Here, Kitty helps her students discover their aims in attending the class, what they hope to get from it, and how to motivate themselves through difficulties.

‘Now, I find it’s much easier to make myself do things I want to do if I have a clear idea of why I want them done and what I’ll get out of it. In other words, I sometimes need clear motivation if I’m to get on with them.

‘And when it comes to making changes to my lifestyle, I definitely need to know why I’m making the changes I make, because otherwise, unless the results are swift and obvious, I’m likely to drift back to doing what I did before.

‘As I said, we’re mostly better at saying what we don’t want than we are at saying what we do want, so I’m happy for you to write your statements initially in terms of what you don’t like about your life.’

‘So you may want to start with the reason – or reasons – for you being here!’ Her smile was genuinely appreciative. ‘You’ve all taken the first step towards improving your life and your experience of menopause, and I’d like to applaud you for it.’ She raised her hands and clapped them smartly a few times.

‘Yeah, good work, everyone!” Gretchen joined in, so Kitty continued, raising her hands higher to invite the others to clap, too. Slowly, they all joined in, until the whole room was clapping.

Dolly had turned a bit pink, and Kitty’s heart ached for someone who obviously didn’t get much praise in her life.

Kitty stopped clapping, and everyone else slowly stopped, Gretchen last.

‘How did that feel?’ Kitty asked, curious to know.

‘Yeah!’ Laura gave a vigorous nod. ‘That felt really good! Thank you.’

Murmurs from around the room confirmed the others felt the same.

‘Fabulous! We don’t tell each other – or ourselves – how well we’re doing, nearly often enough. And I really do think you’re in the top 1% of women who’d like to improve their life. As I said, you’re here – they aren’t. So I really want you lovely, brave and self-caring ladies to get the very best out of this course. And that’s where we’re going next. Because the more you’re prepared to do to change your life, the more you’ll get out of this course, and that starts with motivation.

‘Now, thinking about how you show up to your life right now, what three words would you use to describe yourself, if you were being totally honest?’

‘Ouch!’ Gwen grinned at her, then grimaced. ‘Not sure I’d want to be that honest with anyone!’

‘You don’t have to tell anyone. Just write them down. I really want you to have them written down, so you can compare them to the words you’ll use about yourself at the end of the course.’

‘Oh, OK, cool.’

Kitty watched them variously staring into space, screwing up their faces, and scribbling down words, until everyone seemed to have finished. Gretchen, of course, finished first; Dolly last. Kitty was not surprised.

‘Well done, that’s the difficult bit. It gets easier. The next step is to think about what three words would you want to be using to describe yourself honestly by the end of the course?’

Again, she watched them thinking and writing, and again Gretchen was done first, with Dolly bringing up the rear.

‘Great! Does anyone want to share any of the “before” words?’

‘Moody!’ That was Gretchen. ‘Moody, bloody and unbowed!’

The class giggled.

‘Conflicted, uncertain and not allowed.’

Kitty cocked her head. ‘Why’s that, Kelly?’

‘Well, growing up, I didn’t even know I was trans, and I wouldn’t have thought I could ever be known to be trans. I didn’t even let myself know, it was so not allowed. It’s only in the last 5 years that I’ve let myself understand who I really am. That’s over 50 years of having that “habit of being not me”, and it’s because my family and their religion told me I wasn’t allowed to be me.’

‘Gosh, that sounds traumatising! I’m so glad you’re here, Kelley.’

‘It was. And me too.’

Kitty’s eyes pricked with tears, but Kelly’s were dry. She’d been through so much, Kitty wondered if she even knew how to cry any more.

Gwen volunteered her words next. ’Overheated, under-sexed, and confused!’

There were nods and giggles around the room.

Kitty laughed. ‘There’s a fabulous book called The New Menopausal Years by Susun S Weed – that’s S-u-s-u-n. She has 7 escalating methods, numbered 0 to 6, for dealing with pretty much every menopausal symptom known to woman. Except for lack of libido, unfortunately. She does have a few thoughts, but she basically says, “it’ll come back – or it won’t”. Sorry to be the bearer of those tidings!’

Gwen shrugged. ‘We’ve kind of got used to it. Would be good if it improved, though.’

‘Anyone else?’

No-one said anything, so Kitty moved on.

‘Now write down how your life will improve when the three words you want to be true actually are true. Think what a typical day will look like, or how you’ll respond to certain situations if you’re struggling to find the words.’

She gave them a few minutes, then announced that it was time for a break. ‘You know where the cafe is, so you’re welcome to go and get a drink, or just sit and chat. I’ll see you back here in 15 minutes.’

When they came back, a few of them went straight to their notebooks and added some more words. Kitty gave them a moment, then continued with the session.

’So, now that you’ve got some ideas about what you want and what you don’t want, and using the three future-you words (which you can tweak, of course), I’d like you to construct your positive statement. You can start by using the old negative wording if that helps, for instance, “I’m losing weight, I’m less brain-foggy”, or whatever, but then reword it to state it in positive, present-tense terms.

This exercise took the longest, as Kitty had expected. While they were busy thinking and writing, she took out the book she was reading for her own self-development, Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before by Dr Julie Smith. She’d read it before, but there was so much good stuff in it, she was sure she hadn’t taken it all in. And she was right. She was getting more out of it this time around, and probably would if she read it again after that.

She was re-reading the section on unhelpful thinking, and considering how she could tweak her presentation of a future session to include more about it, when a quiet throat-clearing made her look up. The whole class was looking at her, pens down, some with arms folded, all with an expectant expression.

‘Gosh, I’m so sorry! I guess I got too into my book!’ She put the bookmark back in and laid it down on the side of the desk.

‘What’s the book, Teach?’

She picked it up again and held it so the class could see the cover. The print was large, so it could be read even at the back. ‘It’s a great book. I thoroughly recommend it. Very eye-opening!’

Several of them wrote down the details.

‘So, you all have your positive statements?’ They nodded and murmured assent.

‘How motivated are you to have that statement come true, on a scale of 1-10?’

‘Oh, at least eight and a half!’ Carol said, with a slight chuckle.

‘That’s good! If anyone’s statement is less than a 7, you might want to consider tweaking it a little. If it lifts your heart, makes you feel excited for the future, or brings you a smile, it’s probably good, at least for now.

‘So to round off this part of the lesson, I said we’d consider how to motivate ourselves when we don’t feel like doing anything. For most of you, that may involve thinking about the benefits to other people. Gretchen will need to think of something else. Even you must have days when you struggle to do things?’

Gretchen hunched a shoulder. ‘Not often, but it happens.’

‘So, who are you doing this work for, other than yourself, and how will they benefit? Write it down to remind yourself when you need to.’

When they’d done that, Kitty asked them where, on a scale of 1-10, with 1 being awful and 10 being the best life they could imagine, they felt they were in terms of happiness with life.

‘OK, so what would it take to move you up that scale a couple of points? Will your positive statement do that? If not, why, and how can you tweak it? 

‘So now you know what you want to achieve, what’s one thing you can do today, tomorrow, or sometime this week, to move towards it, even a little? 

‘If you’re not sure, consider that as part of your homework for this week – and put it in the diary to do, so it gets done. What you get from this course will depend on how motivated you are and how resourceful you can be in working towards your goal.’

She watched their faces. After a few moments, she added. ‘What have you been thinking about doing to improve your life that you haven’t done yet?’

When they were ready, she asked them to pick a day and time to start. ‘Because that’s part of the reason you haven’t done it yet, right? It’s something you could do any time, but now never seems to be the right time.’

Gwen groaned. ‘You’re not wrong!’

‘So, when will you start, regardless of whether it feels like a good time?’

‘Oh, Saturday morning. That’s always a good time to do things.’ Gwen wrote that down.

‘Great! Anyone else know when they’re going to start?’

A few murmurs sounded, but she didn’t catch any of them. The main thing was, they all wrote something down.