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252 afleveringen, van nieuw naar oud
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151. Cyclical Wisdom for Heartbreak, Devastation and Rebirth (Sara Avant Stover)
20 juni 2024 · 59 min
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. Lees meer
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
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Social media:
Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.school
Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy
Sara Avant Stover: @saraavantstover - https://www.instagram.com/saraavantstover/ -
150. The Inner Autumn Powers that Awaken in our 40s (Alexandra & Sjanie)
13 juni 2024 · 1 uur 3 min
As with your early years of cycling, your later years of cycling are a transitional time. Lees meer
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
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Social media:
Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.school
Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy -
149. How to Move from Toxic Productivity to Honouring your Natural Rhythms (Tamu Thomas)
6 juni 2024 · 57 min
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. Lees meer
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
---
Social media:
Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.school
Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy
Tamu Thomas: @tamu.thomas - https://www.instagram.com/tamu.thomas -
148. How to Find the Gold in Your Menstrual Cycle Crossover Days (Alexandra & Sjanie)
30 mei 2024 · 1 uur 10 min
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. Lees meer
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
---
Social media:
Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.school
Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.… -
147. Coming Home to our Wild, Instinctual, Embodied Wisdom (Michaela Boehm)
23 mei 2024 · 58 min
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”. Lees meer
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
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Social media:
Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.school
Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy
Michaela Boehm: @micboehm77 - https://www.instagram.com/micboehm77 -
146. What we Know about the Power of the Menstrual Cycle (Alexandra & Sjanie)
16 mei 2024 · 1 uur 3 min
Today we’re talking about power, and it’s a word that comes up a lot at Red School. It features in both of Alexandra and Sjanie’s book titles, as well as the title of our new course coming up in June - Cycle Power. But what exactly do we mean by power? Lees meer
In our conversation, we explore how Alexandra and Sjanie define and understand power, why so many of us feel scared, confused or suspicious about power, and how the menstrual cycle wakes us up to our power.
So, if you’re longing to feel more agency and power in your life, if you notice yourself suppressing your power, and if you’re curious how menstrual cycle awareness can help you to claim your power and live it, this one is for you.
We explore:
Alexandra’s lifelong fascination with power, her current experience of power as an elder who has lived a lifetime of cycle-awareness, and her current power-edge; undefendedness.
Vulnerability as a gateway to healthy expressions of power; it allows us to feel, to know ourselves, to empathise and to move towards ‘power with’ rather than ‘power over’.
The importance of acknowledging and claiming the power that we do have, exactly where we are, and how the practice of menstrual cycle awareness helps us to notice and lean into this innate power.
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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
---
Social media:
Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.school
Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy -
145. Boundaries, Inner Mothering and the Menstrual Cycle (Bethany Webster)
9 mei 2024 · 59 min
The deeper we go with our menstrual cycle awareness practice, the more it can resource us as we heal our deepest wounds. Cycle by cycle, we step into deeper intimacy with our needs, which in turn enables us to take clumsy steps towards clarifying healthy boundaries. Lees meer
Today we’re speaking about a core wound which effects all of us, with the woman who first comprehensively defined the term a decade ago, Bethany Webster and the Mother Wound.
As Bethany says, the Mother Wound is the place inside us where we compulsively cause ourselves to be small, self-sacrificing and silent as a means of loyalty and love and approval with other people.
Today we explore how, if we’re persistent and committed on both the path of menstrual cycle awareness (or conscious menopause), and working with the Mother Wound, we can create boundaries which can help us to feel less disconnected and more like we belong to this messy, old life.
We explore:
How your deep ‘why’ can help you to hold clear boundaries when you face criticism.
Bethany’s three tips for holding strong boundaries with challenging family members.
How menstrual cycle can help us to discover what we really want (rather than what we’re making ourselves do) so that we can ride off the power of these desires to courageously set necessary boundaries.
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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
---
The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
---
Social media:
Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.school
Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy
Bethany Webster: @themotherwound - https://www.instagram.com/themotherwound/ -
144. Decolonising Wellness & Ayurvedic Menstrual Wisdom (Jyoti Rani)
2 mei 2024 · 55 min
Today we’re exploring a vital topic to all of us who are looking to evolve, wake up and live in a way which is honouring and life-affirming - decolonisation. Lees meer
When you look at the modern wellness industry in western countries, you can see that it borrows heavily from the ancient traditions of cultures from around the globe - from turmeric lattes, to cacao ceremonies, to yoga classes, to burning sage.
There’s an important, growing, decolonisation movement which is asking all of us to look more deeply and critically into our own practices, and to ask ourselves how we may be causing harm, and to work to correct it.
Our guest today is at the leading edge of this movement, and in our conversation she shares generously about her personal decolonising journey with us, so that we can all work towards - as she says in the intro to her brilliant ‘Decolonising Wellness’ podcast - appreciating, not appropriating.
Jyoti Rani is a Menstrual Cycle Coach who practices, teaches and embodies a decolonised approach to wellness - rooted in inclusivity, diversity and an honouring of indigenous wisdom.
She is also a Yoga Teacher and a big part of her decolonising journey has been reclaiming her Indian heritage and the rich wisdom of Yoga and Ayurveda - “the knowledge of life”, India’s ancient healing system - so as an added bonus, we begin and end the conversation learning about Ayurvedic menstrual health.
We explore:
Dozens of ways to begin decolonising your mind, your life and your wellness practices.
How we can decolonise our menstrual cycle - by stepping away from cookie cutter templates of how our cycles ‘should look’ and instead cultivating an intimacy with the cycle we have.
What Ayurveda recommends we eat on our period
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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, ema…
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143. How to Practice Cycle Awareness when your Cycle is Unpredictable (Alexandra & Sjanie)
25 april 2024 · 1 uur 6 min
Do you have a menstrual cycle that doesn’t fit within the archetypal menstrual cycle maps? And are you - or someone you know - wondering how to practice cycle awareness when you have unpredictable, irregular cycles and are never sure when your period is going to arrive? Lees meer
When cycles become unpredictable it’s natural to feel uprooted, frustrated, powerless, confused, and even experience a sense of betrayal from your body.
Today, Alexandra & Sjanie explores the three main reasons why cycles become irregular, how Menstrual Cycle Awareness invites us to exercise the muscles of inner listening, sensing and knowing, so that new kinds of embodied, cyclical intelligence can be revealed within us, and importantly, how to actually practice cycle awareness when you are off all the usual maps.
We explore:
How to cultivate trust in your body and your cycle process, especially if you’re feeling lost, angry and experiencing self-blame in the face of your unpredictable cycle.
How giving attention to all of life’s rhythms and cycles can support us when our menstrual cycles are unpredictable; including your circadian rhythms, the lunar phases, your overall life cycle and the creative processes you’re inhabiting (particularly in the years running up to menopause).
Why life’s big transitions can cause irregular cycles, the deep initiatory wisdom at work inside the disturbance, and guidance for how to work with life’s ‘void’ moments.
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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
---
Social media:
Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.school
Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy -
142. Your Womb, Your Menstrual Cycle and Expressing Your Truth (Alycia Camacho)
18 april 2024 · 58 min
How easy do you find it to express your truth? On the podcast today, we’re exploring the connection between the womb and the voice, why so many of us feel blocked in our expression, and how we can literally talk and sing our way back to our power, so that we can use our voices to create the world we want for ourselves and future generations. Lees meer
Our guest is Alycia Camacho - a spoken word artist who is passionate about supporting people to activate their own voices. She’s also a Hormonal Health Coach and the founder of Embracing Cycles and has taken a long, challenging and ultimately liberating healing journey with emotionally and physically painful cycles for the past decade.
Alycia shares what has supported her to transform from being the shy kid who didn’t believe she had anything of value to say, to becoming an artist with a powerful impact today - as you’ll hear for yourself from the excerpts of Alycia’s spoken word art we share throughout the episode.
Trigger warning: We talk about Alycia’s abortion experience in depth in the first half of the conversation, so take care of yourself if that isn’t a topic that is good for you to connect with at this time.
We explore:
How Alycia’s cycle healing journey - including a traumatic abortion experience - ultimately led her to a profound freedom of expression.
Some simple, practical, accessible ways to begin using your voice as an instrument.
How Alycia’s is reclaiming her indigenous lineage, and how we can work with our wombs and voices to connect to our ancestors, and bring our unique medicine into the world.
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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
---
Social media:
Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.school
Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.i… -
141. The Sacred Reckoning of Menopause (Elayne Kalila Doughty)
11 april 2024 · 1 uur 1 min
We’ve all been there at some point. A shocking challenge disrupts our lives - a loss, a health crisis, a great disappointment - and we become the caterpillar in the cocoon (ie: we turn to mush). Lees meer
But - as those of you who have been through it may well attest to (!) - nothing turns us into primordial goop like the initiation of menopause.
Today I have the rare honour of speaking with a guest who is not only mid-menopause-initiation but has also been deeply involved in the menstrual movement for two decades, and can therefore share a transmission from the leading edge of this work.
Psychotherapist, author, activist, and ordained Priestess, Elayne Kalila Doughty, has been negotiating the transition of menopause for a fifth of her life - the past ten years… today she shares the story of her menopause ‘reckoning’ - the core-wound truth she was forced to face when she was hospitalised in October last year, and began an intense inner and outer healing process.
We explore:
Why menopause is designed to slow us down, and how this is in service the the dismantling of the inner patriarchal structures within each of us.
How Elayne’s menopause process began with her experience of baby loss at 46, and what she's learned from being an unmothered daughter about how to mother herself (and our planet).
A hilarious moment - at around 35 minutes - where we meet Elayne’s brilliant East London cockney grandmother, Olive, and hear about her feisty menopause reckoning, when she was done being compliant. HOLY YES!
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Receive our free Wise Power Retreat menopause conversation series: www.redschool.net/wise-power-retreat
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The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
---
Social media:
Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.school
Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy
Elayne Kalila Doughty: @elayne.kalila - https://www.instagram.com/elayne.kalila -
140. Cyclical Sex & How Cycle Awareness Deepens Intimacy (Alexa Bowditch)
4 april 2024 · 59 min
Today we’re tackling two taboo topics at once. Firstly, sex - an area which many people find charged, challenging, confusing and sometimes shameful and we’re pairing it with menstrual cycle awareness - another topic so often shrouded in shame. Lees meer
Our guest and brilliant guide is Alexa Bowditch - the founder of sexandlove.co and a cycle aware woman who has a gift for welcoming people into their sexual expression so that sex can feel more safe, intimate, fulfilling and even epic.
We look at the sex challenges that can arise in each inner season of the cycle, and how to work with them to cultivate more intimacy with yourself, and your lover and move towards the kind of sexual experiences you’re longing for.
We start by exploring how Alexa’s personal journey to becoming a sex coach who is now widely known and celebrated as That Sex Chick - and how she’s actually having less sex now than ever before, largely due to her current pregnancy, and how she’s navigating this with her husband...
We explore:
How to have a variety of conversations about creating more intimacy with your lover - including actual scripts for sharing vulnerable longings.
Ideas for approaching intimacy in inner autumn and winter, to support you to get your needs met (including how to move through shame if you’re someone who loves menstrual sex).
How to use sex to heal and feel more safe, both with yourself and in partnership.
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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
---
The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
---
Social media:
Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.school
Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy
Alexa Bowditch: @thatsexchick - https://www.instagram.com/thatsexchick -
139. Why we Need to Re-Write the Story of our First Periods (Alexandra & Sjanie)
28 maart 2024 · 56 min
Our first period - or our ‘menarche’ - is a big initiatory moment, which sets us on the path of menstruality - the path of awakening to our Calling. Lees meer
During menarche we are each birthed from the ‘womb of our family’, into the womb of our menstruating years. We’re coming into the holding, guidance and wisdom of our menstrual cycle, month after month.
In today’s conversation we unpack what menarche means, why it is such a pivotal life transition, and how we can re-write our own experience of the chasm of unknownness and exposure that we must each navigate as we make this transition of menarche, so we can each claim our uniqueness and honour our true nature.
We explore:
The deep connection between menarche and self worth, and how re-writing menarche can liberate a profound sense of self-belief and self-confidence.
Guidance for how to do a personal menarche ritual (including what to do if your experience of your first menstrual cycle was a let-down, a non-event, or a shaming experience).
We share many different menarche stories, including how Sophie’s reframed her ‘non-event’ first period, how a menarche ritual helped Louise prepare for menopause, and how Sjanie is holding her daughter in the tender approach to her menarche.
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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
---
The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
---
Social media:
Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.school
Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy -
138. Indigenous Cycle Wisdom and Menstrual Rituals (Dr Cre Dye)
21 maart 2024 · 57 min
When Dr Cre Dye was in her early 20s, she began to feel called to explore the power of her cycle - or as she describes it, her moon, flowers and power. Lees meer
Over our series of two conversations, we’re exploring the cycle wisdom she has learned, unearthed and received over the last three decades through the lens of her relationships with her two Grandmothers; today her Granny of hidden First Nations descent, and in part two, her African American Mama.
Dr Cre Dye 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. She is also part of the Red School team as our Menstruality Justice and Inclusion Educator, facilitating inner change for social change on our Menstruality Leadership Programme, supporting us all to work with the power of the cycle in a way that is just and inclusive.
We explore:
Why women gathered together in Moon Lodges, in many indigenous cultures to listen for the dreams of bleeding women, and how Cre has followed this lead to embody the sacred through her cycle and her body.
A wide range of indigenous menarche rituals, including the Anishinaabe rite of passage known as the Berry Fast, the Navajo Kinaalda ceremony and the Hupa Flower Dancers coming-of-age ceremonies.
What Cre has learned from her research about how to honour and trust her menstruating body, and guide her clients to honour the moon cycle.
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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
---
The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
---
Social media:
Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.school
Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy
Dr Cre Dye: @credyeyoga - https://www.instagram.com/credyeyoga -
137. How Ancient Mythology Guides and Roots us on our Cyclical Heroine’s Journeys (Dr Sharon Blackie)
14 maart 2024 · 58 min
We’re thrilled to be welcoming mythologist and author, Dr Sharon Blackie back to the podcast today, to take another journey into the mythic imagination together. Lees meer
We explore how the ancient myths of our land weave us into connection with ourselves as natural, cyclical creatures, to our place in the world, and to the wisdom of our ancestral lineage.
Many of you will have read and loved Sharon’s 2016 book, ‘If Women Rose Rooted’, and today we look at three of the ancient stories through a menstrual cycle awareness / conscious menopause lens, including;
What the ‘Well Maiden’ shows us about how to act as a bridge to restore the Feminine in our world, particularly by cultivating the skill of listening to the wisdom of our dreams.
How the wild character of ‘Mis’ can guide us to find solace in the wilderness, particularly during the phases of our cycles and lives which can be full of grief and are often misunderstood by "civilisation", like the premenstruum and menopause.
How the story of the ‘Selkie’ can inspire us to reclaim our wildness, our authenticity and our sense of belonging.
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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
---
The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
---
Social media:
Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.school
Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy
Sharon Blackie: @sharonblackiemythmakings - https://www.instagram.com/sharonblackiemythmakings -
136. What’s Going on with Pre-Menstrual and Menopause Rage? (Alexandra & Sjanie)
7 maart 2024 · 59 min
Today we're having a frank and feisty chat about one of the hot topics in our community - premenstrual and menopausal RAGE. Lees meer
Have you ever been driving in your car and felt compelled to wind the windows up and actually roar because you felt so wildly angry on day 24?
Or, if you’re navigating menopause, have you experienced your own ‘burn-the-house-down’ moment when your fury threatened to destroy everything you’ve built so far in your life?
What is going on with this rage? Why are so many of us feeling it? And what is it trying to tell us?
In this episode:
- Anger as an indignation of soul, bringing us closer to our essence.
- Sjanie, Alexandra & Sophie's personal journeys with rage.
- How to work with rage in the menstrual cycle by practising the menstruality Leadership skill of 'holding the tension'.
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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
---
The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
---
Social media:
Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.school
Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy -
135: How to Feel Better in Perimenopause - REPLAY (Dr Lara Briden)
29 februari 2024 · 1 uur
Today we’re actually replaying Dr Lara Briden's first episode with us, How to Feel Better in Perimenopause, because it’s the most popular episode we’ve ever shared, listened over 3500 times, and shared widely, and because we receive more questions about perimenopause than anything else. Lees meer
In the conversation Lara demystifies this major transition that happens in our bodies in the years that lead up to menopause, when many people are left wondering if they’re going crazy, experience symptoms which can seem to come out of nowhere; including anxiety, depression, irregular cycles, insomnia, night sweats, hot flushes, migraines and more.
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 pint 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.
Lara's 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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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)
Lara Briden: @larabriden (https://www.instagram.com/larabriden) -
134: Natural Approaches to Menstrual Pain, PMS and Contraception (Dr Lara Briden)
22 februari 2024 · 59 min
What causes menstrual pain? Why do periods go missing? Why do we get PMS and how can we treat it naturally? What is happening in our bodies when we're on the pill? What is a good alternative to the pill? Lees meer
We hear questions like these all the time from our community, and in today’s episode we’re talking with a great ally of Red School, Dr Lara Briden who answers all of these questions and more. The conversation is an amazing resource, and one that we hope you’ll share with your friends who may be experiencing challenges in these areas.
Our guest, Dr Lara Briden is the author of the Period Repair Manual: Natural Treatment for Better Hormones and Better Periods. She’s also the author of a second book - the Hormone Repair Manual: Every Woman’s Guide to Healthy Hormones after 40.
She has treated 1000s of women with menstrual health symptoms, and has a wealth of wisdom and experience as well as an amazing capacity to make complex health topics and challenges seem simple.
We explore:
Why ovulation is so important, the common false narrative that the pill can regulate the cycle, and Lara’s five favourite alternative forms of contraception.
Lara’s lifestyle and diet approaches for menstrual pain - they have supported 60-70% of her patients to relieve their pain. (And when to know if you could be dealing with endometriosis).
Underlying health factors that can cause PMS, and how to make it a thing of the past through natural approaches.
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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
---
Social media:
Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.school
Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy
Lara Briden: @larabriden (https://www.instagram.com/larabriden) -
133: How The Menstrual Cycle Changed Our Lives (Alexandra & Sjanie)
15 februari 2024 · 1 uur
Around 20 years ago, in London, Sjanie was living her life with great abandon. Bold, confident and out there…she was invulnerable. Lees meer
But she had no menstrual cycle - she had been on the contraceptive injection for seven years.
It was only when she started to have intense pain after orgasm that she suddenly sensed something was missing and that she needed to get her cycle back… and today we hear the amazing story of what happened once her cycles returned.
We also hear the full story of how the menstrual cycle also changed everything for Alexandra, including her long journey to heal debilitating menstrual pain, and the immense gifts she received along the way, by surrendering to the power of menstruation.
We explore:
What Sjanie’s mentor Maggie meant when she said that Sjanie was living life with her gloves on?!
What happened when Alexandra’s partner held her through the worst of her pain, even as she was cursing the patriarchy.
And how the intimacy with the menstrual cycle awakened a profound sense of purpose for both Alexandra & Sjanie.
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Join our Cyclical Wisdom Quest - Feb 20th - 22nd: www.redschool.net/quest
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The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
---
Social media:
Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.school
Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy -
132: How to be a Cycle-Aware Activist As a Highly Sensitive Person (Dorcas Cheng-Tozen)
8 februari 2024 · 1 uur 3 min
Today's episode is for you if you’re curious about how to maintain healthy boundaries when you are working to create change for a cause that you deeply care about. It’s especially for you if you self-identify as a highly sensitive person. Lees meer
Many people come to cycle awareness because they are feeling burnt out from a system that pushes them beyond their natural limits. Our guest today, Dorcas Cheng-Tozen is someone who knows burnout intimately, and - luckily for us - has devoted herself to a study of how we sensitives can find our way to contribute to creating a more just and beautiful world, which doesn’t break us in the process.
Dorcas Cheng-Tozen is an award-winning writer, editor, speaker, and communications consultant whose work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal and today we’re diving into her brilliant new book: Social Justice for the Sensitive Soul: How to Change the World in Quiet Ways.
We explore:
The "Activist Ideal" and the peer pressure that exists within activist circles to be ‘on’ all the time, willing to sacrifice mind, body and soul on the altar of the cause.
A wide variety of activist approaches and roles for sensitive, introverted empaths; including research, art as activism, record-keepers, builders, and what Dorcas calls relational activism.
The ‘seasons of activism’ and how to find your own natural ebb and flow as you work to increase the love, compassion and justice in the world.
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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
---
The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
---
Social media:
Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.school
Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy
Dorcas Cheng-Tozen: @chengtozen - https://www.instagram.com/chengtozun/ -
131: 100 Ways that Cycle Awareness Transforms Your Life: Part Two (Alexandra & Sjanie)
1 februari 2024 · 55 min
From finding oneself again through perimenopause, to helping to move through depression, to transforming communication with loved ones, today we’re exploring real life stories of how menstrual cycle awareness has changed the lives of our listeners. Lees meer
We explore:
How discovering cycle awareness supported Melanie to move through a bout of severe depression to a sense of deep alignment with her true self.
Erin’s journey from feeling lost in perimenopause to returning home to herself, making sense of the process and finding grounded clarity.
How cycle awareness has brought Rebecca back into a sense of belonging to the earth, and it was such a life-changing realization (and a gift) that she’s made it her life's work.
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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
---
The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
---
Social media:
Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.school
Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy -
130: 100 Ways that Cycle Awareness Transforms Your Life: Part One (Alexandra & Sjanie)
25 januari 2024 · 59 min
It walks us home to our own natural rhythms. It keeps us close to what truly matters to us. It’s a innate self esteem builder. It even prepares us for menopause… Lees meer
Menstrual (and lunar) cycle awareness are a huge game-changer, and powerful spiritual practices for our wild times. But the truth is that most of us live in cultures that value productivity over rest and profit over health - so we all need inspiration to stay committed to our personal cyclical rebellion.
That’s why today’s Menstruality Podcast episode is devoted to all the ways that menstrual cycle awareness can transform our lives. (And ok, we may not have quite reached 100, but we easily could have given a couple more hours!)
We explore:
How cycle awareness helps us to pace our our bodies, energies and unique nervous systems, rather than allowing the culture around us to dictate who we have to be.
When we lean into our own cyclical experience we help to deshame the menstrual cycle and menopause, and instead dignify and honour them as powerful sources of wisdom.
Cycle awareness as a foundational wellness practice, bringing soothing and ease, and helping us clarify and hold our boundaries.
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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
---
The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
---
Social media:
Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.school
Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy -
129: Wild Power #8: Creating a New Life-Affirming Menstrual Story (Alexandra & Sjanie)
23 januari 2024 · 37 min
Welcome to the final episode in our Wild Power Bonus series - today we're creating a new life-affirming menstrual story. Lees meer
It’s time now for each of us to fully reclaim the power of our menstrual cycle. To do that we have to get smart in a world that doesn’t yet recognise or celebrate it. In this episode we share some of our key Red School cycle savvy tips and strategies for restoring the cycle’s wisdom and creating a new life affirming menstrual story.
In this episode you will:
- Get to know your four undercover agents for a cycle savvy life
- Learn practical ways to create a cycle centred life
- Hear us talk about the crucialness of women and all people who menstruate gathering together to change the world.
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Registration is now open for our 2024 Menstruality Leadership Programme. You can explore the curriculum 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
---
Social media:
Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.school
Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy -
128: Can Menstrual Cycle Awareness Teach us How to Live Sustainably on Earth? (Lazola MaDuka)
18 januari 2024 · 53 min
Our guest today, Lazola MaDuka lives a homesteading life on a biodynamic farm amongst giant mountains and trees in South Africa. Her life is utterly wedded to the land, the weather and the seasons - her land tells her what it needs and when. Lees meer
Lazola is also a Period + Menstrual Cycle Embodiment Coach, a Red Tent Facilitator and a certified Menstruality Mentor - she’s a graduate of the Red School Menstruality Leadership Programme. So, in our conversation today, she connects the dots between her relationship to the seasonal landscape around her, and her relationship to the cyclical landscape within her own body.
Along the way she illuminates how menstrual cycle awareness can be a pathway home to our body’s ever-changing needs, as well as to creating sustainable ways of living personally and collectively on our earth.
We explore:
What the soil and compost has taught Lazola about the power of inner winter and how to claim rest as a natural birthright.
How cultivating more intimacy with both our inner seasons and the seasons in nature around us creates a vivid sense of belonging (and what Lazola’s baboon neighbours have taught her about belonging together!).
Lazola’s vision for how the practice of cycle awareness could transform the way we live on earth.
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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
---
The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
---
Social media:
Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.school
Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy
Lazola MaDuka: @wombflow_ - https://www.instagram.com/wombflow_ -
127: Wild Power #7: How to Enter the ‘Temple’ of Menstruation (Alexandra & Sjanie)
16 januari 2024 · 39 min
Welcome to our penultimate Wild Power conversation series. These ‘round-the-kitchen-table’ chats with Alexandra and Sjanie were first released when we published Wild Power: Discover the Magic of the Menstrual Cycle and Awaken the Feminine Path to Power. They unpack the book’s teachings through powerful, practical and funny real-life stories and examples. Lees meer
Episode seven is about how to enter what we call the ‘Temple’ of Menstruation. Inside each of us lies a hidden ‘temple’, a place of bliss, love and deep belonging and today we reveal how your menstrual cycle prepares you to enter this ‘temple’ each month at menstruation.
In this episode you’ll:
Discover how you’re wired for bliss, love and ecstasy when you bleed
Learn how your menstrual cycle prepares you enter your inner temple at menstruation
What you can do to get a full blast of this blessing
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Registration is now open for our 2024 Menstruality Leadership Programme. You can explore the curriculum here: https://www.menstrualityleadership.com
---
The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
---
Social media:
Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.school
Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy -
126: Healing Our Trauma, Awakening Our Power (Kimberly Ann Johnson)
11 januari 2024 · 1 uur 9 min
Our guest today is Kimberly Ann Johnson, who has been working hands on in integrative women’s health and trauma recovery for a decade with 1000s of women, as a Somatic Experiencing™ Practitioner, sexological body worker, educator, and author. Lees meer
She’s the author of many books including The Call of The Wild, and her work has been featured in the NY Times, Forbes and Vogue. She’s a sought-after teacher it feels like an extra special treat that she opened up and shared generously about her journey to understand the impact of her own trauma experiences in her body.
We explore the teachings of Call of the Wild book, about what we can all learn about the healthy predator expression of the jaguar in the journey to heal trauma. As Kimberley says on her website, “if you can learn to speak your body’s language, and transmute trauma into positive, reparative experiences in the present, if you can make the shift into acting from a stance of your deepest, truest self … everything changes.”
We explore:
Kimberley’s menstrual cycle journey in the years running up to menopause; how she has navigated her symptoms and what the journey has taught her about resting, movement and how to tend to herself at this phase of life. .
How having a baby and navigating the post-partum period transformed her life.
Kimberly’s fresh approach to nervous system repair, and how women can learn to step out of the prey role that we are conditioned into - and which puts us in a default fawn, freeze or flee nervous system response - and awaken their inner healthy predator.
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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
---
The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
---
Social media:
Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.school
Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.… -
125. Wild Power #6: The Inner Seasons of the Menstrual Cycle (Alexandra & Sjanie)
9 januari 2024 · 31 min
Welcome to our sixth Wild Power conversation. These ‘round-the-kitchen-table’ chats with Alexandra and Sjanie were first released in 2017 when we published Wild Power: Discover the Magic of the Menstrual Cycle and Awaken the Feminine Path to Power. Lees meer
They unpack the book’s teachings through powerful, practical and funny real-life stories and examples.
Episode six is all about the inner seasons of your menstrual cycle - where the initiatory action takes place. We call it the workhorse of your journey to come home to your Wild Power.
In this episode you’ll:
- Learn about the inner seasons of your cycle and the natural powers they hold
- How to get into gear with them to capitalise on those powers
- And how awareness of the inner seasons can reveal your strengths and vulnerabilities
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Registration is now open for our 2024 Menstruality Leadership Programme. You can explore the curriculum here: https://www.menstrualityleadership.com
---
The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
---
Social media:
Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.school
Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy -
124. The Five Chambers of Menstruation (Alexandra & Sjanie)
4 januari 2024 · 1 uur 2 min
Happy New Year from all of us at Red School 🥳 May your entry into 2024 be full of everything you most long for. Lees meer
This conversation with Alexandra and Sjanie today is especially for you if you’re very much in inner winter mode, we’re exploring a topic which we’ve been wanting to since the podcast began, which is the deep spiritual power of menstruation, and how it unfolds in five distinct phases.
Alexandra starts by sharing how she came to understand the five chambers of menstruation starting with a story with a lover in Stockholm, then together with Sjanie they map out the profound gifts of these chambers as a gateway to the 'inner temple' of menstruation.
We explore:
What to do if you want to explore the five chambers of menstruation, but are dealing with menstrual pain and symptoms - including Alexandra’s story of how the chambers were a key part of navigating her extreme menstrual pain.
The one key practice that opens up the way for the five chambers, even if you can only carve out 10 minutes to be with your menstrual process.
How to work with these five phases in other ways - such as the turn of the year that we’re all currently experiencing, as well as during the great inner winter of menopause.
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Join us for our free, online, New Year retreat, "Your Menstrual Cycle, Your Oracle" on January 11th - https://www.redschool.net/oracle
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The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
---
Social media:
Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.school
Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy -
123. Wild Power #5: The Two Energy Dynamics of the Menstrual Cycle (Alexandra & Sjanie)
19 december 2023 · 33 min
Welcome to number five of our bonus Wild Power series. These ‘round-the-kitchen-table’ chats with Alexandra and Sjanie were first released when we published Wild Power: Discover the Magic of the Menstrual Cycle and Awaken the Feminine Path to Power. They unpack the book’s teachings through powerful, practical and funny real-life stories and examples. Lees meer
Today we're diving deep into an exploration of the "cosmos" inside you. We reveal the basic pattern of this cosmos - the two energy dynamics (the way of the Feminine and the way of the Masculine) - that form the underpining of your cyclical life journey.
In this episode you’ll:
Learn about the energy dynamic of the menstrual cycle
Discover the two creating currents that underpin your initiatory journey through the menstrual cycle
And how you can come into right relationship with both the Masculine and Feminine within you
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Registration is now open for our 2024 Menstruality Leadership Programme. You can explore the curriculum here: https://www.menstrualityleadership.com
---
To get a free copy of Wild Power to gift to a friend, we are offering a buy one, get one free until 21st December: https://www.redschool.net/product/wild-power-book-bogof
(We’re also offering the same deal with our new menopause book, Wise Power: https://www.redschool.net/product/wise-power-book-bogof )
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The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
---
Social media:
Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.school
Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy -
122. How Cycle Awareness Holds us in Dark Times (Alexandra & Sjanie)
14 december 2023 · 1 uur 2 min
We just passed the darkest night of the year here in the northern hemisphere - the dark moon before the solstice, and it feels like a good moment to explore how cycle awareness can hold us during dark times; personally, collectively, and seasonally. Lees meer
Like many of you, we’re grieving the suffering and conflict in the world, and doing what we can to educate ourselves, take meaningful action and contribute to building peace.
So, as Sjanie says beautifully in this episode, the menstrual cycle is such a profound teacher in the mystery and the darkness - and if you’re going through a dark night of the soul personally at the moment, or are needing sustenance as we navigate these dark times collectively, we hope this episode is balm for your heart.
We explore:
What Alexandra learned from painful encounters with her inner critic just before menstruation. (She would always find herself sitting in the bath with her inner critic at the other end tearing strips off her! And feeling strong self-rejection just before the ecstasy of her bleed).
How the wisdom of the second half of the menstrual cycle held Sophie through a recent time of personal grief and hopelessness.
How we can each yield to this phase of darkness as we complete the cycle of this year, so that we can be deeply regenerated and receive new visions at the beginning of the next annual cycle.
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Please join us on for our free New Year retreat: Your Menstrual Cycle: Your Oracle on January 11th https://www.redschool.net/oracle
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The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
---
Social media:
Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.school
Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy -
121. Wild Power #4: The Initiatory Journey from Menarche to Menopause (Alexandra & Sjanie)
12 december 2023 · 36 min
This is our fourth bonus Wild Power conversation. These ‘round-the-kitchen-table’ chats with Alexandra and Sjanie were first released when we published Wild Power: Discover the Magic of the Menstrual Cycle and Awaken the Feminine Path to Power. They unpack the book’s teachings through powerful, practical and funny real-life stories and examples. Lees meer
In the fourth installment of this bonus series, we explore the initiatory process that is unfolding from menarche to menopause, leading you ever deeper into embracing your Wild Power. We illuminate how this initiatory path is working you - an amazing hidden intelligence that is leading you Home.
In this episode you’ll:
Learn about this initiatory journey takes us from ‘me’ consciousness to a participatory ‘us’ consciousness.
Find out how to reframe your experience of your first period (menarche), if it was slightly less that perfect.
Discover the steps of this initiatory path that helps you to fully face yourself, understand your Calling and grow into new levels of maturity.
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Registration is now open for our 2024 Menstruality Leadership Programme. You can explore the curriculum here: https://www.menstrualityleadership.com
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To get a free copy of Wild Power to gift to a friend, we are offering a buy one, get one free until 21st December: https://www.redschool.net/product/wild-power-book-bogof
(We’re also offering the same deal with our new menopause book, Wise Power: https://www.redschool.net/product/wise-power-book-bogof )
---
The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
---
Social media:
Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.school
Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy -
120. My Journey from Self Doubt to Cycle Aware Creativity (Chloe Isidora)
7 december 2023 · 58 min
Chloe Isidora is the creator of My Moon Power, a set of essential oils to help you connect to yourself and your inner seasons. She's also the author of 'Sacred self-care: everyday rituals for a more joyful and meaningful life' and is a graduate of our Menstruality Leadership Programme and has a deeply devoted practice of menstrual cycle awareness. Lees meer
We invited her to the podcast to explore her creative process over the past several years, through a cycle-aware lens. It’s a beautiful, inspiring and very relatable journey from self doubt, uncertainty and low self esteem, through a series of unexpected twists and turns to a wildly creative life.
We explore:
The surprising underground spiritual influences that have sustained Chloe’s connection to herself, her womb wisdom and the soul of the project.
How to practice letting go into deep self-acceptance throughout the inner seasons, as a way to prepare for the great letting go at the bleed.
How Chloe is navigating the bumpy, challenging ‘birthing’ moment of this project; including holding herself through increased visibility and staying true to the visions through moments of slower momentum.
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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
---
The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
---
Social media:
Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.school
Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy
Chloe Isidora: @chloeisidora - https://www.instagram.com/chloeisidora -
119. Wild Power #3: Your Cycle as Your Path to Power (Alexandra & Sjanie)
5 december 2023 · 33 min
Today we're excited to share our third bonus Wild Power conversation. These ‘round-the-kitchen-table’ chats with Alexandra and Sjanie were first released when we published Wild Power: Discover the Magic of the Menstrual Cycle and Awaken the Feminine Path to Power. They unpack the book’s teachings through powerful, practical and funny real-life stories and examples. Lees meer
In this episode we dive into the detail of how to live menstrual cycle awareness as a spiritual practice - your path to power - on a day to day basis, and the magic that unfurls from that.
In this episode you’ll:
Discover how to restore your cyclical inner ecology
Learn the four steps to charting your cycle as your spiritual practice
Understand how to harness the powers of your cycle to boost your health, increase your creativity and productivity and restore sacredness to your daily life
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Registration is now open for our 2024 Menstruality Leadership Programme. You can explore the curriculum here: https://www.menstrualityleadership.com
---
To get a free copy of Wild Power to gift to a friend, we are offering a buy one, get one free until 21st December: https://www.redschool.net/product/wild-power-book-bogof
(We’re also offering the same deal with our new menopause book, Wise Power: https://www.redschool.net/product/wise-power-book-bogof )
---
The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
---
Social media:
Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.school
Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy -
118. Our Wombs and Cycles as Gateways to Reclaiming our Ancestral Wisdom (Tara Brading)
30 november 2023 · 1 uur 6 min
Five years ago, when women’s educator, storyteller and songstress, Tara Brading was burnt out from the hustle culture of the non-profit world, she dropped everything and went on a pilgrimage to Ireland to connect with her Irish ancestral lineage. This trip changed her life, setting her on a path of studying mythology and honoring the earth based feminine wisdom left in her blood and bones. Lees meer
This episode is for you if you feel a call to reclaim the wisdom of your ancestors, to return to a way of living on earth which is balanced, to heed the call to the wild that you perhaps (like me) hear each cycle month when you bleed or during your menopause process…
It’s also for you if you are committed to decolonising your mind and your life as part of your leadership path. I’ve been lucky to have had conversations with several Black and Indigenous educators for the podcast who have clarified the connection between reclaiming the cyclical wisdom of our wombs and bodies, and dismantling colonial systems of oppression (such as Latham Thomas in episode 77, Asha Frost in episode 63 and Hinewai Waitoa in episode 87). With Tara, I explore how, particularly as white women of European descent, reconnecting to our ancestral lineage goes hand in hand with the journey of decolonisation.
In our conversation we explore;
What the ancient myths and stories of Ireland and England tell us about the connection between women’s bodies, and the earth, as well as the leadership role we claim when we recognise that we embody the land (and how our cyclical nature gives us a direct line to this remembrance).
How to reconnect to the wisdom of your ancient, ancestral bloodlines when you menstruate.
The connection between our wombs and our voices and how to work with song as a way to connect with our ancestors.
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Registration is now open for our 2024 Menstruality Leadership Programme. You can explore the curriculum here: https://www.menstrualityleadership.com
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To get a free copy of Wild Po…
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117. Wild Power #2: Cycle-Awareness as Your Spiritual Practice (Alexandra & Sjanie)
28 november 2023 · 37 min
While there are many wonderful spiritual practices available today, the one thing we are not taught is that we have our own unique way or practice encoded in our being that changes everything. In this episode we restore menstrual cycle awareness as the original spiritual practice, and how it can support each of us to evolve, every day. Lees meer
This 2nd bonus episode in our Wild Power series was recorded when Red School founders, Alexandra & Sjanie first launched their Wild Power book - and have a buy one get one free offer on the Wild Power book until 21st December, if you’d like to buy one and get one for a friend or as a gift for a loved one over the holidays.
(We’re also running the offer for our menopause book, Wise Power).
See below for the link to get your free copy.
In this episode you’ll:
Discover how our bodies come coded with our own original spiritual practice
Learn how we came to discover the power of the female body
And how you can begin to activate this uniquely Feminine practice
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Registration is now open for our 2024 Menstruality Leadership Programme. You can explore the curriculum here: https://www.menstrualityleadership.com
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To get a free copy of Wild Power to gift to a friend, we are offering a buy one, get one free until 21st December: https://www.redschool.net/product/wild-power-book-bogof
(We’re also offering the same deal with our new menopause book, Wise Power: https://www.redschool.net/product/wise-power-book-bogof )
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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
Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy -
116. How Menstruation Holds the Secrets for Successful Leadership (Alexandra & Sjanie)
23 november 2023 · 1 uur 2 min
At the heart of the menstruality leadership path is the power and wisdom of menstruation. Slowly over time, bleed by bleed, we have the opportunity to experience a profound kind of homecoming when we menstruate - we remember who we are and what we’re about. This sense of purpose and meaning can fuel us up for another cycle of leading with heart, power and courage in our lives. Lees meer
In today’s conversation we look at three secrets for successful leadership that can emerge from conscious, rested menstruation (however much we’re able to do that within the structures of our world and the responsibilities of our lives) through our own personal stories, menstrual dreams and trying to articulate the often wordless and deeply mysterious knowings we’ve experienced during our bleed time.
We explore:
How Alexandra’s menstrual pain in her 30s opened her up to her life’s purpose (and how orgasmic menstruation eventally became for her).
Our favourite menstrual dreams and what they taught us about ourselves, our worth and our leadership.
Why the first chamber of menstruation ‘separation’ is so key to accessing the leadership wisdom within menstruation; separating from the world, but also from what we have previously known ourselves to be, so that we can be fully available to encounter the mystery and infinite possibilities available to us.
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Registration is now open for our 2024 Menstruality Leadership Programme. You can explore the curriculum here: https://www.menstrualityleadership.com
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To get a free copy of Wild Power to gift to a friend, we are offering a buy one, get one free until 21st December: https://www.redschool.net/product/wild-power-book-bogof
(We’re also offering the same deal with our new menopause book, Wise Power: https://www.redschool.net/product/wise-power-book-bogof )
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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.instag… -
115. Wild Power #1: The Power of Loving Your Cycle (Alexandra & Sjanie)
21 november 2023 · 41 min
For centuries we’ve been taught our menstrual cycle is a liability, something we must ignore or reject. In this special bonus episode we’re going to upend that old story and celebrate the power of loving your cycle or at least making tentative steps towards befriending it, and the inner resources you unlock when you do that. Lees meer
This conversation was recorded when we first launched our Wild Power book - and have a buy one get one free offer on the Wild Power book until 21st December, if you’d like to buy one and get one for a friend or as a gift for a loved one over the holidays. (We’re also running the offer for our menopause book, Wise Power). See below for the link to get your free copy.
In this episode you will:
Learn how the menstrual cycle is our #1 resource for self-care
Explore how it is your natural rhythm of power for living a wholesome, creative life
How loving your cycle can lead you to loving yourself more
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Registration is now open for our 2024 Menstruality Leadership Programme. You can explore the curriculum here: https://www.menstrualityleadership.com
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To get a free copy of Wild Power to gift to a friend, we are offering a buy one, get one free until 21st December: https://www.redschool.net/product/wild-power-book-bogof
(We’re also offering the same deal with our new menopause book, Wise Power: https://www.redschool.net/product/wise-power-book-bogof )
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The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
---
Social media:
Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.school
Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy -
114. How Yoga Nidra can Support Menstrual and Menopause Rest (Tracee Stanley)
16 november 2023 · 59 min
Today’s episode is for you if - like me - you long to feel more calm, rested, peaceful and grounded throughout your days. Both because it feels better, but also because you know the gold that lies in this state of restedness; for your health, your relationships, your worklife, and your leadership. Lees meer
Our guest is Tracee Stanley, the author of the bestselling book Radiant Rest, and the recently published The Luminous Self. She is a post-lineage yoga teacher, inspired by more than 20 years of study, and she’s devoted to sharing the wisdom of yoga nidra, rest, meditation, self-inquiry, nature as a teacher, and ancestor reverence.
We chat about how to set up a practice that allows for rest inside a mainstream culture that says we’re not worthy unless you’re pushing through; whether that’s pushing through grief, illness, exhaustion or menstruation and menopause. Through it all, Tracee illuminates how deep rest, peace and truth are our birthright.
We explore:
The importance of unveiling the messages we received about the value of rest from our parents and ancestral lineage; particularly for Black, Brown and Indigenous people.
How the practice of Yoga Nidra is a way to know our true self, as well as a powerful act of rebellion in a culture that wants us to keep endlessly grinding
The story of Mataji - a female yoga teacher in her 90s, who was famous for never sleeping, and became one of the first people to teach the wisdom of yoga nidra.
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Registration is opening tonight for our 2024 Menstruality Leadership Programme. You can explore the curriculum 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
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Social media:
Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.school
Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy -
113. The Menstruality Leadership Wisdom that Saved Alexandra’s Life (Alexandra & Sjanie)
9 november 2023 · 1 uur 6 min
When Alexandra began to experience monthly outrageous period pain in her 30s, she made a radical decision. She thought “my body is talking to me, and I’m going to listen”. On the podcast today she reflects on this moment as a pivotal step into leadership… one that led to the development of everything that Red School has created. Lees meer
The pain forced her to give space to her bleed time, which allowed her to slowly, cycle-by-cycle discover the spiritual powers of menstruation, and cycle awareness as a pathway to leadership.
It was the starting point for many of the cycle-inspired leadership skills that we now teach on our Menstruality Leadership Programme - it’s exciting because the doors for 2024 are opening again later this month - and through our conversation, we illuminate how the menstrual cycle and menopause can awaken us to a new (timeless) kind of consciousness which inspires a way of living and leading that is life-affirming, inclusive, and rooted in belonging.
We explore:
How menstrual cycle awareness, matresscence and menopause are calling us home to our power, and the responsibility that comes with it - a responsibility to care for all of Life.
The ‘ghost self’ that we each carry around with us - the ‘me I should be’, how it drains our power and how we can disengage from it, so that we can accept our humanity, our vulnerability and our messiness as a pathway to leadership.
What we mean when we say that menstrual cycle awareness and consciousness menopause awaken a leadership which is in service to the feminine.
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The doors for our 2024 Menstruality Leadership Programme will open later this month. If you're curious to learn more about it, please join us for a free introductory webinar: How to Channel the Powers of Menstruality to Step into Your Leadership. You can register 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
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Social m…
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112. Why Do I Feel like I’m Losing it in Menopause? (Alexandra & Sjanie)
2 november 2023 · 59 min
Menopause awakens us to the vulnerability of our humanity. The structures that have long held us safe begin to crack, and we lose the mechanisms we’ve used to hold ourselves in place; our bodies change, our shifting hormones rewire our psyches, our long held identities are shaken. Lees meer
It’s no wonder we can start to feel that we’re “losing it” - all the layers of certainty that we’ve come to depend on are being deconstructed; from our health, to our careers, to our marriages, to even the deep meaning of our lives.
The radical idea we explore in today’s conversation, is that this process of ‘losing it’ is a necessary - albeit very challenging - part of the menopause spiritual initiation. If you’re in the middle of this messy process, may this episode offer some supportive context, meaning and even solace to you today.
We explore:
Why your mind needs to be decommissioned for the spiritual awakening of menopause to happen. It’s not that you’re going mad, rather you’re finding a new kind of intelligence within you; a heart-mind knowing.
The fear that arises as our minds change in menopause - particularly living within a consensus culture that values the mind above all and is rooted in a millennia-old collective denial and suppression of our intuitive gifts.
The punchline of menopause… and it’s not what you might expect…
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Join us for Menopause: The Great Awakener - an online course (with lifetime access) at www.redschool.net/menopause
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The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
---
Social media:
Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.school
Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy -
111. How Menopause Initiates us into our Truth (Chameli Ardagh)
26 oktober 2023 · 1 uur
Today we’re carrying on a conversation about the initiatory power of menopause which we’ve been having with Chameli Ardagh, the founder of Awakening Women, since the beginning of her menopause process. Lees meer
Last year she emerged from her challenging process of descent and is sharing the fruits of her brutal, yet beautiful menopause underworld journey; which included divorce, the reshaping of her Calling, and the death of her son.
Chameli Ardagh is a yogini, mystic and Goddess Wisdom Keeper. Her work is rooted in earth honoring, devotional women’s spirituality and goddess centered tantric yoga. One of the things I most love about her is her gift for storytelling and ability to bring ancient myths alive for our modern world.
We explore:
How the dismantling and transformation of menopause demands that we break age-old contracts based on self-sacrifice and learn to set new boundaries, as well as how these shifts ripples forwards and backwards in time.
How cultivating compassion with ourselves is not optional through the menopause process. It is needed to embrace even the parts of us that are totally out of alignment with who we want to be.
What happened when Chameli took herself on a honeymoon with herself during her early menopause dismantling, to a wild Hawaiian beach with a pod of dolphins!
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Join us on for our Menopause: The Great Awakener course, starting Nov 3rd: 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
---
Social media:
Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.school
Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy
Chameli Ardagh: @awakeningwomen - https://www.instagram.com/awakeningwomen/ -
110. Dismantling Old Identities and Rebirthing Yourself in Menopause (Lisa Schrader)
19 oktober 2023 · 1 uur 2 min
Our guest today, Lisa Schrader, is the founder of Awakening Shakti and the author of Getting Started with Tantra and has impacted the lives of thousands of women for over a decade as a workshop leader, author, speaker and coach. Lees meer
She joined us for our live menopause course - Menopause: The Great Awakener - last year and today, she shares how the course supported her through the 3-year post menopause dismantling-shedding-rebuilding re-birthing she’s currently emerging from.
It’s been a deep process of dismantling old identities and recovering from a lifetime of over-achieving, pressure, performance, and people pleasing, to awaken the Queen archetype and a new kind of sovereignty.
In our conversation we explore;
Her long process of dismantling her inner “Overachiever” that was born when she was chosen to be the first Tantra and sacred sexuality teacher to appear on Oprah.
How her garden has helped her reset her nervous system and attune to the new pace that menopause was inviting her into, slowing right down to reclaim her natural rhythm.
What has helped her to navigate her body image demons, including how she is embracing pleasure and allowing her sensual connection with nature to guide her.
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Registration is now open for our menopause online course: Menopause: The Great Awakener - the early bird price is available until Oct 25th here - 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
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Social media:
Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.school
Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy
Lisa Schrader: @awakeningshakti - https://www.instagram.com/awakeningshakti -
109. Signs that You’re Healing In Menopause (Dr Arianna Scholes-Douglas)
12 oktober 2023 · 56 min
My guest today is one of many people who felt like she was losing her mind as she entered menopause. Lees meer
Dr. Arianna Sholes-Douglas is an integrative healthcare practitioner and visionary in the field of women’s health. She has practiced medicine for three decades and is the author of The Menopause Myth: What Your Mother, Doctor, and Friends Haven’t Told You about Life after 35
The menopause was intense for her, and inspired her to reassess everything in her life, including her long career in medicine, eventually making the decision to transform her work life and start a practice supporting women in menopause with an integrative, holistic approach.
In our conversation:
- We walk through Dr Arianna's 'signs you’re healing in menopause' and how they showed up for her personally, including the patterns that she broke through menopause, how to find our way to self forgiveness, and how to set boundaries.
- How our brain chemistry changes in menopause and how this is reflected in the shift from people pleasing to ‘what do I need?’.
- Dr Arianna's 'Jewels for the Journey' and the sacred role of menopause in our lives.
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Join us for a free webinar on October 18th: How Menopause Awakens Your Power - 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
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Social media:
Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.school
Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy -
108. How to Know When You’re in Menopause? (Alexandra & Sjanie)
5 oktober 2023 · 1 uur
There's lots of confusion about how to define menopause and the years running up to it, making it difficult for people to clarify where they're at in their menopause process. Lees meer
At Red School, we stand for a reclamation of our cyclical experience in a world which denies and demonises our cyclicity. We see this menopause confusion as a symptom of the way we have been shut out of our true experience as cyclical beings. In order for us to reclaim the place we’re in, both in our menstrual cycles and the larger cycles of our lives, we need to be able to feel, name and claim our own experience, as well as having a dignified and meaningful context for it.
So, in today’s episode Alexandra and Sjanie walk through the Red School way of contextualising menopause, through the lens of the seasons of your menstruating years—including the autumn of your menstruating years (‘The Quickening’), the Menopause Hinterland in the approach to menopause, and the long inner winter of the five phases of the spiritual initiation of menopause.
We explore:
Some of the signs that you’ve arrived in menopause - including the increasing feeling that you’re living in a parallel universe!
A different way to understand the cycle disturbances that can happen in our 40s - which many refer to as perimenopause (which itself has multiple definitions, depending on who you’re speaking to).
How to navigate the tricky period when your cycles are unpredictable or breaking up - the menopause ‘hinterland’ - before you enter fully into the menopause initiatory journey, which has its own order or holding.
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Join us on Instagram for 13 days of Menopause Power, starting Oct 5th - https://www.instagram.com/red.school
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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
Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy -
107. The Healing Power of Making Your Own Menstrual Art (Jasmine Alicia Carter)
28 september 2023 · 59 min
Those of us who are passionate about the power of menstrual cycle awareness can feel a little crazy in our world. Not only does our culture overlook the power of the menstrual cycle, but it continues to perpetuate an atmosphere of shame around all things menstrual. Lees meer
That’s why I love meeting women like Jasmine Alicia Carter.
Jasmine is a Menstrual Artist and Feminine Empowerment Mentor. She’s been painting with her period blood since 2016. It’s become a sacred art and ritual that has changed her life and the lives of thousands of women across the globe, through the budding Menstrual Art Movement!
In our conversation we explore:
How Jasmine paints with her blood, and the healing, de-shaming power of working creatively with your blood.
What happened when Jasmine’s menstrual art went viral via an article in the daily mail - how she transformed the hate she received into fuel for her practice.
The ripple effect of her menstrual art, for her son, partner, family and the wider community gathering around the menstrual art movement.
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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
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Social media:
Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.school
Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy
Jasmine Alicia Carter: @jasminealiciacarter - https://www.instagram.com/jasminealiciacarter -
106. How to Thrive as Neurodivergent, Cycle-Aware Changemaker in a Linear World (Lucy Pearce)
21 september 2023 · 1 uur
When Lucy Pearce published her book about the power of the menstrual cycle, Moon Time: Harness the ever-changing energy of your menstrual cycle 11 years ago, she was one of very few people talking about periods, and it was one of the first books in print to speak about the Red Tent movement. Lees meer
Over the past decade her loyalty to her cycle has helped her as a multi-passionate creatrix to write twelve books, found Womancraft - a paradigm-shifting publishing house, edit and publish over 50 books, teach courses, create beautiful art and parent three children.
Five years ago she received an autism diagnosis, and in our conversation today we explore how this had helped her to understand herself far better, have tools to care for herself and manage her life as a cycle-aware creative in an all-too-linear world.
We explore:
How to process a neurodivergence diagnosis, renegotiate your life and relationships and create a protective bubble to safeguard yourself.
How Lucy navigated years of crippling shame which shut down her creativity entirely, by saying yes to her creative expression in small ways.
The truth that real creativity happens outside of our comfort zones, and how we can lean into the stretch to meet what is truly authentic, and unearth that which has been shut down within each of us.
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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
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Social media:
Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.school
Lucy Pearce: @lucyhpearce - https://www.instagram.com/lucyhpearce
Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy -
105. What the Sea can Teach us about Cycle-Aware Creativity (Dr Easkey Britton)
14 september 2023 · 59 min
Today I’m speaking with someone who knows in a very embodied way how to ride the creative waves of cyclical living… mainly because she knows how to ride actual ocean waves, and in some cases we’re talking 30 foot waves. Lees meer
Easkey Britton spearheaded women’s big-wave surfing in Ireland and is a five time national champion surfer as well as being a marine scientist, holding a Doctorate in Environment and Society and an activist - she was named an ‘Agent of Change’ by Surfer magazine.
She’s the author of two beautiful books about our interconnection with water, Saltwater in the Blood and Ebb and Flow. She was writing her first book when she joined Alexandra and Sjanie for the Menstruality Leadership Programme and it is woven throughout with celebration of her own bodily cycles.
We explore how water supports Easkey through the cyclicality of her creative process including,
The importance of honouring the ebb, the out-breath, the inner winter. She interviews indigenous wisdom keepers throughout the book, and here she shares Lakota skier and activist Connor Ryan’s teachings about how it’s the ebb that allows us to tap into a state of flow.
How the cycles of water in our world can anchor us in the natural cyclical wisdom that has been at pay since the beginning of life on earth. The water you drink today has always been present - it may have been drunk by a tyrannosaurus rex!
What Easkey’s cycle has taught her about how to hold the tension as she wrote her second book, and how surfing in the ocean has helped her to trust the creative power of showing up, and being present.
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Join our new Your Creative Power online course. We start on September 21st: www.redschool.net/creativity
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The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
---
Social media:
Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.school
Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy
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104. How Your Cycle Inspires Creativity even when Life is Getting in the Way (Alexandra & Sjanie)
7 september 2023 · 58 min
Today on the podcast we’re chatting about a tried-and tested antidote to the biggest creative challenge most of us face, a challenge which came through in dozens of versions of this question in our inbox during our summer creativity series…How can I make space for my creative expression when there’s so much else going on in my life? Lees meer
Do you relate? Perhaps you find yourself making exciting creative plans, only to get caught up in the flurry of day-to-day life and never really get started? Maybe you are wary of diving fully into a creative project—amidst everything else you’re caring for in your life—out of fear that you’ll burn out (again)?
Today’s podcast explores the deep, underground magic of cycle awareness, and how it helps us to understand everything we experience in our lives as part of the biggest creative act of all—being an ever-evolving human in an often-challenging world.
We explore:
The incredibly creative shift that happens when we dare to trust that everything in our life has meaning - even the things that feel that they’re getting in the way (the job, the caring role, the responsibilities etc)
How cycle awareness grounds us in who we truly are, which helps us develop new emotional skills, inner discipline and physiological muscle for all the creative projects that will call us in the future.
What Sjanie has learned from her many careers; from working in a potato factory to being a graphic designer, to being a hypnotherapist focused on fertility, to growing Red School.
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Join our new Your Creative Power online course and save £100 before Sep 10th: www.redschool.net/creativity
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The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
---
Social media:
Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.school
Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy -
103. The Power of Trusting the Mystery for Creativity and Motherhood (Rebecca Campbell)
31 augustus 2023 · 56 min
What to do when you find yourself in a creative void, either because life has thrown you a curve ball, or you find yourself feeling totally uninspired? Our cycles teach us to trust the fallow times, but that’s a tall order in a world that celebrates productivity above all else. Lees meer
Our guest today is author, Rebecca Campbell and she’s a great person to have this conversation for many reasons, but especially because she’s personally navigated many periods of creative void in order to bring forth creations which have touched the lives of 100s of 1000s of people, including several books, courses, a new podcast and a mystery school.
The deeper reason for the richness of this conversation is that Rebecca is a being who fully embraces the mystery. She defines herself as a mystic, and her calling is to weave the sacred back into everyday life.
We explore:
Why it’s ok to suck at the beginning of any creative process, and how staying safe is an antidote to creativity.
How to hold ourselves through big creative leaps, like leaving your job, or starting something brand new.
The journaling process that helps Rebecca move through imposter syndrome, and how trusting the mystery helps us to find the courage to share our voice.
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Join our new Your Creative Power online course and save £100 before Sep 10th: www.redschool.net/creativity
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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
Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy -
102. The Sacred Role of Your Inner Critic for Cycle-Aware Creativity (Alexandra & Sjanie)
24 augustus 2023 · 58 min
As cycle-aware leaders, nurturers and creatives we have a unique opportunity at our fingertips. We have access to an amazing inner technology for managing our inner critic. Lees meer
(You know… that ever-present and frankly infuriating voice inside that likes to remind you that you’re not good enough, that freezes you into analysis paralysis, and that shames you into playing small.)
In today’s podcast we explore how to restore this inner critic to its natural home in the cycle - the pre-menstruum - and work to put boundaries in place to contain it. Because, when it’s in its rightful place, the inner critic can actually become a creative ally.
We explore:
The truth that your critic will never become your best friend. It absolutely won’t! But it can become a life-bringing force, when you know how to relate to it.
How to navigate the tricky terrain of your inner critic, and offer some guidelines for putting it back in its natural place, so you can experience its sacred role in your creative process.
Our upcoming Inner Critic workshop on September 14th: Your Inner Critic: Your Gateway to Your Creativity where we will learn how to relate to it in a more generative way, and liberate our creative energy.
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The doors are now open for our Your Creative Power course, starting in September. You can find out more and take your seat here: www.redschool.net/creativity
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The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net
---
Social media:
Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.school
Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy