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A NEW BOOK BY DENBY SHEATHER
Menopause Isn't the Beginning of the End.
It's the Moment You Stop Waiting for Permission
to Be Yourself.
Period. Full Stop. is a warm, honest and refreshingly irreverent guide to menopause as a rite of passage, through Bone, Blood, Breath and Being. Part memoir, part practice, it's for every woman who has spent decades looking after everyone else and is ready to come home to herself.
Instant digital download · Read on any device
There’s a particular kind of exhaustion that no amount of sleep can fix.
It's the exhaustion of being the woman everyone relies on. The one who remembers the birthdays, knows what's in the fridge, keeps the peace and somehow knows where the spare batteries live.
Then perimenopause kicks the door in. You're waking at 3am, forgetting words, losing your patience, and feeling hot, cold, flat and furious, all before lunchtime. And because we've been taught that a good woman copes, you push through, apologise for being irritable, and quietly wonder what on earth has gone wrong.
Here's the thing. Nothing is wrong with you. Your symptoms are real, and so are your questions. But the story you were sold about menopause, that it's a decline, the beginning of the end, the moment a woman starts to disappear, was never the whole truth.
Not midlife. Initiation.
For most of human history, the great thresholds of a woman's life were marked: first blood, birth, the end of bleeding. We've lost almost all of that. So we meet one of the most powerful passages of our lives alone, often ashamed, and usually convinced something has gone terribly wrong.
Period. Full Stop. gives that passage back to you. Not as something to endure, but as a crossing into the most honest, sovereign years of your life.
“Both personal, clinical, and beautifully integrated.”
Denby says “Menopause isn't the beginning of the end. It's the moment you stop waiting for permission to be yourself.” A significant and somewhat amusing/poignant title aimed at the women who have devoted their lives to everyone else and are now ready to come back to themselves. Denby brings to our attention a modern and expansive examination of what used to be viewed with some disparagement and not much empathy: menopause. Denby melds her life experience and lifetime practices in yoga, somatic and shamanic practice, and her gift for language takes you on a journey alongside her that you will recognise is not unlike your own! This book is both personal, clinical and beautifully integrated. Denby portrays menopause as a rite of passage and I know you will recognise the path. Full stop indeed!!
— Pat Armitstead, speaker, spiritual midwife and founder of Joyology
THE FOUR DOORWAYS
BONE
The body that has held it all: the tension you carry on everyone else's behalf, the patterns in your family line, and the strength you'll need for the decades ahead.
BLOOD
What you inherited, and what ends with you: your first bleed and your last, the mother wound, sexuality, and the sacred fire of menopausal rage.
BREATH
The life force that carries you through: grief, 3am wake-ups, a nervous system that needs somewhere to settle, and the practices that bring you home.
BEING
The woman beneath every role you've ever played: who you are when nobody needs anything from you, and the Mage who rises when you stop abandoning yourself.
Inside, you'll find:
✓ Denby’s own story of perimenopause while caring for her dying father, her mother with dementia and her son,
told with honesty and plenty of humour
✓The Maiden, Mother, Mage and Matriarch: a new map for the seasons of a woman's life
✓ The Cortisol Reset Ritual, a ten-minute practice for the moments you're wired, tired and holding it all together
✓ The Daily Mana Practice: ten minutes through all four doorways to meet yourself before you meet the day
✓ The Mother to Mage Rite, a simple ceremony to mark your crossing
✓ Practices and rituals for grounding, grief, anger, rest and letting go
✓ Clear, balanced information that honours both medicine and mystery, so you can make your own choices without fear or shame
✓ Reflection questions at the end of every chapter
this book is for you if...
✓ You're in perimenopause or menopause, or can feel it coming, and you want more than a list of symptoms to manage
✓ You've spent years being the capable one and you're quietly exhausted by it
✓ You're grieving, furious or simply unsure who you're becoming, and want to understand why
✓ You'd like practical, body-based tools alongside a deeper sense of meaning
✓ You want to make your own choices about your health, without fear, shame or anyone else's agenda
It's not a medical textbook, and it doesn't replace your doctor.
It's a companion for the part of menopause no prescription covers.
about denby
Denby Sheather has spent nearly thirty years working with women's bodies as a yoga therapist, bodyworker and shamanic practitioner. She's the creator of Mana Medicine and PeriMoves, and the author of Mana Yoga: Discovering Your Yoga Nature, SpiritYouReality and Dying to Live.
She went through perimenopause while caring for her dying father and her mother with dementia, and raising her son. Everything she'd taught for decades was suddenly very personal. Period. Full Stop. is what she learned.
As she puts it: "I'm not here to take you somewhere I haven't been."
What women say about working with me
dana
I am adoring my life — even the difficult periods my processing time brings me through, into a higher state of feeling liberated. This work has given me the tools to truly meet myself.
jennifer
Menopause could be an excuse to fade further into the background — or even to give up trying to understand this life. This work has helped me enormously. It has shown me another way entirely.
julie
Denby has a real groundedness and an ability to compassionately keep peeling back the layers of story, resistance and habit. I highly recommend working with her.
begin your crossing today
Period. Full Stop. The digital book
✓ The complete book, about 140 pages, delivered instantly to your inbox
✓ Read on your phone, tablet, computer or e-reader
✓ All the practices and rituals, including the Cortisol Reset Ritual, the Daily Mana Practice and the Mother to Mage Rite
questions women ask
Is this an anti-medicine book? Not at all. Period. Full Stop. honours both medicine and mystery. It encourages you to get proper care when you need it, and to make your own choices about treatment, natural or medical, without fear or shame.
Do I need yoga or meditation experience? No. Every practice is simple, gentle and explained step by step, and most take ten minutes or less.
I'm only just starting perimenopause, or I'm already through menopause. Is it for me? Yes. The book is for every stage of the crossing, and plenty of women find it makes the most sense in hindsight.
Is it a printed book? For now it's a digital book that you can read on any device. I will release it as an audiobook and paperback in the near future.
How do I get it? As soon as you've signed up, the book arrives in your inbox as a download. If it isn't there within five minutes, check your junk folder, or email me at denby@denbysheather.com
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NSW, Australia
+61 413 747 644
