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FOR AOL AND THE WEB
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of the Power Surge Women's
Midlife and Menopause Community
The Power Surge Web Site
Dearest (Alice Stamm)
Founder and Facilitator

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POWER SURGE NEWS
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Sunny Hersh

Author of
Midlife Mamas On The Moon:
Celebrate Great Health, Friendships, Sex,
and Money and Launch Your Second Life
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What happens when a woman who talks health and motivation for a living hits menopause with a bang? Professional speaker, trainer, and workshop leader, Sunny Hersh, decided that when the going gets tough, the tough do research! Combining her experience in inspiration with her expertise in health and relationships, Sunny has brought together an extraordinary digest of midlife wisdom. Quoting key passages from such mentors as Dr. Christiane Northrup, Rabbi Harold Kushner, and Dr. Elizabeth Lee Vliet, she captures the highlights of hundreds of books and web sites that can help a woman's body, mind, and spirit in her book, Midlife Mamas on the Moon: Celebrate Great Health, Friendships, Sex, and Money and Launch Your Second Life.

Sunny Hersh's fiercely honest, "girlfriend" style makes it easy to
laugh at the psychotic mood swings, uncontrolled periods, and frustrating doctor visits of midlife. Her useful checklists and no-nonsense resources reflect her background in advertising and marketing, cutting through the fluff to the core benefits of bioidentical hormones, low-dose birth control, and targeted supplementation. She convinces you of the important lifestyle choices you can make to create the healthy, happy future you've dreamed of, enlisting the professional review of top experts in careers, finance, and men's midlife changes. Practical observations from the front lines of a 30-year marriage and raising two successful young adults lend an authentic, proactive slant to her advice on transforming your relationships.

Knowing that aging is like dancing backward in high heels while
spinning plates, Sunny passes on the shortcuts to overcoming the physical, emotional, and relationship changes she experienced in her 40's. "I'm is so proud to be on the roster of power-surge.net, the electrifying midlife women's presence on the internet," says Sunny.

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Who are the Midlife Mamas?

That bulge in the population that was born between 1946 and l964 -- the baby boomers -- has decided that the 40’s and 50’s aren’t old.  Instead of rocking on the porch,  we’re rocking the world with our entrepreneurial spirit, savvy work style, independent approach to aging and health, and enlightened  focus on relationships. Throughout most of human history, most  women died by the age of 40, so it’s obvious that we’re blazing a trail  through uncharted territory. In the 20th century, our great-grandmothers, grandmothers, and mothers have been the guinea pigs for the new  longer lifespan, showing us how to -- and how not to -- navigate  through the additional forty-some
years we’ve been given. 

Your 40’s is the infancy of your second life.

Life changes quickly in the years between 40 and 60, yet this is  when we build the foundation for later years. Midlife Mamas have  so many choices, so much pressure, and so many demands competing  for their time and energy that we sometimes feel paralyzed by the  need to sort out the information flying in our faces at warp speed.  How do you manage perimenopause and menopause symptoms, hot flashes, lose weight, reduce stress, eat the right foods, lower  your blood pressure, raise great kids, have great sex, balance your  hormones, advance your career, and prepare for your financial future  while keeping all your everyday balls in the air? How can you  create a healthy, happy future rather than reacting to random events? Read, Midlife Mammas On The moon: Celebrate Great Health, Friendships, Sex and Money and Launch Your Second Life

Five Lucky People Will Receive Free Copies of Sunny's Book

* Stop fighting with your husband and become best friends for life
* Discover the natural alternative to the dangerous HRT you've heard about * Trade your job for more free time, joy and sgnificance
* Transform your relatioships with the teen who's allergic to you, friends you are drifting away and aging parents
* Lose your viriginty - the second time around
* Bulk up your brain and your bones for a long time
* Lose weight with your eyeballs
* Use the shortcuts to exercise success
* Mobilize top strategies to get your financial future on track

Meet and Talk With
Sunny Hersh
Thursday,
April 29th
at 9 PM (ET)

Five Lucky People Will Receive Free Copies of Sunny's Book

Enter Power Surge Live!

Dearest

Read the transcript here 
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Instant Forgiveness:
The emotional freedom you’ve been looking for!
by Sunny Hersh
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One of the most powerful hours of television I ever saw was the Oprah Winfrey Show with the theme of forgiveness.  Parents whose children had been killed by reckless drivers forgave unconditionally.  Families reached out to hardened criminals who had killed their dear ones, helping them to deserve freedom or be at peace in prison.

By forgiving them, were the families condoning their actions? No, said the grieving family members, the killers were responsible for their actions, and they had to answer for them to God.  They had to live with their choices; true peace of mind would be hard for them.  They may have rationalized what they did, but that didn’t concern the forgivers.  Those who make the decision to forgive don’t need the guilty person’s cooperation or apology.  Through forgiveness, these amazing people felt that they were taking back their power from a lifetime of anger and regret.

People who’ve been physically and mentally violated far beyond normal experience have forgiven.   Learn from Dave Pelzer, whose tale of appalling abuse by his mother is detailed in A Child Called It.  Like him, you may have to forgive the same person over and over again.  But do it, because feeding and caring for that grudge will poison that sweet juicy strawberry of the rest of your life.  An examined life is important, but a life of repetitively re- examining the same patch of grass is irrelevant.  Time to get a life, forgive, accept, and move on!

Instant Forgiveness -- Kicking it up to the stars!

I have a new concept that I’m really getting a kick out of -- instant forgiveness!  We have instant microwaved food, instant Internet access, instant satellite positioning -- why not instant forgiveness?  Your father embarrassed you by getting belligerent with a waiter?  The whole family agreed in advance to laugh about it, he does it all the time, and you’ve forgiven him in advance.

You can always count on your sister to compare your kid unfavorably with hers? Instead of clenching your teeth and not believing -- she’s doing that again, -- you all get a huge kick out of it because you’ve shared the observations and you forgave her before it came out of her mouth.  You embarrassed your daughter by repeating a confidential story?  You apologize, pick up your foot, and wiggle your toes in your mouth, because you’ve already forgiven yourself! 

Instant forgiveness has given me so much freedom, because everything is -- like water off a duck’s back -- it rolls right off and you never dwell on it.  I’m sure people who value worry and picking out the negative aspects of everything think I’m just stupid, but I’m so happily stupid!  Things that used to bother me are now like wind beneath my wings, as I fly with power and vision above the junk that used to fill my mind and focus on the sweet unseen spirit beneath the irritations of life.  What a rush, when you blink and the stink is gone!  Try it!


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No More Excuses! 
Don’t Let The Top 10 Excuses Keep You From Living A Healthy Life
by Sunny Hersh
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1) "I don’t have time."  

Could you get up earlier or work out after work? 

Time spent exercising = time not spent in doctor’s offices, having no energy, picking up prescriptions, and dealing with illness.

2) "I love to eat."    

Who doesn’t?  Healthy people enjoy their food, but they’re on a budget -- calories in are low, strength training and cardio are high.  Can you eat half?

3) "My family won’t eat that stuff."    

Are you doing them a favor by not making gradual changes toward good health?  Do you really want them to get to the point of desperation you’re at?

4) "I want to relax.  I want to have a life."    

Exercise does more to clear your head and make you feel less anxious than any activity. Strength training ensures that you’ll be able to climb into the boat, take the trip, learn scuba diving, and enjoy the kids and the grandkids.   Simple foods like cut-up veggies, fruit, salad, high-fiber cereal, yogurt, fruit and protein smoothies, egg whites, chicken, and fish pay off in a high-quality life!

5) "I don’t have the energy."    

The person saying this is often depressed and feels powerless for various reasons.  Exercise, healthy food, adequate sleep and happy relationships create  energy.  Something else is missing.

6) "It’s boring and I’m not making progress."    

If you’re bored and punching the fitness clock, do something
different, tougher, more fun, or with a friend.  If all you’re doing
is not gaining weight, you’re still ahead of the crowd!

7) "My family makes me fat."    

If you heard, "She’s a big girl," "You can’t wear an outfit like
that," "Our family tends to be big," and "Just this once, have some" all your life, or comments were constantly made about what you ate, or your mother was constantly dieting, then yes, your family was part of your problem.  But now that we know that, can we deprogram and move on?  Your gene pool does not determine your jean size!

8) "It’s just too late."    

90-year-olds who strength-trained three times a week showed a 174% increase in strength.  It’s too late for what?  As you age, you will lose strength faster than a younger person; another reason to continue to spin those exercise plates.

9) "I’m on vacation.  It’s a holiday."    

Exercise will minimize the damage from those margarita’s, midnight buffets, holiday cookies, etc.

10) "Hey, I could just drop dead like John Ritter -- I might as well live it up!"    

Yes, you could be the one in thousands who have an unknown heart defect or brain aneurysm and drop dead even though you eat right and exercise like a fiend.  But do you want to bet the quality of a long life on that?


* * * * * * * 
We’re Busy Booting the Hormone Baby Out With the Bathwater  
The studies you’ve heard about used only Prempro, and there are better and safer combinations of HRT available.

* * * * * * * 

The good news about a woman’s new lifespan is that you’ll probably live until you’re 80!  The bad news is that your habits and choices must support that new longer life.  Exercise, excellent eating, and regular check-ups are the basics, but the hormone question comes up when there are problems with hot flashes, energy, sleep, mental focus, and osteoporosis.  The headlines about hormones have caused many women -- and their doctors -- to pitch any consideration of hormone replacement out the window without investigating the facts behind the headlines.

Alan Altman, frequent guest in Power Surge and author of, Making Love the Way We Used To, likens this reaction to an auto recall gone crazy:  "Imagine, if you would, the following scenario. The Ford Explorer has been recalled by the manufacturer due to a rear-wheel defect.  This is big news in all the media outlets.  You are not concerned because you drive a Chrysler Newport.  But, to your surprise, you receive a call three days later from your family doctor telling you that you should immediately stop driving your car because the problem with the Explorer means that all cars are dangerous to your health and well-being.  Sounds ridiculous, but, in fact, it’s happening all over America with respect to hormone replacement therapy (HRT) since the publication of the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI)..."

The Women’s Health Initiative was not a study of HRT, but a study of
Prempro, the horse-derived estrogen/synthetic progestin combo that is
totally different from the many "bioidentical" HRT products available
today.  Unlike Prempro, these forms of HRT are identical to the
natural hormones of the body, the kind that decline with age.


* * * * * * * 
Your Working Life -- Midlife and Beyond! 
by Sunny Hersh
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The boomer's view of work and retirement is completely different from
their parent's. The old get-the-gold-watch and head down to Florida
idyll is dead, because of both the changing job market and the new,
longer life span.  It's now common to retire early or be forcibly
"retired" by a layoff in your 40's and 50's.  Many of us recoil in
horror at the thought of spending 30 or 40 years "retired" without any
additional income or working dimension to our lives.

The big choice that you have to make today when considering a second
career is really no different than the one you made the first time
around.  Do you want a job that will give you the most dollars for the
hours you put in, or will you insist on doing something that's
rewarding, possibly for less pay?  The answer depends on you, on the
size of your financial obligations, on the "squeaking room" in your
current work situation, and on the degree of frustration and rejection
that you're willing to endure. 

Because I work in my own corporate training company out of my home and
I have contacts in the publishing field, I had the squeaking room to
write my first book and publish it, while still operating my primary
business. Since I'm used to representing myself through my business, I
was not surprised when some friends were thrilled to support my book
promotion effort while others seemed to change the subject ASAP when I
mentioned my campaign.  "Some will, some won't, so what?" is the
attitude you must take if you're pursuing a dream or a new business.
Entrepreneur magazine is a good resource for evaluating business
opportunities.

If you're dreaming of stepping off--opening an inn, writing a book,
becoming a rabbi, operating a dive shop in the Bahamas--be aware that
these professions are not an escape.  They will require the same
professionalism, skills, and time as your current job, seldom provide
health insurance, and often require a substantial investment. Sailing
the South Seas and hitting the highway sound like fun until you
realize that eventually your boat will need repairs and you'll run out
of money to buy gas. 

Don't run out and blow up your life.  Try working at an inn for two
weeks or spending your vacation writing your book.  Moonlight on
weekends and volunteer in the new field you're looking to conquer
before you burn all your bridges.  Nicholas Lore's book The

Pathfinder: How to Choose or Change Your Career for a Lifetime of
Satisfaction and Success is great for exploring your options.  A
special book for artists who want to tap into their creativity is
Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way.

Maybe you just want to trade your hours for the best dollars and
benefits you can get. US News and World Report listed the most in-
demand jobs in March 2003:

1) Specialty nurses and medical technicians
2) Librarians with computer skills
3) School Principals and special ed, bilingual, math, and science teachers
4) Slot machine technicians
5) Fitness trainers
6) Network administrators, analysts, internet cops, data-base managers, analyst-developers
7) Loan originators and home-loan sales consultants, and 8) Financial planners.

In this longevity revolution that we boomers are creating, we're
likely to have a long life with varied working situations.  Most
people will have at least seven careers in their lifetime, and I see
myself building and acquiring skills through my sixties and "sage-ing"
and supporting others after that.  Care to join me?  The alternative
stinks.


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Have questions?
Ask Power Surge's Experts

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Read Last Week's Guest Transcript With
Aaron Tabor, M.D.
Power Surge's Ask The Revival Soy Doctor

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Read The Guest Transcript With
Pete Hueseman, R.Ph., P.D.
Power Surge's Pharmaceutical/Bioidentical Hormone Consultant 

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Read The Transcript With
"America's Most Trusted Doctor"
Isadore Rosenfeld, M.D.
author of 
Dr. Isadore Rosenfeld's Breakthrough Health: 2004

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Many More Are Coming!
See the Power Surge Guest Schedule

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Check out the
informative articles in
Educate Your Body
Dozens of menopause-related subjects

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Ten Years of Helpful Menopause Treatments
Power Surge Recommendations

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Vitamins, herbs, anti-oxidants, amino acids,
plus Soy Isoflavones (Revival Soy), creams,
naturally compounded "bio-identical" hormones
(molecularly identical to those your body produces)
compounded by Power Surge Pharmaceutical Consultant
of 9 years,Pete Hueseman, R.Ph., P.D.
and The Women's Active Multi Vitamin
contains every vita-nutrient a midlife woman needs