One year ago Bronwyn and I sat at kitchen table and window desk, each of us surrounded by writing books, notes, art pens, vases of garden flowers, and coffee cups, and stared in amazement at each other over Skype. Next to our chat windows were the opening pages of a beautiful website Bronwyn had created […]
Author Archives: Annagrace
Sensory Weekend: Breathe
Each month we put together a playlist and Pinterest board which matches our feelings and thoughts around that month’s theme. We find that it’s a fun and interactive way to move our words and ideas from brain to body and heart. Matching the look and feel of the images and music to our monthly Vivid […]
Introducing Vivid Reads
Something we hear all the time from women is how rare it is to see ourselves accurately depicted in word and film. Maybe this is because juicy, powerful, and sovereign (or fill in your favorite menopausal experience) can look and feel so different to each one of us. Maybe this is another reflection of how […]
Breathe
In like a lion, out like a lamb. So goes the old saying about March. It’s blustery, changeable, wind-swept, and suddenly, in the very middle, it’s spring (or autumn, depending on where you live). March for me is the month of gigantic, fluffy clouds and unexpected sunshine. It’s the month of new life hatching and […]
Letting Go of Good
You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. (Mary Oliver, Wild Geese) On my walk this morning I saw the most wonderful sight: the tiny, pale green points of baby leaves hatching from winter’s buds. There were crocus […]
How the Heart Speaks
As we enter our late 30’s and early 40’s (the decade of time which typically precedes natural menopause) something happens to our emotions. It can look like depression or apathy. Even things we normally love can lose their gleam and we can find ourselves struggling with a lack of energy. It can look like anger—a […]
Courageous Hearts
During menopause we often experience a calling up of our past selves and old stories. Our hearts are looking to resolve and make peace with old wounds, while also assimilating our varied selves and personas into a whole. While it’s hard to not wince and turn away from reminders of pain and failure, we are […]
Sensory Weekend: Take Heart
A Vivid Menopause February Playlist: If your heart is beating, alive, and your own, then I’m positive that it’s also complex and one of a kind. In other words, it craves love and understanding and it does so in its own unique way. In lieu of a February playlist full of cookie-cutter radio romance, here […]
Sensory Weekend: Deeply Rooted
A brand new year, fresh and clean and largely blank usually inspires in me a rush of happiness, the excitement of all unbroken things. I am prone to wake on the first day of a brand new year with relief at whatever happened in December being done. I am used to feeling rather like Anne […]
A Comfortable Joy
“Glad tidings of comfort and joy”, says the holiday carol. A similar wish could declare “happy stories of cheerful ease!” But is this your usual holiday experience? At this time in our lives, when we are living, creating, and acting from a place of increased sovereignty and power, the depression which can sneak up on […]
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