by Judith Stafford | Mar 2, 2021 | Becoming a Wise Woman
Why Life is great as you get older - Part 1 Now is the best time to take a good, hard look at who you are and begin healing those old emotional wounds. By the time you reach midlife, you will have had many experiences, some good, some bad and many, many in-between. You will have run the whole gamut of emotions, including joy, sorrow, anger, fear, hope, gratitude, contentment, anxiety, guilt, inspiration, and indifference, to name but a few. Some of these negative feelings and the experiences that created them may need processing in order to live a satisfying, fulfilling life without regrets. Midlife is the perfect time to examine the experiences that have had the most significant adverse effect on our lives. By now, we should have the skills and the maturity to see what happened more objectively and accept and forgive ourselves and others for the pain caused. Many events in our lives can upset us, and if repeated, they can lead to destructive behaviour and bad habits. If we want to have the best possible time during the second half of our lives, we must process some of the bad habits and limiting beliefs we have accumulated that are holding us back. This might seem daunting, and I do not suggest you try to deal with everything simultaneously. But there will almost certainly be particular behavioural patterns that you recognise in yourself that you would like to change. The most frequent include: Self-sabotage Feeling unloved or unlovable Procrastination and perfectionism People pleasing Negative self-talk Refusing to ask for or accept help Blaming others Not feeling...
by Judith Stafford | Feb 3, 2021 | Becoming a Wise Woman
Regeneration is for Women in Midlife Too many of us view getting older as an ending. The end of youth, the end of fertility, the end of periods (hurray!) and even the end of our attractiveness and visibility to men. I think this is a shame. Despite what many people think, there are benefits to getting older. Instead of seeing ageing in terms of loss, we should see it as a transition. One that opens up new opportunities to the way we live our lives. The second half of our life should be seen as a transition, not an ending Life naturally moves in cycles. Women especially, move from one phase to another through their lives. We shouldn’t see any of these stages as better or worse than the others but accept that each stage has a different emphasis. During our 40s and 50s, we experience one of those transitions, the most obvious symptom of which is menopause. This is natural, and instead of fighting it, we should embrace it. When we do, midlife can be a time of renewal and regeneration. It may seem strange to have the second half of your life described as a time of renewal and regeneration. But what I mean by this is that we experience a renewal of our relationship with ourselves. Our regeneration happens, not in a Dr Who way (although, that would be fun) but as a form of rebirth. Where we throw off the restraints and shackles of who and what society says we are supposed to be we can truly become ourselves. Ageing as a mindset It is easy...
by Judith Stafford | Jan 21, 2021 | Away with the Fairies
Here we go a Wassailing….. (Any excuse to drink cider!) I remember singing the carol ‘Here we go a Wassailing’ at school without having a clue what it was about. Just in case you don’t know. Wassailing is a folk tradition that entails the ritual blessing of fruit trees in winter to ensure a good harvest in the following autumn. It usually involves drinking, making loud noises and apple trees - just an average night out for some people, with an apple tree thrown in! If anyone fancies trying it, the good news is, wassailing has seen a recent revival. What is wassailing Wassailing is the practice of the community visiting the neighbourhood orchards, selecting a tree, usually the oldest, singing, or chanting a rhyme and making lots of noise while drinking mulled cider or wine. The remains of the cider in the wassail cup are poured onto the tree. Wassailing come from the old English words ‘waes hael’ meaning ‘good health’, our equivalent of ‘Cheers’. It started as a drinking salute and later became associated with a particular drink and the tradition of wassailing. Wassailing usually occurs around the Christmas holiday or just after at the beginning of January often on 12th night on the 6th January although it is often celebrated on the old pre-Gregorian 12th night of 17 January. It is probably of pagan origin but was assimilated into Christianity where it became part of the Christmas tradition. The wassailing drink originally started off as a mulled wine or mead, then evolved into a drink more associated with apples and is made of mulled cider, with sugar...
by Judith Stafford | Jan 12, 2021 | Becoming a Wise Woman
How do you feel about your age? Happy, Unhappy, Ambivalent? You are not alone if you don’t feel happy about getting older. For many women, the years between 40 and 60 (or even 70 nowadays) are a time of change, physical, emotional, and spiritual, and that change is rarely welcomed. And no wonder! Look at the words used to describe older women. Old bag Hag Cougar Crone Mutton Menopausal It is hard to find any positive words to describe us – cougar is the best we can hope for! When I am talking about myself, I tend to use the words, mid-life and second half of life to describe this period in our lives, but the word I have embraced for myself, and I would like you to as well, is ‘wise woman’. I think this is a good word to describe us as we get older. Wisdom is something that comes with age – hopefully! Therefore, it is a wonderfully positive way to portray us as we age - growing in power rather than losing it. Our identity and who we are isn’t necessarily something we think much about when we get past our teens – when we are obsessed with it! We are usually too busy being mothers, having jobs and building a life. But as we get older, children grow up and leave home, jobs become may be less exciting and we become perimenopausal and then experience menopause, how we feel about our lives can change. Menopause marks the end of our fertility. It is a definite marker in our lives that men do not have....
by Judith Stafford | Nov 6, 2020 | Into the Woods
Autumn in the Woods I love autumn. I love the smell, the colours of the leaves, the way the light falls. There is a lovely smell in the air which reminds me of bonfires and wet leaves. What I really love is watching squirrels rushing around gathering nuts, they really make me smile. I’m not so keen on the cold wind and the long dark nights but I am learning to live with them. After all, apart from moving to another country where it is summer, what can I do about it? Usually September has reasonable weather which makes it easier to enjoy stomping among the fallen leaves. Although they don’t usually come down in great quantities until the end of October. This month often has sunny days too. But by November and Bonfire night, when the clocks have gone back it really does feel like winter is on its way. The autumn woods offer a bounty of berries and fruit for us to harvest. Blackberries, crab apples, elderberries, rose hips, hawthorns, sloes and so many mushrooms. Much as I would love to, I don’t collect mushrooms, it is hard to tell which are poisonous and which are edible, so I leave that to the experts. But I do collect sloes, for sloe gin; rosehips for rosehip syrup and elderberries to make an elderberry tonic. You can make a ketchup out of hawthorns, but I haven’t done so – yet! Autumn is also a great time to collect mushrooms. But only if you know what you are doing. Poisonous fungi grow in with edible ones and look very similar...
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