Let the Renaissance Begin
I cannot tell you how often I find myself sitting listening to conversations about ageing. empty nests and all the associated delights of the menopause with my friends lately. How often we sit and compare notes about the way we feel about ourselves and our tomorrows. The odd sense that life is over and is somehow now is only just beginning?
I listen and the same thought goes through my head constantly. That we have been stuck in necessary stagnation, a kind of treading of now murky waters our whole being longs to swim away from. Because we KNOW that beyond the bone weary tiredness there is so much US underneath flesh that seems fleshier than it once way. So much we still want to BE. So much we still want to FEEL. To EXPERIENCE. To DO!
And yet, and yet and yet… we know we are stagnating. We blink our way into the morning already feeling a little worn out, not because there is anything seriously wrong, but because we have tucked away our adrenaline, or joie de vivre, our very souls among the neatly pressed linens in a press scented with dried lavender. We have ticked all the domestic boxes and we have been so bust ticking them that we have quite forgot that we need nurturing too if we are to survive the tightening of the tourniquet we (whisper it) we call middle-age.
Ugh. Stagnating! It’s a terrible word. And it is a truly dreadful state of being! We wake up and we feel the same (achy). We go through the motions. Navigate the same moods. The same arguments. With ourselves and them. We add the same things to an imaginary bucket list we will never get around to ticking off. We look the same – if not a little shabbier. We say and do the same things and go the same places and meet the same people and move the same nonsense from one surface to the other. And it feels like it never ever stops and somehow never really got started!
And inside WE ARE SCREAMING. Or at least we would be if we could only work up the energy, so let me re-phrase that, inside we are weeping but have long-learned to keep it inside because no-one is listening anyway…
Oh yes. I know. I really do know. I have felt invisible. As if my grip on myself was slipping away. As if I was shrivelling up, good for the scrap heap. bloating faster than I could possible be eating, too tired to even contemplate re-inventing my forthcoming empty nest and pretty certain that all elements of love and romance had upped and left the building never to darken my door again
But I was wrong, because like you I was simply ready for my very own RENAISSANCE.
Ready to be the woman I was always supposed to be. Ready to claim myself, FOR myself, remember who I was, dance with possibility all over again and do it all with all the wisdom that comes with having survived FIFTY years on this planet. Ready to declare the glory days not over at all and to stand and stare at myself enough in the mirror and acknowledge what deep down inside I already knew to be true: that contentment had slipped away and was trying to take my most authentic, beautiful self with her.
Rude, right?? So bloody rude!
So the RENAISSANCE began and in the past two years I have:
Lost almost SEVENTY pounds and taught myself to appreciate and respect my body again.
Worked my way through an intense course of education, as I continue my training to be an Integrative Nutritionist.
Delivered my son to university and adapted to the bliss of the empty nest.
Survived the goodbye to my relationship of eight years and after enjoying the slightly dubious, but oh so much fun, saga that is internet dating (Not sure I recommend that one – but this is about letting go, getting BRAVE and embracing possibility if needs must) I am now in a new relationship I am cautiously adoring, and feeling oh so very supported by.
Almost reached the end of peri-menopause with a a clutch of carefully honed survival tactics that have truly made a difference and have meant that I haven’t needed HRT along the way.
Stepped onto the pathway of definitive diagnosis for my (no hiding it now!) neurodivergence and started to gently unmask.
Re-invented my business from top to bottom, switched platforms, gently shifted my focus and slowly but surely worked my way through all the rooms in my house bringing them back to life after too long in the domestic doldrums.
Created new spiritual and emotional rituals to teach myself to be in the moment without pondering the past or trying to see into the future.
Addressed a few health issues with careful attention to the way I now chose to live.
And created a guide to my own renaissance that will see me through the next couple of years: a guide to ME, NOW in twelve specific areas of life I am now ready to share with YOU.
Here’s the thing: I am NOT Superwoman. And it hasn’t always been pretty but if I can do it, YOU can too!! I am hopelessly, extra-ordinarily. ORDINARY. During my own Renaissance I have been muddled, sad, tired and sometimes deeply scared and lonely. I have set my self challenges, let myself down occasionally and danced really silly jigs when I have achieved what I have set out to. There have been down days and lovely days, and sometimes it has felt like waddling my way through waist high mud, but at the end of it I am a MUCH better version of me. And I am PROUD of me, because I recognise myself in the mirror all over again, and know that I am more than capable of fashioning my future now. That it is entirely in my hands!
All this because I refused to allow INERTIA to drag me down for even one more day! Because I declared my own mid-life RENAISSANCE and decided to endure all it would take to turn my life around!
AND NOW ITS YOUR TURN TO FINALLY BECOME WHO YOU WERE ALWAYS SUPPOSED TO BE
Last year I packed all that I have learned into one intense weekly course designed to help you create the REST OF YOUR LIFE! To shake you up, get you dancing again, feel energised, go into battle with the stagnation challenging everything from your gut to you ability to sleep, your purpose in this thing called life once the fledglings have flown the nest and so much more besides, and now I’m about to run it again for all those of you who missed it first time around.
It isn’t going to be easy. You are going to need to fully commit to what it will take to carefully examine each and every nook and cranny of your life, get brave and be totally honest with YOURSELF about where your life is heading.
BUT if you are ready to shake off the inertia too, to lose a few pounds, revitalise your spirit and truly start to believe that the best days really are ahead of you, then this is wholly and authentically ME sharing who I am and how I have enjoyed my very own revival so you can too,
It is our TIME.
Let our Renaissance begin.
Ready to Dive In?
All current Library members will receive access to Renaissance via Substack automagically via email, in-app and here on the web-page, and for those of you not yet Library members you simply need to click the Subscription button and choose the Library option and Renaissance will be yours from next Monday, 29th July.