Our understanding of the far-reaching effect of menopause is growing thanks to much media coverage over the past couple of years.
Also critical have been the UK government reports into women's health and into menopause and the launch of the British Standards Institute ground-breaking Standard: Menstruation, menstrual health, and menopause in July 2023, all of which I have had the pleasure of being a part of.
There is still much to understand, yet progress is being made, albeit slowly!
Menopause impacts nearly every aspect of health and well-being. The better-known areas include bone density, cardiovascular health, mood, and sexual health.
Understanding menopause and its effects is crucial for us all.
For our families
For our friends
For our colleagues
That's why I created the FREE Menopause: The Basics course so that everyone can immerse themselves in the core information and build a solid fundamental knowledge base.
As Women of a Certain Stage grew and we took on more corporate training clients, we worked with more people in a small group or one-to-one capacity, coaching them to successfully navigate menopause.
During the pandemic, some clients asked us to teach key members of staff interested in supporting others through menopause our signature coaching programme, The Menopause Plan. So we created the Become a Menopause Coach Diploma to fit around their busy schedule.
I want it to be accessible for anyone who feels that their next step could be helping the many millions of people who are affected by menopause every single day, and in the past couple of years, we have offered it as a public course twice a year.
The course brings together a panel of experts in medicine, nutrition, confidence, relationships, pelvic health, and much more.
Combined with my broad background in psychology, anatomy & physiology, fitness, coaching, leadership, research, and speaking, as well as my own menopause experience, which means the course is unique in giving you the tools and skills to be able to make a real difference.
Just like any coach, as a menopause coach, you work with clients to help them assess where they are now, where they want to get to, and how they wish to look, feel, and behave to achieve their goals.
As a coach, you take a holistic approach, with consideration to the client's physical, mental, and emotional well-being and what they bring to you during their coaching sessions.
You help clients identify areas of their lives where they can make positive changes and support and guide them through the process of making those changes.
When coaching goes wrong
While a skilled coach can assist most individuals in achieving their goals, my personal experience as a leader in corporate America taught me that if both you and your coach lack knowledge about menopause and its impact, you may find yourself in a never-ending cycle, striving to achieve goals and ambitions based on erroneous assumptions and a lack of comprehension of the underlying issues.
Going back around a decade ago, I was in my early 40's, a senior leader in financial services, and was facing some challenges at work.
As the only female in my team, a sole parent of a child with lifelong medical needs, and a deteriorating relationship with a senior team member, I asked the business for a coach to help me work out how best to move forward as I was beginning to experience huge self-doubt and anxiety.
I selected an outstanding executive coach, also an organisational psychologist, who I had great rapport with.
However, neither she nor I fully understood the impact of menopause on my work life.
Neither of us had any prior knowledge about menopause, so she asked insightful questions that sparked a lot of interesting discussion, but it fell short because the debate didn't include the crucial component that needed to be taken into account.
Ultimately, my loss of confidence and self-esteem led me to leave work, only to discover three months later, it had 'just' been menopause, and I could have done a LOT to stem the flow of what I went through and actually transform it.
The magic of menopause coaching
When a coach has a toolkit that includes being menopause aware, they can use insightful questions, using a proven framework, to help their clients successfully navigate menopause.
That's why, after training as a coach myself, when I began coaching clients, I dug deep into the available research on menopause. I connected with and learnt from the leading people on menopause around the world, and I consumed every course I could feasibly attend (& still do) to support my clients.
I noticed the same themes were emerging as I worked with people going through menopause and found that using these as a framework, I could help clients much more quickly.
Like all good coaches, I still stay firmly in the space of asking insightful questions. It is not my role as a coach to advise.
I might offer up signposting or confirm globally accepted facts on menopause, but never 'telling' a client what they should do.
So I have joined forces with some incredible people in many fields to bring you the Become a Menopause Coach diploma.
Embracing Change: Exploring the Comprehensive Curriculum of our Menopause Diploma Programme
Health and hormones:
We naturally start with our menstrual cycle, the key hormones driving it, and the impact on our health. This supports your learning of why some people think, feel and behave differently as the hormone profiles change as we move towards postmenopause.
Listening and Coaching skills
Whilst we should naturally have the ability to listen, often it is so transactional that we neither truly hear everything being said nor give the person talking time to formulate their thoughts, and this is where the magic of coaching happens.
We will talk about coaching models and share the structure of our coaching framework with you.
The Menopause Plan
You get to experience our signature programme as if you were the client. You then take others through it too.
I want you to feel confident and competent to deliver this to your own clients, whether one-on-one, in groups, or as workshops.
Building out your kitbag of skills to support clients
Of course, every client will bring you their own unique challenges, so we want to offer you more than just a coaching framework!
You will receive sessions from experts in subjects like EFT (emotional freedom techniques), Confidence, relationship development, journaling, medicine, pelvic health, and more.
Setting up for success
We don't just teach you our materials; we support you to build out your first 90-day plan of how to use them too.
And it doesn't stop there. You then have a further 12 months of support through the community of Coaches and further training too.
Whether you wish to practice as a Menopause Coach at work, with private clients, or in your community, we are right behind you to answer your questions and share our experiences of what has worked well in the past.
Next steps
I’d love to welcome you to the next cohort of Become a Menopause Coach.
If you'd like a little more info to make an informed decision about joining the next course, join me for one of our weekly calls where I do a deep dive into our ethos and values, learn more about our structure, hear graduate stories, and answer all your questions by clicking here.
Of course, you might well want to learn more about menopause before you jump in – in which case, join my FREE Menopause: The Basics Course it's a great way to boost or even consolidate your knowledge and understanding of menopause.
I look forward to sharing the menopause coach journey with you.
Your coach, speaker, and trainer.
Lauren
Photo credits:
Photo by Shahbaz Ali on Unsplash
Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash
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