“And then one day, when my husband brought up the same old complaint, I just smiled! Instead of getting triggered, I actually saw the pattern using mindfulness.“
My kind of mindfulness is not sitting stiffly for hours on end. My mindfulness, and the practices that revolutionize life for my clients, is the kind that happens moment to moment during real life. The revered tradition of silent sitting is highly effective. Speaking personally, it’s really hard to embrace that practice with my busy brain. What works for us is building in regular, short and frequent breaks from “busy-ness”.
How can mindfulness benefit women over 50?
- lose weight and keep it off with mindful eating
- sleep more deeply and regularly
- improve relationships, especially with oneself
You can lose that menopause weight with Mindful Eating
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to find a healthier weight without calorie counting, depriving yourself of your favourite foods and going hungry? That’s what Mindful Eating did for me.
After menopause, I was getting pretty “padded”. I was doing yoga, eating healthy, exercising… all the right things. But, to be honest, a lot of things were routine and I wasn’t really paying attention anymore.
Using Mindfulness tools, like journaling, loving kindness meditation and mindful eating, allowed me to shed over 25 pounds. I still went out with friends, ate my favourite foods and did not punish my body with harsh exercise.
The step by step process of Mindful Eating is covered in our SHE Mindfulness Program.
You can find plenty of healthy eating inspiration on these recipe pages.
Mindfulness Tools to Improve Sleep for Women over 50
“I would lie awake for hours, in a panic about work the next day. Out of the many tools I learned through Cheryl, I’ve found what works for me.”
Not being able to sleep is scary. And stressful. I’ve been there. Do you wonder why something manageable during the day becomes super stressful at night? As you learn about your nervous system, it all begins to make sense. You also learn how to hack into that automatic programming to achieve better sleep.
In the SHE Mindfulness Program, we devote one of the four modules to this question.
Here are a couple of my favourite tools for improving sleep quality, getting to sleep faster and staying asleep.
For more information on how the nervous system impacts your sleep, try the Learn to Rest course. It’s FREE in our at home video library.
Better relationships with others begin by investing in yourself with Mindfulness.
Spiritual masters have been teaching for centuries this fundamental truth.
The tell us on the airplane to put on our own oxygen mask before others.
And yet, I persisted in putting everyone else’s needs and opinions before my own. When I hit menopause, I just couldn’t keep that up anymore.
In the SHE Mindfulness program, we spend considerable time looking at our self care options and creating a self compassion contract. I see these years as my turn after all the energy I put out in career, family and community.
My favourite tool for developing deeper, more meaningful relationships with myself and others is loving kindness meditation. This short track beautifully guides one to taking a loving, gentle rest in an otherwise busy day.
There are two ways to experience the SHE Mindfulness program. It is offered online and in a residential retreat format.