To both of you, I would first recommend you see an OBGYN and have your estrogen, progesterone and testosterone levels measured. Lucinda strongly recommends we have a full physical when we begin the program. Menopause can last ten years, and it can begin a long time before menses ceases. Estrogen can be 250 one day, and 10 the next. Not helpful for depression! So, as Lucinda asks us all to do, it’s a good time to see your doctor when you begin here.
Now for some encouragement. I began feeling hopeful after I listened to the first CD, and was truly hopeful after I listened to the first coaching DVD. I was such a mess when I began here last June, I cannot even recall how bad I felt. Through the summer I had setbacks, and would often have to make myself go through the motions of the day. What helped? On those days I would listen to a CD several times, and watch the corresponding coaching DVD several times, as well. The trick is in staying with this. Those days when I wasn’t sure how to spell my own name due to the fog I lived in, I worked the program. It has a cumulative healing effect on your brain chemistry. It’s not a psychological thing that’s happening here -- although there is psychology involved. The thing that is making you feel better is biological. Through the skills provided in this program, you are specifically healing your brain, and thus your body. That’s when you will feel better, when your brain chemistry begins to change. It is slow, it is gradual, and it does happen. But you have to do the work. Session One through Fifteen. Just like the guidebook tells you.
As for loneliness, yes. I have times when I feel so alone. I’m not. You are not, either. Even when our family is gone and our friends are not with us, we have this community. It really is a life raft. Find people who are working the program sessions you are working on, and get to know each other. PM each other. Look for each other. That’s why I began this Support Circle, as a place where we could identify others who were struggling with similar problems. The way out is through the work.
Today I am going to give you an exercise I do which helps me see how quickly the brain chemistry can change. I write down five things I am grateful for every morning. These can be the same five things, over and over. The action of writing them down is a positive activity. I smile after I write each item. At the end of the day before I go to bed, I read them again, and I smile.
Five smiles for each gratitude 