It is that time of year that young people prepare to leave for college and university. Exciting, for them and their parents, but often double-edged for the erstwhile caregivers left behind. I used to wonder, when my friends lamented the emptying of their nests, why they made such a fuss. As a fraught, exhausted single [...]
I’m trying to work out how to effectively launch a new Twitter account. At 57, IT-active but still cautiously emerging from a tunnel of innate technophobia, this is a challenge for me. I want to reach out to other Older Women like myself. Over 50, reluctant to accept what “over 50” is supposed to mean. [...]
In a previous post I wrote about the power of gratitude to change our every-day world-view. How when we consciously seek things to be grateful for, we start to find them everywhere. The same is true of compassion, and it is a wonderful thing to bring into the forefront of our consciousness. Once my clients [...]
The day before the Berlin Wall came down, I lost my mind. It was the eighth of November 1989; a Thursday. Much later, my best friend Alison noted “two walls came down at once”. According to Project Hope, half of the global population will experience mental health crisis in their lifetime. For many of those, [...]
This month Fenna, my youngest child, has finished university with a good degree and secured her dream job far away from my home. I have celebrated her success, my heart overflowing with joy, and that same heart has mourned at one more letting go, as she moves forth into her brave new life. It seems [...]
Being a mother is a series of lettings-go. From the day we give birth and bid farewell to the bump, allow the cutting of the cord, release any illusion that we will ever be the same again, we are on a roller-coaster ride of letting go and catching up. The first time we feel the [...]
I’ve got big breasts. I have had since, at the age of 11, the startling bumps that had recently appeared on my little-girl chest suddenly inflated into something with a definite cleavage. Mortified with shame, I grew my hair longer so that if I bent forward it would form a curtain to hide the cursed [...]
Perhaps you’ve noticed we are living in challenging times. Times in which hope, while never needed more, can sometimes seem inadequate for the crises we are facing. I have been facilitating workshops that explore and identify hope for many years, and repeatedly witnessed its power to guide people through the darkest times. An acquaintance recently [...]
Throughout the ages, women have been required to be, and not to be, many things. As a little girl I was required to be quiet, demure, pretty, delicate, polite, obedient, sweet, helpful and subservient to boys. I was required not to be boisterous, loud, demanding, “too brave”, muddy, fascinated, curious, wild, angry or self-sufficient. I [...]
It’s March today! Flowers are blooming, buds erupting on the trees, and blossoms appearing everywhere. I didn’t see it coming, in this new environment of mine. The huge magnolia tree that’s heralded the start of Spring for me these past 24 years is 100 miles away, and I live in a city now, with fewer [...]
