The Menstruality Podcast - 121. Wild Power #4: The Initiatory Journey from Menarche to Menopause (Alexandra & Sjanie)

Episode Date: December 12, 2023

This is our fourth bonus Wild Power conversation. These ‘round-the-kitchen-table’ chats with Alexandra and Sjanie were first released when we published Wild Power: Discover the Magic of the Menstrual Cycle and Awaken the Feminine Path to Power. They unpack the book’s teachings through powerful, practical and funny real-life stories and examples. In the fourth installment of this bonus series, we explore the initiatory process that is unfolding from menarche to menopause, leading you ever deeper into embracing your Wild Power. We illuminate how this initiatory path is working you - an amazing hidden intelligence that is leading you Home.In this episode you’ll:Learn about this initiatory journey takes us from ‘me’ consciousness to a participatory  ‘us’ consciousness.Find out how to reframe your experience of your first period (menarche), if it was slightly less that perfect.Discover the steps of this initiatory path that helps you to fully face yourself, understand your Calling and grow into new levels of maturity. ---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. Today we've got our fourth episode of this special Wild Power series that we've been unfolding over the past few weeks.

And these conversations with Alexandra and Sharni are kind of like round the kitchen table chats. They were first released when we published Wild Power, Discover the Magic of the Menstrual Cycle and Awaken the Feminine Path to Power. And we have a special 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 holidays, and we're also running the same offer for our menopause book wise power go to the show notes for the podcast at redschool.net forward slash podcast to get the link to get your second free copy so a couple of notes before we start the sound quality isn't as good as it is

these days so just bear with us with that one thank you and these conversations were recorded before we embraced more inclusive language around the cycle. So when we say women, know that Alexandra and Shani are referring to women and everyone who menstruates. All right, let's get going with Wild Power episode number four, the initiatory process actually built into your body. It is part of your biology. It's part of your blueprint that you will be worked from the inside, that you will be taken on a journey over the span of your life. And this female initiatory path is the menstrual cycle, is the way of the menstrual cycle. So, Alexandra, I think if we're going to be talking about this today,

I mean, maybe we should say a little bit about what we mean by initiatory as a way to start this conversation I think that would be essential Shani and I was just amused listening to you speak just then about you know we think of initiation as you know you have to kind of have to go on some kind of grand experience you know you have to go out and have a big test yourself and in Nature or something like that and one of the news is me is that for us women? It's just happening in our day-to-day living it's like you know we're washing up, but they go there goes the initiation You know where? Did he on the train going to work and then, oh, there goes he. It's just at work in us as we are going about our day-to-day business.

I just think that's so wild and wonderful that we are living our initiatory process on an ongoing daily basis. So that's what we're getting back now. But, yes, what do we mean by initiation shani i'll ask you the question you have a question yeah well it's good that you kind of point out the sort of the notion that we think it's something that we have to go out and do so i i would probably start by saying the first thing about an initiation is that it's something that happens to you. Maybe that you're maybe not necessarily kind of consciously choosing. So it's not something that you can control.

I think that's kind of quite a core element of what an initiation is. And then also initiations are really connected to the archetypal cycles of life, and the process of initiation follows that pattern or that rhythm of death and then reconstitution and then rebirth, being born anew and in that process of dying and sort of reforming and being reborn you're reborn into a bigger larger maybe more expanded state or place so there's a kind of overall there's a pattern of generation and a sort of generative pattern. Overall, there is a evolution that's happening through this through this initiatory process.

I suppose I say it like that because for women, this initiatory process happens over and over and over again. So, you know, in the kind of mini snapshot of it, it's death and rebirth. But in the bigger picture of it, it's this evolutionary process, this evolutionary journey that we're evolving through as we go through this process of initiation. Yeah. It is. um yeah so it is you're dying to an old self and birthing a more as you say a more expanded version of yourself so initiation requires an ego death and uh it requires a loss of something

a sense of abandonment and a feeling of, it's very crucial that there's this feeling of vulnerability and of abandonment almost and then this reawakening into a more expanded version of yourself. That's in essence and I loved how you said about this evolution at work, and that each iteration of ourselves takes us into a more evolved version of ourselves, a more mature self. And it is a journey, Shani, isn't it, from a me me centered consciousness to an us centered consciousness moving from it being all about me to growing into this sense of myself and the world as one so into a sense of service to a larger consciousness that is what

initiation is trying to do that is why we need initiation and in a way our culture is really lacking initiated people today it's all about me me me and we need more and more people who have grown into a mature sense of themselves, that they can hold themselves and serve themselves, but also be conscious of the fact that there is a larger process that they are serving as well. So it's really growing into that. We sometimes use that term participatory consciousness, a bit of a grand term,

the sense that you're participating in a larger consciousness than your own small ego selves. Yeah. So that is in essence really what initiation is about. It's about growing up, isn't it? Yeah, exactly. And as you spoke of participatory consciousness, I thought, yeah, on the other side of the spectrum is, you know, my two-year-old consciousness, which is all me, me, me, me, me, you know, so it's kind of the journey from that to this real sense of being a part of something larger and being a collective

intelligence. The other, actually, the other element that comes to mind for me about when I think of initiatory, initiations all hold some form of challenge at their center. And for us women, it's not necessarily an outer challenge, although we can be initiated by our life circumstances, of course. But for us women, built into our menstrual cycle process comes this challenge. So for us, our challenge really is about, you know, generally speaking, is about facing ourselves. So as you spoke about that aspect of initiation, which involves dying to an old you, in that there is a necessity to face yourself and to kind of come to a deeper truth about who you are. And it's that, it's that tussle, if you like, it's that courage, it's that vulnerability that allows you to shed the old skin that in a way is the sort of gateway through that challenge opens you to something larger. So I think it's important to name that challenge aspect of it. And that'll sort of make more sense

as we begin to talk about this in context of the menstrual cycle as well, I think. I'm wondering now, should we dive into actually the initiation process of the cycle, Sharni, and how it works? Yeah, maybe before we do that, let's give the kind of bigger picture. Yeah, that's what I was going to say, the whole initiatory arc of the cycle. Well, our initiatory arc announces itself at our very first bleed. Menarche is the moment when you step onto the female journey of initiation. And at menarche, you are dying to your innocent self and you are now stepping onto the path of individuation actually that's really another good word for describing the journey of initiation it's the journey to individuation um and this is when it really formally begins for us as women. And there is, you know, up until menarche, you are held in this lovely bubble. We call it the womb of the family.

You're held in the womb of the family and there's a lovely innocence. And hopefully you have a lovely feeling of protection from the vicissitudes of the world and you can be utterly innocent and playful and joyful and so on and in a way menarche kind of pricks the the bubble of that uh innocence of that balloon if you like and i always think of the story of sleeping beauty and the 13th fairy and actually that is a story of menarche she you know, there's that gorgeous princess being celebrated and, you know, she's in this beautiful palace and all these lovely gifts and then in walks, you know, the doors are flung open and the 13th fairy comes in, the cold wind comes in, you know, and she

stops and she says, ah, your 13th birthday, you're going to prick your finger and die that's a little melodramatic but actually that is the 13th that's that's the statement of the beginning of the initiatory journey you're going to do not die to that innocent self and you're going to have to now begin the journey of awakening to the complexity of being in the world and being yourself now it is not the death of innocence but it is about innocence having to coexist with a multitude of other energies and forces. So at Menach and of course your little self at Menach is innocent to the enormity of this at least you know consciously, intellectually. Your young self cannot name any of this but your deep spirit knows something and um so there is a death of the of that innocent childlike self and a stepping into now a more expanded world um and and it's it's pretty unknown but it's also exciting. And, you know, I think what can happen in adolescence, you know,

how things can get a little wild and, you know, how young people want to act out and take drugs and, you know, all the wild things we want to do. We're not interested in our family anymore and we so don't want our parents around, you know, and our allegiance has turned to our, you know, our friends and so on. And it's just really classic, actually.

That is the beginning of the initiative journey, and it's a little wild and loose. But it is, you know, our teenage self is now starting to negotiate a larger consciousness and begin to answer this question, you know, who am I? I mean, you're not maybe consciously up in your head thinking that, but that's what your deep spirit is beginning to negotiate. And then, do you want to take over here, Shani, and take the next piece of the journey on this initiatory journey?

And I'll pick up again at the end with menopause yeah so um as you described this when this bubble is popped you are birthed from the womb of your family into what we call the wooming process and that is that is really your menstruating years. That's where you are dropping into the support of your menstrual cycle, the womb of your menstrual cycle. That becomes the container for your own being and your own becoming. And the menstrual cycle itself offers you these kind of initiatory opportunities through the rhythm and pattern of menstrual cycle process. So we are going to talk about this in a lot more detail. We just want to kind of give you an overall sense of it. But in later episodes, we'll describe more about this initiatory process that happens through the menstrual cycle. But essentially, it's through your menstruating years, the initiatory process is working through you to support you to get to know yourself,

and to begin to grow up, to begin to mature, to begin to find what it is you are interested in, what excites you, what calls you, what speaks to you. This is your calling beginning to work through you and through your menstrual cycle. And it happens at a very particular time in the cycle, which is menstruation. Menstruation is itself a peak moment of initiation. And it's the time when that calling that, Alexandra, you spoke of, that was ignited at Menarche, it's the time when that calling gets reignited. It kind of resurfaces. You get a sort of hit of it each month, that menstruation.

And that obviously unfolds as you get older and older and you deepen into it through your menstruating years. I love that expression, through your menstruating years you practice your power. And really that is what's happening. Through the cycle and through the months you're having these opportunities to practice your power, to flex your muscles and to get the workout, the psychological, emotional and energetic workout that happens through menstruation and through the monthly round of the menstrual cycle. Yes, I just really want to sort of emphasize that you go through this mini death and rebirth every month, menstrual month. You know, as you're coming into menstruation, there is that moment where the rug is pulled out from under your feet just before bleeding.

And that is the death moment. And then you bleed, and that's the beginning of the new cycle, the rebirth moment and psychologically that's a very powerful thing that's going on each month you initially get in the first half of the cycle this lovely affirmation of yourself and then it's as though you are then have to that has to be undone and there's this moment of losing yourself and then you bleed and you find yourself again so you go through this version of losing yourself and finding yourself each menstrual month and it is this process over time of losing yourself and finding yourself that something starts to deepen and grow and strengthen in you. You know, greater. We talked in, I think it was at the first podcast,

we talked about the cycle, how it tunes you up. This is part of the tuning process, tuning you up to be more aware of who you are, but aware of a bigger consciousness around you. That is the initiation, the process of individuation going on. And then eventually, you know, you're doing this for, what, 30-odd years or something. Man, wow, we get initiations every month over 30 years.

That is serious work, Shani. I mean, men haven't got a patch on what we've got going for us. And it looks like we're doing nothing, you know, especially at mainstream. Exactly. Yes, there we are going about our business looking entirely normal. But inside, oh, my God. Oh, there goes the death. Oh, there I'm just being reborn again yeah it's wild it's wild hey it's sophie again i'm just going to pause this conversation for a moment

to invite you to come and explore our menstruality leadership program this training is really an immersive apprenticeship to your cyclical wisdom moment to invite you to come and explore our menstruality leadership program. This training is really an immersive apprenticeship to your cyclical wisdom. In the program, Alexandra and Sharni take the teachings that they've been exploring in this Wild Power series and in the Wild Power book and guide you to embody them in your life, whatever role that you're playing as a partner, builder activist parent carer in your career and most of all they guide you to know and live your unique gifts your calling so if the wild power book or this series is stirring you and you have a kind of knowing

that this cyclical way of approaching life is really vital for you and for us collectively we invite you to come and see if the program could be for you. There's actually a webinar on the website for the course where you can get a taste of the program. You can find it at menstrualityleadership.com. That's menstrualityleadership.com. We've been sharing some stories from our grads on the podcast recently and today we're hearing from Nishma Bimjiani about how the MLP helped her to transform her experience in very challenging cycles. I decided to do the menstruality leadership program because I was at a place in my life where I was experiencing the most horrendous periods and it was really affecting my ability to work and everything else.

So I began this journey of self-discovery and I learned about the work through a mentor of mine at the time. And reading about Red School and what they do was like a calling, my soul calling me home and I haven't looked back since. It's allowed me to really trust myself and trust my cycle. I've grown in many ways but it's held me through my life transitions of pregnancy, birth and motherhood. So Red School gives you more than just a learning experience, it's an experience of a lifetime. And I've done many trainings over the last four to five years and this has been probably the most transformational for me.

So if you are on the fence, you just need to do it. You won't regret it. It's about saying hello to a new version of yourself. And I'm so grateful to have been a part of this journey. So, yes, we get closer and closer to... Well, actually, I'm suddenly pausing here, Shani, because we should acknowledge that there is another huge initiation that goes on

for women who choose to become mothers. And because I'm not a mother, I'm putting that over to you, not all of us choose to go down that path, but those women who do, that is a separate initiatory journey that we might just want to say something about here. Yeah, it is a separate initiatory journey. And I think it's really good just to name that the menstrual cycle process and this process of initiation through the monthly round of the cycle is the ground and the preparation for that journey into motherhood and that initiation into motherhood and that initiation into motherhood.

And I mean, wow, motherhood is quite an initiation. Having been through it twice, I'm still sort of recovering. I'm still slowly emerging in the kind of rebirth phase, but it has its own pattern or its own kind of unique coloring. But essentially, it's the same process of you die to the self that you were, you let go of who you used to be and when you give birth to that baby you are reborn as as a mother it's following that same initiatory process and the menstrual cycle is the ground out of which that whole experience arises but really the awareness of the menstrual cycle prepares you in a profound way for that. All right, so now we are passing through our menstruating years, and now we're coming to the end of the female initiatory journey, which is menopause.

Menopause is the final big initiatory hit, and it's huge. It's a real final cleanup operation too I think now we are actually really prepared for menopause or if we are working with our cycle very consciously then we are in a sense organically delivered to the door of the final initiation. We are, in a sense, prepared for it. We should be arriving at the door of menopause, in a sense, with the instruction manual for it already built into our bodies, a bit like the menstrual cycle prepares you for pregnancy and birth. Equally, it prepares you for the final initiation of menopause and this is where we go through a real final huge death which is the end of a sense the end of your own kind of personal journey now I'm just finding the

words are fresh here Shani because it's sort of almost coming to me a fresh now as I speak it it's like the death of me me consciousness it really is and where and you then postmenopause you are really stepping into perhaps a kind of transpersonal self you're a really truly expanded self that is utterly in service to this larger consciousness i do feel that is at the heart of it not all women necessarily want to sign up for that you know nor should they but that actually is the essence of what's trying to happen now post-menopause my little old me self of course is around and speaking but actually it's held very clearly within something much larger I know it's not about me anymore even though I have my moments of angst and so on I actually can really feel like now I've stepped

into an even greater womb so I'm leaving I've left the womb of my menstruating years and we often talk about the menstruating years as like the training wheels you've got the training wheels on learning how to cycle you know and at menopause you kick the training wheels off and you're free now. You know who you are, you know your business, and you know what you've come to serve. And if you've done your inner work over those menstruating years, and that's what the cycle offers you, it offers this marvelous inner work process. If you've done that work, you should be arriving at menopause really with a really good sense of who you are and what your business with a capital B is, you know, what your calling is.

And it's really about finally stepping into that fully and wholeheartedly. And I always say to women, this is the moment where you finally accept yourself for who you are warts and all because we are of course vastly imperfect too I am a very complicated messy human being even as I have utter clarity about who I am and what my business is it is so magnificent there's just this massive discernment that emerges through menopause, so it really is the death of It's the ending of your inner work journey in some ways and the beginning of just stepping up wholeheartedly to really doing your world work really serving your calling and

That's a huge thing to do and of course that transition can take I think it takes about two years or more it's a bit like you know how long is a piece of string really it's as long as it as it's long really for you and it's nothing to do with your whole I mean it's connected to your hormones but it's only you know no doctor can tell you when you're at the other side of menopause only you know when you are really through that great initiatory workout of Dying to things and you really do die. It's extraordinary. It's extraordinary how you Die to yourself and there's a period of real emptiness you know this is the challenge that we speak of in initiation Shani and then and then you gradually the lights come up and you go wow oh no no it's

okay yeah I know it's good I know who I am it's like what happens at menstruation but it happens over two years and of course the other side is not another cycle but you're stepping into being organized by the great cycles of life itself, by world timing. It's not your timing anymore. It's world timing. And you're really stepping up to serve that. Yeah, so that is the female initiatory path. And it's good to be able to sort of step back and get, as a woman, get kind of an overview of your life process and really look at it from menarche through your menstruating years

to menopause and see it and understand it in terms of this sort of initiatory process that is working you. There is a sort of unique intelligence that is at work for each one of us, which is very connected to who we are. And this is what is being grown in you through this whole process from menarche to menopause. This is your calling. You've heard us mention it, being ignited at menarche and reignited at menstruation and getting the final hit at menopause, this is your calling, which is that which is seeking you and unfolding through you and through your life and through your living and being. And this is what we call your wild power.

This is what we have titled our book because our book is essentially about this female initiatory process and how to how to really come into relationship with your wild power how to meet it how to engage with it how to follow it trust it and how to allow it to deliver you to your fullest potential, to your own fulfillment. So we want to give you something practical to do, having heard all of this, which may be completely new to some of you. We want to give you a kind of practical way in to begin to work with your initiatory process. Well, everything begins with that very first bleed, doesn't it, Menarche? Johnny, how we cross that line at Menarche is everything. It orientates us for this whole initiatory journey. And now, which is why it's really important for menarche to be really met and honoured in some way,

for women to have very positive, wholesome experiences around menarche and often women don't and so we thought that it would be really lovely for each of you to just think about your own menarcheal experience how did you begin your menstruating years now was it was it troubled and difficult was there and even if your parents were you know there for you and good there may have been Stress around it too because what's happening in the field around you the atmosphere around you can affect the experience Because Menake is such a huge psychic opening and you are easily imprinted by everything you just hear Everything just gets imprinted very easily So we've got a little thing for you to do here

we want you to go back just first of all just reflect on your monarchical experience and and if it wasn't really great if it was great then fabulous you're home and dry but you still might want to do this anyway yeah regardless because also what you sort of think of now is great you with adult eyes might reflect on and recognize maybe that you weren't met in the way that your deep self really needed. So I would do this regardless, actually. Yeah, I would too. And which is to actually give yourself a monarchical ritual. ritual and in that ritual and we have instructions that we can share with you to re-anoint yourself to anoint yourself as the young self in you as this you

know beautiful intelligent sacred wonderful being and it really is extraordinary the impact this monarchical ritual can have it's like sending out a current a lovely ripple of energy down through your menstruating years just subtly realigning everything and blessing you with this lovely wash of affirmation so really the essence of the monarchical ritual is giving yourself this wonderful affirming yes you're great you're whole you're great just as you are and whatever but it's just a yes to your being and we give instructions um if you uh know we have a workbook called the woman's quest workbook and in the back of that we have a

lovely set of instructions to guide you through a monarchical ritual. And you can do that on your own. But we really encourage you to get one or two friends together to do it together, because that just gives it added something specialness, gorgeousness. Also, we have actually an online course called Monarchy in which you can go through a whole process of examining monarchy and then beginning to frame it. We have a lovely visualization exercise that we could include in there. And then, of course, very clear instructions on how to do the ritual itself. Shani, would you like to add anything to that? Yeah, we'll include all the links in the show notes so you can find that information easily but very simply if it's something you want to do on your

own you simply need to just create a ritual space for yourself and really take time to as Alexandra said really affirm that young you Maybe you want to find some particular words to affirm yourself with, qualities in yourself that you recognize, you know, things in your own being that you can really see and celebrate. And something, you know, as simple as that could really help to reset your compass and kind of recalibrate you so that you can go on through your ongoing menstruating years, your upcoming cycles, and kind of feel the support of that in the background. And if you've done this before, we recommend doing it again. You can do this many, many times. It kind of peels away the layers of the onion. It's a really beautiful thing to do.

So you might want to do it once on your own. You might want to do it once with some friends. You might want to do the online course. You might want to just repeat this process for yourself. It'll really support your initiatory process from the ground up. It'll give you the kind of backbone that you need to help you to deepen into your cycle experience so we hope you've enjoyed hearing about your female initiatory path and we look forward to sharing more with you in the next episode. Thank you for listening to this special bonus episode we'll share the next one on tuesday next week and we'll have our usual thursday episode coming out in a couple of days just as a reminder if you'd like to buy a copy of wild power you can get one free for a friend too until the 21st of

december and we're also off running the same offer on our menopause book, Wise Power. So please go to the show notes for this podcast at redschool.net forward slash podcast to find the link and to get your copy. Okay, I'll be with you again on Thursday and until then keep living life according to your own brilliant rhythm.