slowly enters and leaves the body. Relax your mind. Acknowledge the moment. Notice your thoughts come and go. Bring your attention back to your breath. What can you hear? What can you smell? What can you feel by touch? Breathe.. 

Check out below for some quick tips on how to do it!

I’ve been reading and seeing a lot of posts lately, all referring to or having similar themes such as – letting go, moving on, uncomfortable growth, changes in jobs/relationships/health/wealth, unexpected difficulties or loss etc etc. 

So when I saw this really well worded explanation of “how to let go” (thanks ASHC for posting it!), I thought I’d share it for anyone who’s experiencing this current phase of growth and change in their life. 

Some say it’s part of the full moon, others say it’s a shift in universal and cosmic energy. I say whatever it is, honestly, it’s been a bit challenging!! 

Change is universal. Growth is universal. We are meant to evolve! Sometimes it’s absolutely joyous!  And sometimes it comes out of the blue and we need a bit of help letting it all go so we can find the joy we are so deserving to feel. 

Have a read and let it land where it needs and help you let go of what is weighing heavy in your heart and soul. 

How often do you have an inner dialogue that starts off after a bit of a random thought about a situation, but suddenly, it becomes a debilitating “truth”? For example, you’ve had to cancel plans with a friend and they seem ok about it, but, in your mind you start saying things like … “I bet they are mad at me” or, “I know they don’t like me anymore I can feel it”.

Our most powerful conversations happen within our own minds! If you find yourself going around in circles from a story you “told yourself”, why not try asking yourself these four questions:

1. Is it true?

2. Can you absolutely know that it’s true?

3. How do you react when you believe that thought?

4. Who would you be without the thought?

You’ll be pleasantly surprised at how effective these 4 questions are at turning off the random fears and insecurities your thoughts have created, leading you to a more settled peaceful heart and mind. Give it a go. It takes practice, but it’s a helpful tool when overwhelm and uncertainty strike.

You can look into it further – the questions are from “The Work by Byron Katie”.