People can be toxic. Workplaces can be toxic. Positivity can be toxic. Negativity can be - it can sink you into a deep hole and drain everyone around you.

But when is being negative not toxic?

When I run sessions, I find that they're often full of people who haven't really had much opportunity to talk about how perimenopause or menopause are affecting them. They haven't had any acknowledgement of the difficulties they are going through.

Needing that isn't toxic.

They often need to talk to each other about what's going on. They need to compare notes, offer each other empathy and reassure themselves that they're not weird or mad.

That's not toxic.

People often need time to get stuff out of their systems if they've been struggling alone for a long time.

That's not toxic.

But once we've got all that out, we can start to pin-point the things that are really causing difficulty for them.

And we can have a bit of a moan about that without it getting toxic.

Then we can look at what makes our experience of menopause better. HRT and other medical options. Diet. Exercise. And yes, all that is effort when we're already pretty busy.

But we can acknowledge and it's not toxic.

We often talk about how we're going to communicate what's going on with us to other people - whether that's at home or work. Those conversations are hard. We have to acknowledge some difficult things.

It can seem negative, but it's not. It's just honesty.

Then we can start to work out what's going to solve some of those problems so that they can have a better working experience and cope with their menopause better.

And that's positive. In a completely non-toxic way.