The Menstruality Podcast - 117. Wild Power #2: Cycle-Awareness as Your Spiritual Practice (Alexandra & Sjanie)

Episode Date: November 28, 2023

While there are many wonderful spiritual practices available today, the one thing we are not taught is that we have our own unique way or practice encoded in our being that changes everything.  In this episode we restore menstrual cycle awareness as the original spiritual practice, and how it can support each of us to evolve, every day.This 2nd bonus episode in our Wild Power series was recorded when Red School founders, Alexandra & Sjanie first launched their Wild Power book - and have a buy one get one free offer on the Wild Power book until 21st December, if you’d like to buy one and get one for a friend or as a gift for a loved one over the holidays. (We’re also running the offer for our menopause book, Wise Power). See below for the link to get your free copy.In this episode you’ll:Discover how our bodies come coded with our own original spiritual practiceLearn how we came to discover the power of the female bodyAnd how you can begin to activate this uniquely Feminine practice---Registration is now open for our 2024 Menstruality Leadership Programme. You can explore the curriculum here: https://www.menstrualityleadership.com---To get a free copy of Wild Power to gift to a friend, we are offering a buy one, get one free until 21st December: https://www.redschool.net/product/wild-power-book-bogof (We’re also offering the same deal with our new menopause book, Wise Power: https://www.redschool.net/product/wise-power-book-bogof )---The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email [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. Hi there, welcome back to the podcast. We have our second extra episode today from our special Wild Power series that's unfolding over the coming few weeks on Tuesdays. Alexander and

Sharni recorded these conversations when they launched the Wild Power book and they've got a behind the scenes chatting around the kitchen table kind of feeling, which is a real treat to listen to. So I hope you enjoy listening in as much as I did. If you'd like to buy a copy of Wild Power and get one for a friend or as a gift for a loved one over the holidays, we've got a buy one, get one free offer until the 21st of December. And that's also for our menopause book, Wise Power as well. You can go to the show notes for this podcast at redschool.net forward slash podcast to find the link to get your free copy. And just to note before we start, the sound quality isn't as good as usual here. So please bear with us. And also these conversations were recorded before we

embraced more inclusive language around the menstrual cycle. So when Alexandra and Sharni say women, know that we're referring to women and everyone who menstruates. OK, here we book, Wild Power. And we were wondering the best way to sort of begin. And we both feel that the kind of starting place for this menstruality conversation is really around an idea that is absolutely central to this work and an idea that has taken us kind of a long time to come to name. And it's this idea that the menstrual cycle is a woman's original spiritual practice. I feel like I need to take a little breath when I say that. Actually, I feel quite relieved saying that.

It's a powerful thing that you're saying. And I feel myself also most soothed as you say it too Shani, having it named and recognised like that. It's been a long time coming being able to name that and also to be able to articulate what we mean by that and this is of course what we will be doing in this podcast so this is a knowledge that this knowledge this is a knowledge that has grown over years within me and it's as though my whole being actually my whole being has known this all along, and what has grown is my capacity to drop into that knowing more and more, and to be able to name it. Yes, it all really goes back right to the beginning, doesn't it, Shani?

I'm just thinking about my very first bleed at the age of 14, my monarchy. And I remember in that moment feeling this, oh, I feel teary. This is, I felt this huge pride. And I remember the light. I remember the light. It was summer, but I just remember the light. And as though I was walking on air, just this wonderful feeling of excitement in my being. I can see myself now walking into the dispensary, because I was at boarding school, to get my first set of pads. I just have this wonderful kind of swagger in my body, being so grown up. And of course there were a whole lot of things in those feelings I was having, but I think in that moment my spirit knew, yes, there's something here, this is my business and in my 20s I and this was in the 1970s when menstruation that was

the dark ages of menstruality the 70s of the fall it's been coming out of those dark ages since then yeah in the 70s I really got into into fertility awareness that is awareness of the biology of the cycle. And I did that for contraceptive purposes because I didn't want to be controlled by a pill. And I did go on the pill briefly and soon woke up to what it was doing to me and practiced fertility awareness and was a little bit militant about it. I thought all women should bear out their bodies worked, but it was a sort of political act, if you like.

And I was, of course, very much into spiritual things. But no one, of course, was talking about menstruation as a spiritual process. But I was nonetheless in touch with something through this cycle of awareness. I even wrote in my diary one day, I think I was about 28 or 29, I wrote, the world is singing today, last night I got my period. And there you go, there's that amazing ecstatic place of menstruation and it was coming through, but of course I had never named it as that because no one was and um and then of course I had my great awakening at um 30 just before my 31st

birthday when I got the most outrageous period pain and that was the beginning that of the initiation into the work that we now teach at Red School. It all came from that extraordinary moment of that outrageous pain just breaking me open. And it would come back month after month. And I truly felt broken open by it. But I made the radical decision to follow my body and not take painkillers, if at all possible, you know, to actually really drop the menstruation, stop and just follow my body. Now I was able to do that in part

because I was self-employed some of the time. I had a part-time job teaching and then I was working as a counselor therapist. And fortunately my cycle was regular, so I could actually plan for the bleed and I would actually tell my clients I'm sorry I'm going to be bleeding next week and I don't take painkillers and so I can't do the session and I would just travel into the pain and it was like the veils being ripped from my eyes like

night sounds now this was a process that happened over time but it was this revelation that kept coming through. And also with time and a lot of really good natural health practices, particularly diet, I was able to heal that pain. But it was above all this willingness to follow my cycle and to give in at menstruation that really exploded things open and of course I began to experience all these glorious states of being ecstasy I used to feel so high menstruation and when the pain was losing and I just feeling love and just feeling so right and knowing myself and because I was always dogged by shame you know all the usual crap of being a woman and but here I felt right I felt whole and I felt good and it was just beautiful but then I would come out of menstruation and get up to ovulation

and of course no one was talking about this and would think, I actually used to have the thoughts, maybe I am making this up. Now, isn't that an outrage? Yeah, yeah. It just makes me want to weep to think about that now, that I doubted my own experience. Each month I would come back to menstruation and there it was again. And, of course, I write about this healing journey in my first

book while genie but yes that's where it all grew it grew and grew and this this statement that we make that the menstrual cycle is a woman's original spiritual practice it was like this statement was growing in more and more it was still pre verbal but the knowing of it was there and then in recent years It was like this statement was growing in me more and more. It was still pre-verbal, but the knowing of it was there. And then in recent years, I found through our connection, we came to finally really name it clearly and in a very articulate way, this is what it is ultimately. So this statement has come out of a very profoundly, you know, deeply lived experience of my own process.

And of course all the women that I've been and then we have been working with together over these last eight or so years. This has really grown. Shani, what about your journey to discover this extraordinary knowledge that we have a spiritual practice built into our bodies how did it awake you because it wasn't pain for you and by the way a woman doesn't have to have pain to wake into this power on the contrary well as I'm listening to you now it's really apparent to me Alexandra that you sort of paved the way certainly for me but I'm sure for many many women something in your kind

of acknowledgement of your own experience I think made it possible for others to be able to recognize it in themselves. So you had a lot to do with it for me personally. But my kind of awakening to the menstrual cycle as a spiritual process began before I met you, really, for me, it was at the point when I kind of made the decision to take contraception, because I mean, there was just so little knowledge about the menstrual cycle passed down to me, and I really kind of was of the understanding that it was a liability. You know, when I first got my period and my menstrual cycle started, what that really meant was a load of responsibility. Now I was eligible for pregnancy and I kind of needed to be extra cautious and kind of, yeah, I was in some sort of danger, possibly even. Those were

some of the kind of ideas I was carrying. So for me, contraception felt like a kind of sensible, responsible thing to do. And I tried the pill like you did, but that really didn't work for me. And I was then offered the contraceptive injection which I went on to this was in my early 20s and that shuts down your entire menstrual cycle and yeah I think back now and I actually saw that as a total bonus I had no menstrual cycle whatsoever and and then of course when I started kind of having issues with that and I came off contraception, that was when I got to see really from my own direct experience what this energy was that I'd been suppressing, what this process was that I had shut down. So when my cycle started coming back, it was a very strong

experience, like an awakening. I felt life flooding back into my body. I felt my senses awakening. I felt just my whole interior landscape came back into relief and my emotional world got turned up in a big way. So it was strong and quite unnerving at times. to kind of ground in that energy, to ground in that rhythm and in that change and to sort of reacclimatize myself to this shifting gears that is very, very much a part of who we are as a woman. So I felt, you know, having been from no cycle to having my cycles return, I really started to feel my connection to life much more fully. And my, I began to feel myself more fully and feel more embodied and more present and much more here. So that was really my kind of first sign, if you like, that there is a lot more at work here than just this biological process.

And then, of course, through meeting you and the way that you opened up and the conversations that you had been having with many women around the world, I joined into that conversation and I started to see more and more clearly how this practice of awareness of my cycle can open me to kind of you know yeah much more meaning in my life much more purpose so yeah this has come from our individual experiences and as I was saying there also from the conversations we've had with women all around the world over a number of years how we're all together sort of piecing this together and actually I remember the moment Alexandra it was when we were sitting on in the garden at Hawkwood College while we were writing Wild Power and we were sort of grappling to find

you know the one what what what is the you know if we could sum it up in one sentence, what is this, what are we reclaiming with this work? And I remember us saying it and naming the menstru looking back, honestly, years and years of, you know, your, your list, countless conversations, many trainings, books written. this is it this is the piece that we women um can reclaim now that this is our original practice this is our way we've just opened the doors for our 2024 menstruality leadership program it's the world's first training designed to help you embody your leadership and your full authority through the power of menstruality. So if you're loving this conversation, if you love the Wild Power book, or you're feeling called to explore the magic that lives within your menstrual cycle and the menopause process, we really warmly welcome you to join us. We've got a super early bird offer until this Thursday, November the 30th, where you can save £495. You can take your seat on the MLP at

menstrualityleadership.com. And here are a few words from one of our graduates from last year, Dimple, about her experience of the MLP. Hi everyone, my name is Dimple Mukherjee and I did my menstruality leadership program training in March of 2023 and it's been an absolute game changer for me in my life and in my career as an occupational therapist and also as a coach, a personal coach. And what I particularly loved about the program by Red School was that it really allowed us to sink into a place of depth. And I think my favorite part of the whole program was just the amount of support that I got and how held I felt in this program as I was guided by Shani and Alexandra as well as the mentors. The most beautiful thing were

the community calls as well as being able to connect with the mentors individually. That was so valuable for me to go through those three calls with my mentor on a one-on-one basis where i was led through a medicine circle and i was also encouraged to really reflect and to go inwards into my own deeper knowing and to really share that and the way the really clarify and sort of reflect back to you where it is that you're at with this process to me was mind-blowing I found that really really helpful for me to tap into my own depth as well as what I found really interesting which I'm saying now it's interesting at the time, I wasn't sure how I felt about it, were the principles of the dark arts. Because that has been certainly

the golden nuggets of this course and how I am now leading into menopause with the dark arts beside me and how each one of them has such a strong messaging and space holding for me during this time. And as far as leadership is concerned, what I'm really trusting is the unknown right now as I'm in menopause and really keeping faith that when I come out on the other side, that all the deep work that I've done that is invisible actually to the world will be so much more valuable in terms of what i can offer them if i can just honor the deep rest and holding the tension and then being with the unknown during this time and there are already stirrings of what type of offerings I will be creating for myself and for the people that I work with. And that's been an immense gift and a reminder that

the quiet leadership and where I can be most impactful is if I really truly honor who I am at my core, which is sort of the quiet leadership versus making a lot of noise. And that has been really important for me to acknowledge and now to build on it. And I think that's where it's been the most has given me so much and the community that I've been surrounded by and the women that I've either been enlisting partnerships or in peer pods with, I've created so many valuable connections and connections that really speak my language. One of the themes that I was working with this year was also to build community and to build friendship. I can truly say from the bottom of my heart that the community of women that are in these programs are just incredible souls who are doing the work that our world needs right now. And I love that I've met so many women from all over the world. And the container of the Malastorality Leadership Program at Red School

has really held me and held the sacredness of each of our lives. And I really want to thank them for that. I think we can now actually articulate, can't we, what we mean by that. Because for so long for me it was a felt sense in my being and I just just knew something and would rankle when it wasn't acknowledged so when we're talking about spiritual practices you know when I was in in groups or workshops and people were talking about this practice or this or this way or that my spirit would rankle and I would just feel an indignation.

It always feels like something was being imposed on me when I had something inside me that wasn't being named, that was just equally as valid. And I used to be a little bit reactive and I'd have to sort of manage that because it's not fair because all those spiritual practices are fabulous. They're all great to do, you know for all of us whoever the men are like but

now that I'm able to clearly name it and how it actually works and of course that's what we'll speak about now I can feel my whole spirit has settled a lot more, though I'm still determined that this is going to be, you know, just out there in the field, just commonly known, like all the other spiritual practices that we partake in. Oh, yes, and there's cycle awareness. That's, of course, very key. Now, that's a woman's original one.

I want that to be so normal, so known. So, Shani, what do we mean when we say, I want that to be normal so no mm-hmm so shiny that's um What do we mean when we say how does it? What do we mean how does it work as a spiritual practice because I'm imagining there are women listening to this game What you know this thing I put up with each month this? I'm experiencing all this you know all those crappy feelings that I can experience pre-menstrually. You know, what is useful or good? How can that actually be a spiritual way?

So should we dive in and have a crack at driving? Yeah. Yeah, I think we've been saying, you know, the menstrual cycle is a woman's original spiritual practice. But more specifically, it is the awareness of our menstrual cycle is a woman's original spiritual practice, but more specifically it is the awareness of our menstrual cycle. Cause I'm noticed and unattended to the power of the cycle really lies dormant. So it is the discipline that we bring to it and the attention that we hold for our cycle.

Yeah. And for ourselves in. Yes. Yeah, and for ourselves in these kind of changing seasons, that is the practice and that kind of ignites it. Sorry, I was jumping in there. I wanted just to really pick up that thing of discipline. You know, a spiritual practice is a discipline that you come to on a regular basis, whether it's meditating or prayer or ritual or whatever.

And the discipline for us as women is this discipline of cycle awareness, isn't it? Each day, noticing where you are in your cycle, what you're experiencing. And of course, in our next podcast, we're going to go into a lot of detail on what we mean by cycle awareness. But it's just a simple practice of paying attention and beginning to accommodate your life to the cycle as something that is meaningful and useful rather than an irritant that we have to cope with that on the contrary it is this kind of wise system in us that is supporting us in terms of our health and well-being our creative expression and spiritual well-being our spiritual life it's the cherry on the cake so it's a discipline and and i think in a spiritual discipline is one that connects you to something larger, to the sacred, to the divine. And actually, that's what cycle awareness gives us, doesn't it, Shani?

Yeah, that sort of makes me think of the other aspect of this, which is our capacity to connect with the divine and with the sacred, how we can hold on to that and be present to that sacredness through the daily grind, through the moments in our life, through the kind of difficulties and the challenges and whatever else life throws at us. Our capacity to hold that level of connection is also really supported through the practice of cycle awareness. So it's developing us to be a vehicle or a channel for, or a bridge, if you like, between the divine and the mundane. So it's building our capacity, our awareness, our ability to hold. Yes, yes.

I love that. I love that idea of building our capacity, like building the vehicle through which more and more of the divine, the sacred can come in. It's about re-sacralizing life. And the mental cycle becomes this channel for that or rather our awareness of our own cycle I always say when you're connected to your cycle you're connected to yourself we call the cycle yourself in action yeah and this act of connecting to yourself is an act of love, really.

As you meet the cycle, it's like the cycle comes back to you with all these lovely goodies. But it is this process of awareness that grows the psychological muscle to be able to handle more and more of this of an expanded consciousness yeah and actually that sort of brings brings up the other the other piece of this which is that actually the cycle is really supporting you to grow into these new skins, to really expand into these larger states of consciousness, kind of really built into the pattern of the cycle, built into the process of the cycle is this kind of initiatory process, which is what we're going to be talking about more in future episodes, what we mean by that.

But essentially the cycle is growing you, maturing you, helping you to kind of expand and be able to hold more and more of who you are and more and more of, you know, more and more of life. So it's really connecting you to life in a big way yeah it's lovely it's connecting you to life and so and it's giving you a sense of meaning a profound sense of meaning and belonging and what I also want to add here is of course that we've been talking about the process of the cycle, the process of paying attention to the cycle, but of course what we also have is something we talk about menstruation as the inner temple of women.

And at menstruation we're able to experience these glorious expanded states of consciousness, love, bliss, union, ecstasy. Now, you know, these are the kind of goals of meditation, aren't they? Yeah. And yet they are gifted to us. Yeah. Just gifted to us on a plate. We don't have to struggle.

We don't have to sweat. We don't have to sit still for an hour a day or anything like that all we have to do keep this fidelity to this all because it's huge actually have to say in a culture that doesn't value the cycle so it's quite hard for us to do this but it shouldn't be and we keep a fidelity to our own cycle process and honor our changing energy and rhythm and then this door opens into this incredible sacred space of menstruation it is staggering and it is a complete outrage that women aren't born into this knowledge that this knowledge is in is

not in the field you know it's just an outrage that we're having to scramble to recover it yeah but anyway we're changing yeah yeah it's it's our birthright and uh yeah well that's right we are changing this all now so there's that beautiful pot of gold of menstruation what we call the inner temple, which is gifted to us naturally. Yeah, I think another hallmark of a spiritual practice is something which is kind of naturally healing. And that also is true of when we pay attention to our cycle is it really supports us to get to know the different aspects of ourselves, get to know who we are, and really to embrace who we are, all of ourselves. I think it builds, as we often say, this inner kindness, this capacity to be gentle with and to love and accept all parts of yourself. So you're really recovering who you are you're recovering this

kind of wholeness and I think that is that's the the inner work of the cycle that you know is so crucial if we are wanting to really kind of serve and wanting to really offer what it is we're here to offer to really bring our gifts and our you know potential forward and just following on from that actually you just really reminded me that cycle awareness grows the same kind of energy that meditation does it builds this inner kindness it builds a stillness and inner stillness and an inner stillness, and an inner spaciousness. And we like to call it the mindfulness practice of women. We really want to restore the cycle as equivalent to, like, meditating, something like that for cycle awareness.

Yeah. Now, I think, Donnie, we should probably just do a little action thing here. Yes, women. Yep. To start to awaken. because here we've been talking about all these glorious energies and i think we should probably give women a few clues about how they can actually begin to awaken all these glorious energies would you like to be the owners on this let's kind of let's say specifically what the thing is to do to really begin to practice cycle awareness and begin to

engage with the spiritual powers of the cycle. So it's really simple and we are going to be going into a lot more depth and detail about this in the next episode. But essentially this practice of menstrual cycle awareness is about noticing where you are in your cycle. So day one is the first day of bleeding. So tracking the day that you're on, and we really recommend you write it down. It's good to formalize this process and to make a kind of habit of it and to have some way that you can refer back to what you've been noticing. So write down the day you're on. And the next step is just to pay attention to your mood, your energy, just how you're feeling that day, the kind of way your mind's working, the kinds of thoughts you're having, whatever

dreams might have come to you the night before, anything that stands out from your day, just to make note of that. It might be a few words you write down or it might be a paragraph or a few pages you might find you get carried away sometimes. That's absolutely fine. I like to pay attention throughout my day, just take little kind of check-in moments with myself and be like, oh, you know, how is today's cycle day? You know, what am I experiencing? What does this feel like? And little pit stops, check-ins like that throughout the day. And then at the end of the day, I like to kind of reflect back on the day and make note of what I've been experiencing. So that is the basic practice of menstrual cycle awareness. And you can begin today. You don't need to wait until the first day of your've been doing this on Instagram and Facebook,

which has been so much fun. Finding a visual image that captures the experience of my day or kind of speaks somehow about what the essence of that day has been like with a few words. And for me, it's been, well, it's been creative and fun to do, but also it's been really vivifying my experience for me in a whole different way. It's quite different to writing it down. So if that's something that appeals to you, you might like to do it that way. And if you do, tag me so I can join in tracking your cycle with you.

It's a really lovely thing to do actually to share your cycle experience with other women and um i find it that i learned so much from seeing other women's experiences of their cycles so you might want to start doing that um we will include links to our instagram and facebook so you can check it out there if that appeals to you. I actually love checking your cycle day out, Shani. I often go, oh, I must just go to Facebook and see what's up with Shani. You're living vicariously. I just love it.

Now that you don't have one. I think I must be. I think I must be. Thank you so much for joining us today. We hope this episode has helped you to experience a little more of the magic of your menstrual cycle. We hope to see you again next week for another installment, this time entitled Four Steps to Access Your Feminine Path to Power. You can find out more about the Wild Power series at wildpowerbook.com or on our Red School Facebook page. We've only got seven weeks to go until the release of Wild Power, and we'd love you to join us for our online book launch party where we'll be reading from the book as well as answering your questions.

To register simply follow the link in the follow-up email. See you next week and until then may you experience your cycle as an ally and guide along your own unique feminine path to power. Thank you so much for listening all the way through to the end of this special second bonus episode.'ll share the next one next tuesday alongside our usual thursday episodes and if you'd like to buy a copy of wild power you can get one for a friend too for free until the 21st of december and we're also running this offer for our menopause book wise power please go to the show notes for this podcast at redschool.net forward slash podcast to find the link to get your free copy that's redschool.net forward slash podcast that's it for today I'll be with you again on Thursday and until then keep living life according to your own brilliant rhythm