Goodbye good girl
and finding what you care about now
WDNC membership
Maybe you’ve come across Melani on socials? She’s founded WDNC, the We Do Not Care club1. She calls it how it is for women in perimenopause and menopause, and in a funny and bolshy way we can relate to. ‘We do not care about unpainted toenails and flipflops’, ‘We don’t care if you don’t like my attitude, that’s on you!’, ‘We don’t care about cleaning up. Maybe if people around us didn’t mess up, we don’t have to clean up’.
Stop making sense
She punctures all the girly niceties and the ways women feel they had to be. It’s a big, and growing, club of followers of women chortling to themselves, battling through brainfog, insomnia, changing body, demands of family and work. If you’re in perimenopause or been there and graduated to the charms of menopause, you know all too well how difficult, painful and uncomfortable it is making sense of it all. Melani gives us permission to f*** it all.
Healing
Irony and humour are essential. How else can we come to terms with the rubbish about womanhood imposed on us, the rubbish we’ve internalised? I really value the community of women here at Viveka Gardens: alongside much needed rest and respite from work and family there’s a lot of healing laughter. Yoga repairs our frazzled nervous systems, not just from all we’ve had to do this week, but all the ways we’ve conformed against our true nature all along. Food together, irony and community invaluably supplement it.
The oestrogen years
It can be quite a shift from 'good girl' of the oestrogen years to menopause. I’d say the shift out of the oestrogen years is as huge as the shift into them at puberty. Being 'good', not rocking the boat, in the evolution of homo sapiens was important because we need(ed) the group to support us in child raising. Women can't afford to alienate others. Human babies have to stay on our back or in our arms for a minimum of nine months, then closely watched for another year at least. We can’t do it unless we are in a group.
Survival
Things have changed but our hormones are hard-wired. It's a kind of survival/trauma response that easily flips into seeking approval and fitting in. And, in this capitalist world, being made to feel we need to paint our toenails, contour our face etc and take notice of the red carpet. Ugh.
It can be puzzling… and then joyous to shake this off and join the I-don't-care-club that Melani voices brilliantly. Irony and humour go with the territory of our shifting perspective, for sure.
The mask
I remember pointing out this shift from the oestrogen years on a perimenopause day retreat pre-Covid years ago, and seeing a dawning on one woman's face in particular. She realised she'd begun saying what she thought instead of masking it. She’d in that moment connected that with why her colleagues were looking at her differently. She wasn’t allowing any office rubbish anymore.
Fearsome now
She and I have become friends and last year she attended the Exploring Elderhood Retreat. It was Caroline's brilliant idea to rename it this year Embracing Elderhood. This retreat is for women 55+ to explore how older and wiser plays out for you, and embrace your elderhood with positivity. And Caroline’s coming again. She's one fearsome woman taking all her skills and life experience into activism. I can't wait to see what she does next.
Finding what you DO care about
The corollary of shaking off the good girl and not caring about what other people think, is finding out what you REALLY care about now. And that's part of the retreat, as well as rest, space to let go and get perspective. It’s why I’ve made more explicit the coaching aspect of certain retreats in 2025. Coaching to first find who you are now and what you care about, and then be empowered to implement that in the world.
VG is a vision coming out of mymenopause, and now space for me to grow into my elderhood. I couldn’t have done it without coaching.
Grounding in rhythm with the seasons
The Perimenopause Yoga and Coaching Retreat retreat
is at Summer Solstice, https://vivekagardens.com/perimenopause-yoga-and-coaching-retreat-at-summer-solstice/
A three-day-two-night retreat for women who want to grow into the next stage of life with curiosity, creativity and consciousness.
Changes are happening in your body-mind. It’s confusing and uncomfortable, to say the least. It can also feel lonely. This retreat will help you to embrace the change and see it as an opportunity.
The sun is at its height, and tips over into the next part of its journey. We benefit from this liminal moment to dive within and find ourselves again.
Embracing Elderhood at Lammas
has sold out but I’ve scheduled another at September Solstice, https://vivekagardens.com/embracing-elderhood-at-equinox/
A three-day-two-night retreat for women 55+ to explore how older and wiser plays out for you, and embrace your elderhood with positivity.
On the retreat gain insight and clarity about your ways of being, relating, serving and enjoying.
The September equinox matches a turning point in our season: ripening, harvesting, abundance to share. We can benefit from the tipping point energy to give us momentum into the next phase.
On the retreats make space for your soul to explore and vision what next with:
morning meditation
circle and journalling
gently embodying yoga practice sessions including yoga nidra and restorative yoga
meditation walks
an invitation to times of mouna (silence in the group)
a 1-1 coaching session with Fiona
You can also add on one or two night’s B&B to integrate and rest more, and maybe take another 1-1 at a reduced rate.
Unbridled irony and unpainted toenails
This year I made retreats at VG women-only. It's a space where we can explore our life journey and shifts freely. Men are welcome on bespoke retreats and personal day retreats - we love men - but we need our unique space too for unbridled irony and unpainted toenails.
Hope to see you on the mat in the studio, on the cushion round the altar, resting in a hammock, round the table.
By the way, you can come if you have got round to painting your toenails!
Maybe you have friends who this might resonate with too? Please share.
And I’d love it if you liked and commented too