PSA: "Sex should not hurt." - Jill Wood, PhD

I recently listened to an excellent 2-part podcast on KPBS Midday Edition and thought I'd share the link with you.

A panel of four experts engaged in a frank discussion of peri-/menopause including understanding how your body responds sexually at this time of life.

Before your eyes glaze over...

This is NOT just another podcast about "symptoms of peri-/menopause...YAWN"!
(I know you know all that already...and please email me if you don't - [email protected])

Especially the 2nd podcast of the 2-part series. Here are some of the topics covered in episode 2 (and the approximate minute mark in the podcast):

• The two most effective non-pharmacological alternative options to get you back to YOU
  (2:00 minute mark)
• Orgasms, vaginal dryness and what they have to do with your partner/relationship
  (8:00 minute mark) 
• Sexual desire during the peri-/menopause transition
  (21:00 minute mark)
• Masturbation
  (at 24:00 minute mark)

Here...

Hello Varsity Friends,

Do you ever have trouble falling asleep at night cuz you are SO excited about something? You keep mulling it over in your head and ideas just keep coming? This happened to me last night in fact. I have something big and new I'm contemplating doing. It scares me like CRAZY, but I'm gonna keep going.

Stay tuned on that. But here are some other reasons I couldn't sleep last night...

• Our 2^nd Menopause Cafe Charity Event on March 22 had 4 attendees! This is a huge win for my co-host Cheryl and me (our 1st Menopause Café had zero attendees)!! The important thing is we didn't give up! Small Steps for the win! It's important to connect with others and acknowledge your wins. Do you have a small (or massive) win to share? I'm all ears...
• I recently took a looooong drive to a place called Soda Lake (see photos at top/bottom) in Central California with my fiancé. The super blooms were breathtaking and so worth the drive. Have you done something like this...

A Menopause Café, aimed at breaking down the taboo around menopause, increasing awareness of the impact of menopause on those experiencing it, their family, friends and their colleagues, and reflecting on the ‘third stage of life’, will be held in south Orange County, California December 1.

Open to people of all genders and all ages, Menopause Café will be held between 11:00am and 12:30pm on Thursday, December 1 at Little France Bakery & Bistro, 28181 Marguerite Parkway, Mission Viejo, Ca. 92692

Following the World’s first Menopause Café, held in Perth, Scotland in 2017, many pop-up Menopause Cafes have been organized worldwide, including in workplaces.  The world’s first Menopause Festival, #FlushFest, was also held in Perth in 2018. The next #FlushFest will be held online in 2023 featuring talks, interactive workshops, opportunities to network and a comedy night.

Rachel Weiss, founder of the Menopause Café Charity,...

With the start of the new year, it is a perfect time to address the top complaint I hear from perimenopausal and menopausal women: menopause bloating (and/or excess girth around the middle). Is this you? The age range that women typically experience menopause is between 40 and 58. While menopause is usually defined as a woman having missed her period for 12 consecutive months, the changes and hormonal fluctuations leading up to menopause are called perimenopause and can last for four to eight years.

During this time, the risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and osteoporosis increases as hormones begin to fluctuate and decline. Not only that, according to The XX Brain, by Lisa Mosconi, PhD, decline of estrogen (also known as the ‘master regulator’ of the female brain) causes women to become more vulnerable to Alzheimer’s disease. Having said that, you might think the most common question I receive as a menopause coach would be about how to avoid these deadly...

It was an honor to be interviewed on the Spa It Girl Podcast with Yvette Le Blowitz to talk about my two-volume book release: “Dammit … It IS Menopause! Meditations for Women to Achieve Clarity and Confidence Beyond Their Wildest Dreams”

These books are for anyone whose life (or whose loved one’s life) has been turned upside down by hot flashes. Volume 1 and Volume 2 are available on Amazon, and are currently price-reduced for the holidays! It's a great holiday gift for your mother, sister, auntie, or YOU...also a perfect stocking stuffer.

Is menopause freaking you out?  Listen to the Spa It Girl Podcast to learn why I wrote the books (hint: It’s all about YOU) and all my secrets for how I have maintained the loss of 4 clothing sizes WITHOUT dieting for more than 35 years. EVEN through pregnancy and menopause!  

We also talked about:

• How to age with poise, self-confidence and joy. And then embrace your...

The holidays are here. Food is everywhere. For some of us, that means guaranteed weight gain and subsequent extreme dieting in January.  But does it have to be that way?

For many, the holidays are synonymous with stress. A survey on holiday stress conducted by Healthline revealed that more that 60% of us feel increased stress at this time of year.  

Whether your stress is about finances, scheduling coordination, gift-giving codependence, or comparing your “insides” (how you perceive your reality) with everyone else’s “outsides” (think Target ads where everyone has perfect outfits and home decorations and gets along at family gatherings), many turn to spontaneous eating to self-soothe. 

Unfortunately, there is a strong correlation between stress and spontaneous eating, in that the more you attempt to address your stress with excess food, the more your stress increases.

What to do? Here’s one holiday stress reliever you may not...

Solutions for Emotional Eating for Midlife Women: Do You Have Permission to Listen to your Body?

I am a Menopause health coach and Dean of Varsity Menopause. I have integrated an educational background in psychology with a fitness and coaching career for over 30 years, empowering midlife women to achieve clarity and confidence beyond their wildest dreams through a series of online courses that address body-confidence and emotional regulation through research-based journaling and other techniques.

Over 30 years ago I lost four clothing sizes without dieting and have imperfectly eaten the amount of food that sustains this body size ever since through pregnancy, menopause, divorce and all the things life throws us. I know a lot about emotional eating! I’m also a grateful, recovering perfectionist.

EMOTIONAL EATING:

1. What is it?
2. Why do people do it?
3. What you can do about emotional eating in midlife?

WHAT IS EMOTIONAL EATING

We’re talking emotional health and...

When Wendy Sweet, [PhD] MyMT™ Founder & Lifestyle Coach, emailed me to let me know she read, “Dammit … It IS Menopause!”, I was elated! Here’s what she said …

“I spent the week delving into your books. How amazing are you to write, not one, but two books. I was so impressed that I weaved them into an article in my newsletter that went out to 130K women around the world today. … How amazing that you did this. I’m so proud of you.”

Wait, what?! Yes, I had read that right … she shared “Dammit … It IS Menopause!” with 130,000 menopausal, perimenopausal and post-menopausal women around the world! Here is the link to the article:

https://www.mymenopausetransformation.com/coaching/turning-our-mid-life-potential-into-reality-a-reminder-from-australian-marketing-guru-sonya-keenan/

Hope you enjoy it as much as I did! 

Sally Bartlett, ©2021

Today my brother, my son, and I met at the jetty at 7:00 a.m. to honor Dad. We were informed by the cremation organization we worked with that our dad’s ashes would be scattered two miles out from the end of the jetty. Dad was in the navy during WWII, and all his life he loved the ocean. He loved swimming and boating, and this was one of his favorite places to go to gaze at the ocean. Unfortunately, the organization refused to provide us with a window of time when we could see the boat. At first, they wouldn’t even disclose the date of the scattering, because that would’ve been a massive up-charge from the original $1,600. While we couldn’t narrow down a time, with some authentic waterworks, I was able to persuade them to at least give us a date. 

It was about an hour and a half of sitting together and getting to know the brother I really have never known all that well. Death brings unexpected surprises. Death heals some things.

While the three of us sat...

I’ve covered the importance of gratitude. Gratitude leads to acceptance. Most of the time, it takes discipline for me to get into gratitude. Yet, I willingly do it because the benefit is so great. It changes me for the better on every possible level.

Lately I’ve been learning the importance of grieving. Not my favorite pastime, I’ve tried to avoid it if possible. Thank you, Big Love, for this growth opportunity. I would even venture to say that for whatever reason, this last six months has been a super-sized season of grieving losses.

As with all loss, there have been chapters ended. There have been chapters ended by the Universe and those ended by me. I’ve grieved the loss of my father, my second marriage, and even friendships. Of those chapter endings initiated by me, those took great amounts of courage to consider what was in my own best interest as the top priority.

I’ve also grieved about things that didn’t even happen within this...