The Menstruality Podcast - 113. The Menstruality Leadership Wisdom that Saved Alexandra’s Life (Alexandra & Sjanie)

Episode Date: November 9, 2023

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. 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. ---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---The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email [e-mail]---Social media:Red School: @red.school (https://www.instagram.com/red.school)Sophie 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 there, thank you so much for tuning in today. Welcome back to the podcast. Today we're talking about what happened when Alexandra began to experience monthly outrageous period pain. It was in her 30s and she made a radical decision she thought

my body is talking to me and I'm going to listen and in this podcast conversation today she reflects on this moment as a pivotal step into leadership in her life and it's actually one that led to the development of everything that Red School has created. The pain forced her to give space to her bleed time which allowed her to slowly cycle by cycle month by month discover the spiritual powers of menstruation and menstrual cycle awareness as a pathway to leadership. And it was the starting point for many of the cycle-inspired leadership skills that Alexandra and Sharni now teach on our Menstruality Leadership Program. It's exciting because the doors for 2024 are opening again later this month. And through our conversation today, we illuminate how the menstrual cycle and menopause and the other initiations inside the menstruality life arc, like matrescence,

can awaken us to a new timeless kind of consciousness, which inspires a way of leading that is life affirming, that includes, that's rooted in belonging. So let's get started with the menstruality leadership wisdom that saved Alexandra's life. So here we are again picking up this conversation about leadership and the menstrual cycle and menopause. And we've talked about this a few times, but as Alexandra was saying this morning, because this work is so emergent, it's constantly evolving and you two are in a fresh place when it comes to knowing and exploring and teaching how the menstrual cycle and menopause awakens and activates our leadership in the world and before we get into all of that let's do a cycle check-in

we're both on day 11 we are both on day 11 actually that's pretty magic two 11s sitting in one little pod together yeah it's good it's very good cycling together we've been saying to each other because we've had check-ins quite regularly so far over this cycle and it's so striking even as we're on the same day. And I just love how, uh, custom made the menstrual cycle is. It's so, um, it's so imbued with, uh, the life circumstances we're in the life stage, we're in our overall health our creative life our personal development process it's just such a anchor into who we are and how we are and that's so singular hey so yeah me on my day 11 um it's actually it's been a bit of a funny morning now that I think about it, because I'm in that classic sort of this feels in a summary to me. And I'm very productive and moving forward and so in the act of doing.

And the flow of that, actually, there's a deep focus that kind of comes over my system when I'm in this place. A bit like I'm on an assembly line and I'm not going to miss a beat. You know, I'm high speed, like there's a mastery, you know, just going for it. And the risk is that I forget I need to breathe. I need to eat. I need to go to the toilet, you know. Yeah, I sort of forget myself and also I lose touch with my heart, with my sensitivity and with, you know, with the kind of complexity of life. It's very, I really can feel how easy it is to get quite narrow.

And it happened this morning. I was like suddenly realizing how vacant I was and spaced out. And then I was like, it took me ages to go, oh, heck, I haven't eaten. And I'm busy doing this cleanse and I haven't eaten I was sort of slowly losing the plot and drifting into like outer space so yes so that's me I'm having to work hard to um yeah stay connected to my needs and uh yeah to my heart it was quite funny because Alexanderlexander and i were riffing on what should this conversation be about and the themes and we said what do you think shawnee and you just went sounds great and your eyes were glassy unlike me not having an opinion yes

yeah yeah my day 11 oh i'm just so grateful for menstrual cycle awareness and cyclical consciousness and all I've learned from you two about this because it helps me understand what's going on for me today, which is yes, I'm on day 11 of my cycle. days usually means um understanding how to meet the massive rising energy in me and hold it so it doesn't become anxiety which I've talked about loads on the podcast before so that is happening but because of the teachings of menstruality I also know that I'm in a specific moment of my motherhood initiation and it's it's an autumnal point of my motherhood initiation of whatever cycle or spiral I'm in of it where Artie is turning three and he is resisting and testing and pushing and it's just so uncomfortable the whole process and so much doubting of myself and my skills and it's just got that such an inner autumn pre-menstrual vibe to it where I just have to keep taking my own side even when I'm the only one you know other people have

different opinions and it just I've just got to find my muscle inside to stay true to what my heart is telling me and it's it's asking a ton of me right now yeah so I'm on a kind of heavily day 26 flavored day 11 I'm grateful for the context because otherwise I'd feel quite mad you know I feel so confused and churny so yeah and goodness for cycle awareness yeah really good soph because um part of what cycle awareness does is it really shows us how anytime we're stretched beyond our normal capacity we're pulled into um the unknown and we all know what happens there it is that place just before bleeding you know that unknownness that is so that leaves us so vulnerable to self-doubt and criticism and shame and and our own and our own pain our own wounding you know what it stirs in us from our childhood and so it's these

it's like how cycle awareness teaches us principles of living loving that then we can really apply i love the practicality of that um yeah it's really really good hearing what you say and i know people can relate i mean anyone who's had a toddler gets the stretch the stretch is real it's brutal yeah and they're you know following on from what you've just said shani those are fierce muscles that you're growing in terms of of what your leadership is in the world i mean your head won't you know going what the fuck but your being is going no no yeah yeah yeah yeah the way you turn up show up for yourself yeah your inner being's putting it all together and it's got all the constituent parts at work they're building something like it's yeah it's um this uh whole kind of process of matricence Sophie that you're kind of in the heat of right now but it

you know it goes on and on and on is a leadership program extraordinaire I mean you are having to be the leader of your family you're having to be the leader of this little human being and therefore having to be the leader of yourself. And it's incredible when you talk about how deep you're having to dig to trust your own knowing. We only grow those muscles through having them exercised in the way that you are. Yeah, and I know you know the kind of goodness of that. And isn't that a cool

context to have to kind of go this is hard but it's good yeah yeah yes and and because of these teachings I I guess I consider everything that's stretching me in my life as my leadership workout like you were saying yeah yeah because what you're doing what we're doing at red school is is totally redefining what leadership means it's my idea of leadership uh 10 15 years ago was a group of men in a boardroom making decisions that had a big impact on that hundreds, thousands, millions of people and not really caring. That was what leadership was to me. And then through the process of engaging with menstruality, yeah, I mean, we'll talk about it today, but I'm just understanding leadership as me coming home to who I am and being able to listen for what it is that I'm here to do and then let let my kind of communion

with life grow that grow the muscles that enable me to do that to do that thing and that's what Artie is doing with his no I don't want cornflakes I want Weetabix for you know the 20th time this morning and I'm breathing and going anyway I won't go into everything that happens but it's I can feel the patience the trust the love that is being shaped in me through the Weetabix Conflict debacle. And that is growing my leadership skill set to live my thing in the world. Yeah, exactly. The skills that you're cultivating through that and how it is provoking you to grow up.

Yes. I mean, this is the other piece of leadership. It's initiatory. We talk about initiation a lot at Red School because our work is the work of initiation and leadership is initiatory. So the stretches in our lives are all invitations to us to step into a new place within ourselves and step into a new place

within the world as well. And those invitations come thick and fast in life. I mean, life is nothing if not riddled with challenge on all levels, you know, on the personal level, in our relationships, in the collective. There are so many invitations and opportunities for us to evolve, you know, for us to grow, to grow up. Yeah. Well, I want to turn the spotlight on you in a minute, Sharni, and ask you how life is asking you to step into your leadership in a minute. But I'm just aware that we haven't asked Alexandra how she is.

Yeah, her cycling life. Cosmic cycler. It is cosmic cycles i think what's significant for me right now is the time of the year in the northern hemisphere it's true we're in the sort of i think we're coming into the final quarter of the moon, which is kind of mirroring the place in the year. But as it's always so grey and overcast, I never see the moon. But I feel it. But it's more of the year, the increasing dark and the negotiation into that that's happened for me and combined with the age I am.

And actually I'm feeling I've come to a peace with that and I'm really greeting it quite. I'm feeling quite, I'm entering it really, I want to say consciously, but it is the quality of trusting it because there is this initial wobble of going, oh, going in to the dark it's bleak it isolates and so on and then I dropped all that

and now it has a quality of seriousness but not heavy seriousness a kind of spiritual seriousness to it. And I'm feeling a peacefulness with it.

And I'm living with the word surrender. I'm really understanding that word more and more now, what it takes and what it means to really surrender. So it's all those sort of qualities that are in me today because I've had spaciousness this morning. I've been up since sometime after five. So I've had this space, yeah. So that's a little feel of me

and I'm also aware that you two taught the first session of menopause the great awakener yesterday so you're at the beginning of the next spiral of this beautiful yeah of course and process yeah that that caught that first session really felt precious it opened up I just thought oh god yes this is I know this country and I know what this country of menopause is preparing us for and it just it felt so wholesome to step in there with all these people who are willing to really meet menopause as a leadership journey i mean i jokingly say oh the menopause process is a leadership development program is what a phd in power you're doing a phd in power you know if when you know if someone says what's going on for you oh no i'm just doing a phd in power you're doing a PhD in power you know if when you know if someone says what's going on

for you oh no I'm just doing a PhD in power at the moment you just say that yeah yeah no I'm I'm doing this leadership training actually it's called menopause I wish everyone could just see the face that Alexandra pulled because that was a great one it was like the picture of snark don't argue with me yeah what leadership looks like now keep taking my own side and yes claiming who I am yeah and it's so radical you know when you talk like that, like this is a workout in power and this is a leadership program. We're talking about this internal shift and change as being the thing that accelerates us into, well, into service, I want to say, but actually one of the themes that came out in this first call of the great awakener, which is, you know, what we've been touching on already in the conversation about like motherhood

and matricence was this theme of, you know, those who were talking about their experience of stepping into menopause or being in menopause as a kind of recognition of the self-responsibility that it's calling forward in them you know this recognition of oh no one can do this for me no one can save me no one can go there but I and someone came with this phrase of midwifing myself and that really for me encapsulates something of what the whole path and practice of menstruality is about and the whole um process of us living our leadership is it's this journey of gradually dawning recognition that we are responsible and we must take responsibility for ourselves and for our human presence on this planet and the effect that we have, the impact that we have. We are not benign. And therefore we have an enormous responsibility of awareness around that and also of choice of, you know, creative intent with what we do with the power we have as humans. Yeah.

So are you saying, are you saying, Shani Hugo-Welles? Quote me. are you saying johnny hugo well it's quote me because these are such big ideas i just have to clarify i'm getting it right because as much as i know this it just feels like such a spiraling journey that i need to hear these things a hundred times to land that the menstrual cycle and all the processes inside the menstruality life arc matrescence and menopause they're recalling us home to our power and because they're calling us home to our power, we need to own that power and understand how to wield it responsibly. And as I say those words, wield it responsibly, I'm just so thinking of the premenstruum, which is just such a workout in that. I know, that edge you walk off being irresponsible with your power and being responsible with your yeah is that what

that's what you're saying here about this it's awakening this responsibility for life yes yeah yeah yeah yeah and that's exactly it sophie and Exactly, Sophie. And I mean, it's really, I think, important to color that in a little bit with saying how menstruality is this kind of calling us back to our power. But in order for that to happen, we need to know who we are and we need to make peace with who we are we need to accept who we are because the kind of power we're talking about comes from us residing within ourselves. It's not about us being something other. That's one of the biggest thwartings of our power is, you know, what Alexandra and I have now started calling this kind of ghost, this ghost self, you know, the thing we think we should be and when we're that, then we'll, you know, then we'll be okay,

then we'll be powerful, then we'll you know then we'll be okay then we'll be powerful then we'll be wonderful and actually that is such a vampire of our power um the disowning of who we really are and you know who we really are is imperfect for want of a better word. I was going to say fucked up, but that's a bit harsh. It's imperfect. It's perfect. It's human. It's fallible. It's like, I mean, I'm wrestling with this in myself all the time.

I'm like, shit, I'm just not good at that. I'm never going to be. And it's humbling. But in that kind of seeing and naming and recognizing of ourselves we come into a softness and acceptance restedness and then that's the coming home to our power actually that yeah that's the coming back to going, I'm okay, which Alexandra will tell us is what menopause ultimately delivers us to, is the recognition that the declaration that I'm okay, you know, as I am. Yeah.

As you're speaking, I'm holding this piece on the importance of vulnerability as key to this new kind of consciousness that we want to lead from. This consciousness, I won't't say new but it's timeless um and that the how we really come into how we kind of disengage from that ghost self shani said um and come into ourselves more and more and accept ourselves um requires vulnerability accepting our and shani spoke about humanity and it's about accepting our humanity our uh complicatedness and our messiness. And this is the one, you know, most of the time we spend our lives armouring ourselves against such vulnerability. I mean, you know, I put my hand up to that one.

It's, you know, yeah. Yeah, I mean, you'd be a fool not to. You'd be a fool not to. It's a good move. It's a good move. It's a good move because, yeah, it's radical because you've got to protect your vulnerability. At the same time, that vulnerability is the game changer.

If you can't go into it, if you can't go into it if you can't let yourself because it's through being vulnerable that we can feel ultimately really really feel and feel ourselves but feel all the feelings of love and of developing this you know this leadership growing us into this leadership that is in service of this let's call it this new consciousness for want of a better phrase um it is um it's a consciousness that's in service of the feminine what's wonderful about the menstrual cycle uh journey that you go on each menstrual month is um you get both this in the first half of the cycle you get this wonderful experience growing or hopefully going because of, of, of affirmation of who you are, you know, that,

that when the energy is rising, but it's a real affirmation of, of your ego of, yeah, this is me. You know, it's like, we talk about that as healthy ego development. You've got to have that. And then, you know, you come up into the summer of the cycle and, you know, if you've been, you've had good rest of menstruation and life is pretty sweet with you, you know, you'll have a degree of of impregnability in the summer of your cycle. It's like, yeah, I can do anything. And yeah. And you don't get sort of affected in the same way by stuff and you can get on with things. And it's just really important to have that kind of egoic strength, really. It's really, really good.

Without it, you're stuffed. And then the second half of the cycle, it feels mean. Why can't I just stay here feeling you know like i can conquer the world you know what's wrong with this god thank you oh no now in the second half of the cycle that is dismantled we become more permeable and the cycle takes us into the deepest vulnerability you know you feel it. The closer you get to menstruation, your energy is dropping. And it's like even if someone looks at you in the wrong way,

in the wrong way, in inverted commas, you know, you'll burst into tears or something. And you come into this intensely exposed place. But, you see, how great that this is happening is your that vulnerability is reminding you of your humanity because you'll forget it in the summer of your cycle it's like shani you know she's not you know she's beginning to breathe and eat and she's like we become hardened we become hardened so now we have the softening the softening the softening and of course what that softening does is that vulnerability apart from reminding us of our humanity

oh here's the radical thought you know that i love speaking every, you know, that I love speaking every time, you know, is that it's opening us into spiritual consciousness. It's opening, it's making us permeable to life beyond our ego, you know, skin encapsulated ego. You know what I mean? It's breaking that wall and going, actually, you exist in a world, you know, with others. It's actually reminding you of that and then you go into the bleed and then you have this extraordinary you know if you're supported and nourished and can let go you can have the

potential to experience this extraordinary connection and feeling of oneness and a reminder oh god everything is connected i'm connected and i have place i belong and uh that spiritual experience is dependent on that vulnerability that our cycle brings us into in the second half of the cycle and then we we do that again month after month and can't you just hear how radical that process is the way we're being exercised psychologically and spiritually in both being able to kind of strut our stuff in the world so important building up our sense of mastery and being reminded of the fact that we are in a world with all sorts of others and it isn't all about us. And not only that, we are awoken to our connection to it in the most profound level. And that's, you know, waking us up then to that huge responsibility piece

as I mentioned earlier the doors for our 2024 menstruality leadership program are going to open later this month and if you're curious to find out more about this immersive apprenticeship to your cycle wisdom, wherever you find yourself in the menstruality life arc, whether that's in your 20s at the beginning, in your 40s, navigating all of the challenges that the 40s can bring inside menopause or on the other side of menopause, we warmly welcome you to join us for a free introductory webinar. It's called How to Channel the Powers of Menstruality to Step Into Your Leadership. And in it, Alexandra and Shani will draw on their over 10,000 hours of research into the power of the menstrual cycle and menopause. They're going to debunk

three pervasive myths about leadership and illustrate a new cyclical sustainable way to lead and to create meaningful change in the world and they'll also be introducing something that was new for the menstruality leadership program this year which we got incredible feedback about which is 12 menstruality inspired leadership skills the kind of how-to skill set for how to take the wisdom you get from your menstrual cycle and menopause and apply it as you lead in your life so you can register for the webinar at menstrualityleadership.com it's on Thursday the 16th of November and we would absolutely love to have you with us. You can register at menstrualityleadership.com.

I love how you walked us into that Alexandra and just the naming of vulnerability as being so essential in this new kind of leadership that we're talking about for all the reasons you name and I notice as you're describing it just how touched I feel because that whole thing of the responsibility we have with our power I know many people feel afraid of their power and at times I do too and I certainly have very strongly felt afraid of my own power but because of the menstrual cycle and because of menstrual cycle awareness, there's this beautifully built-in safety device that really brings me into a place of care. And as you said, Alexandra, opens me to spiritual connection and to a remembering that I'm part of something my interconnectedness with life so now I knowing that my power is for life.

And that is, when I feel that at menstruation, particularly, it is so deeply imprinted in me, the kind of non-negotiableness of that. Yeah, it's like I can't argue with what I'm for and what life wants of me. um that becomes a whole sort of well of fuel in my system that sustains me through all the trials and tribulations of like following that call you know of living my leadership and alexandra and i often you know hand on head like sunk on our desk, like, oh, we got to turn up for another, you know, another challenge, another big unknown, another like pain point, another invitation to grow. grow and how how do we keep doing that is because we are both so um fueled by um by purpose so you can't really have leadership unless you're connected to purpose is probably another way of

saying it uh you you just won't keep going you'll give up at the first hurdle or perhaps another word here too is meaning just feeling meaning yes meaning yeah and meet because not everyone perhaps has a clear sense of purpose but they have a deep feeling of meaning yes it's that feeling of connectedness and being part of life yes exactly and and you know both of us are very purposeful. I mean, we've got very clear kind of brought that word meaning in as well. I was really thinking about how menstrual cycle awareness grows a trust in life that we are held in something meaningful. And this consciousness in service of the feminine is this consciousness that we are wanting to grow and grow into and serve in the world is a consciousness that is rooted in a fundamental trust that life is, that there's something greater holding us,

something deeper meaningfulness that's holding us, and that is guiding and working us. How radical. And that who I am, who you are, is meaningful because I'm connected to that life. You know, I'm here, therefore I am part of it. So it invests me with knowing and trusting that has invested me. It's what's kept me going, actually. And it's come from menstrual cycle awareness.

What's kept me going is this feeling that has been growing in me over the years that who I am in all the messiness and complicatedness and challenge of what I, you know, what I've had to encounter, this particular composition of me is meaningful. And that it's crucial I don't abandon that. Because if I do, the thing that I'm meant to be serving is lost and then it's lost in the world oh hang on just pause there the thing that you're serving is lost is lost and then it's lost in the world that's really meaningful back to the responsibility it's different kind of responsibility there responsibility to be truly with ourselves wow sorry to cut you off I just wanted to pause

and make some space around that statement because it feels huge thank you actually Sophie because that pause has made me feel teary in a nice way I was trying to make Alexandra cry. It's not hard. Hey, give me my kudos. It's due. But keep going if you can, Alexandra. Sorry to cause you. Well, you know what?

It is actually bringing tears to my eyes because I just think of it's what saved my life because I felt and I'm going to swear I felt so fucked over by my experience of my health and so taken down by it and taken out of the game and you know you're talking to someone here who's very ambitious power has always been my thing you know that word power understanding it so but sort of ambitious and wanting to be and willful and being taken out just taken out nobbled you know and the kind of current thinking in our world is if you're not out there doing and producing, you know, you're nothing, you don't have anything.

And the thing that's touching me actually is that radical decision I made when I got that outrageous period pain all those years ago. And I just said, my body's talking to me and I'm going to listen. And if I had not made that decision, none of this would have happened. And just imagine that for everyone listening because there are moments like that for all of us exactly yeah I guess I just want to honor and dignify the the moments for each of us where there is a profound knowing and no one else in the world might ever hear it no and there's no

one that's going to hand us a medal or a trophy because it's not what we celebrate in our world you know we but we have just on our own inner marathon of coming home to claim the meaning of of ourselves and our lives yeah and you know in in in moment of claiming it, it doesn't look, you know, nothing's changed in that moment. It's like it's still the same. where I would have been stuffed without the menstrual cycle because you see the pain made me stop at my bleed I thought okay my body's talking I'm going to give space to it so I just gave space to menstruation and then bingo the door started you know, because I had given space to menstruation, I was, you know, equally having sort of cosmic experiences, even as I was still navigating bonkers pain. And I wouldn't take painkillers, unless I absolutely had to be at work. And you know organized my life in such a way um I had a regular cycle thank you that's the one thing I could be thankful for I could plan for

my bleed um that you know that as symptoms eased and each month bleeding giving space to menstruation and having the experiences I was having at menstruation were building in me this feeling of oh yeah my life has meaning my life has meaning even on the outside nothing much is changing you know but bit by bit because this of course is 40 years ago now it's 40 years ago but something unfolds something unfolds, something unfolds. And it was that sticking with that. Well, not being able to abandon it is the truth of it because of menstruation, you know, the menstrual cycle. Yeah. I love that you're kind of bringing in this piece, Alexandra,

of menstruality leadership as being about a deepening trust that our life and the circumstances of our lives are meaningful. And we could even say necessary in the unfolding of our power. Absolutely. And leadership. Yeah. And the bit you said there was it's the decision to trust the challenge, the stretch, the obstacle, the seeming disturbance that you find yourself in as being the way, as being the way. And so I just want to pull this back to menstrual cycle awareness for a minute, because it's one thing to talk about these things. do this like how do you trust that you know the the immense challenge you're under is meaningful and necessary and how do you lean into how do you make a decision to trust that how do you even have the wherewithal in the moment you know so um what menstrual cycle awareness, the practice of it, gives us every day, I was feeling it this morning, is we check in with ourselves every day and we notice the place we're in

in our cycle. And sometimes that pleases us. And sometimes it displeases us and sometimes the place we're in in our cycle really seems to be ideal for what we're having to do that day or what we're having to show up for or and other times it just at first glance seems like the worst possible combination and what we are so emphatic about and this is so um something i keep coming back to in my practice is what is needed to serve the situation, even as it may not look ideal, even as it may not seem right. So you have these little moments every day to trust that the place you're in is meaningful

and trust that the powers you have today are the powers that are needed the skills you have how your brain's working the amount of energy you have all these things that it's right and good so you have these little micro practices every day and every day you dare to go and you did it today sophie you were like well you know i'm not feeling physically great i'm in this huge stretch like i'm you know i'm i don't quite know where this conversation is going to go. And you said, I'm surrendered. I'm leaning into the place I'm in and I'm trusting and handing this over. And look at what a rip-roaring conversation we're having.

Hey, that's a good one. We couldn't have choreographed it could we it's the power of emergence at work and um so that's the other thing we haven't really spoken about when we talk about leadership and actually how all this work has evolved alexandra described that moment of choice and then from that on, it's been a practice of pacing, courting, trusting what's unfolded. It's been a process of creative emergence, day in, day out, moment by moment, moment by moment. And the only way that that power of emergence can happen and that life can create through us just as it is in this conversation is because each one of us is leaning into the place we're in we're all trusting

the place we're in and that's creating this mysterious choreography that is so much bigger than us it is so much more than our minds could have dreamt up or planned and like back to that ghost self that you were talking about when I showed up this morning I just feel messy and my story from my ghost self is, come on, you're hosting a podcast. People are listening. They deserve you for you to be professional and show up and plan and know exactly what you're doing. And the shadow of that is control it all. And I cannot because I'm tired and I'm stretched and life is happening and having permission to set that ghost self down because what is actually required is leaning into this mess and when I honor this mess it's actually it's not mess it's no surrender back to what you were saying it's I I don't know what's going on and I'm

surrendered to it knowing that I can't control it and knowing that something good is coming from it yeah hey there's a word I feel we need to tease out a bit that has come up a couple of times which is the feminine that we're talking about leadership in service to the feminine here and I just think it's really important for us to you know look at what we mean by that and name that um this isn't a gendered thing that you're talking about that's accessible only to women or certain gender that this is this is a consciousness a way of being a way of leading that is available to people of all genders and accessible to all of us and and that particularly women and those of us who have menstrual cycles have a particular access

through menstruality to this state of consciousness to this way of being right yeah yeah exactly sophie it is an archetypal it's an archetype it's a it's a it's a consciousness that's in the air we breathe that's surrounding us all and it is for all of us regardless of gender

and that consciousness of the feminine with a capital F is one of, it's a consciousness that is, I think I want to dream into it almost afresh in this moment. It's so interesting as I feel into it, it is a consciousness that is rooted in a deep intimacy and trust in life itself.

When I spoke earlier about, you know, learning to trust that there's something larger holding me. It is that consciousness that dares to imagine that I am held in something and that everything is interconnected. And of course, it's dependent on my vulnerability, my permeability. If I'm armored, that consciousness is not available to me. So it's dependent on my humanity. And the fact that I feel that I am in a body that in a body that is actually vulnerable, and I'm not talking about me personally,

and all of us are vulnerable. Humanity, humans are vulnerable. Try as we do to armor ourselves against that. We are vulnerable. And then, of course, there's a not great experience around that. But what if we could see the vulnerability that we're all encountering now with what's happening in the world, this heightened vulnerability, as a possible invitation into this way that the feminine can reach us. The energy of the feminine is one of interconnection and relationality and is held within a sort of fabric of meaning. And this consciousness of the feminine is an invitation

into embodied connection with life and with nature and honoring rhythmic life in all its facets and allowing ourselves to be touched by life rather than managing life. Yes. To actually let ourselves be touched by what is happening and to feel. And in that act of receiving something, there is this, it opens up another kind of facility within us of knowing. And knowing about a new kind of response to what's happening. So this consciousness is evolutionary.

Without it, we can't evolve. With the old consciousness, kind of power over management, we just have more of the same and the rehashing of the old ideas. And I'm not wanting to throw the baby out with the bathwater here. You know, we care for what we've learned so far and we have to be informed we need we kind of need new information going we need to be informed by the unknown yes yeah that the unknown uh is there's something working us oh shawnee you pick it up i mean i can keep but you pick it up well i mean as you're dreaming into it i i'm feeling everything you're saying and you know it's reminding me of the moments that I've had where I,

because I don't live from this place. I mean, let's be real. Oh, yeah. However, menstrual cycle awareness is my line back in to this place every day. And menstruation is a major moment of remembering and you know every month bit by bit I am coming to embody the truth of this consciousness in my being more and more And when I'm really inside it, it has a feeling of limitlessness in the way that is a sort of infinite yes to everything that I feel I feel quite touched saying that but it is this uh really deep love affair with what is and in that such a feeling of belonging and being held nothing is left out nothing is left behind

hmm yeah yeah just and that that last bit you said which um i kind of chipped in on alexandra which is so um crucial when it comes to menstruality as a path of leadership is that it is living from this place of being guided by the unknown. And you were proposing, asking us a question, which we haven't come to, but I'm going to talk around it actually, which was, you know, how did our work become about, you know, menstruality as a leadership path? And when I heard that you were going to ask that question, I was really struck by how it has been this

adventure through the unknown, you know, at no point really did I or we know what we were doing except sort of after the fact it's like things have been revealed on a need-to-know basis we just we just show up and think we know what's going on only to discover we're yet again in the unknown and then we look back and go right so that's what's going on here you know so when you say it's leadership from the unknown you really have evidence of this because you've been by getting the getting the download information on a need-to-know basis you didn't have a 10-year vision for exactly what you would be teaching in 10 years with red school absolutely no idea no no what we did have and i've always been grateful for this myself

you know from the beginning was a knowing yes there was something there yeah and i used to joke that i would get very reactive about things okay no no it's not that it's not that and especially even when people were talking about the feminine I'm going no no it's not that it's not that you know but I didn't know what my brain wasn't there yet yeah I mean it's it's really wonderful because we are like nearly 15 years down the track of working together and I stepped in at a point when Alexandra had you know was well on the way of discovering some of that knowing. But now 15 years down the line together of us really courting the unknown and now looking back and going, I mean, we often marvel at the breadth and depth and width and enormity, the hearing of people's experiences. off to stretch and all of that creative tension has been the labor um of what we are now kind of

really sitting inside and here's the thing that blows my mind we also know on some level this is just the beginning of this work exactly exactly yeah it just keeps going and when you say that I think of the graduates of the menstruality leadership program who have each now been initiated into or received or are carving their own way with this work now they shani's mic just dropped literally on her desk clearly what i said was so good that it is so good though that they that the graduates are out now weaving the menstruality blanket out there in the world. I know. It's so incredible. It's so incredible. And that's because, Sophie-Jane, what's happening on the menstruality leadership program is people are being inducted into their own lived experience of menstruality. And they're stepping into this consciousness that we've been describing and tapping into who they are,

what they're about. And more than that, they're really cultivating the skills needed for them to have their own personal relationship with menstruality. So now they are a channel for the evolution of this work in the world through the vehicle of them through their skills and interests and taking it out into spheres of the world that alexandra and i will never go near because you know we are not that person and then there are people taking it out into the medical world into education into politics into kind of grassroots organizations into their communities and and and it has a life of its own because they're tapped now into this creative evolutionary force they're on the path of their leadership. And it's magical to see.

So magical. And to bring it back to the vulnerability piece and being able to get the ghost self to step aside, the feedback that I see most consistently is, I felt so seen and I was supported to really know myself and I've never felt so kind of close to myself or I've never been able to trust myself in this way it's all of that via negative a second half of the cycle vulnerability language around belonging to self coming home to self I think pre um one of our graduates even said like I feel like I'm married to myself now it's that yeah so it's outworking magic in the world from that quiet vulnerable oh so meaningful place of oh I belong I'm okay as I am well we'll all get there when we get past menopause where Alexandra is right now you are you are getting that more and more and more

yeah yes menopause is like the it's the cementing in moments like yeah it's it's the line it becomes non-negotiable now it's like yeah we get it every bleed well there's another question that I really wanted to ask but the time has is coming to an end for this conversation but it's really about how over this past year you've landed this next level of information around how like the how-to of taking this menstruality wisdom and living it out in leadership in the world these what we lovingly called the dark arts of feminine leadership so we can't get into those today but the MLP is like totally in service to people embodying those skills and we will do another episode where we look into into that skill set yeah yeah yeah good idea well thank you so much for today it's been an emergent dance with the unknown I loved it yeah I loved it too I loved the three of us in conversation yeah yeah we should host a podcast or something

I love it bye you too thank you oh thanks for listening all the way to the end I haven't laughed that much in a while I really enjoyed that conversation I'd love to hear how it landed for you. You can always reach out to me at sophie at redschool.net. And I want to share our invitation again to join us for our webinar, how to channel the powers of menstruality to step into your leadership on the 16th of November, and you can register at menstrualityleadership.com. Okay, that's it for this week. I really look forward to being with you again next week and until then, keep living life according to your own brilliant rhythm.