You are not broken. You are becoming.
You are not broken. You are becoming.
The Intentional Pause - Mindfully Moving through Midlife
A 5-week, virtual group experience for anyone navigating perimenopause, menopause, and midlife transitions with clarity, education, nervous system support, and grounded community.
you are not broken. you are experiencing a reckoning.
… and you’re not imagining it.
Midlife often arrives with changes no one fully prepared us for.
Energy shifts.
Focus changes.
Sleep, mood, and motivation feel different.
The strategies that once worked suddenly do not.
Many of us are told this is just stress. Or aging. Or something to push through.
It is not.
Midlife is a real biological and psychological transition. Hormones change. The nervous system recalibrates. Identity and priorities come into sharper focus. This can feel unsettling, disorienting, and at times isolating.
The Intentional Pause was created as a space to slow down, understand what is happening, and move forward with intention rather than force.
The Intentional Pause program is for you if:
You are in midlife and noticing changes in your body, energy, mood, or sense of self
You want evidence-based education rather than dismissal or quick fixes
You are curious about how hormones, stress, and the nervous system intersect
You want to feel more grounded and self-trusting in this phase of life
You value in-person connection and learning alongside others
This program may not be a fit if you are looking for a drop-in class or a purely symptom-management approach. This is a relational, reflective, and educational experience meant to support long-term health and well-being.
Your investment reflects the depth of the experience, the evidence-based tools provided, small group size, expert facilitation, and the in-person space being held.
In-person Perimenopause, Menopause, and Midlife Transition Program Details:
Dates: May 2026, TBD
Time: TBD
Location: Virtual via Zoom
Group Size: Limit 25 participants
Investment:
The full tuition for The Intentional Pause is $750.
In alignment with my values around accessibility, nervous system care, and community sustainability, I offer a limited number of community-supported and scholarship spots. These options are designed to reduce financial barriers while honoring the depth and integrity of the work.
Please choose the tier that best reflects your current financial reality. No explanations required. If paying in two or more installments works better for you, please reach out.
Choose Your Tuition Level
$750 – Standard Tuition
You are able to pay the full cost of the program and support the continued sustainability of this work.$500 – Community-Supported Tuition
You can meet your basic needs and participate comfortably, but paying full tuition would create some financial strain. Use code COMMUNITY at checkout.$300 – Scholarship Tuition (Limited availability)
This option is for participants experiencing financial constraint who would otherwise be unable to participate. Use code SCHOLARSHIP at checkout.
Optional at checkout:
Participants with greater financial ease may choose to add a pay-it-forward contribution to help fund scholarship spots.
Guest Expert: Menopause and Healthcare Support
As part of this in-person menopause and midlife education series, we are joined by a board-certified OB-GYN Dr. Jordan Mendoza, specializing in perimenopause, menopause, and midlife women’s health.
Dr. Jordan Mendoza will join us for the sessions, and will lead a dedicated session focused on:
Hormone replacement therapy (HRT)
Understanding available options
Navigating healthcare conversations
Advocating for yourself within the medical system
Dr. Mendoza’s presence is designed to offer evidence-based education and clarity. You can find out more about her and her practice, Elevated Menopause Care, here.
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What’s actually happening and why it matters
We will ground ourselves in what is happening in the body and brain during perimenopause and menopause, including key hormonal shifts and why this transition can feel so destabilizing. We’ll explore how stress and the nervous system interact with hormonal change, and begin building a foundation of clarity, self-compassion, and understanding.
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Why everything feels harder and how to steady yourself
Hormonal shifts can amplify stress, disrupt sleep, affect mood and focus, and leave us feeling dysregulated or depleted. This week focuses on how the nervous system changes in midlife, why stress hits differently now, and simple regulation practices that support steadiness, resilience, and self-trust.
We’ll look more closely at sleep changes in midlife and why nervous system regulation, rather than “perfect sleep habits,” is often the missing piece. -
Listening inward and redefining what matters
Midlife often brings a reckoning with old roles, boundaries, expectations, and patterns of self-abandonment. This week centers on identity, intuition, and values. We’ll explore how hormonal and developmental shifts can sharpen inner wisdom, and how to rebuild trust in yourself and your body during this transition.
This includes honest, pressure-free conversations about desire, libido, and intimacy, and how self-trust and nervous system safety shape our relationship to sex in midlife. -
Nutrition, movement, recovery, and embodied support
This session focuses on how to support your body through nutrition, movement, and recovery in ways that are sustainable and compassionate. We’ll discuss midlife metabolism, strength and muscle, energy, and nourishment through a non-diet, non-punitive lens that emphasizes nourishment, capability, and care over willpower or restriction.
We’ll also address the physical aspects of sleep and sexual health, including muscle, circulation, tissue health, and why pain or discomfort are not things to push through. -
Carrying what matters into the next chapter
In our final week, we’ll reflect on what you’ve learned, what has shifted, and what you want to carry forward. You’ll identify your priorities for this next season of life, clarify supportive habits and boundaries, and create a grounded, realistic plan for continuing to care for yourself with intention and self-trust.
What we will explore together
This 5-week experience weaves education, reflection, and practical tools to support you through midlife with clarity and steadiness. Each session includes a grounding practice, educational content, reflective time, applied practice, conversation, and Q&A.
You do not need to push through this alone.
Midlife is not a failure or a breakdown. It is a transition that deserves attention, care, and informed support.
The Intentional Pause is an invitation to slow down, learn what your body is asking for, and move forward with education, clarity, community, and self-trust.
Space is limited. Join us today.
Frequently Asked Questions
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No. The Intentional Pause is an educational and experiential group series. It is designed to help you understand what is happening in your body during perimenopause, explore nervous-system–informed practices, and reconnect with yourself during this transition.
While sessions includes a guest Menopause Doctor to discuss hormone therapy and healthcare navigation, this program does not replace medical care or therapy. It complements them by giving you context, language, and agency.
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No formal diagnosis is required. Diagnosis is its own whole can of worms anyway.
Many women and AFAB enter perimenopause years before it is named or recognized. If you are noticing changes in your mood, energy, sleep, cognition, emotional resilience, or relationship with your body and suspect hormones may be part of the picture, this series is likely relevant.
You do not need to be certain. In fact, if you’re not sure but know it’s coming, this would be a great place for you to gain the skills, knowledge necessary to prepare.
Curiosity is enough.
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This program is intentionally structured to be manageable for people with full lives.
Sessions are once a week for 90 minutes, and the five-week container is finite and clearly defined. Many participants find that committing to this time actually creates more clarity and steadiness in the rest of their lives.
If you are feeling stretched thin, that may be a sign this work is timely, not indulgent.
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Information alone rarely leads to integration.
This experience offers:
In-person connection and conversation
A small, consistent group
Space to reflect, process, and make meaning
Nervous-system–informed practices, not just content
Guidance and facilitation throughout the arc of the series
Many of us already have information. What is often missing is space, support, and context to integrate it.
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Very.
This transition often brings uncertainty, vulnerability, and questions about identity, health, and the future. Feeling hesitant does not mean this is the wrong choice. It often means you are standing at the edge of something meaningful.
You do not need to have everything figured out to begin.
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The Intentional Pause is designed for women and AFAB in midlife who are curious about what is changing in their bodies, energy, mood, or sense of self and want informed, grounded support through this transition.
You do not need to know whether you are in perimenopause or menopause to participate.
The ideal participant may:
Have heard about perimenopause but feel unsure how it applies to them
Be noticing subtle or confusing changes and want clarity rather than guesswork
Want evidence-based education to better understand hormones, stress, and the nervous system
Value reflection, self-awareness, and learning in community
Feel ready to slow down and listen more closely to what their body is communicating
Some participants will arrive with a clear understanding of where they are in this transition. Others will arrive with questions, curiosity, or uncertainty. Both are welcome.
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Yes. This program is open to women and AFAB (assigned female at birth) individuals navigating perimenopause, menopause, or the midlife transition.
While experiences of midlife and hormonal change can vary widely across gender identities, this space is grounded in respect, consent, and inclusion. My facilitation approach centers nervous system awareness, autonomy, and honoring each person’s lived experience.
I also want to name that I continue to learn alongside participants. If you have specific needs, language requests, or questions about fit, please reach out at chrissy@chrissychard.com. I’d love to chat.
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The series is designed as a cohesive experience, and participants are strongly encouraged to attend all five sessions.
That said, life happens. If you need to miss a session, you will be supported in getting caught up so you can continue participating fully in the remainder of the series.
The intention is not perfection, but commitment and care.
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You can reach me anytime via our contact page or email at chrissy@courageousparents.com. We try to respond quickly—usually within one to two business days.
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My approach is grounded, relational, and evidence-informed. I bring together nervous system science, exercise physiology, developmental psychology, leadership coaching, and lived experience to create spaces that are both structured and human.
You can expect:
A calm, steady presence that does not rush or fix
Clear facilitation with room for reflection and honest conversation
Practical education alongside space to integrate what you are learning
Respect for autonomy, choice, and different lived experiences
I am not here to tell you what to do or who to be. My role is to help you slow down, make sense of what is happening in your body and nervous system, and reconnect with your own wisdom and self-trust.
This work is thoughtful and supportive, and it is also real. We name what is hard, we stay grounded in evidence, and we make space for growth without pressure to perform or “do it right.”
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Because this is a small, in-person group with limited capacity, the following cancellation policy applies:
Full refund available more than 2 weeks before start date
50% refund available through between 1-2 weeks before start date
No refunds after one week prior to the start date
Registrations may be transferred to another person with prior approval, and if I have someone on the waitlist who can fill your spot, I can issue a refund.
In the case of a medical or family emergency, please reach out directly. While I try to hold clear boundaries, I also know that life happens, and will try to work something out with you.
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There is no single “right” choice, and no verification process. I trust participants to choose the tier that aligns with their current financial reality.
If paying $1,500 feels accessible and does not create stress, the Standard Tuition helps sustain this work and allows scholarship spots to exist.
If $1,200 feels more realistic and allows you to participate without stretching yourself thin, the Community-Supported Tuition is an appropriate choice.
If $900 is what makes participation possible for you at this time, the Scholarship Tuition exists for that reason. These spots are intended for those who would otherwise be unable to join.
This program is designed to support regulation, reflection, and growth. Choosing a price point that allows you to arrive grounded and present is part of the work.
Your Facilitators
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Your Facilitators |
Chrissy Chard, PhD
Primary Facilitator, Coach, Researcher, and Educator
Dr. Chrissy Chard is an ICF-certified coach, TEDx speaker, and educator whose work sits at the intersection of nervous system science, leadership, and reparenting across life transitions. She holds a PhD from the Health and Exercise Science Department at Colorado State University, and brings over a decade of experience supporting women to become more self-led in how they live, parent, and lead. Her evidence-informed, trauma-aware approach integrates neuroscience, embodiment, and values-based leadership to help women build self-trust, regulate under pressure, and interrupt inherited patterns that no longer serve them. Dr. Chard is known for her grounded, compassionate style and her ability to translate complex science into practical tools for sustainable wellbeing and aligned leadership.
You can learn more about her work here.
Jordan Mendoza, MD
Menopause Expert, Guest Presenter, and Physician
Dr. Jordan Mendoza is a board-certified OB-GYN, Menopause Society Certified Practitioner (MSCP), and ISSWSH Fellow with a clinical focus on perimenopause, menopause, and midlife women’s health. She is the founder of Elevated Menopause Care, a direct-care specialty practice dedicated to evidence-based, individualized menopause and sexual-health care. Dr. Mendoza brings over a decade of experience caring for midlife women and is known for her clear, compassionate approach to complex and often misunderstood transitions. Her work centers on helping women understand what is happening in their bodies, navigate hormone therapy and other treatment options, and advocate for themselves within a healthcare system that too often dismisses midlife symptoms.
You can learn more about her work at Elevated Menopause Care.
