Kate Codrington - Second Spring

What a tremendous contribution Kate has made to the conversation on menopause and to women at this stage of life. If you want to do menopause differently than what our society tells us it must be, if you feel an inkling to take back menopause on your terms, then get this book. I can think of dozens of women I want to send this book to!

Karen Brody, Founder, Daring to Rest and author ofDaring to Rest: Reclaim Your Power with Yoga Nidra Rest Meditation.

With the warm hug of a kind friend, on point humour and the ease of well-honed expertise Kate Codrington has written an essential companion for women from pre perimenopause through to post-menopause. Much as I would have loved to have had this book as my own companion when this all began for me 20 years ago, but I am so grateful for Kates insights and tips now, and to finally have a book I can wholeheartedly recommend on this ubiquitous, yet seriously ignored, underfunded and disparaged experience.

Jane Bennett, menstrual educator and author, founder Chalice Foundation.

Second Spring reads like the voice of a dear and wise friend sharing her hard-earned wisdom and secrets. In cultures focused on youth, menopause can be a lonely time. Kate Codrington has sourced a wealth of seasoned guidance to navigate and celebrate the mind body and spirit aspects of the menopausal journey.

Tami Lynn Kent, author ofWild Feminine, Wild Creative & Mothering from Your Center.

This book is chock full of ideas about how to not simply get through menopause, but also how to grow through menopause. It rides the fine line between acknowledging the awful truths that are part of this change while at the same time holding out hope for what comes next. There is no one-size-fits-all map for menopause, and this book offers a wide variety of suggestions and resources to choose from.

Jane Cawthorne, Co-Editor,Writing Menopause: An Anthology of Fiction, Poetry and Creative Non-Fiction.

This is a wonderful book to accompany you through menopause. Wise, irreverent and above all kind. It will help you navigate the seeming madness and suffering that too many experience. Instead of feeling its the end, you might just discover yourself, and that can only spell freedom.

Alexandra Pope, co-author ofWild Power: discover the magic of menstrual cycle and awaken the feminine path to power.

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

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First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2021

Copyright Kate Codrington 2022

Kate Codrington asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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Ebook Edition February 2022 ISBN: 9780008469764

Version 2021-12-14

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For Bella

Menopause is transformative. Its a magnificent challenge in the cycles of our lives, an opportunity to evolve and grow. Menopause is a loud call to re-evaluate who we think we are, and to become our true selves with authenticity and grace. It is the immense power of cyclical wisdom, turning the light of middle-aged wisdom in upon our own selves. It is time to illuminate our shadows, to reclaim, re-make and reconnect to our essential nature.

When I first met a perimenopausal Kate Codrington, she announced to me her intention to have a kick-ass menopause!. And over the years I watched in admiration as Kate approached her own menopause with a full and openhearted commitment to the process. She did indeed navigate a kick-ass menopause: creative, hilarious, well rested, honest and profound. The wisdom she shares in this companion to the menopausal journey is rooted not just in her own experience, but in the lives of the many women for whom she has become a guide and inspiration. This is not an ordinary kind of guidebook. It doesnt tell you what to do it is more of a generous and supportive companion who makes suggestions and encourages you to listen to your own intuition. Kates writing is the ideal companion for the journey of menopause. And believe me, the menopausal journey is not a journey anyone should make alone. It is a journey that needs courage, and encouragement, the companionship of fellow travellers on the path

For the energy of menopause is a vital force for freedom, working through the evolution of soul, heart and mind to transform every level of our being, from the physical to the emotional, from the sexual to the intuitive, from the mind to the psyche to the soul. Stepping through the door of menopause we step into our full power, we step up into the capacity to see clearly, and we step forwards to show others the way to freedom.

So why is it so feared and so reviled?

Because freedom is disruptive! Our mainstream culture fears the disruptive power of womens freedom, and does everything in its power to make sure we cannot even see this door to liberation. Our cultural prejudice against ageing and our youth-obsessed media promote such deep shame, disgust, and embarrassment at the bodies of menopausal women that millions of us simply put down our heads and walk on past the door marked Menopausal Transformation. We are too repulsed by our own ageing to notice the gifts it can bring. We fear the existence of menopause, and deny our own cyclical wisdom.

Why? Because almost everything about our society is geared to disconnect us from any kind of cyclical wisdom. The lords of profit to whom we are enslaved by the corporations for whom many of us work do not want us to access our own wisdom. The rhythmic cycles of menstruation, pregnancies, and menopause disrupt the structures of capitalist economies, and so we are taught to deny that we are cyclical beings, to behave like men, to denigrate our most intimate and precious intuitions and insights. And since our mutable and cyclical nature cannot be entirely eradicated, we are taught to be ashamed of it, ashamed of our blood, ashamed of our wrinkles, ashamed of our white hairs, ashamed of our intuition; menstrual shame leads to sexual shame, which leads to profound disconnection and disempowerment, all of which leads to menopausal suffering at every level of being.

And yet, despite all the bad press, and the attempts to distract, delude, and disempower us, we still find ourselves stumbling towards freedom. We are in the company of an extraordinary demographic for there are more menopausal women alive on this planet now than at any previous point in human history. And so we can be guided by the voices of those who are not ashamed, of those who celebrate the magnificence of this challenge to grow down into ourselves. The brave voices of women such as Kate, who have travelled through menopause with dignity, self-awareness, and humour, these voices call us to honour our own journeys and call us to honour ourselves.