The Menstruality Podcast - 108. How to Know When You’re in Menopause? (Alexandra & Sjanie)

Episode Date: October 5, 2023

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.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. ---Join us on Instagram for 13 days of Menopause Power, starting Oct 5th  - https://www.instagram.com/red.school---The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email [e-mail]---Social media:Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.schoolSophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy

Welcome to the Menstruality Podcast, where we share inspiring conversations about the power of menstrual cycle awareness and conscious menopause. This podcast is brought to you by Red School, where we're training the menstruality leaders of the future. I'm your host, Sophie Jane Hardy, and I'll be joined often by Red School's founders, Alexandra and Sharni, as well as an inspiring group of pioneers, activists, changemakers and creatives to explore how you can unashamedly claim the power of the menstrual cycle to activate your unique form of leadership for yourself, your community and the world. Hey, thank you for tuning in today. Thank you for being part of the community gathered around this podcast. And I'm really excited to explore this today, how to know when you're in menopause, because there's lots of confusion out there about how to define menopause

and the years running up to it and it makes it difficult for people to clarify where they're at in their menopause process. So in today's episode Alexander and Sharni walk through the Red School way of contextualizing menopause through the lens of the seasons of your menstruating years. So this includes the autumn of your menstruating years or the quickening as Alexandra and Sharni call it, the menopause hinterland which they explain in the approach to menopause and then the long inner winter of the five phases of the spiritual initiation of menopause. So we explore so much today including some of the signs that you've arrived in menopause. So we explore so much today, including some of the signs that

you've arrived in menopause, such as the increasing feeling that you're living in a parallel universe. So let's get started with how to know when you're in menopause. Well, it's really good to see you both today. And I know that there's a lot of passion flowing for both of you around this conversation. There is. How are you both doing today? I woke up feeling an interesting equilibrium. You know, I was actually aware of this conversation.

And in the middle of the night, I was awake and had some more clarity about it. And I managed to get back to some satisfying sleep and sleep and I'm sort of feeling like an equilibrium which got slightly shocked when Shani and I started getting passionate together I lost my cool but I'm trying to bring my cool back I've got the forces of the full moon sort of killing me yeah which can be a little bit interesting. I'm also feeling a contradiction, Alexandra, because on one hand I feel super yawny. I'm like day 16, it's autumnal, I'm tired.

I just want to yawn all the time. And at the same time, what we're going to be speaking about is something that ignites such vivacity in my system that um it's like i'm here i'm here for this conversation yawns and all and i'm just ahead of you on day 20 and i'm feeling my autumnal fire and depth and a real desire to go deeply into the heart of things, you know, which is really characteristic of this space. So I'm really, really up for this conversation. really where most of the world is right now which is really in a state of confusion around menopause and understanding when you're in menopause when you're not in menopause um we hear often from people in our community you know one of the questions we get is am I in menopause or am I in perimenopause and there are these you know there's confusion around the medical definition of menopause and

what that means for people's experience there's a ton of confusion around what perimenopause means so can we start there and maybe can you can you name some of the confusion that's there because of the like the current definitions or lack of definition? Yes, Sophie. And actually, even as you're saying that, I notice I feel a combination of rage and real sadness because of the amount of confusion that's out there. And I feel also in the stream of that confusion. And I think one of the reasons that upsets me so much

is because what we stand for at Red School is the reclamation of our cyclical experience through our menstrual cycle, but also through the cycles of our lives. And the confusion for me is a sign of just really how shut out of our own experience so many of us are. And in order for us to really reclaim the place we're in, in our cycle or in the cycles of our lives, we need to be able to really feel where we are and be able to name it and claim it and have a context for what's happening, a context that's dignifying and meaningful. And I think that there's a sort of orientation trauma in our systems because for so many years,

our menstrual cycle has been denied. So we've had to live at odds with ourselves. So we are so used to having this experience of the world says we should be this way. We're trying to operate according to a kind of linear way of being. And yet we're experiencing something different on the inside. And that sort of schism, so many of us have just shut down our own experience in order to fit in or in order to feel normal or in order to sort of cooperate with how things are. And there's a kind of trauma in our system around this. And I feel it's become a set point in a way that we're really wanting to reclaim. And menstrual cycle awareness is how we reclaim this. Every day we practice cycle awareness, we are coming back to ourselves.

We're coming back to the truth of our experience. We're coming back to the place that we're in and we're making it right. We're sort of claiming this is normal. This is right. This is as it should be, even if the world doesn't like it, or even if we're told it's less than to be tired on some days. Every time we practice cycle awareness, we are doing this work of reclamation. And Alexandra said a phrase to me this morning, which just rang bells through me. I thought, yeah, that's it. She said, menstrual cycle awareness is the journey of self-authorizing.

It's the way we shift from outer reference to inner reference, in other words, to our own knowing. So that's really what I'm caring about when I see and hear and feel the confusion around this kind of life phase, 40s 50s so much confusion in that particular area of life it's so beautiful what you've said there and it feels huge that what we're standing for is a reclamation of our cyclical experience and in order to do that we need to be able to name it to claim it to dignify what we're feeling but we've shut down this process to cooperate with the status quo and that's a key driver in all of this confusion because there's this systemic trauma of being cut being cut off from our cyclical experience and it's showing up now in this

menopause that there's no self-anchoring that would actually hold us into our own knowing of what's happening, of where we are and what we're needing. Yeah. So there are a few reasons for why we find ourselves in this place of confusion and disorientation and we've just named some. I think another thing that's adding to the confusion is the medical definitions which for us don't accurately describe the transitional nature of our experience they point to signposts physiological markers which of course are significant but they do not encompass the full breadth and depth, the transition that our psyches must go through in order to negotiate this change. So that's definitely something that's adding, I think, to the confusion. So, you know, maybe we should just name what those medical definitions are as we understand them. Great. Yes. So the medical definition of menopause

is if you've gone 12 months without having a period, then you are now post-menopause. And I'm not sure if this is the medical definition, but the term perimenopause we hear is being used in a number of ways as well. So some people are using the word perimenopause to describe the flux and change that happens around the cessation of one's periods, that time immediately around cycles ending. Some people are using the word perimenopause to describe the slow and gradual hormonal shift that starts late 30s, early 40s, that culminates in menopause. So that whole sort of decade of life. And also sometimes the term perimenopause is sort of used as a diagnosis for physical hormonal disruptions. Like if someone is experiencing some kind of hormonal shift or change or symptoms, they are sort of diagnosed with

perimenopause. So it's used as in that way as well. And those are all quite sort of diagnosed with perimenopause. So it's used in that way as well. And those are all quite sort of radically different ways of using the word. Again, very confusing. It is confusing. What I see in the world is a sense of gratitude and relief that there is some kind of name to describe the distress, challenge, upheaval of cycles changing in the 40s. Like there's this, there's a kind of revolution

going on. Yes, I'm in perimenopause. At last, the world is acknowledging that something really big is going on inside me, you know, for fuck's sake, finally. And that's important. And because of everything you named at the beginning, Sharni, it's good and bad, or it's helpful and not helpful. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's really good. Yeah. It's really good in the way that something very significant is happening in that decade leading up to menopause. And I want to get into this because it is a very significant, powerful time that I think has been, again, denied and demonized and misunderstood. So I think that's where people are feeling the relief. But to conflate that with menopause, I think, is doing us all a disservice. There are two very distinct things going on.

So let me sort of just talk about the arc of menstruality, just to give a kind of bigger picture context here. So our menstruating years from menarche through to menopause, that span of years, we go through seasons, just as we go through inner seasons every menstrual month. So the first decade, if you like, up until about 28, we're in the spring of our menstruating years. And we say more about what this phase, you know, is characterized by, we write about this in Wise Power, I won't get into that now. But if you know your cycle, you kind of have a flavor for what the energies are at that time. And if you've lived it, you well know as well. Then you come into the summer of your menstruating years which is sort of roughly late 20s coming up to I would say 40 42 I think 42 is quite a significant age actually and age is significant I want to say in all of this age is really significant so that's the summer of your

menstruating years and then in your early 40s you shift gear into the autumn of your menstruating years. And then in your early forties, you shift gear into the autumn of your menstruating years. And that is of course where I am. And then finally the winter of your menstruating years, which is menopause. So menopause is like an inner winter. So if we kind of hold that framing that context it just I feel really helps us to feel into how distinct these different times are and that matters because every phase of our menstruating years prepares us for the next and every phase is necessary. So this is where it's really important is the autumn of our menstruating years is preparing us for the winter of our menstruating years for menopause. So we don't want to just lump that all in one camp and lose out on really what's going on in this time. And one way that you've spoken about it that's really

helpful for me is to really be with the phase that you're in because there's something wanting to be fulfilled in that on that psycho-spiritual initiatory becoming our full selves thing we talk about that something is wanting to be completed in that and to skip up, to skip over or to conflate it. You're missing out on something very meaningful, necessary. Precisely, Sophie. That is absolutely key. That word fulfilled. There's something that has to be fulfilled and if we conflate it with menopause then we're losing out on something very vital in our developmental journey that that if it's fulfilled really sets you up well for menopause itself for the initiatory dynamic of menopause i think of the 40s as um well we've given it the name the quickening because there is this high you know it's almost

like you start to get a little whiff of the finiteness of your life. You know, and when we're young, we're going to live forever, of course. And then you come into your 40s, you go, oh, oh, okay. Maybe, you know, what is my life about now? You know, it's suddenly something starts to get more real. So you're starting to ask deeper questions about your life and the meaning of your life and um you're so that's really really important and you're also coming into a time

of mastery that there's there's a real growing kind of authority that can happen and I really think of our 40s as uh it's real good healthy egoic stuff of feeling like you are in charge of your life that you are um you know nailing it and claiming it and creating it and there's a sense of capacity in your system. And there's a real, I want to say, you know, a kind of pleasure in one's own agency in our 40s. I feel that those are the things that we need to be fulfilling. And yes, those existential questions are going on. And we're also discovering our limits and the and the more you move through your 40s you are you will discover your boundaries more and more clearly and um i.e you'll you'll you'll find you don't have the same kind of energy you had when you were in your 30s but and and the

upside of that is you're there's a kind of discipline when you feel the edges of your energy you're feeling the edges of your boundaries and that's another kind of wakening up to yourself a discipline around holding yourself and and caring for yourself so it is this wonderful energy of coming into a kind of a mastery of who one is and taking pleasure in that and a knowing in that. Yeah, that's the fulfillment that's needing to happen in those years. And my concern is that when people um because people are yeah the reason people are feeling relief with this term perimenopause is because they're feeling as you said uh difficult

things coming up and this is part of the um evolution process you're going through of meeting that yeah i think um what you've said is really beautiful alexandra and um it's what you're naming here is how we're coming into power um and so we also really need to acknowledge that the process of coming into power is a very disruptive one we come into power through meeting our own edges through facing our own wounds you know our own history through um challenge through enormous creative tension um through all sorts of stuff that rocks our world that's actually the power that we're coming into our 40s is not the same as the power of our 20s. My God, we are unstoppable in our 20s, but that is a power of agency. The power in our 40s is really the power of the feminine. And we're having this sort of

brilliant little training ground in the autumn of our years, because there is an enormous initiation into that power that happens at menopause. So we're slowly acclimatizing ourselves to being with actually disruption, being with vulnerability, being with complexity and polarity and challenge. We're having a huge workout on learning how to really step into maturity bit by bit. And when I say that word, what I mean is to be with what is. That's my current definition of maturity how to really be with what if is actually i'll add to that and trust it yeah that's my definition of maturity how to be with what is and trust it um so when uh when people are experiencing huge amounts of disruption in their 40s, in the autumn of the years, which I am too, let me tell you, I'm not sure many people go unscathed. It is the nature of this life phase.

It's like it's not wrong if you're feeling like deeply disturbed. It's not wrong. It's as it should be. Okay, that's really important and when it gets named as a something I think we all feel a little more dignified in that but what I would love to do is really name it as the autumn of our menstruating years really name it as the preparation as the quickening and I would love us to think of what we know about the pre-menstruum and what we know about the inner autumn and all the ways that's been demonized and denied and all the ways we've been

taught not to go there and really recognize that that's what's happening in our 40s, just on a much more amplified level. So it's the pre-menstruum sort of day in, day out. And I said that to you, Sophie, I think we met, it must've been, well, it was about seven or eight days ago. And I said to you, I'm day eight, feeling great. And it's quite like a novelty to really feel that spring energy. Because I, like since then, I've just been feeling autumnal. You know, there's such an overlay of these autumnal powers going on.

And yeah, it's a thing. And it's such a thing that we're going to do a whole episode on it we are in a couple of weeks you know it's such a thing and we can really get into the different challenges that people are facing the health things the emotional pieces a purpose like it's all there we hear it from our community all the time so we will get into all of that yeah it's good that you've acknowledged we're going to do a whole piece on this i really want to just really grasp here uh following from what shani's been saying about this being the autumn of our menstruating years and the autumn really starts to root you deeper into your own authority. And it's a sort of psychological capacity you're expanding into,

you're growing, to hold more complexity, to be able to hold more contradiction, if you like, to hold more fullness of who you are, you know, the light and the shade. So it is, I really want to hold onto this word mastery and within there, within your forties, there's both the sort of breaking down of something slowly, but there's also this thing of fulfilling something of real. I want to say that healthy ego stuff.

I want everyone in their 40s to have a real sense of pleasure in their own sort of capacity and who they are. And but it's a it's a capacity that is rooted in being worked. You know, Shani's just described these autumn phases and the is rooted in being worked. You know, Sharni's just described these autumn phases and the way she's being worked. And it's that being worked by something that is getting you to step up to yourself more and more and to trust yourself. Yeah. And that sets us up for menopause

okay so we've really named the process of the quickening and we'll do our episode about the quickening and the next part of the menopause journey is the hinterland you call it it the menopause hinterland. So I'm just going to read your definition of this and then we can explore how people can understand if they're in this part of their process. So as the quickening intensifies towards the end of your 40s and into your 50s, there's a point where your cycle starts breaking up. Perhaps you're having periods every few months or your cycle length shifts or bleed changes. We should add that for some their cycle remains regular to the end or perhaps you're experiencing some of the classic menopause symptoms such as hot flushes. With these penultimate bleeds each one one could be your last, and there's no knowing when menstruation will be gone forever.

It's a tricky time. You don't have any of the usual markers of your cycle, yet you haven't been fully seized by menopause itself, which has its own order. Once you are actually in menopause, you'll have dropped into another holding, that of the menopause you'll have dropped into another holding that of the menopause process itself we call this vulnerable transition the menopause hinterland we could say the menopause hinterland is a gradual reckoning but the dawning reality of menopause and your readiness to in it yeah i like that yes it's a process and you're doing a kind of inner work of noticing and pacing how your being is shifting on all levels, physical level, your emotions, your brain, how you're thinking, everything. And it's like you're, you know, just clocking things and sensing and feeling. And, you know, I always like to say on the surface, you look entirely normal, you're going about your business, you know, you can still manage life at this point shall we say you know normal

life can sort of go uh ticking along but inside you know that something is shifting it's very interesting and um i mean we do give sort of clues to people but it what's really empowering is when we uh can be in touch with those clues are so you know that we can feel those clues starting to happen in us and what those particular clues of course might be for us, because, you know, it's different from person to person. So it's a deep work for me of, for want of a better phrase, holding the tension with the dynamic of what's shifting in myself. And there's actually really important psychological work going on in holding the tension of just pacing and noticing. You know, you're building psychological capacity.

You're prepping yourself for the initiatory. I don't know what the word is the i was going to say the initiatory hit that's ahead of you but the initiatory for the initiation that is ahead of you it's like you're negotiating your way up to that moment uh where there really is a feeling of it's ended yes something is really over and you can feel something in your psyche the ground in your being does finally just give way and in the hinterland phase you're also a little bit I mean you're in negotiation with something but you also, you'll move in and out of denial with yourself. It's like, no, I don't want to know about that. This is not happening.

And I just want to say that is so entirely normal. And you see, what's so brilliant about really being supported, you know to under understanding cyclical processes and learning to hold the tension on all this is what you and and what you and and in building that psychological capacity because you're building real muscle here is what you what you're also doing here is actually you are awakening uh simultaneously uh a knowing of what's needed for yourself. That is really important because there may be very real health needs that you need to attend to. And it's really important to listen to those clues or psychological, you know, other needs, you know, all sorts of needs. But it's like you're awakening your capacity more and more to know yourself.

And yeah, what you must do for yourself and actually you might get very clear instruction here um about what you must do uh in order to set yourself up well for menopause because you know i see it over and over again everything changes it's not called the change for nothing it rewires it changes everything and the more you're inside yourself and clocking uh clues on all sorts of levels the more you are going to hear what it is you must do that will set you up and this phase could go on for a year or two or more it's very interesting the reason it was important for us to name this hinterland which i believe the direct definition of hinterland is the land behind the land um or the you know i think of it as the um the outer edges of the of the land

is because it really acknowledges the transitional nature of menstruality actually we don't go from not being in menopause to being in menopause we waft around the edges sort of me or air or like feeling tastes of you know menopause coming but then kind of still holding our foot back on the known world, like who we used to be. So we do this whole wobble and that's very, very much our nature. And then of course, our definition of menopause, which we haven't sort of named yet, again, holds like the breadth of experience that we feel menopause is. So it's the psycho-spiritual transition that happens over a number of years, of which the cessation of your periods could happen, you know, at the beginning, the middle, the end. That's just part of the process.

There is this whole ongoing negotiation that we go through. So, yeah, yeah then you know the question that we're seeking to answer in this conversation is like so how do you know when you're in in a pause and you can probably hear from what we're saying it's like it's um it's nuanced and it's deeply individual and there are no clear physical markers it's different for everyone yeah so the only way of referencing is inner the only way of really being able to answer that question is through you very deeply paying attention to your own experience. Yeah, we can tell you what some other people have noticed. Maybe that would kind of help give clues for you to actually pay attention more closely to yourself.

But the moment you kind of go into going, oh, this person said this, therefore, you know, I am or aren aren't you've stepped yourself out of the process yeah this brings us right back around to what you said at the beginning that the work here is to reclaim our own cyclical experience and name and claim and dignify and honor our it's the self-authorizing that you were speaking about yeah which is so messy and not neat and not you know it's it's just it just by nature is it is yeah yeah i'm just going to pause this conversation for a moment to share an invitation with you

because this is the time of year when we get ready for our annual Menopause the Great Awakener live online course. The course begins in about a month on November the 3rd and if you're curious about the journey that we take together through the five phases of menopause please save the date for our upcoming webinar which is called how menopause awakens your power it's on wednesday october 18th which is world menopause day at 9 a.m in london that's 7 p.m in sydney and if you're in a part of the world where that doesn't work for you time wise we can send you a recording if you're in a part of the world where that doesn't work for you time-wise, we can send you a recording if you're not able to join live.

And we'd love to have you with us wherever you find yourself in the menopause process, whether you're navigating symptoms or changing cycles in your 40s. Perhaps you find yourself, bam, in the middle of the great menopause, house clean, or maybe you're post-menopause and you want to make sense of the journey that you've taken so far so please save the date for Wednesday October the 18th we'd love to have you with us in wise power you do share some signs that you've arrived and it could be helpful to read something from the first one separation which I think is quite funny as well. Perhaps one of the clearest signs of

menopause is an increasing feeling that you're living in a parallel universe. On the outside you look entirely normal going about your daily business but on the inside you feel increasingly separate from the world it's as if life is going on out there and you're inside something else it's almost as though you're viewing the world from underwater and then you speak about Jocelyn you know you mentioned it can be helpful to hear other people's experiences so you speak about Jocelyn whose story you shared in chapter 10 in which she faced a big destabilization aged 47 is now at 50 feeling that separation and she says and you quote in the book I feel like I'm dying disintegrating and my brain isn't working in the way it used to I see life powering along and it's got nothing to do with me I'm cooperating with dying it's not

heavy and then you say this certainly sounds like the start of menopause I find that quite moving that quote those words of Jocelyn's you know I I realized that the way we know this place of separation in ourselves is it's really taught to us through cycle awareness. have all had a taste of this, you know, just before you bleed, where suddenly you do feel like you've gone into an alternate universe and everything is sort of just a little bit other or slightly absurd, or yeah, there's a feeling of looking through the glass. I also remember feeling this feeling when I had a newborn baby. It's like the whole world was just carrying on around me. And I was in this other entirely other time space reality. And also right towards the end of pregnancy, where suddenly the stuff of the world just seemed a bit math. Like, why would I be interested in any of that?

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So this is just one of the ways that cycle awareness really helps us to kind of cue into these places in ourselves and recognize them when they show up and sort of develop a familiarity with being in these kinds of spaces. Tony, can I ask a question? Yeah. For the people who are listening who haven't practiced cycle awareness

and are listening to this conversation, perhaps towards the end of their quickening experience or they're in the hinterland and they don't have these markers of going through the cycle consciously each month and perhaps haven't had children and haven't experienced that pregnancy we can what i've learned from you is we can lean into whatever initiatory experience we've had because there's a separation part of any experience we've had

that's taken us into a process of transformation or you know another way of saying is like how someone who doesn't have that experience what can they lean into to guide them here i i feel that we can really lean into the experience we're having in the moment that's where the true power lies and in some ways you know if you haven't um had decades of cycle awareness practice or even years which you know to be fair not many people uh at this time living on the planet have so you know you're you're you're not the exception take in that. We're all sort of figuring this out, right? But nonetheless, there is a very, is that it is leading somewhere. It's meaningful.

Nothing is ever lost and in fact we've heard stories from people who have come to this work at all different times in their menstruality journey who have spoken of how as they've reclaimed the place that they were in they feel that they've reclaimed all their menstrual years that the reclamation of now is very kind of significant for all their history. I'd love to just say a little bit more about this separation piece. So there is this sort of increasing sense of the world being out there and you being off in a parallel reality but there's another thing that I think comes in here it's it's a feeling of that you suddenly can't I don't know how to articulate this I'm going to be a bit messy I mean Jocelyn's quote said it all that it was death and she's cooperating with death but it's it's death of the kind of agency that you have been living with

the sense of mastery you know i was using that word mastery a lot because i think it's actually very important because it and and your kind of own egoic ego strength and i'm celebrating all that and it's it's this sort of feeling that that that gone. And your identity, you don't know who you are. And you're looking at the life you've led and you're going, well, why? You know, suddenly it was all so meaningful and now it's not meaningful at all. And your will, if you like, to be able to go out and do it is just not there anymore. You just can't push. It's like you just can't. You can't do it is just not there anymore you just can't push it's like you just can't

you can't do it and it's it's like a hole you almost fall into and that is quite scary that moment because if this is you know this is who you are you know this is what you're about this is what's giving you meaning and to feel you know meaningful in your life but it's just so important and the loss of that is very bleak and for me that's really a very key significant sign that you're in menopause when you're really feeling that loss and it may be sort of gradual that it happens but then one day it's just it's very distinct. So that's why we keep talking about this transition all the time. You know, someone looked at our list of how do I know I'm in menopause?

They go, yeah, yeah, I've experienced that. I'm experiencing that. And they go, oh, so I must be in menopause. And they may be noticing all those things. And I think you kind of notice them for a while. It's this transitional thing, but you're holding the tension on it. You're holding the tension. And then suddenly one day, boom. I know we sort of said that earlier. I just want to really emphasize that suddenly it's real. It's real in your being. It's not just sort of observations

in your head. There's something very real that's different that's non-negotiable and possibly a little challenging or scary and it's that realness and and suddenly it feels sort of serious really it's a knowing and the world as as we said in the quote earlier the world is going on around you your responsibilities your work everything is continuing and that can be crazy making because no one in the world is saying oh hang on there's something very important going on for you let's give you some more space like one day we'll create a world where this happens, hopefully. But I want to say to anyone experiencing particularly very raw,

challenging, painful, scary experiences, that the Great Awakener course is designed to be a community of support. You know, that when we're together it's the whole point of red school or the core point of red school is let's get together and name and claim and dignify because when we see others doing it we find our muscle and our metal inside ourselves to do it as well so i want to extend a really warm invitation to come and join the great awakener course in um november because it's designed to be a sanctuary i'm sort of smiling a little bit because it once you start to know what's happening there's a kind of dignifying of your process yes and you emphasize

you're not alone and and here's the irony it's very weird but once you're sort of um once you had you have this knowledge and and remember all that hinterland stuff we've been talking about actually has been preparing you um you know if you've been listening to yourself you know and attending to the signals and clues you are setting yourself up well for this moment of oof where suddenly the balloon's punctured and you can't you just can't do it in the same way and um we um we come up with all we talk about the we've created the menopause Triage to help people with this because there are tricks and stratagems, if you like, to be able to meet this place in a world that's not acknowledging it. Because you still have to go to work.

You've got to put food on the table for your children. You couldn't really give a rat's ass about any of that now. You just want to be gone. But just having this knowledge and familiarizing yourself with it and just deepening it, which is what we do on the menopause, The Great Awakener. It really, again, it's part of this opening up our inner life and sort of claiming something of ourselves that goes on in that course that really helps you to meet this challenge. And because it is the opening to something really, really important and powerful. I know death always feels like death, but I want everyone to hear the message that it's heralding a new beginning. And I want to point to a couple of resources here because the triage is laid out in Wise Power the

book isn't it and we also have a podcast episode where we laid it out as well so on for the show notes for this podcast at redschool.net I'll put the link to that episode if people are wanting okay I need the triage now and to have some company with it, then they can listen to that podcast. And so I'm also aware that separation is the first phase of the five phases that you lay out of menopause. And I just want to get clear for myself, someone could find themselves in the menopause hinterland and have this knowing of separation. And they could still have their cycle every month. Or they could have unpredictable cycles. Or they could have not had a cycle for a year.

That these things aren't connected. It's about a knowing inside yourself and a tracking of the process in it inside yourself am i right that is absolutely right sophie the physical signposts are not universal and they are not the marker of the psycho-spiritual process there is a relationship between those things but no one can tell you when this happens, then this is happening inside you. And the other thing we must remember here, which is really important,

is that our hormonal system is a stress-sensitive system and it is our fifth vital sign. So anywhere that we're experiencing stress or health challenges, it's going to show up in disruptions in our cycle and in our hormonal system. This is really important. And the reason this matters so much in the autumn of your menstruating years, in the quickening, is because that is really where you're getting the report card of the life you've lived thus far. Just like every menstrual month in

the premenstruum, you suddenly start to feel the impact of what you've been doing on your body, the impact of how you've been living. Well, that's what, that's what happens in our forties. So we've been tracking along just fine, possibly abusing our bodies, but, you know, doing all kinds of all the things we do when we live, but now we start to feel the impact of that. So, and it shows up in our hormonal system. So, so much of the disruption that's happening hormonally is a sign of our health and so it's very important again not to conflate those things and to really kind of stay with the inner process that's happening and to see those things as know, a call for your attention to tend to yourself and tend to your health. Because there is actually, there's a gift in these disruptions is that they're kind of calling us back to health.

So we can hear that invitation. Okay, so, so far we've looked at the quickening the autumn of your menstruating years the menopause hinterland and now this experience of separation which is very characteristic of the first of the five phases of the menopause process that you lay out in Wise Power. We've also done a whole podcast episode about it. And it is the structure of the Great Awakener course and our walk through each of these five phases. Do you want to just walk us into those or give us a headline about those

to complete this picture for today? Yes, when we start to feel that separation what it is is a sign that we are stepping into the winter of our menstruating years the end of our menstruating years so that winter season of going deeply into ourselves and letting go and surrendering you know it's it's it's a massive chapter of our lives the largest chapter of our lives and it's coming to an end and we don't just you know like a light switch sort of switch it off and switch something else on it doesn't work like that we have to go through a process so just thinking of it as a period of inner winter where we're you know dropping down into ourselves and and um doing as little as we can get away with so that we can start to just have an experience of letting go,

of dying, in inverted commas, of just giving up. And it seems so radical saying that word, giving up, because our whole culture is, you know, never give up, you know, power on through. And I'm saying, give up, just give up, just give up. Of course, you need to have basic supports going. And of course, that doesn't mean not going to work if you have to go to work and, you know, children to look after. Giving up can mean just really minimizing your responsibilities as much as you can, doing the basics to get by,

but that you really pull inside yourself and have a feeling of almost just shutting up shop in some way just some percentage of that you give yourself drop down and down you just winter takes time you just you know i love that whole concept of winter and just the land resting and resting and resting and nothing happens and nothing happens and then out of nowhere boom you know you get these little shoots appear out of the ground isn't it a miracle and that's what's going to happen through these five phases of menopause that we outline in wise power and of course we're going to dive into in the great awakening of course and we go into the kind of detail that's within that in a winter phase of

dropping down in and in down down down down down and then feeling a sort of shift in gear and something starting to new to wake it's like oh oh maybe i'm okay after all maybe there's new life here it's so fascinating just feeling and pacing that process uh of emergence and and this discovery this waking up to who you are because it's that wintering time is this incredible process of awakening to your deepest self it's awakening into a whole new power you know i talked about that kind of agency power uh that kind of bites the dust at red aporse and what that does is it allows you to step into an even bigger power. I mean for me it's a power that can change worlds. It can change worlds you know the more of us that are really getting this and

aligning with it and feeling the potency of it. I think wow how things can change with this power and that is an enormous transition that you're going to go through so and that all happens underground in the inner winter and time wise you've named it can it can look like two years it can look like two years. It can look like five years. It depends from person to person. Yeah, and it doesn't mean for five years that you are incapacitated. You're never incapacitated. I never, ever, ever, ever would want anyone ever to use that word. On the contrary, on the contrary, but that's often how, mean it's often how it initially feels i might not

need to honor that but actually um in that whole journey you know you're still a somebody in the world and actually you're learning huge amounts about yourself which you are will be you know showing in the world one way or another you can't not so um in those you know two to five years there's you know something there's very exciting stuff going on and then to complete the picture we land in post-menopause life, the second spring, your third act, and particularly if the whole, well, if the whole process has been tended to, as you were saying, Aisandra, the power of this phase. And I get shivers when I think of a world of post-menopausal women and people who have dignified their experience and arrived in this wise power and how much how much that's needed in our world

and and you name that this is something you declare for yourself your second spring you know on average it's like 54 55 56 somewhere around here and it's something that you declare for yourself you do yeah and those latter stages you know i mean i had a friend who said it was really when she turned 60 that she felt completely free from that yeah but that doesn't mean she wasn't doing all sorts of you know extraordinary stuff in that time it's just so lovely just really honoring and pacing one's own inner evolution you know it's so interesting and and this all goes towards that power it is what makes this time of our lives um potentially so powerful some of the most thrilling conversations we've had have been with people have been through

menopause you know in alexandra's wise power series we spoke to people about what menopause has liberated in them and really heard about people who are living and breathing and inhabiting this power in the world and I am just constantly humbled in the face of those who walk on the other side of menopause you know it's really uh inspiring to wrap up this conversation today for anyone who's in you know whatever stage you're finding yourself in the quickening the hinterland the phases there's this story of laura on page 92 of wise power and you say laura made us laugh when she told us about a dream she had in which she couldn't find herself in the dream she went into a room to ask her family if they'd seen her they hadn't she looked for herself everywhere but to no avail after a while she

said to them all well she'll come back and you do come back but not for a little while that story still makes me laugh every time I hear it she'll come back thank you so much for tuning in and listening all the way to the end. I want to reiterate our invitation to join us for the free webinar on Wednesday, October the 18th, World Menopause Day, which is called How Menopause Awakens Your Power. We'd love to have you with us. And if you're not on our mailing list, you can join it at redschool.net and we'll send you a link to sign up for the webinar as soon as registration is open okay that's it for this week I hope to be with you again next week and until then keep living

life according to your own brilliant rhythm