Midlife Magic

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Copyright © 2021 by Kim Sarsons

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form by any means without prior written approval from the Author.

Acknowledgement

For my parents, Jeff and Arleen, and my daughter, Tula.

Thank you for your unwavering support and enduring love, especially when I do the unexpected.

Dear Dad, you never once questioned my decisions and have always believed that I could do whatever I chose to pursue; from quitting teaching to travel in Asia for a year to raising a child on my own, moving to South America, and choosing to add cannabis to my life. You have stood back and allowed me to bloom in my own way. You were there when I truly needed you most when my illness escalated and I couldn’t be there for Tula. I’m sorry for scaring you. You chose me and decided to be my dad when I was an infant and raised me as your own to be my best self possible. I know I don’t say it to you in words but I feel it constantly in my heart—I love you.

Dear Mom, our relationship hasn’t been an easy one for most of my life. We’ve lived at a distance for decades—physically and emotionally. Mother-daughter dynamics have been hard to navigate and I’ve never really understood why. What I do know is that you’ve taught me a lot. I’ve achieved many things in my life and I know it’s in large part due to the strong foundation of personal integrity and belief in myself I started to develop in childhood. You’ve stepped in with love and strength when I needed the support to achieve new milestones, like becoming a mother myself, and years later when I found myself in a medical crisis. Thank you and I love you.

Dear Tula, the moment I learned you were coming into my world, I was over the moon with joy and brimming with excitement to be your mom. You were born 5 days ahead of your due date of February 19th to become my forever Valentine. It’s been an unparalleled adventure so far! We can even reflect on the toughest times with a sense of wonder at our ability to come through it all together. You are my child and my mentor. I observe your confidence and see you live by your values every single day and I couldn’t be more proud. When I stumble, you’re there, and you become stronger by your presence and proximity to struggle. You’re a true inspiration, a beautiful human inside and out, and I’m so proud to be your mom. I love you.

This book would not be if it weren’t for the journeys I’ve taken through life so far and all the beautiful people who have accompanied me on my many paths.

I’m forever grateful.

Free and Magical Goodies

I’d love to connect and share how you can make your experience with Midlife Magic even more powerful. Let’s meet! You can find me on

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Get your accompanying journal and enhance your Midlife Magic experience. Details on my website https://kimsarsonscoaching.com

Ready to glow up with face yoga? Want to join my cannabis club? Reach out for information through my website and prepare to be elevated!

Table of Contents

Introduction

I. Cannabis Essentials

1. Cannabis 101

2. Enduring Bonds—Cannabis Through History

3. Built for Balance—The Endocannabinoid System

II. How To Use Cannabis

4. Engagement—Methods of Ingestion

5. Dosing & Finding Your ‘Goldilocks Zone’—Self Discovery

6. Cannabis Kitchen Alchemy—Recipes for Getting Started

7. Practical Self Love—Complementary Self Care Practices

III. Treating Conditions

8. Manage Discomfort—Cannabis and Chronic Pain

9. Restore Restful Sleep—Cannabis and Insomnia

10. Find Calm—Cannabis, Stress and Anxiety

11. Rediscover Joy—Cannabis and Depression

12. Taming the Beast—Cannabis and Menopause

IV. Self-Development And Expansion

13. Connect and Manifest—Cannabis and Spirituality

14. Mind Your Mind—Cannabis and Stress Management

15. Enhance Connections—Cannabis and Relationships

16. Be, Do and Have More—Cannabis and Productivity

Conclusion

Anecdotes and Tips from Cannaladies

References—Books and Weblinks

About the Author

Introduction

The crossroads faced by women in midlife is where a tremendous power awaits. It’s the power of choice. By the time you’re past the age of 45, you’ve lived long enough and gone through enough to tap into the wisdom you’ve gained from experience, and to make clear how you want the rest of your life to look. When it comes to aging, there’s a lot for the body, mind and spirit to bear, but what’s an absolute must is that you choose to make yourself a priority. From this position you can explore new approaches to self care that serve your holistic wellbeing. This is where you can begin to practice midlife magic!

This book is a compilation of high impact wellness strategies that sit outside of the mainstream, focusing on cannabis plant medicine and the benefits it can bring to women’s lives. It is a practical and inspired guide, blending information together with beliefs, tools and practices that can support you in becoming your Higher Self. You know you’re using this magic when you…

Tap into your innate wisdom and power as a woman, creator and healer.

Listen, love and trust.

Set personal standards that support your growth, expansion and evolution.

Understand your intrinsic value by honouring yourself in mind, body and spirit.

Value the wisdom you’ve gained by living your unique life.

Transform your lived experiences into wisdom and compassion.

Embrace the truth of your divine feminine power and you nurture yourself with intention through rituals of self-care and connection.

Live your life in alignment and with awareness.

Nourish your soul through creative engagement with pursuits that you love.

Explore your inner power as a survivor.

Mindfully engage with the healing power of natural and holistic therapies, and that includes medicinal plants like cannabis.

When you begin to embrace the tenets of Midlife Magic, you become a trailblazer, choosing the path that’s aligned with your innate wisdom and your heart’s desires.

As you settle in to experience this book, prepare to forge your own unique path. Imagine living your life outside of the box and enjoying the wellbeing, freedom and sovereignty to pursue your dreams on your terms. I hope it inspires you to step into your potential, to move through your life confidently, with purpose and love, and to always be authentically, powerfully, magically you!

How did you get here?

In midlife, you have the opportunity to bloom and thrive when you choose to honour your worth, love yourself for who you are, and when you prioritize your own well-being. Yes, this means that you get to put your own oxygen mask on first. However, as a woman this can be hard to imagine let alone achieve because it’s normal to take a low-tier position on the priority list. This is especially true when other people and things in your life need an ongoing supply of your time and energy. As you go through life, accepting and adjusting to the stress that is created by these external factors, you can be led through all kinds of physical, mental, emotional and even spiritual imbalances. It’s very possible that you don’t even realize when you’re out of balance.

I can say this with certainty because it’s what happened to me in my mid-forties. That very recent chapter in my life is what put me on my current wellness path. It has inspired me to share some of my stories along with the knowledge I’ve gained about holistic strategies, particularly the role that cannabis can play in restoring balance to life in midlife.

With this book, you’ll discover new powers and tools that can help you transform your life. Inside these pages, you will find a mix of information, inspiration and motivation. It’s partly a guidebook to the wide and wonderful world of cannabis medicine. It’s part community and support through stories of other women who have said ‘yes’ to cannabis. And it’s infused throughout with the knowledge and energy of a holistic wellness coach who wants you to feel your best. Overall it’s a companion that wants you to be happy, healthy, balanced and beautiful, inside and out. Are you ready?

I’m so excited that you’ve decided to explore this topic with me, and I enthusiastically invite you into the world of Midlife Magic.

Let’s establish some context and perspective…

An indication that you’re living in midlife realness is that you’re experiencing the onset of more and more changes that you know are related to your age and where you are in life. Do you ever look at photos of yourself and feel as though you’re morphing into someone unfamiliar? I imagine it weighs on your mind a little or a lot, and that’s completely normal. The natural process of aging can turn into something of a slippery slope where a minor discomfort or problem unfolds into another and another. This keeps you in seeking mode as you look for reliable support and impactful solutions. You know you didn’t sign up for a future of discomfort and degeneration, or a dependency on prescription medication and pharmaceuticals. You know that you don’t want to feel frustrated or disappointed with the woman you see looking back at you in the mirror, or to worry about what’s to come. It’s not a given that midlife has to be a negative experience, even though it’s perceived and presented as such by many. There’s absolutely no need to feel hopeless or powerless or as though it’s the beginning of the end. Look at it instead as a crossroads.

Getting older is inevitable, it’s true; however, the manner in which you choose to navigate the journey of your future is entirely yours to make. This means that YOU are the one who gets to decide how YOUR future gets to be, and that’s pure magic.

Reflect and Reframe

Take a moment and hit ‘pause’ on the future and start by thinking back. As you read this section, I want you to become quiet and reflective. Grab your journal and write. Take a step back from worry, doubt and fear about the future and, without any judgement or questioning, just review your life up to this point. Go through the rolodex of all the crazy shit and blessings that you’ve experienced in your life to bring you to where you are now. Think of the ups and downs of the different phases and milestones. Dig into the circumstances you found yourself in along the way, together with the challenges you faced and the choices you made. They have all come together to create the version of you that’s right here, right now. This is where it’s all led to, and you continue to be a work in progress. It’s truly an incredible journey that’s completely unique to you and it’s made you the amazing and dynamic woman you are today.

So stand proud in the face of the popular opinion that women over 45 are fading into invisibility. Midlife is the time to take the wisdom that you’ve gained from living, and mix it with the determination to step out and claim your rightful place at the front of the line of your life!

Midlife presents an exciting and potent opportunity to slow down, pause, re-examine, and make new and needed shifts. It’s a special time when you get to look forward with excitement, to embrace the potential that is available now, and to move ahead guided by the many lessons of the past. It is a time when you can open up to accept that the best is yet to come. All you have to do is keep your energy clear and focus your action on this moment right here, right now, guided by the future version of yourself that you aspire to be. You get to decide what you truly want, who you want to be, and how you want to live.

In thinking about the future and this phase, it can feel scary, uncertain and overwhelming a lot of the time, but I want you to know that it doesn’t have to be that way at all. In fact, it can be the most exciting, fulfilling and liberating time of your life!

Patterns, Programming and Expectations

Up until now you’ve probably been living much of your life focusing on the interests and well-being of others. Through your different and diverse commitments to career and family, it’s probably become normal to put yourself last or even to sometimes forget about yourself altogether. Perhaps you’ve paid for this tendency a few times in unexpected and even painful ways. Without jumping into victim mode or blaming, simply notice and acknowledge, while remaining free from any self-judgement. Keep that journal close!

For many of us in midlife, the struggle to maintain the intricate and delicate balancing act that we create for ourselves over the years starts to become even greater. The thing is, we end up here, in this position because we live according to the expectations of the world around us. All of us are raised and programmed to fit into moulds and patterns of being. As women, we are expected to work hard, to show up, make sacrifices, and to assume all the roles, and do all the things, sometimes with very little notice, and often with little choice in the different matters that come up.

Besides a demanding lifestyle, there are also age or health-related issues, and changes that arise or intensify in this phase, requiring more personal resources to effectively manage. There’s a need for more energy, more attention, and more adaptation to new situations that make it all feel like too much to handle a lot of the time. A natural consequence may be to experience higher levels of self-doubt or to feel like you’re just not good enough. It should come as no surprise that studies show the rates of depression in midlife are statistically higher among women than men of the same age.

Imbalance was my truth. For a decade, I allowed myself to sink to the bottom spot as I juggled the demands of a full-time career and single-parenting. I operated on autopilot according to patterns of thoughts and behaviours that ultimately led me to extreme burnout and critical illness. What could have been my final chapter became a turning point.

What's So Different About Midlife?

The journey through midlife is comparable in many ways to the tumultuous teen years. Try to tap into memories of your own life so that you can call on lived experiences, struggles and challenges you faced as a teenager and you’ll start seeing some parallels. Both are times of upheaval and change across all areas of life. Put a 51 year old woman in a room with a 15 year old girl and they’ll be able to relate on topics of body image, hormones, self-esteem struggles, mood swings, physical and emotional pain, relationships, social pressures, and more. This is my current reality. My teenage daughter and I are living parallel lives of personal transformation and evolution, each in our own respective ways. We can be mirrors for each other, and we understand much of what the other is going through.

Even with so many similarities, midlife is a very distinct phase and there’s a lot to confront in both the external and internal worlds. Shifts in both personal and professional life scenarios can brew up uncomfortable feelings and added stress. If you have kids and they’re getting older and more independent, they may be leaving you with some residual feelings of not being needed as before. Perhaps you feel even a bit useless or invisible now and then. This can lead to a lost sense of personal value or a bit of an identity crisis. It’s also not uncommon for intimate and long-term relationships to evolve and for questions to be stirred up about what’s to come. Aging parents may need more of your attention. Marriages and partnerships may go in new directions. Changes in your work life or different career transitions may leave you feeling overwhelmed or overlooked, taken for granted or even replaceable. This can all influence your inner narrative, reinforcing limiting beliefs, impacting self-esteem and confidence levels, and triggering self-worth issues.

The external indicators that you are in midlife reveal themselves in your physical body, too. You may be enduring more stiffness, aches and pains, compelling you to turn to more medications. The evidence of time passing by becomes simultaneously easier to spot and harder to hide. It is completely normal for the body to look and feel older. This can trigger even more negative self-talk, comparison, and anxiety, all of which diminish an often precarious sense of self-love. It can become a daily challenge to feel truly happy at a time when living with depleted energy and constant stress becomes your new normal.

What can we do?

It is imperative that we remember how amazing we really are. We are truly masterful at maneuvering through our daily lives while managing a constant barrage of high-demand tasks and stressful situations, all while engaging and experimenting with ways to feel and look our best. We can make it all look effortless and easy, but over time it becomes a drain on the system.

Have you ever wondered to yourself if you are the only one who is struggling to keep it all together while pretending that everything is ok? You are not. Midlife is a challenging ride for all of us but, for some reason, we just don’t talk about it enough to feel a true sense of sisterhood, kinship and support. Our own mothers and grandmothers didn’t really talk about it. And, let’s face it, everyone just expects us all to break down a little—at the very least. But a midlife crisis or a breakdown does NOT have to be a rite of passage to the future.

How About a New Midlife Manifesto?

Midlife has the potential to be an exciting time for reinvention and redefinition. It’s the perfect time for questioning and rewriting some of the rules that you’ve been living by, guided by the fact that you belong closer to the top of your own priority list. With decades of lived experience to call on, you can reflect on the past while projecting into the future. You can decide that making space for self care isn’t selfish. In fact, it’s essential and it’s what’s right for you. Taking care of you will enable you to show up as the best, most impactful version of yourself. It’s that version of you that the world needs.

For many women between the ages of 45 and 64, a reconfiguration of their priority list is so much easier said than done, and some of us need a loud and jarring wake up call to make it happen. In some cases it takes an extreme, even life-altering event to make you decide that it is time to put yourself first once and for all.

In my case, it was a sudden and unexpected medical crisis that struck in the early summer of 2016 when I was 46. It shook me to my foundation as it very quickly reduced my life to one of constant pain, ongoing discomfort and limited mobility. The extreme nature of my illness succeeded in waking me up