The Menstruality Podcast - 119. Wild Power #3: Your Cycle as Your Path to Power (Alexandra & Sjanie)

Episode Date: December 5, 2023

Today we're excited to share our third bonus Wild Power conversation. These ‘round-the-kitchen-table’ chats with Alexandra and Sjanie were first released when we published Wild Power: Discover the Magic of the Menstrual Cycle and Awaken the Feminine Path to Power. They unpack the book’s teachings through powerful, practical and funny real-life stories and examples. In this episode we dive into the detail of how to live menstrual cycle awareness as a spiritual practice - your path to power - on a day to day basis, and the magic that unfurls from that.In this episode you’ll:Discover how to restore your cyclical inner ecologyLearn the four steps to charting your cycle as your spiritual practiceUnderstand how to harness the powers of your cycle to boost your health, increase your creativity and productivity and restore sacredness to your daily life---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. Hey, welcome back to the podcast and welcome back to our special Wild Power bonus series. It's episode three today. Alexander and Sharni had these conversations when they first launched their first book, Wild Power, Discover the Magic of the Menstrual Cycle and Awaken the Feminine Path to Power.

They are full of cycle awareness teachings and insights and also with powerful and practical and funny real life stories and examples. We've got a buy one get one free offer on the Wild Power book until the 21st of December if you'd like to buy one and get one for a friend or as a gift for a loved one over the holiday season and we're also running the same offer too for our wise power book so to get your free copy of either wild power or wise power you can go to the show notes for the podcast at redschool.net forward slash podcast. Just a little note before we start this episode, the sound quality isn't as good as usual, so please bear with us with that. 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 they're referring to women and everyone who

menstruates. Okay, let's get started with number three of our Wild Power series, Your Cycle as Your Path to Power. In our last episode, we spoke about the woman's original spiritual practice, and it is the menstrual cycle, or rather awareness of your menstrual cycle. The act of awareness awakens this spiritual practice in you. Now, in this episode, we're going to go into considerable detail on what it means to be aware of your cycle and how to live that awareness in the world. And as you do that, you really bring your whole spiritual practice alive within you, but also within your life itself. You're applying it to your life as well.

So we'll begin by recapping on what we call the basics there are four steps there are four steps to what we call your feminine power to an empowered self and we're going to begin with the very basics would you like to go through that shiny first step yeah so the first step of menstrual cycle awareness is what we spoke of in the first episode, which is just the very simple act of knowing where you are in your cycle and charting that. So day one is the first day of bleeding. You would keep track of which day you're on and then just simply make note of that. And it's a really good idea to write it down, as we said before. Along with knowing where you are in your cycle, you're paying attention to how you feel on any given day. So just noticing what your mood is

like, you know, what your energy levels are like, the way your mind's working, the kinds of dreams that you've had the night before, anything that really stands out for you during the day. So it's quite a good thing to do at the end of your day. Sit and look back on your day and just pay attention to how it was for you. And of course, throughout the day, you might be tracking something. You might be noticing something. I like to take a few pit stops during my day and just kind of notice, ah, how am I today? What is this day of my menstrual cycle like? And then I kind of clock it. And then at the end of the day I might write it down

and put into words what I've noticed. So that's step one of charting your cycle. And that is our kind of basic mindfulness practice as women. It is our way of staying connected to ourselves, staying present with how we are in any given moment on any given day in our cycle changes, we change. So it's really tracking those changes as they happen, staying on the pulse of yourself and how you are. So that's step one, charting your cycle. I love that phrase, staying on the pulse of yourself and seeing what's perfect, Shani. Well, now we get to, now we've got step one under our belt and we're going to go into step two of menstrual cycle awareness when you've been doing step one over a month or two you're going to start to see a pattern to your cycle that you will see played

out month after month generally speaking unless you're under enormous stress. And we call this your rhythm of power. And you're going to notice how your energy changes through the month and how your mood changes. And in step two, you're going to sync your cycle to your schedule, or rather sync your schedule to your cycle. In other words, when you are looking at your diary booking things in you're going to think about where you are in your cycle

at any one moment and organize your schedule around what you know about your cycle so you may know that in the summer of your cycle that you can take on Goliath's you can do a million things at once you can and you just want to party party party or go out and celebrate with your friend whatever that's the time to book in all your social events you may notice that in the latter half of your cycle you turn into a bit of a grouch and you don't want to connect with anybody well then you're not going to schedule something event they're like going out with your friends or whatever so you really be strategic in how you

use your cycle and really capitalize on its energies so for instance if you have to do something that's very important for you you might think about where you schedule it if you have choice now we don't always have choice but where we do you have choice around what goes into our schedule use it wisely is there anything you want to add on top of that shani what i've just been saying there yeah well it's um it's great as you describe it, because it really makes clear to me that, you know, this first step of charting your cycle is our way of accumulating knowledge about ourselves. It's a way of really getting to know, you know, who we are and the different sides of ourself and when different capacities and powers that we hold really come to the fore.

And in getting to know those strengths then, as you talk about the kind of scheduling, is you find ways to capitalize on those particular powers and to really make use of them when they're in their kind of full flowering. And you gave some good examples there. And actually, the thing I was thinking of, which is something I'm always bearing in mind, because I genuinely do schedule my life according to my cycle. You know, one of the things for me is, if a lot of things are happening at a certain time in the month, and I check my kind of calendar, and I realize I'm around, say, kind of the ovulatory time of my cycle, or the sort of spring, summertime, I will quite happily say yes to a very busy schedule. I'll quite happily like rush from one thing to another, or cram a little bit of this in with a

little bit of that. Whereas in the sort of time leading up to my period, I will say no to so many more things. And I like to keep much more spaciousness in my diary, so much more empty time. I like to not have to rush from one thing to another. So that's kind of how I plan, really just according to my energy. But then also there are other times when I will purposefully arrange to do a particular activity because I know that I will flourish at it then. I know I'll really shine at it then. I mean, a good one for me, for example, when we were writing our book, Wild Power, you know, I would as much as possible save the editing of the book for when I was in the premenstruum, because then I really have this capacity to see things very clearly. I'm incredibly discerning. I can just see what's

working and what's not working. And it's all so much easier for me to do that kind of work at that time. So that's an example of me really working to my strengths in that season. And so where I could, you know, that's what we would arrange to do. So that's step two, really syncing your activities and your schedule and your plans in accordance with both the shifts in energy, but also the different strengths and powers that you have. I'd love to go in there and just add something, Shari, which just reminded me when you were talking, which is that be mindful of who is in charge of your diary. You know, if you're in the summer of your cycle and you're looking at your diary, everything is possible,

but you must not let the superwoman in you be in charge of the diary. That's why it's really crucial to know where you are in your cycle because she will say yes to everything. That is so right. It's a classic error, isn't it? To guess to stuff in the summer of your cycle and then have to actually fulfill on that promise when it's sort of autumn or winter when you really don't want to be really be cautious of um nice one so should we yeah go on well i was just thinking also another thing came to mind for me which is that when you know when you are in your cycle um it can help you to make a decision about whether you can do something or not i'm actually thinking of when um i was just before bleeding and I was invited to go on to a

radio program and this was in Australia to talk about my first book and she said to me well what about you know on Monday and I knew on that Monday I was going to be the day before bleeding and I just said to her no I'm busy and myself, I'm going busy doing nothing. And then she said, well, what about Wednesday or Thursday? I said, perfect, because I knew I would be bleeding. My cycle was always regular. And once I was bleeding, I was fine. I could come. I felt very grounded and centered. I said, really, when you know your cycle, you can just make decisions about things quite Where you have choice, again, you can make decisions quite effortlessly. That's a brilliant example. It also reminds me that before I started charting my cycle, things seemed a lot more random.

And I would kind of notice myself really not feeling like doing something, but I had no way of knowing that in advance. It sort of seemed unpredictable and random. Whereas now I can pretty much accurately predict whether or not I'm going to want to go to that party or not, depending on where I'm in my cycle. So it's really helpful. I won me such a lovely sense of ease because yeah like you said I can make decisions with a little bit more certainty which is which is a lovely which is just a lovely feeling so so let's let's talk about the third step in this practice of menstrual cycle awareness, which is to do with cooperating with the energies of your cycle. So again, this is very connected to that first step. Everything rests on the first step, which is charting your cycle and getting to know your pattern, your rhythm, your strengths, your vulnerabilities, really learning what your

tendencies are at each time in the cycle and what your needs are. And this third step really is about cooperating with those tendencies. And honestly, this is easier said than done. I mean, I find myself challenged by this step often because it's so habitual to expect ourselves to be a certain way at a certain time and then to actually recognize we just don't feel that way and to really trust that and value it and go with it. You know, for example, in the days leading up to my bleed, I feel really kind of tired and lazy and slow and quite disinterested in things. Now, if I wasn't charting my cycle and paying attention, I would probably be kind of giving myself a hard time about that and wondering what's wrong with me and feeling I kind of, especially if I had some sort of deadline or something I should be doing, I'd be feeling like I ought to be moving faster or ought to be more interested and whatnot. But actually learning to really trust that energy and trust the power of it and trust that my cycle knows what it's doing and that it's

leading me somewhere and to cooperate and slower shawnee and trust to go slower and trust instead of just the whole point and not bullying yourself into being something that you are not in that moment but to actually because as you say we have this idea that we're supposed to be at peak performance every day like athletes you know and no one is at peak performance at every every day absolutely no one is and but to actually trust those days where you wake up and you feel as you do just that slowness and disinterest and to actually follow that as best you can and we had to work with that tension didn't we when we were well for both of us actually because even

though I don't have a menstrual cycle anymore my moods and energies change with each day but when we were working on writing wild power and particularly when you were coming into your bleed and we had this deadline didn't we and we damn well we were able to often allow you to give you that space to go more slowly or to work from your dreaminess and I would sort of pick up the slack that day because of course on another day I might be a bit chilled and sort of a little slow you would pick up the slack that day and we actually did cooperate really well under immense pressure. So it is actually doable under pressure, even if it's only 1%, even if it's only 1%. And I think that comes from us really trusting the cycle process.

And this is what menstrual cycle awareness brings. It helps you to really see how necessary and vital these different stages and these different powers are and that they're all needed because each one gives rise to the next. There's a natural order in the cycle that is working through you and that order is a perfectly balanced ecology, that order is an intelligent, coherent whole that needs to fulfill itself at each and every point. And I guess we, through practicing cycle awareness, as you will, have come to trust that. And, you know, when it comes to the book, I really learned that if I can slow down, if I can take time, if I can step back, when my cycle shifts gears and I come out through the other side of menstruation, my capacity to engage with the

book was so much stronger and my vitality was much greater and my enthusiasm and interest. And I came back, you know, twice as ready than if I had pushed on through and soldiered on through and overwritten something. I probably would have felt like more of a shell and had less capacity through the rest of the month. So this is something that one of the benefits that comes from practicing cycle awareness and really learning to cooperate with the energies as you start to trust them you start to trust that each one needs its time each one needs its place and each one is valuable in and of itself hey i'm just going to pause the podcast for a moment i'm loving hearing alexandra and shani's stories but I want to share a little bit about our menstruality leadership program. The doors for

our 2024 program, which starts in March, are now open. It's our annual immersive training for teachers, for healers, artists, creatives, nurturers, culture shifters, trailblazers of all kinds who want to embody a radically new approach to leadership that's based on a cyclical model of development and that's rooted in your own lived embodied experience of the menstrual cycle. Wherever you're at in the arc of your menstruating years the course can be for you whether you have a menstrual cycle currently whether you're pregnant breastfeeding or post-menopause you can explore the curriculum at menstrualityleadership.com that's menstrualityleadership.com it's the only comprehensive

training of its kind in the world and it's had a really beautiful, meaningful, profound impact for our 460 graduates. And we've been sharing some stories from our graduates on the podcast. Today we're hearing from psychotherapist Suad Ahmed about how the programme supported her to transform her experience of challenging menstrual cycles, particularly in her premenstrual phase. I came into work because I was suffering really badly from like PMS symptoms of kind of premenstrual mostly emotional symptoms really kind of that anger what was depression that kind of depressive like things are just not going well being really irritable feeling really hopeless getting into situations where I was real rage was coming out and not knowing where it'd come from and then

upsetting the other person mostly my husband who obviously we're in a close relationship with so and getting that feedback and seeing myself almost like lose control things weren't quite right like I wasn't coping very well and I think it came back over a few years of working with Shani and Alexandra doing the other courses that they were offering in the UK at the time and doing my own work and seeing how it transformed my my life how something that was so painful became transformative almost like a phoenix out of a of the ashes or something that was kind of yeah painful and difficult to be with came something so beautiful and speaking to other women sharing it and seeing how widely experienced my my feelings were and other people were in the same

boat so I was like this this is important I think what I really appreciate about the course like the way that it's been taught by Shana and Alexandra is that there isn't like a prescriptive way of being we're not not everyone's not leaving with like a list or a steps on how to be a leader and I guess what's done for me is affirmed that I have something to offer or that what I'm doing in the world is important in itself it's worthy in itself it has meaning within itself it doesn't have to be exceptional or special or because intrinsically everything we do is special it is sacred but there's a part of us in the society that we live in that is compared against somebody else or like is it as good as that is it as good as that and so it's

kind of pulled me away from that into a very intimate space of this is right now this is good enough this is important enough this also brings to mind shani a very core part of cycle work is self-care that this is actually our number one self-care tool and as we're talking about this third step of cooperating with your cycle you're cooperating with yourself and it is a form of self-care um and that this rhythm of activity and rest is so profound. This is the basic cyclical pattern in any cycle in life. And you articulated that so beautifully when you talked about the ecology of the cycle and each part is needed. So the downtime is needed so you can have the uptime. It all works as an integrated whole. And I can remember when sometimes we did actually have to push through your when you were bleeding wait you only had a little time off when you

really needed two or three days off and you and you got half a day or barely that and how that really affected you you came out just not just a bit jarred and fractured and your energy wasn't so good. And we just had to push on through and, you know, you weren't a happy bunny. And, you know, it wasn't great. Yeah, there was a payoff completely. It was a payoff. So this, it is about, this is profoundly about self-care. Cooperating with the rhythm of your cycle is a self-care practice that

delivers huge dividends. You will feel just certain, your nervous system is going to feel so much more soothed and calm, your energy levels are going to be better, you're going to be replenishing them more and you're going to feel just much more in yourself, more grounded and together really and efficient, effective, what you're doing in life instead of feeling like, oh, what's wrong with me because you're suddenly feeling a bit dreamy and you don't want to focus. When you start to go with those apparently kind of dreamy, slow times and cooperate with them, what you find is, one, something else opens up, and we'll come to that in a moment, but that you feel overall much smoother in your whole system. Mm-hmm. Oh, that is so lovely. It's balm to my soul just listening to you. And really,

that has been my experience of it is this deepening trust of myself and my own experience and feeling the rightness of it. And also, and also enjoying the benefit that comes from trusting that it is incredibly rich yeah that's really beautiful Alexandra so shall we shall we speak of the final stage which in a way is more of an art and something that requires practice and um and time this this is big school this is cycle away yeah this is big because i think up until this point in the first three steps i i think of the um cycle awareness work as being quite a private affair i mean you may have shared it with you know your partner or your children or friends or whatever, but it is still very much I think a very private thing.

In this final step, I think there's an element of really going public a little bit. It isn't about declaring, I'm menstruating, but it is, isn't it Shani, really about really standing for the powers or the experiences you're having in the moment. And I think the classic thing for me is, a classic example for me would be how to, well, perhaps we should, I haven't actually described what the step is first before I give the example, but really the step is how to bring the powers of the cycle that you at any particular moment into the situation that you're in. Instead of sort of overriding yourself and trying to be something you're not or just sort of managing or coping with your experience of menstruation to actually go. Who I am today is really necessary for the world and for what I am doing in

the world so for example you're menstruating and perhaps when you menstruate you want to be as I did very kind of private and inner and but you have to front up to do something out very public in the world let's say you have to front up at a meeting or in my example earlier about being on the radio talking on national radio this was in australia and um i used to feel incredibly grounded and authoritative when i bled and i chose my words carefully and there was a spaciousness about how I spoke and I could really tap into something much bigger it wasn't about my ego anymore and that's an incredible power to bring through so instead of thinking oh I'm menstruating and I just want to curl up

and I don't know if you were like me if you're like me at all i i used to feel quite daggy when i was menstruating i didn't want to dress up i didn't i just wanted to go around and sort of daggy old track pants or something and just be my own little private bubble so the idea of getting dressed up yeah it was always a bit of an edge but if you can get over that edge to really move at the pace of your body and to bring the authority of that intelligence that you're working with, that power that you're working with into the situation you're in. And it may mean if you're at menstruation, it may mean just moving more slowly to manage those expansive powers. But as long as you're not in pain, that's actually quite doable.

That's a lovely example. So this is the final step, which we sometimes call the art of menstruality. And it's really trusting the intelligence and power of the cycle and trusting the rightness of it in your life circumstance and in whatever situation you find yourself in, even if it seems contradictory or even if it seems inappropriate or even if it seems somehow wrong, really kind of moving a little bit deeper than that and trusting that it has value, great value. So that's the fourth and final step. So all of this that we've been describing, this practice of menstrual cycle awareness, is your core tool for being on the feminine path, for following the process of your menstrual cycle and for allowing the powers and the spiritual powers of the menstrual cycle to really be activated in a way what we're speaking

about is you learning to love your cycle or at least you know we say in the book broker an easy truce at least five broker an uneasy truce yes broker an uneasy truce um because that you know that's the first step and uh once you begin to hedge towards that truce perhaps you can start to sense that there is a lot of support that comes through your cycle if you can cooperate it and respect it. And I know this is no easy task because it has not been valued in the way that we are describing, and many of the powers of the cycle have not been valued, and in, have been named as being weaknesses. So we're undoing a whole lot of cultural stuff and a whole bunch of ideas that have been put upon us.

So it is work and it is deep work, but ultimately the rewards are incredibly rich. I think before we complete this episode, Alexandra, we should answer the question that is probably on some of your lips, which is what to do if your cycle is irregular or if indeed your cycle stopped and that there is something that you can do. So let's address that one, Alexandra. This comes up a lot, and it's very important. We always say to women who have an irregular cycle, chart the cycle you have. And remember our big red rule we spoke of earlier about just really valuing your own cycle experience. So you simply follow the charting instructions, but your cycle is going to be its own original shape.

And it might be, you know, a very short cycle or it might be a very long cycle. It may vary from month to month, but just keep faith with that it's not think your rhythm of power your pattern of the cycle may not be as clear as other people who have a regular cycle but firstly paying attention to your cycle lovingly respecting it as it is may you may actually start to notice a pattern of sorts within that. And I also sometimes feel that attention itself can be regulating, but maybe as you pay attention, some kind of regularity starts,

that the cycle becomes more regular. So simply chart the cycle you have. And, of course, there are many other resources that you can turn to to help to begin to regulate the cycle more. But just follow the cycle that you have. Now, if you have no cycle at all, and that can happen perhaps because you've been on the pill and you've come off it I would suggest and you're still waiting for your cycle to return. I would suggest you chart

but by the moon so New moon is day one of the cycle So you just do exactly the same thing we have been describing but you're charting following the phases of the moon And this will give you a sense of some kind of rhythm equally if you're a post-menopausal woman listening to this you might enjoy doing that as well if you feel you want to explore these cyclical ideas we really encourage you to get going right away start Start today. There's no need to wait until the first day of your cycle or to wait until the new moon. Start right away. Start today and begin charting and do let us know how you get on. thank you for listening to this special bonus episode we'll share the next one next tuesday and we'll have our usual thursday episode coming out in a couple of days too just a reminder if you'd like to buy a copy of wild power you can get one free for a friend as well until the 21st

of december and that offer also stands for our menopause book wise Wise Power. 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. Okay, 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.