Dear Pausers,
Galentines Day 2023 is one week away! Celebrate the women you love with us next Sunday 2/12 11:00 at Lincoln Park Shelter #3! Bring some women and girls you love, all ages invited! Menopause has been in the news this week. There is so much to unpack in this article from New York Times, but I’m particularly struck by a quote from Rebecca Thurston, a professor of psychiatry and Menopause researcher, “We have a high cultural tolerance for women’s suffering,” she says. “It’s not considered important.”
We are all living the ramifications of this “tolerance” in so many ways, and this is why our connection to each other in this time of peri-menopause and menopause is so powerful and so beautiful. We can affirm, comfort, encourage, witness each other like no one else. And we must be collectively vigilant about our wellness, as we wait on hold for the medical establishment to catch up to what we are experiencing.
It’s exhausting and infuriating… and what better reason to jump in the ocean of a cold February morn, with women of all ages! Shockingly cold water stimulates the vagus nerve, activating the parasympathetic nervous system, which helps us rest, digest and calm down. Benefits of vagus nerve stimulation include regulating our emotions, reducing blood pressure, lowering heart rate and reducing inflammation. And the joy and fun of doing it with a pack of wiling women is at least a double or triple dose, like these fellow pausers have figured out!
So, spread the word, pack up your water shoes and towel, and come over Lincoln Park next Sunday, 11:00 am! We’ll have a fire and hot beverages, and you can be exactly who you are and how you feel.
In Pausedarity,
Kate and Laura
