Eleanor's letter: How to make this autumn count

As autumn descends and children flee the nest, Eleanor explains how midlife women can 'mother' each other through community support

Hi there

It’s pouring with rain here in London, I’m wearing a jumper and summer feels done. The trees have golden leaves amongst the green and the pond’s temperature has plunged 3 degrees in as many days. The blackberries are so early they are almost over, and in the Cotswolds last weekend I was amazed to see the hedgerows heavy with sloes. We usually collect them for making Slodka or Sloe gin, but typically not till September or October – this August feels on fast forward.

There’s that back-to-school quickening in the air. And to help set you up for the autumn we have a bumper crop of NOON Circles all over the place, where we’ll be exploring what’s next. Find your nearest Circle here.

If you can’t make a Circle in person, then do join our Online Circle – all NOON members can attend this Zoom version. This month it’s on September 8^th, hosted by me, for free. Book here.

Come to a special ‘Divorce Dinner’ Circle

I’m also running some intimate dinners as a special NOON Divorce Circle. The London one is booked up but we still have places on September 10^th at Inglewood Manor hotel in Cheshire, and at Sue Durran’s gorgeous house in Guildford on September 24^th.

We’ll be anonymising some of the stories for use in our research into how we can make divorce better for women in midlife. We’re trying to find out what you need, what kind of team around you would have helped; we’ve got some brilliant insights from our survey and want to hear some of your stories too. No quotes will be attributed and anything sensitive disguised. There will be delicious food, Prosecco, support and chat – hosted by me along with my Editorial Director Jennifer.

Let’s embrace autumn’s vibe

As we head into autumn – shoulder of the year, a very Queenager time all about ‘mellow fruitfulness’ – I want to stop before all that busy-ness just for a minute and invite you all to take a pause.

Do email if you’d like to come or know more eleanor@noon.org.uk. Places are limited to 8 max per session so do get in touch if you fancy coming, you’ll be helping other Queenagers as they go through the divorce clusterfuxk.

Listen to John Keats’s To Autumn, read by Ben Whishaw

I know I deluged you all with books I was reading over the last few weeks, but the reason I read so voraciously is that has always been my happy place, along with being in or near the water. I love what I learn when reading. A good book leaves us with nuggets that reshape how we see the world. I want to share one of those with you today.

I’m sure many of you are familiar with the Olive Kitteridge novels and the work of Elizabeth Strout; I’ve loved them all. So what luck to discover on the shelves at my cousin’s cottage last weekend one I hadn’t read: the sequel to I Am Lucy Barton, called Oh William! (Longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2022).

I devoured it in an afternoon.

Why I loved it

Oh William! is a Queenager tale about a woman’s relationship with her first husband, now her ex but still important, father of her 2 children. The novel explores the role he played in helping her escape her terrible birth family and shaping her adult identity. She realises as their lives play out that actually much of what she thought he was, was actually an illusion. But it didn’t matter because the illusion – and particularly how his mother (her mother-in-law) fitted in –helped her navigate to her future self.

What I found most insightful and helpful was her attitude toward her mother. I share this because I know how many of you struggle with that relationship. The mother in the novel is seriously neglectful and weird – an extreme case, but with relevant lessons nonetheless.

Strout got me thinking about our mothers

Strout writes about how her heroine had learned to accept that her mother was never going to be the person she needed her to be. That she understood that and had stopped reaching out to her or expecting that she might or could be the mother she longed for. But she also writes about how in difficult, sad moments she still “had the wish” for a mother’s comfort. That the wish – that need for a maternal figure who is in our corner, who loves us no matter what – remains with us at a very fundamental level, even when we know absolutely that our actual mother can never be that.

Strout describes how her character – who is a novelist too – has over the years created a fictitious mother figure in her mind. When she feels the “wish” for that maternal reassurance and support (which we all need from time to time), she has learnt she can summon up what that good mother would say to her, in her mind.

I found that a particularly useful piece of Queenager wisdom. Lots of us have sub-par mothers, or we no longer have them because they are dead.

Not everyone gets the ‘Good Mother’. Sometimes we get Mommie Dearest

Sometimes we have to mother ourselves

Next time you are having a bad time and you have the Good Mother Wish, try being the mother you need, to yourself.

Say to yourself: “Poor darling, that must be really tough. Come here, let me give you a hug. You know it is going to be ok, you are amazing and strong and clever and you will pull through. Know I am always here for you and I have your back.” (Those are my words, not the novel’s.)

I thought that was such a useful way of framing that crucial sense we all need to develop of our own kind, calm inner voice. I talk a lot about Queenagers learning to be kind to ourselves, to use a kind and loving tone to in our heads rather than giving rein to our harsh, grim, cold, judgmental inner critic. (I know I can be more brutal on myself than I would ever be to anyone else … and that lots of you do that to yourselves too.)

We can change the narrative

Part of the work of midlife is changing that inner narrative: Catching that harsh voice when it crops up and replacing it in our own heads with a supportive, ever-accepting, unconditional-loving maternal voice.

If that feels like a stretch, think about the people in your life who really get you, your friends who really have your back and love you. One of the great blessings of NOON has been that I feel I have acquired a posse of older female friends – like a cadre of supportive sisters – who really are on my side. When I am feeling in need of some positive reinforcement or some comfort, or if I’m doubting myself or having a bad day, I think what one of these Queenagers would say to me. who I know truly love and value me.

I try to hear their loving, supportive voice in my head rather than my own inner critic. In that way I truly believe that we can “mother” each other – replace the often critical or conditional narrative inherited from our real mothers with that of the loving good mother for whom we all have a “wish”.

What we can all do this autumn

One of the most important things I have gained from the weeks I have spent in silent meditation over the years is to become more aware of those internal voices. When I get caught in a negative spiral or difficult aspects of my childhood resurface, I now try to tune into the emotion – really feel it in my body and focus on it. (Yes, it can be scary!)

Then I try to sit beside it, soften around that feeling, flood it with love – come towards it and welcome it. Say to it: You are welcome here.

I’ve found that to be much more effective for processing emotional pain than just pushing it away or having a drink or numbing it out with busy-ness or achievement.

I’ve learned that moving towards the hard thing, the sad feeling, the inner critic, and meeting it with love and kindness, may make us sad or cause tears to flow. But by letting ourselves feel it, we honour the emotion. We let it flow through us.

And once it has been felt and heard and welcomed with love, when we engage with the loving-mother voice in our head, that rather than going down the old spirals, retelling ourselves the story of hurt or trying to make it go away, we can actually move on.

We do this for each other at NOON

I write this today because that’s what I believe happens in a group way at the NOON Circles and in the co-created spaces we make together. By sharing, by allowing, by talking kindly and being supportive to each other, we allow ourselves a safe, loving area to explore the things we usually run away from. I see so many of you voice out loud in the Circle a new plan or a truth or a realisation that you have never spoken before.

We need to lay these things to rest if we are going to live our best Queenager lives. Together we short-circuit the critical voices that hold us back and spur each other on, with loving support.

New event: About ourselves and our mothers

If this resonates with you, do sign up for our Queenagers and Mothers event on October 14^th – venue tbc in central London. It will feature the NOON Advisory board member and brilliant therapist and author Julia Bueno. Sign up here.

Jules writes extensively about the mother wound, most recently in her book Everyone’s a Critic: How we can learn to be kind to ourselves – which explores this idea of our inner voice and how we can modulate it.

Bueno is also an award-winning author of The Brink of Being, a book about early miscarriage and troubled motherhood. The Times said of her: “Julia is one of the most intuitive, compassionate and curious psychotherapists around”. We’ve been talking about doing this session for a while and I am thrilled to finally find a time in Jules’s calendar to make it happen.

Much love to you all! I hope to see you this month.

(Pssst – we have ONE LAST PLACE left for our Wales Retreat. It’s the perfect way to make the end of the year not just a slow slide to Christmas but a moment of transformation, to create more happiness, to get a better sense of what you want and make some wonderful new friends.) Nab the last ticket here.

Eleanor