Explore every episode of the podcast The Menstruality Podcast
Dive into the complete episode list for The Menstruality Podcast. Each episode is cataloged with detailed descriptions, making it easy to find and explore specific topics. Keep track of all episodes from your favorite podcast and never miss a moment of insightful content.
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Title
Pub. Date
Duration
161. The Power of Premenstrual Truth Telling (Maya Luna)
29 Aug 2024
00:59:33
Have you ever noticed that your intuitive sense of knowing is heightened when you are premenstrual? Today we’re exploring the radical honesty that can be invoked in inner autumn, asking the question: what if our unadulterated, fierce, premenstrual truth speaking is actually exactly the medicine our world needs at this time?
My guest is Maya Luna, an artist, channel and creator of The Venus Path™, a modern adaptation of an ancient Fertility Goddess Spiritual Path that works with Sensuality, The Body, The Deep Heart, Passionate Energy and the Incarnate Human Experience.
Today she shares how she navigates what she calls the 'dark goddess truth serum' that pulses through her in her premenstrual phase, and how she is learning to skillfully and artfully share it in the world.
We explore:
How we can feel truth or untruth in our bodies and somehow “smell dishonesty” when we’re in premenstrual truth-telling mode.
The 40s as the inner autumn of our menstruating years, where our premenstrual powers can come online even more, and how the world can react when women stop playing nice and being “good girls” and start bringing the power of our sacred truth in this life phase
The toxic femininity we see in our culture and ourselves today; the fawning, people pleasing, being a doormat, not speaking up, letting people use and abuse us, and how our premenstrual capacity to see through bullshit is a powerful antidote.
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Receive our free video training: Love Your Cycle, Discover the Power of Menstrual Cycle Awareness to Revolutionise Your Life - www.redschool.net/love
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The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
160. What Black Cyclical Wisdom can Teach us About Hope, Peace and Belonging (Dr Cre Dye)
22 Aug 2024
01:06:02
Today we’re exploring Black cyclical wisdom through the lens of the life story of an extraordinary woman who left a profound legacy of cyclical heart and body intelligence, with Dr Cre Dye, who serves as the Menstruality Justice and Inclusion Educator at Red School.
Dr. Cre has served her local, national, and international communities with heart, mind and body activism for over 25 years as a mental health therapist, yoga teacher/trainer and university professor.
This is part two of a series of conversations with Cre about the cyclical wisdom she received from her Grandmothers. In episode 138: Indigenous Cycle Wisdom and Menstrual Rituals, we heard the story of Cre’s first nations Granny, and today we’re hearing what she received from Mama, her Black grandmother.
We hear how Mama grew up picking cotton in Mississippi, was widowed young, then left an abusive relationship and travelled alone in the 1960s with her eight children all the way to Missouri, to go on to foster over 60 children and become a force of love in her community. And how, through every single moment of adversity she faced as a Black woman, she found her way to claim rest, rise up and embody hope in the face of hate.
We explore:
Menstrual Cycle Awareness as the “sacred study of me”, how we are all sacred texts, and our cyclical wisdom is the words on the page.
What Cre learned from her interviews series with Black women and their menstrual cycles, about how we can all reclaim the cyclical wisdom that we’ve known all along.
The ongoing medical racism that Black women and Women of Colour face, including the myth that Black women have higher pain thresholds, why Black women are two to three times more likely to develop fibroids, and 50% less likely to be diagnosed with endometriosis than white women, and what we can all do about it.
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Receive our free video training: Love Your Cycle, Discover the Power of Menstrual Cycle Awareness to Revolutionise Your Life - www.redschool.net/love
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The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
151. Cyclical Wisdom for Heartbreak, Devastation and Rebirth (Sara Avant Stover)
20 Jun 2024
00:58:50
In February 2016 our guest today, author and teacher Sara Avant Stover was coming out of a season of intense creativity and output and was preparing to enter into a cycle of rest and recovery, when one evening she received shattering news. Her former fiance came home one evening and confessed that he had been cheating on her, with many people, for many years.
This turned out to be the first of many serial heartbreaks that Sara experienced over the coming five years. Ironically she had just published a book about the heroine’s journey, which described the necessity of cycles of death and rebirth when we enter the underworld, just as she was personally thrown into this great descent.
Sara’s work integrates Buddhism, embodiment, and psychology and has uplifted the lives of countless women worldwide. She has transmuted her heartbreak into her new book, Handbook for the Heartbroken: A Woman's Path from Devastation to Rebirth, which we explore today.
We explore:
Sara’s heartbreak stories; including abortion, relationship breakdown and a financial crash and how they have prepared her for what we have experienced collectively over the past four years, and particularly the pandemic.
The core action that Sara took to heal from the gas-lighting experience of long-term infidelity.
Guidance for you if you’re currently negotiating heartbreak, or are still healing heartbreaks of the past.
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Receive our free video training: Love Your Cycle, Discover the Power of Menstrual Cycle Awareness to Revolutionise Your Life - www.redschool.net/love
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The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
61. Five Archetypes to Guide Cyclical Life and Leadership (Dr Joanna Martin)
03 Nov 2022
01:06:41
Our menstrual cycles can be a profound ally in work and leadership. Today we do a deep dive on how to channel our cyclical wisdom as it shifts and changes throughout the cycle month, with someone who has an extraordinary amount of personal and professional experience in this realm.
Dr Joanna Martin is a renowned visionary, coach and catalyst. As the founder of One of many, her organisation has supported over 60,000 grassroots women leaders to greater impact without burnout.
The cycle is at the centre of her life and work, she’s overlaid the five archetypes over the phases of the cycle to harness their power and meet the challenges they present: The Lover, The Queen, The Warrioress, The Sorceress, The Mother.
We explore:
How our inner winter awakens our ‘Sorceress’ phase, and how to harness the magic of menstruation at work.
Jo’s monthly ‘catastrophising day’ and how she manages it as the leader of a global organisation, by channelling her ‘Queen’ archetype.
How to catch the shadow of over-giving in inner summer - ovulation - by being mindful of how our ‘Mother’ archetype is expressing itself.
Join our free online course - Love Your Cycle: Discover the power of menstrual cycle awareness to revolutionise your life here: www.redschool.net/love
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The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
60. The Fierce Dance of Menopause (Susannah Darling Khan)
27 Oct 2022
01:00:52
Today’s episode is about what it’s like when our experience is actually supported, honoured and dignified through menopause, and it’s also about relationship, and how to take care of ourselves through - and make sense of - times of great transformation.
Alexandra is your host today, because this is a continuation of our Wise Power Retreat series, which was an incredible journey, over 3500 of us gathered to explore the power of menopause.
She's talking with Susannah Darling Khan, a teacher, dancer, music maker, trainee pony whisperer, the co-director of The School of Movement Medicine, alongside her husband Ya'Acov Darling Khan. We explore:
How Susannah’s sexual relationship expanded through menopause, and how, through him meeting her anger and fierceness (sometimes with actual boxing gloves!), they were able to maintain their sexual fire.
How menopause was a fierce taskmaster, requiring her to slow down - very quickly! - commit to her own inner peace, and hone her embodied listening capacity, as well as embrace death as a reality and a teacher.
The only two other mammals who go through menopause - and what evolutionary biology shows us about the vital role we play in our communities post-menopause, as wisdom-keepers for the next generations.
You can now order our new book! Wise Power: Discover the Liberating Power of Menopause to Awaken Authority, Purpose and Belonging here: https://www.wisepowerbook.com
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Registration is now open for our live menopause course - Menopause: The Great Awakener. You can take your seat here: https://www.redschoolmenopause.com
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The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
59. How to Approach Sex in Menopause (Dr Sonia Wright)
20 Oct 2022
00:55:32
Dr Sonia Wright - aka The Midlife Sex Coach for Women - combines her natural ability to talk about uncomfortable topics with her medical knowledge, sexual counseling skills and life coaching tools to create a unique brand of sex coaching. In this conversation about sex in midlife and during menopause, we discuss sensitive issues with humour and heart.
We explore:
The sex challenges that can arise in menopause, such as changing libido, the surfacing of body image issues and vaginal dryness and pain.
Redefining what fulfillment means when it comes to sexual intimacy, why orgasm isn’t the goal, and how this changes the game around sex.
How to invite our partners into loving, generative dialogue around sex challenges, and the importance of having these brave conversations, especially since we may have 30-50+ years of good sex ahead of us.
You can now pre-order our new book! Wise Power: Discover the Liberating Power of Menopause to Awaken Authority, Purpose and Belonging here: https://www.wisepowerbook.com
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Registration is now open for our live menopause course - Menopause: The Great Awakener. You can take your seat here: https://www.redschoolmenopause.com
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The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
58. The Power of Your Premenstrual Phase (Alexandra & Sjanie)
13 Oct 2022
01:04:51
The premenstrual phase of the menstrual cycle - or ‘inner autumn’ as we lovingly call it - is often the most uncomfortable phase emotionally, and it is definitely the most misunderstood. The symptoms that show up for many in this phase and the critical, disruptive fire that burns through us premenstrually are demonised in our world and inside ourselves.
In this conversation we want to deshame and dignify the gifts of the premenstruum; the heightened sensitivity, the permeability, the way we show up as a disruptor of the peace. We want to transform the premenstrual script which so often makes us question “what’s wrong with me?” to “how can I hold myself through this?” and “what’s powers are at work here?”.
We explore:
How the premenstruum gives us access to a different kind of intelligence - we know, without knowing how we know!
Why we all deeply need the vulnerability of the premenstruum, and how it connects us to each other and to our humanity.
How the powers of the premenstruum are the ones we’ll call on the most post menopause - they become the ground of the second half of our lives.
Our new book is now available wherever books are sold - Wise Power: Discover the Liberating Power of Menopause to Awaken Authority, Purpose and Belonging here: https://www.wisepowerbook.com
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The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
57. The Five Phases of Menopause (Alexandra & Sjanie)
06 Oct 2022
01:00:34
Once you’re in menopause, you appear to be off all the usual maps. You're cast off from a familiar shoreline onto a dark ocean of unknownness, with only the stars and the moon – your instincts, feelings and intuitions – to guide you.
However, there is a map of sorts for the menopausal journey, a timeless archetypal pattern for transitioning this world between worlds, and it has an implicit order in five phases: Betrayal, Repair, Revelation, Visioning and Emergence.
In today's episode, we look at the meaning and purpose of each phase, including all that you may experience and what it means, as well as stories from some of the many people we’ve worked with over the years (and a good dose of humour to see you through).
We explore:
Phase one of the menopause initiation, ‘Betrayal’, which can be a real dark night of the soul, though it is necessary to access the ‘gold’ of your menopause journey.
The sweet moment that you can reach in phase three, ‘Revelation’ where - often in the middle of daily life - you suddenly see yourself for who you truly are.
How the final two phases set you up powerfully for your life post-menopause.
You can now pre-order our new book! Wise Power: Discover the Liberating Power of Menopause to Awaken Authority, Purpose and Belonging here: https://www.wisepowerbook.com
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Registration is now open for our live menopause course - Menopause: The Great Awakener. You can take your seat here: https://www.redschoolmenopause.com
---
The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
56. The Power, Intelligence and Pleasure Within Your Cervix (Olivia Bryant)
29 Sep 2022
01:03:30
Today we’re talking about a much misunderstood part of the body… the cervix.
Olivia Bryant is the founder of Self:Cervix, an organisation dedicated to revolutionising the way the cervix is viewed by the medical profession, by science and sex educators. She says:
“As a sexologist and sex nerd, I know the cervix to be a powerful place of pleasure… For us, cervical orgasm is a thing worth exploring, just like Mars is for NASA”
We explore:
The spectrum of cervical awakening, from healing trauma, to enhancing pleasure, to cultivating states of deeply loving consciousness.
The cervix is the only organ in the body that connects to three major nerves and it’s wired to feel PLEASURE
The connection between cervical orgasms and our capacity to relax into our naturalness, and receive support.
You can now pre-order our new book! Wise Power: Discover the Liberating Power of Menopause to Awaken Authority, Purpose and Belonging here: https://www.wisepowerbook.com
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Registration is now open for our live menopause course - Menopause: The Great Awakener. You can take your seat here: https://www.redschoolmenopause.com
---
The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
55. Menopause is a Spiritual Awakening (Alexandra & Sjanie)
22 Sep 2022
01:01:04
Today’s conversation follows a powerful idea that woke Alexandra up in the early hours a few days ago. It’s the idea that drives our new menopause book, Wise Power, and it’s an idea that’s almost totally missing in the global menopause conversation...
... We need to dignify menopause as a process of spiritual awakening.
And it’s a very special episode, because it also marks the official release of Wise Power, which is now available wherever books are sold - you can get your copy at wisepowerbook.com.
We explore:
The spiritual union, or coming home to yourself that is possible at menopause, when we honour and dignify every aspect of menopause; the rage, the confusion, the challenge and dare to believe it’s meaningful.
The role that rage plays in the spiritual awakening of menopause, particularly in the initiatory times we’re living in as a global community.
The five phases of the menopause spiritual awakening, and how perimenopause, or the ‘Quickening’ prepares us for this great homecoming to ourselves.
You can now pre-order our new book! Wise Power: Discover the Liberating Power of Menopause to Awaken Authority, Purpose and Belonging here: https://www.wisepowerbook.com
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Registration is now open for our live menopause course - Menopause: The Great Awakener. You can take your seat here: https://www.redschoolmenopause.com
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The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
54. Finding Hope and Meaning When You're Childless-not-by-choice (Jody Day)
15 Sep 2022
01:10:39
The menstruality journey begins at menarche with our first bleed, and ends as we go through the great initiation of menopause. For some, pregnancy, birth, and motherhood are a key part of their menstruating years, but for some people, parenting doesn’t happen, despite a deep desire to have children.
It's World Childless Week this week, and we've invited the brilliant Jody Day to share about the challenges of involuntary childlessness, her work to honour and dignify childless women, and explore how to how to find meaning and hope when looking towards a future without children.
Jody Day is the founder of Gateway Women, the support & advocacy network for childless women. She’s a psychotherapist, a global thought leader on female involuntary childlessness, and the author of what many professionals consider to be the ‘go-to’ book on the topic, ‘Living the Life Unexpected: How to Find Hope, Meaning and a Fulfilling Future Without Children’.
In the conversation we explore:
Jody’s personal journey through grief, denial, hopelessness to real acceptance of her life as a childless woman.
The creation of Gateway Women and Jody’s mission to make the world understand childless women, and help women who are childless-not-by-choice to understand themselves.
Jody's emerging Gateway Elderwomen project, exploring the uncharted path to becoming a conscious childless elder woman.
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The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
53. The Connection Between Menopause, Nature and Sacred Sex (Jewels Wingfield)
08 Sep 2022
01:01:06
When teacher and activist Jewels Wingfield felt menopause calling, through intense physical symptoms, she knew she needed to take a deep retreat. In this conversation, we explore her 13 moon ‘conscious menopause sabbatical’ and how it transformed her health, her relationship to herself, her work in the world, and even her sex life.
Jewels is the founder of the EarthHeart project and on the other side of her sabbatical she is focusing on guiding women to explore their ‘nature-based feminine leadership’, with a particular focus on an ancient, Celtic approach to menstruality, and how the natural world can support our menopause ‘death-and-rebirth’ process.
In the conversation we explore:
How to carve out space and time for retreat and menopause, even when we have big responsibilities and financial pressure, and the potentially beneficial impact.
How to access the wisdom of the natural world as a powerful guide and ally during the initiation of menopause.
Some good news about how sex can change in menopause, and practical (often surprising!) guidance to access new levels of sexual connection and desire in this phase of life.
You can now pre-order your copy of our new menopause book! Wise Power: Discover the liberating power of menopause to awaken authority, purpose and belonging here: https://www.wisepowerbook.com
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The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
52. The Cultural Story of the Taboo, Power and Wisdom of Menstruation (Dr Lara Owen)
01 Sep 2022
01:03:15
There are a handful of trailblazers who have paved the way for the positive menstrual culture we’re beginning to see today, and Dr Lara Owen is one of them. She was researching and writing her book about the power of the menstrual cycle, Her Blood is Gold in the 1990’s, and it has been a game changer for thousands of women and menstruators.
She’s now an expert on the culture, politics and organization of menstruation and menopause. She consults with global and local organizations; teaches in academic and general contexts and has created a first year masters level programme called Contemporary Menstrual Studies.
In this far-reaching conversation we explore:
A cultural and historical exploration of the stigmatisation of the menstrual cycle.
What Lara learned from indigenous teachers raised in menstrually positive cultures.
The wisdom of menstruation, and Lara’s personal experience of two years of deep menstrual retreat (including moments of powerful clairvoyance!)
150. The Inner Autumn Powers that Awaken in our 40s (Alexandra & Sjanie)
13 Jun 2024
01:03:14
As with your early years of cycling, your later years of cycling are a transitional time.
Your 20s and 30s are all about discovering your rhythm and firming up your sense of self. But from your 40s onwards, the focus begins to shift. Subtly, you start to feel that you're stepping up to a bigger game. It's as though the clock on your life is now ticking. That's why Alexandra and Sjanie call this life phase "the Quickening".
You may start to find that your inner autumn, premenstrual energies seem to dominate more of your whole cycle experience, and as challenging as this may feel, something powerful is being worked within you.
That’s exactly what we’re talking about today - the inner autumn powers that wake up in your 40s and the potent self care practice that helps you to channel them into your life.
We explore:
How to hold ourselves when the anesthetic wears off in our 40s (just like in the premenstruum), so that we can invite in greater depth and self-responsibility.
How the inner autumn in the cycle and our lives calls us home to our natural authority and power
Why the practice of ‘gearing down’ is vital in the Quickening and how to do it in a world which wants to keep us hustling.
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Receive our free video training: Love Your Cycle, Discover the Power of Menstrual Cycle Awareness to Revolutionise Your Life - www.redschool.net/love
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The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
51. The Myth, Magic and Metamorphosis of Menopause (Dr Sharon Blackie)
25 Aug 2022
01:03:12
When you explore old European myths, it’s the elder women and grandmothers who run the world. In Greek mythology, there are the Fates - three elder women who make the world go round. In Eastern European mythology, the crone Baba Yaga initiates young people and facilitates transformation. In ancient Gallic mythology it is the Cailleach who created and shaped the land, from the beginning of time.
In today’s episode we explore the gold that these myths and archetypes hold for us as we navigate the initiation of menopause and enter the second half of our lives as elders, with the brilliant writer, psychologist and mythologist, Dr Sharon Blackie.
Sharon illuminates the magic and potential of menopause as a shape-shifting crucible, which strips away all that isn’t essential - so we may know ourselves, and our Calling in a new way. She shares how she envisioned herself inside an alchemical process at menopause, how the natural world served as an ally through this initiatory time, and why the world needs more feisty, older women now more than ever…
We explore:
The Greek myth of the ‘Furies’, the sacred role of their rage, and the necessity of the comparable anger many of us feel in menopause.
Why our world doesn’t allow us the time to ‘do menopause properly’ and the impact this has for us on a soul level.
The Jungian archetype of the ‘Medial Woman’ who doesn’t define herself according to anyone else, is whole unto herself, and chooses to dive deeply into the mystery of the world.
You can now pre-order your copy of our new menopause book! Wise Power: Discover the Liberating Power of Menopause to Awaken Authority, Purpose and Belonging here: https://www.wisepowerbook.com
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Registration is now open for our live menopause course - Menopause: The Great Awakener. You can take your seat here: https://www.redschoolmenopause.com
---
The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
50. How to Fall in Love with Your Menstrual Cycle (Alexandra & Sjanie)
18 Aug 2022
01:04:21
We want to create a world where everyone is in love with the menstrual cycle - not a perfect version of the cycle - but exactly the cycle you have. Because this love affair revolutionises our lives (and the world!).
Love Your Cycle is our invitation to you to get to know your cycle in more depth, to fall in love with your cycle, and to grow an intimacy with it that will transform your life - by amplifying your vitality, enhancing your creativity and activating your leadership.
In this episode we explore:
- Why falling in love with your cycle isn’t about having a ‘perfect’ menstrual cycle, but rather coming into relationship with the cycle you have (and how to actually do that.)
- How to make sense of cycle disturbances and hold ourselves as we heal menstrual pain and other health challenges.
- Four specific cycle awareness practices to harness the power of each inner season of your cycle.
49. Trauma, The Nervous System and Menstrual Health (Lisa De Jong)
11 Aug 2022
01:00:34
What is the connection between trauma, the nervous system and menstrual health?
This week we’re speaking with Lisa De Jong, who shares in depth about her personal experience with a decade of chronic pain, an eventual endometriosis diagnosis, and her experience of trauma healing and nervous system regulation.
Lisa is a graduate of our Menstruality Leadership Programme and has infused the teachings with ground-breaking science and created a brilliant body of work around trauma, pain, healing and the nervous system.
We explore:
Why it’s harder to manage stress in the premenstrual phase (as well as perimenopause and menopause), and how our cyclical nature impacts our capacity to regulate our nervous systems.
How unprocessed trauma and grief can contribute to menstrual health challenges like PMDD and endometriosis, and how to find agency in the face of collective trauma due to patriarchy, racism and other forms of systemic oppression.
Nervous system regulation, polyvagal theory and what being in the ‘rest and digest’ mode of the nervous system can mean for healing and managing chronic pain, especially for highly sensitive people.
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You can now register your interest for our 2023 Menstruality Leadership Programme. You can check it out here: www.menstrualityleadership.com
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The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
In our 40s, many women and people with periods begin to experience a variety of health symptoms and challenges, as well as emotional and psychological shifts. Some call this perimenopause. At Red School we like to call it, the Quickening.
In this episode - which is the fourth in our menopause summer series - we look at how the Quickening is slowly awakening new levels of power within us, and how to navigate this. Sjanie shares her personal experience of negotiating this transition over the past few years.
We explore:
How we receive a report card on the state of our health in our 40s, which is inviting us to up our self care and set ourselves up for a healthy post-menopause life.
Why the power that is awakening in us in the Quickening requires deeper responsibility as well as deeper self care.
How to handle your new, increased critical capacites (cynicism, discernment, judgement) wisely and cleanly, rather than use it to annihilate and destroy!
You can pre-order your copy of Wise Power: Discover the Liberating Power of Menopause to awaken authority, purpose and belonging here: https://www.wisepowerbook.com
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The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email: info@redschool.net
The Healing Connection Between the Womb and the Voice (Shakirah Sabira)
28 Jul 2022
00:59:27
Across the ages women and birthing people have been invited by midwives and doulas to relax their jaw and throat to support the opening of the cervix in labour.
In today’s conversation we explore why this is so important, we explore the connection between our throats, our voices, and the emotional and physical health of our wombs.
I’m talking with Shakirah Sabira who is a doula, African womb healing practitioner, and the founder of Barakha’s Doula. Shakirah began her career as a doula serving women in the Middle East and West Africa, including seven months working in a rural clinic supporting the local midwife in the Mauritanian desert, a trip which profoundly changed her life, and guided her to her calling.
Through Shakirah’s story, and the experiences with her teachers and clients, as well as Sophie's own womb healing experience, we look at what it means to give your womb a voice, how release stagnant energy, express yourself and find a profound source of healing within us.
We explore:
How Shakirah sang her period back, after her menstrual cycle stopped following a traumatic relationship breakup and divorce.
The connection between trauma, the womb and the voice, and how speaking truth, singing and freeing up the throat can facilitate deep healing.
Why women and people with periods need to share our stories, to release our shame, and support each other to heal, simply by no longer feeling alone.
Registration will open soon for our 2023 Menstruality Leadership Programme. You can register your interest here: https://www.menstrualityleadership.com
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The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
How to Navigate the Initiation of Menopause *Wise Power Series* (Alexandra & Sjanie)
21 Jul 2022
01:01:21
In today’s conversation, we get practical, down-to-earth and real about the initiation of menopause and how on earth do we actually get through to the other side. Though, as we explore, it’s much less about doing and much more about being. And we have five alchemical powers that can help us along the way.
This is the in third our Wise Power series where Alexandra and Sjanie have been waxing lyrical, sometimes crying, and often laughing their way through the teachings of their new book Wise Power: Discover the Liberating Power of Menopause to Awaken Authority, Purpose and Belonging, coming out on September 20th.
There’s a line in our new book, Wise Power: “Remember, it’s your birthright to have a dignifying and empowering menopause. Let’s begin to make that so.”
Let’s begin to make it so, together, here, right now…
We explore:
- The five ‘alchemical powers’ that can help you navigate the menopause transition.
- How to actully find ways to rest, when you aren’t able to take a menopause sabbatical year (that we deeply wish everyone could have!)
- The post-menopause magic that can occur when you trust the creative arc of your life, where ‘life becomes your business partner’.
Pre-order your copy of Wise Power: Discover the Liberating Power of Menopause to awaken authority, purpose and belonging here: https://www.wisepowerbook.com
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The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
The Power of Cycle Awareness for Menstrual Health Challenges (Alexandra Pope)
14 Jul 2022
01:03:15
Do you suffer from menstrual pain, or other cycle challenges such as PMS, PMDD or managing irregular cycles?
In this episode we explore how the practice of menstrual cycle awareness creates a ground for healing, helps us to take stand for what we need, and supports us to create a new relationship with the challenges we face, and to trust that something meaningful is at work.
Alexandra shares her personal story with a decade of menstrual pain, and what supported her to heal and eventually become pain-free. Sophie describes what supported her to transform chronic pain and pre-menstrual rage into a new relationship with her power.
We explore:
- The connection between our personal suffering and what’s happening in the collective and on our planet.
- How cycle awareness helps us to manage chronic stress, which can be the foundation of so many health challenges, and awakens our faculties of knowing; our gut intelligence, our heart knowing, and our ‘pelvic brain’.
- How your cycle is - as Lisa Hendrickson Jack says - your ‘fifth vital sign’, giving you important information about your overall health and stress levels, and how to approach healing if you feel you’re in perimenopause.
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The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
Six Steps to Survive Menopause *Wise Power Series* (Alexandra & Sjanie)
07 Jul 2022
01:03:06
When you find yourself in the thick of the menopause transition, there’s no maintaining life as normal. How can we support ourselves to manage the day to day realities of life amidst the huge initiation of menopause? In this episode we explore the six steps of our ‘menopause triage’ and how they help you to dignify and honour what you’re experiencing.
We explore:
The power of accepting the fact that you’re in menopause, and that you have a ‘new normal’.
The art of ‘snudging’ and why it’s the a key skill to cultivate in menopause.
The menopause superpowers that can help you to put these triage steps into preactice, including the power of No.
How Cycle Awareness Can Prevent and Heal Birth Trauma (Tessa Sanderson)
30 Jun 2022
01:02:07
One of the big initiatory moments along the menstruality journey from menarche (our first period) to menopause is pregnancy and childbirth, if that is our path in life.
In a world which has a lot to learn about how to support mothers and birthing people through this profound initiation, we need all the help we can get to prepare for and create a positive birth, or heal from a challenging or traumatic one. Enter menstrual cycle awareness - as a powerful tool to cultivate body sovereignty, guide us in the art of surrender, and teach us how to advocate for our needs.
Our guest today is pregnancy yoga teacher and mother of two, Tessa Sanderson. She’s a graduate of the Menstruality Leadership programme, as well as our Menstruality Medicine Circle training, and her insights today are based on hundreds of birth stories that she has received from her clients.
This is a big conversation, with lots of potentially triggering or stirring topics, so we invite you to take care of yourself as you listen, especially if you’re currently pregnant.
In this episode:
- We explore childbirth as a rite of passage, and how menstrual cycle awareness can prepare us for the inner journey and help to create a positive initiatory experience, however it unfolds.
- We define birth trauma - or perinatal trauma - and menstrual trauma, and explore how the two can be connected.
- We share our own birth stories and how cycle awareness helped us in these mother of all journeys, especially through the challenge of giving birth during lockdown.
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The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
The New Story of Menopause *Wise Power Series* (Alexandra & Sjanie)
23 Jun 2022
01:01:40
It’s time to re-write the story of menopause.
What if the critical, provocative energy of menopause is actually a sign that you’re coming to your senses?
What if menopause isn’t a health condition we suffer from, but that people in menopause you’re actually suffering from is a lack of recognition, respect and support for the profound initiation you’re going through.
What if, post-menopause, you are more needed than ever.
This is the first of our menopause summer series, in the run up to the launch of our new book, Wise Power.
We explore:
- The four old stories of menopause, and the new stories that honour and dignify this transition.
- The ‘emperor has no clothes’ moment that happens in menopause.
- Why our impulse to ‘burn the house down’ in menopause is actually very sane, and an important part of this initiatory process.
You can now pre-order your copy of our new menopause book! Wise Power: Discover the liberating power of menopause to awaken authority, purpose and belonging here: https://www.wisepowerbook.com
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The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
149. How to Move from Toxic Productivity to Honouring your Natural Rhythms (Tamu Thomas)
06 Jun 2024
00:57:06
Do you catch yourself measuring your worth by how much you do, and how much what you do benefits others? If you do, you’re not alone. And, as our guest today, Tamu Thomas, says - it’s not your fault.
In her groundbreaking new book, Women Who Work Too Much: Break Free from Toxic Productivity, Tamu challenges the societal norms that glorify relentless productivity and burnout, shedding light on the systemic, emotional and psychological factors that keep women trapped in a never-ending cycle of productivity.
In our conversation today, she shares practical strategies for liberation, centering cycle awareness as a way to resist the drive to do-do-do, and instead reclaim and honour our natural rhythms.
We explore:
How cycle awareness has enabled Tamu to find freedom from her inner critic (whilst allowing her to channel the power of her premenstrual analysis to offer critique of the systems that oppress us).
What Tamu learned from her Auntie Aminatta, a Sierra Leonian international business woman about how to create a life where - as Tracee Ellis Ross says - “my life is mine”.
The profound spiritual, primal breakdown and breakthrough that happened in 2017, when Tamu’s body reclaimed her energy back from what she calls the ‘oppressive trinity’ of white supremacy, patriarchy and capitalism.
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Receive our free video training: Love Your Cycle, Discover the Power of Menstrual Cycle Awareness to Revolutionise Your Life - www.redschool.net/love
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The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
Queer Menstruality - Creating a Culture of Belonging (Abi Denyer-Bewick)
16 Jun 2022
00:57:24
One of the beautifully challenging things about cultivating an intimacy with our menstrual cycles, or menopause process, is that it opens us up to the world.
To the beauty of life, and to the pain.
This quality of tender, unarmoured presence is real medicine for a world that can feel full of conflict, pretense, injustice and a lack of capacity to be with difference.
A devoted practice of cycle awareness helps us to see that we all belong; to ourselves, to the rhythm and flow of the natural world, and to each other.
Today we’re marking Pride Month, with a podcast episode about how menstrual cycle awareness can help us to be with difference, and create true cultures of belonging.
Our guest is Abi Denyer-Bewick, a queer menstuality educator and member of the Red School faculty. We chat about the menstruality learning session she recently offered our Menstruality Leadership Programme graduates on 'Inclusive menstruality', including:
- How to create a culture of belonging for women and everyone who menstruates. - What life might look like for a trans, non-binary or gender expansive menstruator. - How to work with the fear, trauma or other big emotions that may arise as we explore how to be with difference, together.
We also share some guidance for how to take this belonging and inclusion work deeper, from a range of brilliant LGBTQ+ educators.
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The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
How Food Can Nourish Menstrual Cycle Health (Naam Bachmayer)
09 Jun 2022
01:00:45
Have you ever wondered what foods can support your cycle health as you move through the different inner seasons of the cycle month?
In this interview with Menstrual Cycle Coach, and food-lover Naam Bachmayer, we explore her ‘Cyclical Nourishment Principles’ and how they help us to welcome in hormonal health, more pleasure, less stress and a deeper intimacy with our cycle process.
This isn’t a ‘how-to’ episode or a set of rules. Naam is very aware of how food can be complex for many of us, as well as the harm that diet culture causes. Instead, Naam shares a wealth of ideas which you can adapt for you and your body, including a delicious recipe for each inner season. Bon appetit!
We explore:
- Naam’s ‘Cyclical Nourishment Principles’ including ‘eating the rainbow’, listening to your body, and reducing inflammatory foods.
- How to adapt our nutrition and cooking style in the four phases of your cycle - including a delicious, colourful, healthy recipe for each inner season.
- What to eat in inner winter, including iron rich foods like oats and chickpeas to support your body as you lose blood, watermelon and cucumber to up your water intake and why chocolate can help with cramps (yay!).
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The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
The Power of Menopause – Book Title Reveal! (Alexandra & Sjanie)
02 Jun 2022
00:58:12
Menopause is an immense life event, a great initiation. Not only is it a complete hormonal shift in the landscape of your overall health, it’s also a psychological and emotional transformation.
In today’s episode, we explore this incredible, initiatory power of menopause, and the great potential it awakens in us.
This power has been an obsession for Alexandra and Sjanie for most of the past couple of years as they wrote their long-awaited menopause book, and today we have an exciting announcement - we’re revealing the title of the book!
Today, we break down the title and explore:
What the writing of the book taught Alexandra and Sjanie about the truth of menopause (and how it kicked them up the backside along the way).
The number one thing we each need to learn how to get through menopause.
The liberating power of menopause… and how the book launch events we're dreaming into for September will invite us all into a meaningful experience of this power.
10 (Surprising) Reasons to Practice Fertility Awareness (Jaspreet Kaur)
26 May 2022
01:02:08
Today, we’re looking at menstrual cycle awareness through a different lens… we’re exploring 10 surprising reasons to practice fertility awareness.
I’m talking with Health Coach and Natural Family Planning (NFP) teacher, Jaspreet Kaur who is a fresh, passionate voice in this field - she brings it down to earth and makes it accessible to everyone. We explore…
What fertility awareness is, and the many surprising ways it can profoundly enhance our menstrual cycle awareness practice (whether you’re trying to prevent pregnancy or get pregnant, or neither), and how to get started today.
We bust many myths, including the myth of the ‘late period’, and why knowing when you ovulate is such a game-changer for anyone who wants to plan their life and workflow around their cycle.
The importance of decolonising menstrual health and unravelling the legacy of menstrual shame that colonisation has created.
How Your Cycle Unleashes Your Creative Expression (Lucy Peach)
19 May 2022
01:07:00
Are you currently working on a creative project that you’d love to infuse with your cyclical wisdom? Whether you’re writing a book, growing a garden, launching a business or making art, your cycle can be a profound anchor and resource.
In today’s episode, we talk with someone who knows a thing or two about the menstrual cycles and creativity. Lucy Peach is a period preacher, author, and folksinger. She’s a graduate of the Red School Menstruality Leadership Programme and she has written a book, created songs, produced an award-winning theatre show, delivered educational programmes for teens and even created a TED talk, all about the menstrual cycle.
We explore how she has worked with her cycle to cultivate this epic creativity and shift the period narrative in our culture from one of shame to one of pride, including:
Lucy’s take on the four phases or inner seasons of the cycle: Dream, Do, Give, Take, and how they each support our creative process.
How Lucy’s cycle guides her creative collaboration with her husband, and how he experiences his own cyclical creativity, as well as how non-cycling men react to Lucy’s theatre show.
How to work with dreams to access your creative power, especially in the void just before you bleed as a powerful creative resource - Lucy and Sophie both share what a recurring nightmare has taught them about their power and creativity.
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Have you listened to our free webinar replay about how to channel your cycle's creative powers as an entrepreneur? You can watch How Your Menstrual Cycle Can Help You Create A Thriving Business here : https://www.yourcyclicalbusiness.com
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The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
How We Run a Cycle Aware Business (Alexandra & Sjanie)
12 May 2022
01:03:40
The hidden agenda of the menstrual cycle is to help us become more fully ourselves. As we deepen our cycle awareness practice, it plugs us into our calling, our vision, our unique way of expressing our genius. The realising of this calling requires an outer structure, which often looks like a business. The beautiful thing is that the menstrual cycle can resource us along the way.
We’re in the middle of launching our brand new programme, Your Cyclical Business which is designed to support you if you’re a teacher, healer or creative, a freelancer, or a purpose-led entrepreneur to channel the wisdom of your menstrual cycle to create a thriving business.
So in our conversation today we want to invite you behind-the-scenes of Red School to see how we work with our cycles (and for Alexandra her post-menopause process) to run our cycle-aware business.
We explore:
How resting and tending to your nervous system in inner winter is a key to managing overwhelm, and creating sustainable work rhythms without burning out.
How each inner season of the cycle works in a particular way to help us move from self doubt and imposter syndrome to trust in ourselves and our creative process.
How we bring the discerning energy of inner autumn to craft marketing strategies that allow Red School’s work to expand in an aligned way.
The Power of Cycle Aware Movement, Exercise and Yoga (Le’Nise Brothers)
05 May 2022
01:01:18
Why do we need to adapt the way we move and exercise throughout the cycle? In today’s conversation we explore the physical and mental health benefits of cycle-aware movement, and how to adjust the way we exercise throughout the cycle month.
Our guest, Le’Nise Brothers shares her own experience of using diet, exercise and lifestyle changes to improve painful and heavy periods, anxiety, depression and irritable bowel syndrome.
Le’Nise is a yoga teacher, and Nutritionist, specialising in women's health, hormones and the menstrual cycle. She’s the host of the Period Story podcast, and the author of the new book, You Can Have a Better Period which came out in March - a practical guide to understanding your cycle and balancing your hormones with nutrition and yoga, for a calm and pain-free period.
We explore:
How to move in each season of your cycle, including slow flow yoga in inner winter, strength training in inner spring, high energy exercise to channel your ovulatory surge in energy and mood stabilising exercise in inner autumn.
How can we move to support ourselves through pre-menstrual anger and anxiety?
How can movement help us if we’re experiencing menstrual pain, endometriosis, heavy periods, including healing yoga poses and even how to use orgasms as a form of pain relief.
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Get your copy of Wild Power: Discover the Power of Your Menstrual Cycle and Awaken the Feminine Path to Power. It's here in the shownotes: https://redschool.net/podcast/35
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The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
Matrescence - The Initiation Into Motherhood (Amy Taylor Kabbaz)
28 Apr 2022
01:01:13
Becoming a mother is a profound initiatory journey. Journalist and coach, Amy Taylor Kabbaz remembers exactly the moment when she split in two. Fifteen minutes after her child was born, she went from independent, ambitious, ABC journalist, career woman, to completely surrendered mother who would do anything for her child.
That moment changed everything for her, and took her on her own personal pilgrimage to understand how motherhood initiates us.
She’s interviewed hundreds of authors, maternal health experts, and teachers. She’s been the anthropologist, in the trenches of early motherhood, trying to decipher why so many of us feel burnt out, overwhelmed, and addicted to being busy. And she’s emerged from that time knowing that matrescence is the missing link for truly understanding why women feel the way they do, and how we can revolutionise the way we think about and value motherhood.
We explore:
The fact that we’re not mothers at birth. Mothering is a verb - it’s a learnt act. And it gives us daily - hourly! - invitations to move from control, to surrender, if we are supported to cultivate the ability to trust our intuition.
How to hold onto the thread of ourselves as we to navigate the deep reorganising of priorities that happens in matrescence.
How to meet a world that doesn’t recognise the deep shifts that are happening within us, even as we’re inside this deep initiation of matrescence.
How to Guide Your Child Through Their First Period (Emily Stewart)
21 Apr 2022
00:58:12
Our first period is a big event. Today we’re exploring why it’s so important to support girls and young menstruators through this transition, as well as how we can resource ourselves as parents, aunties and carers so we can meet our kids where they are at and celebrate them .
I’m talking with Emily Stewart, the founder of The Real Period Project. She's also a Celebration Day for Girls facilitator, and the creator of the Red School Mothering Your Daughter Through Menarche programme. Her dream is to see a world where the menstrual cycle is seen as an ally and teacher, and talking about it is a normal part of life.
We explore:
- How to practically prepare for guiding your child through their first period, including ways to resource yourself, as well as age-appropriate books and other resources.
- Why it’s important to start sharing about periods when your child is young and receptive to exploring ideas, and before the teenage phase kicks in.
- Our upcoming live round of our Mothering Your Daughter Through Menarche programme, how you can join, and how it will guide you step-by-step to nurture and nourish your child as they approach their puberty years and first period with curiosity, support and a readiness for the changes ahead.
Join us for a live round of our Mothering Your Daughter Through Menarche programme. We start at the beginning of May, and you can join us here: www.redschoolonline.net/p/mothering-your-daughter-through-menarche
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The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
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Social media: Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.school
How to Navigate PMDD and Pre-Menstrual Rage (Chloé Caldwell)
14 Apr 2022
01:03:45
When author, Chloé Caldwell turned 31, her experience of her menstrual cycle changed. Her monthly outbursts of pre-menstrual rage and anxiety began to dominate her life and compromise her relationship.
Compelled to understand the truth of what was happening to her, Chloé researched menstruation throughout history, read everything she could about PMS and was eventually diagnosed with premenstrual dysphoric disorder, PMDD.
In this episode Chloé shares honestly, generously and vulnerably about her journey through PMDD, and how —along with proper treatment— the medicine of self-acceptance, self-compassion, and transcending shame were the ultimate keys to relief.
We explore:
- Chloé's searching, galvanizing memoir about PMDD and how we must bring a multi-layered approach to managing and healing PMDD.
- PMDD and relationships - including practical tools and approaches to navigate PMDD with your partner, children or other loved ones.
- The “Jekyll and Hyde” nature of PMDD, why it is referred to as werewolf week, and how cycle symptoms, including PMDD can be a gateway to knowing ourselves and accessing our wildness and ultimately, growing into a fuller version of ourselves.
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The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
148. How to Find the Gold in Your Menstrual Cycle Crossover Days (Alexandra & Sjanie)
30 May 2024
01:10:09
Is there a particular point of your menstrual (or lunar) cycle where you tend to fall into a metaphorical ‘hole’? For many it’s day 5/6, coming out of the bleed or day 19/20 as you transition to inner autumn.
These are two of the four ‘crossover days’ of the cycle. We like to think of these days as mini gaps in the fabric of life, or the ground giving way under you.
Whatever metaphor works for you - and in this week’s podcast episode we laughed ourselves silly coming up with at least 20 metaphors - your crossover days are a little-known key to bringing the powers of the inner seasons of your menstrual cycle - or the lunar cycle if that’s how you track - to life.
Today we go one by one, exploring today’s the gifts and challenges of each of the four crossovers, through the lens of your stories and questions.
(A note for you, if you have irregular cycles and you find it hard to track your inner seasons, let alone the transitions between them, you’re not alone, and Sjanie speaks beautifully about how to work with this cycle awareness challenge.)
We explore:
- How to hold the power of your menstrual insights as you crossover from inner winter into the rising energy of inner spring.
- The one crucial task for you to do as you move into your ovulatory energy in inner summer to ensure you don’t spin off out of orbit and get frazzled by the heady heights of the metaphorical sunlight!
- How slowing down and taking time for self-recognition and celebration as you enter the premenstrual phase of your cycle in inner autumn prepare you to meet your critic.
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Receive our free video training: Love Your Cycle, Discover the Power of Menstrual Cycle Awareness to Revolutionise Your Life - www.redschool.net/love
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The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
How Cycle Awareness Cultivates Embodied Activism (Ruby May)
07 Apr 2022
00:58:36
Ruby May, the founder of Know Your Flow is an earth-lover, a truth-seeker, an edge-dweller and a mischief-maker passionate about how we can each midwife a culture of deeper connection – to our bodies, each other and our planet through menstrual cycle awareness.
She writes: "We’re tired of living in a culture in which our worth is measured around how productive we are and nothing ever feels like enough.
Where stress, numbing ourselves and bypassing our body’s symptoms are so normalized, and creativity and play feel like elusive luxuries. And where intelligence is seen as something abstract in our heads, removed from the deep feeling, sensitivity and wisdom of our hearts and bellies.
We don’t want to be bystanders and continue the status quo. And we’re ready to be part of the solution."
In this conversation we explore:
How cultivating an intimacy with the rhythm and change of your menstrual cycle allows you to be an embodied activist - a change-maker who is rooted in cyclical intelligence.
How to work with your menstrual cycle as a tool for identifying internalised oppression and how Capitalism lives in your body, for example; by being addicted to endless productivity, feeling rushed all the time, and prioritising your head over your body wisdom.
The connection between revolution - or evolution - and community. As Ruby 'the world would be a better place if we tapped into the wisdom of our menstrual cycle' - don't create change. Bringing them into connection does.”
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The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
How to End Period Poverty and Create Menstrual Equity (Chelsea VonChaz)
31 Mar 2022
00:59:44
Period poverty has a huge impact on women, girls and people who menstruate all over the world. Too many people don’t have access to menstrual products, safe, hygienic spaces in which to use them. This isn’t just a potential health risk - it can also affect their education, well-being, and sometimes their entire lives.
One in 10 girls in Africa miss school because they don’t have access to menstrual products, or because there aren’t safe, private toilets to use at school. In India, approximately 12 percent of its 355 million menstruating people cannot afford menstrual products. In the US 23% of college students can’t afford to buy period products.
Thankfully, brilliant, passionate people like Chelsea Von Chaz, the founder of Happy Period are working to end period Poverty. Happy Periods distributes free period products to support 100,000 periods a year, through over 40 cities in the US.
We explore:
Why period products should be provided for free in all public bathrooms, just like toilet paper or soap, and especially in schools.
The long term effects of period poverty for women, girls and people with periods, and how this is amplified for Black, Indigenous and People of Colour as well as other marginalised people such as the LGBTQ+ community.
How we can all contribute to the movement to end period poverty and create menstrual equity, through education, improving access to period products, and advocacy for marginalised groups in need.
My Year of Menstrual Cycle Awareness (Louise Ryder)
24 Mar 2022
00:57:16
At the start of 2022, we invited you all to join us for a Year of Menstrual Cycle Awareness to enhance your vitality, creativity and leadership.
To inspire you on your journey, today we're sharing this story from Fertility Awareness Coach and Menstruality Leadership Programme graduate, Louise Ryder about how a year of menstrual cycle awareness transformed her love life, her work life... her ENTIRE life.
This is a deeply personal episode and we're grateful to Louise for sharing so openly about her relationship breakdown, how her cycle awareness supported her grief journey, and how she came to understand her Calling - to bring cycle awareness into the workplace, globally.
We explore:
- How to follow the instinctive nudges you receive from your cycle tracking to make big decisions in your life, even if they clash with your logical, rational mind.
- How menstrual cycle awareness can support you to navigate periods of deep grief, and trust in a better future to come.
- How a steady practice of menstrual cycle awareness cultivates a deep trust in ourselves, our knowing, our instincts and our purpose.
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The doors for for our 2022 Menstruality Leadership Programme close on March 31st. You can check it out here. https://www.redschool.net/menstruality-leadership-programme-2022
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The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
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Social media: Red School: @red.school (https://www.instagram.com/red.school)
How to Access the Power of Menstruation (Alexandra & Sjanie)
17 Mar 2022
01:05:15
It’s incredible to witness the stigma around menstruation shifting in our world, with period policies in workplaces and more and more people practising menstrual cycle awareness.
This de-shaming of the cycle, and especially our bleed, is opening up a gateway for an appreciation of the power of menstruation.
In this episode, Alexandra and Sjanie share stories, insight and teachings drawn from their map of the five chambers of menstruation, which are a powerful guidebook for people wanting to access and discover and embody the power of our periods.
We explore:
What gets in the way of us experiencing the ‘inner temple of menstruation’, and how can we support ourselves to manage life’s challenges so we can experience the power of our bleed.
How to follow the clues our body gives us, and slow down in the pre-menstruum and prepare ourselves to receive the power of menstruation.
Why it’s important to focus on receiving and surrender in menstruation, rather than taking action on your insights right there and then.
The Power, Beauty and Soul of Menopause (Omisade Burney-Scott)
10 Mar 2022
01:00:30
Menopause is often portrayed as a disaster waiting to happen. Omisade Burney-Scott is a leading voice in the movement to change the conversation about menopause, as a powerful initiatory phase of life.
Omisade is the creator of the Black Girl’s Guide to Surviving Menopause, a multimedia project seeking to curate and share the stories and realities of Black women and femmes over 50.
In today’s conversation, she discusses the menopause ‘remedies’ she’s learned through creating the guide; including the medicine of self-forgiveness, vision, self-acceptance, and living your passion.
We explore:
How our identities can shift during menopause and how to navigate the shape-shifting process of our bodies, minds and souls. Omisade talks about how her depression in menopause was “her body trying to save her life”.
The power of taking a creative, menopause sabbatical to rest and renew your spirit.
How to include all people in the movement to normalise menopause, so we don’t engage in erasure and marginalisation, particularly for the LGBTQ+ community.
Infertility, Cycle Awareness, Grief and Hope (Jennifer Robertson)
03 Mar 2022
01:03:31
Infertility can be heart-breaking, anxiety-inducing and full of grief. Research has shown that people experiencing infertility have the same levels of anxiety and depression as those with cancer, heart disease and HIV. In this episode, Fertility coach Jennifer Robertson offers solace and guidance drawn from her own seven-year journey to motherhood.
This one's for you if you’re looking for support, inspiration and friendship as you navigate infertility yourself, or if you’re working with people experiencing infertility, or since 1 in 6 people experience fertility challenges, if you’d like to play a supportive role for friends or family.
We explore:
Jennifer’s seven-year journey to create her family; through the infertility rollercoaster, multiple rounds of IVF, miscarriage, a long and challenging surrogacy process, and finally, an unexpected, natural pregnancy.
How each phase of the menstrual cycle presents different challenges on the journey through infertility, as well as different powers that can soothe and support us as we ride the rollercoaster.
How to navigate baby-making sex, manage pre-menstrual rage at the unfairness of intertility, and support ourselves through the profound grief we may feel each month when we bleed.
Befriend Your Inner Critic Through Menstrual Cycle Awareness (Alexandra & Sjanie)
24 Feb 2022
01:05:34
In this episode, Red School founders Alexandra and Sjanie get real, honest and vulnerable about the inner critic: what it is, how it shows up, its deeper purpose, and how to handle this challenging force in our lives.
Learning how to manage and harness the power of the inner critic is almost always a real game-changer for our Menstruality Leadership Programme participants. This powerful, inevitable character has the potential to paralyse us into inaction, whilst also being a key catalyst for profound growth and transformation… if we know how to negotiate it.
And the good news is we’ve got the menstrual cycle on our side here. A key teaching we share today is how to restore your critic to its natural home - the pre menstruum, so you can get in on your side, receive it’s feedback and use it to live your calling.
In the episode we explore:
What is the inner critic? How do we know when it has turned up? (ie: Unease, thoughts speeding up, clenched jaw, procrastination, addictive habits etc). And how can we track the inner critic through our body, thoughts and feeling state?
Guidelines for handling your inner critic, such as; naming it when it shows up, taking your own side, using humour as an antidote, and importantly, seeking professional help where needed.
How the critic shows up in menopause - the winter of our soul’s journey.
Our upcoming Inner Critic online workshop on Monday 14th March. You can find out more and take your seat at redschool.net/podcast/critic
Self Care in Menopause and Your Second Spring (Kate Codrington)
17 Feb 2022
01:01:18
What if we already know what will help us through menopause? What if it’s the self care we overlook, or don’t do enough off? What if we don’t need an expert to give us a top ten list to surviving menopause?
Instead of perpetuating the myth that we need to give our power to an outside authority in order to feel better, Kate Codrington, author of Second Spring: A Self Care Guide to Menopause wants to place the power firmly back in our hands as we enter the often disorientating, challenging menopause journey.
In this liberating, culture-shifting conversation, we explore:
What is our Second Spring? Who are we after menopause? And how can we harness the wisdom we’ve gained from previous cycles and transitions to navigate this shift?
How menopause asks us, very intensely, to come into relationship with ourselves and keeps at us until we begin a more subtle kind self care that happens in small moments.
Why we deeply need to re-write the menopause narrative, and colour in the vibrant, creative life that happens in our Second Spring.
Your Cycle = Your Key to a Purpose-Filled Life (Alexandra & Sjanie)
10 Feb 2022
01:04:15
What is the connection between your menstrual cycle and your purpose in life? Today we’re talking about the hidden agenda within the menstrual cycle. Each cycle month - if we’re paying attention - our cycles are bringing each of us home to our uniqueness, to our genius, to a life full of meaning.
In this episode, Alexandra and Sjanie, the founders of Red School, and authors of Wild Power, explore:
What is our Calling? How can we recognise it? And how does our menstrual cycle awareness practice help us to cultivate an intimacy with it, track it and learn how to embody it?
How the different phases of our life help us embody and realise our Calling, our ‘Wild Power’: starting with our first bleed at menarche, through our fertile years, and culminating at the great initiation of menopause.
How to ‘dock in’ to your Calling at menstruation, receive guidance about your next best steps and get clear about how to make them manifest in the world.
How to Create a Positive Menstrual Culture (Jane Bennett)
03 Feb 2022
01:05:10
Whether you’re a coach or educator who is working in the menstruality field, or you’re guiding a young menstruator in your life as they experience their first period, or you simply want to deepen your connection to your own cycle, you’re likely to encounter menstrual shame in yourself and others…
In today’s episode, we speak with one of the original pioneers in the menstruality field, founder of the Chalice Foundation and a Celebration Day for Girls, Jane Bennett about how to navigate this shame, so we can dignify the cycle and work together to create a menstrually positive world.
We explore:
How Jane learned to read her cycle in her 20s, got empowered to manage her cyclic wellbeing, and how this has positively impacted her life post menopause.
What Jane learned from gathering the stories and experiences of over 3000 women and girls about current attitudes to the menstrual cycle to write her book About Bloody Time: The Menstrual Revolution We Have to Have.
How can we each work in our own unique way to heal the menstrual taboo and play our role in the menstrual revolution.
147. Coming Home to our Wild, Instinctual, Embodied Wisdom (Michaela Boehm)
23 May 2024
00:58:28
Many of us in the Red School community have an intuitive longing to connect to the wild Feminine within us. As our guest today Michaela Boehm says in her book, The Wild Woman’s Way, we’re longing to connect to “the ancient part of us that knows the rising of the moon, and the movement of the tides. The instinctual, deeply connected aspects in each of us that has survived and thrived in the wilderness for many 1000s of years”.
Today we’re exploring how to rewild ourselves, how to come back to body and pleasure, and how to move from doing to being, amidst the challenges of modern life. Our guide is the wise and wonderful Michaela who is known for her work with high-performing individuals, including Oscar-winning actors, and Grammy-winning musicians.
She’s the founder of The Non-Linear Movement Method®, a powerful somatic release modality. Her work has recently been featured in Gwyneth Paltrow’s Netflix Show “Sex, Love & goop” and Will Smith’s bestselling memoir ‘Will’.
We explore:
The story of Michaela’s childhood longing to become a witch, her early years apprenticing with her mentor, and how she eventually became the holder of an ancient, female held, tantric lineage.
Why we need to be able to access both our ‘Go’ mode and ‘Flow’ mode as women living in our modern world.
The embodiment practices that enable Michaela to live a huge, wildly creative life without burning out.
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Receive our free video training: Love Your Cycle, Discover the Power of Menstrual Cycle Awareness to Revolutionise Your Life - www.redschool.net/love
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The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
A major transition happens in our bodies in the years that lead up to menopause, a kind of ‘second puberty’. Many people are left wondering if they’re going crazy as they experience a vast range of physical and neurological symptoms which can seem to come out of nowhere; including anxiety, depression, irregular or heavier cycles, heart palpitations, insomnia, night sweats, hot flushes, migraines, and breast pain.
Today the “Period Revolutionary” Lara Briden joins us to demystify perimenopause. Lara is a naturopathic doctor and the author of The Hormone Repair Manual, Every Woman's Guide to Healthy Hormones After 40, a practical guide to navigating the change of perimenopause and relieve symptoms with natural treatments such as diet, nutritional supplements, and bioidentical hormone therapy.
We explore:
The four phases of perimenopause and how to navigate them, including the ‘waiting room’ where your periods are very irregular, but you haven’t yet reached the 12 month point which defines the beginning of menopause.
The science behind this life transition and the hormonal events that can drive symptoms like irregular / heavier cycles, sleep disturbance and hot flushes.
The rescue prescription for peri-menopause and how it can help you to look after your whole being, and especially your brain and nervous system - Lara assures us that there is always a way to feel better.
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Registration is open for our 2022 Wild Power Immersion is now open. You can join here: https://www.wildpower.online.
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The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
Nourish Your Creativity through Cycle Awareness *Retreat Special* (Alexandra & Sjanie)
22 Jan 2022
00:41:54
Today we’re exploring how menstrual cycle awareness can serve your creativity, whether you’re writing a book, creating art, growing a garden, building a business, creating a family or bringing your creativity to any other aspect of your life.
This is episode six of our special series, The Wild Power Retreat, where we want to inspire you to enhance your vitality, creativity and leadership in 2022, through the power of Menstrual Cycle Awareness.
We explore:
How your inner winter (menstruation) can be an otherworldly space where you have more access to inspiration, capacity to dream and visionary ability to know your next creative steps.
The importance of the innocent foolhardiness that comes in inner spring, and how it activates your creative projects.
The benefits of the critical discernment that arrives in the pre-menstruum, and how your inner critic actually helps your creative projects to shine and become the best version of themselves.
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Registration is open for our 2022 Wild Power Immersion is now open. You can join here: https://www.wildpower.online.
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The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
In today’s fifth Wild Power Retreat special we explore how to work in a trauma-informed way as you track your cycle, so you can harness the healing potential of the practice safely.
*TW: This episode explores sensitive topics including sexual trauma and baby loss*
In the world of self development and healing, there can be a tendency to push ourselves too hard and too fast, in our desire to grow, expand our understanding and heal. Cycle awareness allows us to tap into the natural evolutionary impulse within us, which keeps us tuned into a pace that is truly healing for each of us.
Our guest today is trauma-informed yoga expert and menstruality mentor, Kitty Maguire. Kitty is a graduate of the Red School Menstruality Leadership Programme and is currently studying the Red School Menstruality Medicine Circle training.
We explore:
How holding yourself with tenderness and compassion in “the void”, just before you bleed has a healing impact for the rest of the cycle to come.
The challenge of cycle tracking when you’re having trouble conceiving, particularly in inner summer - the ovulatory phase, and how to heal from pregnancy loss.
Bringing humour to the judgmental, edgy parts of yourself that can be revealed in your inner autumn, premenstrual phase.
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Registration is open for our 2022 Wild Power Immersion is now open. You can join here: https://www.wildpower.online.
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The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net