It is a curious thing, how our Western culture has elongated our lives as a whole and, with this, has pushed reproduction to the furthest reaches. For many of us, as Chinese medicine practitioners, and most certainly for our Western fertility colleagues, we are predominantly serving a community of couples who are conceiving for the first time in the 35+ bracket.

There is no doubt about the very real biology of the Chinese 7 year cycles for women. This course considers the way that our 35+ bracket of clients are in a biologically unusual sphere of reproduction that is compressing the natural phases of their subsequent years.

What this course wishes to ask is about what it means, both biologically and emotionally, to become menopausal when we still have young children/teenagers? How can we use acupuncture to aid these women into better energetic structure during this biologically-blurred menopausal transition?

When we have children in our 20’s the responsibilities of motherhood make their natural and appropriate retraction; women are freed from the day-to-day binds that tie them as principal caregiver of their children, allowing the step forward into their menopausal phase in a biologically correct sequence, with an ability to receive and meet this ‘time-of-life’ change very much on their own personal terms.

This course explores how women make the transition of personal expression that is the power of menopause whilst they are still full-time mothers - and how we can use acupuncture to help ‘mothering menopausers’.

This course is much more than viewing menopause through the signs and symptoms lense and instead turns attention to how we can use acupuncture to help women to resonate to changes that are happening through the blur of overlapping of life phases.

How can we appropriately step into independence whilst we still have dependants?

What are the amplified physical challenges for this group of mothers through the toll of having pregnancies as an immediate precursor or in over-lay with their perimenopause/menopause?

Jani White brings her 20 years experience to lead this important discussion, and to help guide us in an exploration of how the phases inherent in the Chinese theory may well give us a valuable tool to help these women resonate to a more correct biological order in the context of this age-compression.

It’s a tough crack to feel vibrant and sexy and self-possessed when there are lunches to pack, school runs to accomplish, plus all the homework support, sports ferrying, shopping, cooking, cleaning, usually whilst working full or part time... Having a healthy menopause with all of this responsibility still on our plates is a tall order.

Please join Jani to help unpack some solutions to supporting 35+ women through this sequential dilemma and help determine how acupuncture can resonate a calm, age-appropriate centre in light of these wonky phases.

Learning Objectives:

• to review the 7 ages, in the context of the reproductive/menopausal compression for the 35+
• to consider the importance of the emotional journey of the menopausal transition in the context of a blur of maternal/personal emphasis
• to discuss how acupuncture can be used to treat the emotional resonances of this age-blur
• to discuss the use of acupuncture, particularly in the perimenopausal phase, and its importance as a replenishment and tonic for women entering menopause hard on the heels of the taxations and depletions of pregnancy and childbearing