The wisdom of women

‘If you listen to your body when it whispers, it won’t need to scream’ — Heather Sophia Gordon Athié, Caluna Wellness.

It is hard to beat the brilliance of meeting a new group of women. Being invited into friendship groups to host our digital Hormone House Parties is a favourite aspect of what we offer to you, our community, as we grow.

We’re incredibly lucky to have learning from other women as, effectvely, part of our job descriptions! And the more we listen, the greater appreciation we have for the collective wisdom of women at this lifestage. We are also regularly struck by the impact of negative subliminal or accepted narratives and, as often, the impact of not trusting our knowledge of our own bodies and minds.

So why does collective learning and community matter? Research shows that something special happens when women gather.

Females release more oxytocin and serotonin when they spend time together.

In addition, if you’ve found yourself feeling the need to connect more with other women in the last 12-24 months there could be a biochemical reason for that too.

In periods of extreme stress, females don’t just experience the ‘fight or flight’ hormone surge often talked about, we also release oxytocin which leads us to want to protect and nurture…and seek out other females to connect with; to ‘tend and befriend’.

So, community and friendship groups make us feel better on a physiological level. They also actively support hormone balance.

But, during menopause, gathering as women to share and navigate a lifestage that 2 in 3 of us feel ‘blindsided’ by, is even more valuable.

Our Hormone House Parties are designed to provide a whistle stop tour through the lifestage; demystifying the symptoms through an exploration of the biochemistry and pausing to discuss individual concerns, experiences and share the evidence of what works.

And one of the most common pieces of feedback we receive from attendees, aside from feeling more informed and more confident about taking agency for their health, is that they feel ‘more normal’.

Listening to each other allows us to learn from each other. By listening to each other, we learn to listen harder to ourselves too. So much of navigating midlife relies on listening, and trusting, ourselves. Most medical practitoners in the menopause space would agree that ‘testing’ purely for menopause offers little value. Infact, the Greene Climacteric Scale that we also use in our trials is most commonly the basis for assessment in the doctor’s surgery. It too relies on an individual’s evaluation and the scoring of symptoms, in terms of ‘how bothersome’ they are. Nutritionists and movement specialists would concur. Often the right course of action in midlife begins by listening.

Our consultant Wim Hof superstar, Heather Sophia Gordon Athié, when reflecting on her own journey back to health, reflected ‘If I’d listened to my body when it whispered, it wouldn’t have had to scream’.

Without exception, every woman we meet via our MPowder Community holds so much knowledge, instinctively, about what they need for ‘Part 2’. Menopause offers us the opportunity to review what is in our toolkit. It gives us the chance to decide what to pack to go forward. And what we need to leave behind.

If you’re using the start of 2022 to explore the tools you may want to pick up, why not book some time with your favourite females and have a Hormone House Party with us? You find the window of time that works for you. We’ll bring the goodies and the insight. It really is that easy. Full details are below.



With love, the MPowder Team.