ANNMERLE, WHY DO YOU DO WHAT YOU DO? 

Working with brilliant, but exhausted, high achieving women over 50 is my passion. It is my calling.

It’s who I was at 50.

I have learned so much through my own slow, self-healing process.

As I evolve, I study through programs and certifications. I find the teachers who can take me to the next level.

I learn, as well, from the women who work with me.

I see more and more clearly how things need to change for women like me and possibly, you.

I have studied with extraordinary mentors (most of them women), including: Forrest Yoga with Ana Forrest, Myo-Fascial self-massage with Jill Miller, and Embodied Feminine Evolution with Anahita Joon.

None of these mentors speak specifically to high-achieving women over 50, but all of their work contributes.

I am an artisan. I weave together the threads of all that I have learned and create a space and a method for women to move ahead into their second 50 years with strength, vision, creativity, and passion.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN WHEN YOU SAY YOU FOCUS ON SELF-HEALING?

You might think it is a fine point, but I make an important distinction between a commitment to self-healing and engaging in self-care practices. In fact,

I think this distinction is crucial.

We live in our heads. (I lived in my head all my life.) Letting our minds lead the way has really worked well for us. Living in our heads seems to create motivation, productivity, and success.

Please remember that I said, “seems to.”

Living in our heads means that our bodies do what our heads tell our bodies to do. And that’s where the trouble starts.a

Self-healing, on the other hand, is a deep commitment to honing our intuition about what lessons our bodies hold for us.

But what does this mean and how can we learn it?

Shifting from relying on a self-care, fix-it, band aid to a consistent, habitual, slow-paced, self-healing inquiry is not simple or easy.

[This is why I founded the FierceOver50 Gathering, but more on that later, I’m sure.]

Hmmm……this is all about stress – the deeply embedded stress in our bodies. Over the decades we have worked, sat in chairs, met deadlines, raised kids, managed households, solved problems (and then there’s the big T Trauma that inevitably comes along).

This stress (the fear, the worry, the emphasis on pushing and controlling) becomes normalized and we think we are fine.

But our body’s life-sustaining resilience is slipping away.

Self-care practices like teacher-led yoga classes, going to the chiropractor, drinking wine each evening, eating for pleasure or to numb feelings, regular use of over-the-counter pain killers, watching a lot of television, shopping, exercise classes all might make you feel better.

But that soothing, feel-better feeling doesn’t last, because it hasn’t reached deep into your body and helped to soothe a nervous system stuck in fight or flight.

That soothing, feel-better feeling – especially in our over 50 bodies, highly stressed bodies – is, essentially our attempt to “fix” whatever is wrong. We have become convinced by the lifestyle information that surrounds us that a chiropractor adjusting our spine or a yoga class stretching our bodies will fix whatever is wrong.

I argue that we need to approach our worries, aches, and pains and long-term stress from a completely different perspective – a self-healing perspective.

We must learn how to breathe, move, and feel from inside our bodies, rather than from our heads directing our bodies.

I know this might sound strange, esoteric, and perhaps inaccessible, but it’s not. But it takes a bit of time and practice and a new sense of awareness.

Most important, it gives us a quite different sense of ownership of our bodies and our lives. It’s a very different feeling than the push-control-manage-fix-it strategies of our early years.

Perhaps the short version of an example from my life will help. In my late thirties, while pregnant with my second child, I suddenly started to feel increasingly painful electrical shocks on the left side of my face when I brushed my teeth, ate, or washed my face.

I saw a neurologist who diagnosed me with Tri-Geminal Neuralgia. He said I could have surgery to cut the nerve to my face, but it might not work and my face might droop. I was prescribed a variety of medicines. The most they did was dull the overwhelming pain, but they also dulled my life.

I was looking for a doctor to fix this illness, but no one could.

No one could say what caused this chronic, ill-defined illness, but I felt sure that the constant, unremitting stress of my life contributed greatly.

I had gotten to the point where all my food had to be blended and sucked down through a straw; I could not work; and, I couldn’t even talk without setting off a cascade of electrifying shocks.

With what felt like my last hope, I went to a healer – my dear Malinka -- who I had heard of. She observed me as I experienced these shocks. Over time, she taught me how to use my breath to lessen the severity of the attacks. She opened a door. But I had to walk through it and own this use of my breath as a self-healing tool.

Painful attacks would come and go based on the various stresses and pressures in my life. Slowly, I learned that by using my breath, I could lessen the attacks. I did also begin seeing an osteopathic doctor who manipulated the bones in my head to relieve the pressure on the nerve.

But please note, here, if I had only gone to see this doctor and put myself in her hands to “fix” the problem, I believe I would still be struggling with this painful issue.

The doctor and I met in the middle – she with her manipulation skills – and me with my intent to heal and my new-found ability to communicate with my body through breath.

I firmly believe that without my self-healing perspective and tools, I would still be “fighting” with and attempting to “fix” this chronic condition.

Now, I am aware of stressful situations; I do my self-healing practices daily; and, I continue to see this doctor if I get the slightest hint of a recurrence.

Self-healing doesn’t mean that you do not see doctors, professionals, therapists, teachers, or healers.

Self-healing, on the other hand, means that you elevate your highest self and speak to her with a strong sense of curiosity and agency.

You own your own healing and that makes all the difference. 

WHAT DOES SELF-HEALING IN THE FIERCEOVER50 GATHERING LOOK ?  

For twenty years I have been guiding women over 50 toward becoming their fiercest selves with my Body Vitality Method.

Your over-50 body now might feel back pain after yoga, you can’t sleep; you are gaining weight; you need that glass of wine in the evening; your mind gets hooked on whatever is going on at work, with your kids, or with your parents.

Long story short – your brilliant and prodigious mind has been running the show and your body has been tagging along.

This is not good.

When the mind is separated from the body, it gives orders, but the body has long since lost its resilience.

In the FierceOver50 Gathering, we literally breath life back into your body. You will learn to listen, restore, and embody your body again – as you did when you were a young child.

The Body Vitality Method I teach begins with the breath, using our inner, respiratory core. You will learn how to massage your body to bring your fascia, or connective tissue back to life. You will learn how to move in ways that improve both mobility and strength.

Most important, this practice is conducted as a workshop – not a class in which I teach and you follow.

Instead, you are learning to, as Jill Miller teaches, embody your body. You are learning how to “own” your own healing. During these workshops, you feel yourself breathing, restoring, and moving. You ask questions. You imagine and rehearse what you might do instead of sinking down on the couch with a glass of wine in front of Netflix.

We depend on each other – that’s why this is a Mastermind group. We learn from each other. We each have so much to bring to this process. It cannot be done alone by watching videos of this trick or that technique.

What I want for you is whole-body healing. When you regain this connection with your body and, heaven-forbid, something goes wrong or trauma emerges or re-emerges you have a newly powerful sense of self to rely on.

When you embody your body, your decision-making resources are supported in these new and scary situations when you have honed a powerful intuition for what your body needs.

Are you interested in finding out more about the FierceOver50 Gathering?

Here’s how you can learn if this program is right for you.

I give you a custom, recorded, zoom private session. The cost is $97. [My usual private rate outside of the FierceOver50 Gathering is $250 an hour.] The next day I send you a recording of our practice for you to use again and again on your own.

I guide you through a custom session that focuses on breathing, self-massage, strengthening, and body-centered mindfulness and movement. If the FierceOver50 Gathering is right for you, you will feel it in your body.

We can also talk about any issues that you are concerned about and I will answer any questions that you have.

Then, if you feel the Gathering is right for you, I will send you an invitation and you can sign up for the group sessions or the group sessions plus a monthly private session.