Menopause and Mind

Menopause and Mind Newsletter – September 2023

Update!

Well, it has been a busy few months! We have been running care cafes, art workshops, applying for funding, and working with local organisations to link up services, including Brighton Women’s Centre and the Suvivors Network (please see below – trigger warning mention of sexual abuse briefly at the end of the newsletter). We’re about to book some new workshops in East Brighton and are continuing our in-person programme and running more online forums to be announced shortly…

Thanks to the East Brighton Fund and The Chalk Cliff Fund for making these events possible.

Menopause and Mind Survey: We have launched our Menopause and Mind Survey, which will help us get more funding for services, support and better more inclusive representation. Please make sure you have filled this in, and many thanks to those who have already completed it!

Free Menopause and Mind Events…

More information and booking for all events are available here.

• 27 September – Cutting the Crap Collage Workshop
• 25 October – Care Cafe – warm drinks and warm company – a chance to share our experiences
• 22 November – Cultivating Inner Kindness – mindful meditations and collective care practices
• 14 December – Winter Yule Celebration – join us for an evening of tea, food and winter celebrations as we approach the winter solstice.

Online sessions will resume in November – please follow our Eventbrite to keep up to date!

Menopause and Mind Toolkit: The conversations we have been having in our workshops and cafe spaces are not being composted with the tea bags! We now have started collating all of the notes from our sessions into the Menopause and Mind Toolkit! This is being updated all of the time as our conversations go on, so please send us any links you have and keep checking in.

Suvivors Network: Experiences of trauma can worsen menopause symptoms, and if you have had experiences of abuse in the past you may find this is a time where intrusive thoughts of prior events recur as your estrogen levels drop. If you want someone to talk to about experience of sexual trauma the Survivors Network in Brighton can provide support to residents across Sussex (UK). They have also recently started a specific peer support group for people ages 50+ https://survivorsnetwork.org.uk/ If you are elsewhere in the UK you can find local support via The Survivors Trust https://www.thesurvivorstrust.org/ 

Board Members – we are looking for volunteers to join our board and help us raise awareness, get funding and come up with ideas of how we can support the broader menopausal community, please get in touch if you would like to be involved! menoandmind@gmail.com 

Blog writers – we are looking for blog writers, creative or informative, more information here!