The intention of this book has been to create space for those going through these changes and to help women help themselves in processing their experiences. This is not a substitute for therapy, however, it is a welcome place to explore what the heck is going on and perhaps find some ease and truly find and be themselves.
This section of the book identifies what I call the Cultivation List. An introduction to external processing exercises organized in themes of the personal practices of self worth, self compassion, self care, self love and self advocacy in menopause. Each practice has a selection of exercises that encourage women to unpack their concerns, process their stories, identify their needs and find some resiliency. These are practices we often give to others, worthiness, love, compassion, care and advocacy and now it is our turn to do so for ourselves. And now it’s time for women to cultivate these attributes for themselves as they go through this journey.
Self Worth
Exercises and thought pieces to help us slowly retrain ourselves and boost our worthiness in our own eyes.
- The exploration of values that guide us in our life choices and decisions.
- Practicing the 2, 2, 2 Rule in finding your own truth and why that matters.
- Picturing the ‘worthiness of a child exercise’ to help give perspective to your own worthiness and where there can be repairs in your past.
- Negative Thinking Styles; what they are, how they show up in ourselves and others and how we can practice changing them which can change how we look at ourselves. Examples include: Overgeneralization, Black/White thinking, Mind Reading, Emotional Misreasoning.
- Exploring the emotion of anger and how sadness and fear play a role in how it shows up in our most vulnerable moments
Self Love
Loving yourself sounds great but how do you do that? What does that look like? These tools will help.
- Create a Personal Mantra to help inspire, guide and ground yourself.
- Playlist of your songs.
- Discover the HALTS; Hungary, Angry, Lonely, Tired and Sad and how where we are in any of these experiences affects us in how we live and love.
- Defining Attributes to help you find what is good for you. Looking at and identifying these areas: must haves, would likes, can tolerate and no goes.
- The Wheel of Life by Paul J. Meyer. A tool for helping you define what motivates you.
Self Advocacy
Taking all of these together in cultivation, speaking up for yourself and your rights helps teach others what you want. Also, it is a great modeling example for those other women and younger generations that they can advocate and take care of themselves. These tools help you define what is really important to you and live your best life.
- The ‘on the balcony’ concept of perspective.
- Assertive and non assertive behaviors and how to recognize them in others and yourself. Take the quiz and find out where you need more help.
- Self trust and Trust in others. Using Brené’s BRAVING acronym you can find your way through identifying where you need to be more active in advocacy.
- Personal Bill of Rights: Read them aloud and find out which ones affect you now and how you want to change that.
- How to have uncomfortable conversations.
- Boundary setting.
- Gottman’s ‘Soften Start up’ approach to problem solving.
- Personality Tests online. What are the attributes that make you you? How do some things affect you differently than others? What to do with that knowledge?