The Menstruality Podcast - 139. Why we Need to Re-Write the Story of our First Periods (Alexandra & Sjanie)

Episode Date: March 28, 2024

Our first period - or our ‘menarche’ - is a big initiatory moment, which sets us on the path of menstruality - the path of awakening to our Calling. During menarche we are each birthed from the ��womb of our family’, into the womb of our menstruating years. We’re coming into the holding, guidance and wisdom of our menstrual cycle, month after month.In today’s conversation we unpack what menarche means, why it is such a pivotal life transition, and how we can re-write our own experience of the chasm of unknownness and exposure that we must each navigate as we make this transition of menarche, so we can each claim our uniqueness and honour our true nature. We explore:The deep connection between menarche and self worth, and how re-writing menarche can liberate a profound sense of self-belief and self-confidence.Guidance for how to do a personal menarche ritual (including what to do if your experience of your first menstrual cycle was a let-down, a non-event, or a shaming experience). We share many different menarche stories, including how Sophie’s reframed her ‘non-event’ first period, how a menarche ritual helped Louise prepare for menopause, and how Sjanie is holding her daughter in the tender approach to her menarche.---Receive our free video training: Love Your Cycle, Discover the Power of Menstrual Cycle Awareness to Revolutionise Your Life - www.redschool.net/love---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. Thank you for being with us again today as Alexandra and Sharni and I look into a vital and often overlooked aspect of menstrual cycle

awareness, which is our first period. So our menarche, our first period is a big initiatory moment which sets us on the path of menstruality, the path of awakening to our calling and today we're unpacking what menarche means and why it's such a pivotal life transition and how we can each rewrite our own experience of it so that we can claim our uniqueness and really honour our true nature. We look at the deep connection between menarche and self-worth. We offer guidance for how to do a personal menarche ritual, including what to do if your experience of your first cycle was a letdown or a non-event or a shaming experience and much much much more we really look forward to hearing what you think of this one let's get started with why we all need to rewrite the story of our first

periods well happy spring equinox alexander and shani today it's right i think it was at 3 a.m this morning here in the uk and because we're at this point of the year where we're celebrating the springing up of new life we're going to talk about the spring of our cycling years but before we do that let's see where we're all at i am actually perfectly poised for this because I'm on day eight so I'm in the just coming into the spring of my cycle gosh it's so perfect and I do feel I do feel fresh and reborn and I really did manage to go deeply into this bleed and had an especially rich day five just and I just took an hour-long walk and found my way to some really powerful vision and clarity and

oh it was luscious so I'm I'm in that place of like oh I've been reshaped I'm back in alignment with myself I know what I'm for I feel like an arrow pointing pointing in the all in the same direction it's it's a good feeling really good so would it then be true to say Sophie Jane that your experience of menstruation has lined you up and set the tone for this in a spring that you're now in majorly majorly yeah yeah it plugged me right back into oh that's what I'm about that's what makes sense of me and now my whole month makes sense it's like it's running through everything now yeah I'm plugged in I recently heard one of our graduates uh Claudia talking um doing a little video on

Instagram and she was talking about how she notices when she doesn't get the rest she needs at menstruation that that tiredness gets dragged around with her all month long yeah and that it's like something something hasn't begun well and therefore it's sort of hard to recover that lost restedness and I'm mentioning this because this is of course very connected to our theme today yeah and just a little note to the people who for whatever reason find it hard to get that rest I really had to fight for that like my whole I had a whole day our solo hike planned in the countryside but the plans got scuppered because of sleep deprivation the night before blah blah blah and I thought well I'm gonna seize whatever I can get and I got this hour and I really made the most of it so it's you know it's that practice of the one

percent it's more like the ten percent you know really seizing it committing to it going for it where are you at Shani? Day 13 I'm I'm in the inner summer and I'm feeling a combination of joy. My heart feels very full, but it's coupled with a lot of tenderness. I woke up this morning just feeling I guess a loneliness or sadness and interestingly just seeing as we're on the topic of our young selves and menarche really connect this feeling of loneliness to my menarcheal self and um and i was pondering it this morning and realizing that so many young people do experience a kind of isolation around this time of transition just as so many people going through menopause feel that isolation too and i was just really tapped into that in myself but also in the collective of how deeply lonely these big initiatory times in our

lives can be and how and how they are in our culture and how unheld many of us were but yeah I was kind of feeling all the tenderness of that probably evoked by the fact that we're having this conversation about menarche and first blood today. Well thank you for landing us inside the bigger context of this so true what you say and I feel my heart opening to think about all of our younger selves and the potential of looking back and rewriting our experiences and then how that can realign everything. Yeah. Ooh, big.

Yeah, really big. Bringing connection to those parts of ourselves and just what's possible when that happens. And where's the moon, Alexandra? Still in the sky hopefully last time i checked here it was in the sky good about day 11 of the moon cycle according to my little charting here and of course so that's that rising energy for me of uh coming into that just cusping into that summer energy really just cusping and um i it's so funny i've been thinking about the energies i've been dealing with yesterday and then I had this morning, but I managed to settle it with a good yoga class.

It's like this trickster wind in my being. I'm talking about wind as energy, this energy that's like this trickster wind that suddenly comes up and sort of swirls the leaves and then goes away again and suddenly pops up somewhere else and swirls. You know, my system is unpredictable inside me and um it's uh it's like it's unsettling it's so and this morning I had to uh just really pace myself because if I rush then i'm buggered i don't feel good but i didn't rush i i refused to look at the clock that's what i do i stop don't look at this don't freaking look at the clock just ignore time just do what you have to do this morning to get you know that was really good and um so i'm and there is actually chi in the system you know that actually i do feel there's energy there's a lot it's solid energy as well as this sort of trickster wind happening trying to happen

i love that description of the trickster wind it really gives kind of language or a picture to an experience i've felt before i kind of relate to that i also feel like you've named a new post-menopause power of just you're just above and beyond time yeah don't look at the transcendent time yeah no it's really like ignoring time is uh is powerful medicine and actually this dovetails very beautifully with our theme today can i just say because one of the things with transitions and these big like movements that happen in our being is they just get so trampled on by the pressure of time and by being rushed and um we just live in a culture that just does not appreciate that things just bloody take time you know the the whole process of going from girl into your menstruating years and kind of moving into womanhood is such a huge transformation, I just want to say. We see butterflies do it, go from one physical

manifestation into an entirely other. That's what's happening to us at Menarche. And I just, I personally feel angry about how young people are rushed to grow up and how much pressure there is on the pace at which that happens and the perfection with which young people must become responsible and you know get it right so on and so forth um yeah so let's take this theme of no time into our conversation about menarche because it would just be such a sweet blessing to give our young selves their grace yeah well okay resting into this timelessness together, can you walk us into what menarche is for people who haven't come across this term before? What it is and how you hold it in the arc of menstruality? So menarche is, it's both a moment and a process. And the moment is when your first blood comes,

your first experience of menstruation. But there is a whole bio, you know, emotional process a dynamic going on over a period of time around that event of the first blood where you Menarche as the years where you are held in this, what we call the womb of the family. You know, there's a container. Hopefully, you know, of course, it's always imperfect and messy and so on. But this energy of innocence, you know, children, they should be oblivious to the rigors of the world and, you know, what they are, you know, to become and so on. It should be utterly protected, this innocence and safety. And then monarchy, that first blood,

it's the announcement of stepping into your fertile years, which is a huge thing in itself. And that does not happen overnight psychologically. I mean, your puberty,berty you know your whole sort of years teens are that negotiation but it's like it's almost like that first blood there's the um pricking of the bubble of innocence and of course i always think of the sleeping beauty story you know pricking her finger on the spinning wheel and and uh of course sleeping beauty falls asleep 100 years and um there is yes there is this pricking of the bubble of innocence

and and uh at menarche what we're doing now is we are formally stepping into our journey of individuation, which is what the menstrual cycle journey is from Menarche to menopause. It is the journey of becoming oneself. You know, as a child, you're enmeshed with your family. And now this is the separation from that and finding your own identity and growing into who you're meant to be and the discovering of what you're here to do and be in the world. So here you are, a little innocent 11-year-old or 12-year-old or 13-year-old, you know, enjoying the innocence of childhood, and suddenly that bubble is pricked and your conscious self is really unconscious of the magnitude

of the event. But in our deep selves, something profound shifts, irrevocably shifts. And, of course, it does get played out on the surface, you know, in us negotiating. You know, you can see what happens to teenagers as they start to navigate this new world. So there's a kind of emotional level emotional level there'll be a whole lot of stuff going on but at a deep level that's this that's what has ignited this disturbance in them if you like yeah so you you you spoke there about how we are well we can go back even further and say before we're born, we're held in the womb of our mother. And then birth is one of those great initiatory moments of transition where we're then born into the womb of our family, as Alexandra described, and really, hopefully held in that innocence. And then menarche, this next big initiatory moment,

which sets us up and sets us in and on the path of menstruality, the path of awakening to our calling. This is us being birthed from the womb of our family into the womb of our menstruating years the new holding that we're coming into is the holding of our cycle the containment and holding and guidance and wisdom of our menstrual cycle month after month. But what is really important to name here is that there is a kind of chasm that one must cross over to move from the safety of the womb of the family into the holding and safety of the menstruating years. And that chasm is the transition of menarche or the transition of puberty.

And it has all the same hallmarks as menopause. It has all the same hallmarks, in fact, as menstruation. Both of those moments are also initiatory moments where we're also moving from one holding through a void and then into a new cycle and into a new life post-menopause. So I really like to remember that because it's a big deal what we go through at Menarche. We're abandoned, we're lost for a while, we don't know ourselves, we are in such an exquisite and excruciating place of unknownness. I remember exposure, actually. Exposure, yes. Being seen through.

And I felt so self-conscious. It's like I couldn't cope with being looked at, the exposure. Yeah, yeah, so ousted, exactly. I can remember that feeling and wanting to sort of be like everyone else just so that I could feel some certainty or surety or knownness because I didn't know who I was and the incredible awkwardness of that. And, yeah, and what a lonely place that can be because it's when, you know,

when you're going through menopause, it's different. We're all adults. As a young girl, I, you know, I had my friends to contend with and we're all acting out. We're all acting out. We're all sort of rubbing up against each other's insecurities and pulling power plays on each other to try and sort of feel some okayness in ourselves and so there is a lot of um ricocheting and disturbance and disruption in the field so it if we're not held by the grown-ups around us we can feel really really really lonely yeah i was having a memory as you're talking it must have been of my 12th birthday it

was just before I started my period and my mum had given me lots of really well thought out presents or you know a handful of really well thought out presents but they were they were children's presents and I remember she gave them to me and I unwrapped them and I remember this really deep disappointment and then I went to the bathroom and I looked in the mirror and I broke down in floods of tears and I looking back I I can see now because I didn't feel seen and met because I was becoming someone new I didn't know how I was. She didn't know who I was. But she was giving gifts to the child that I wasn't anymore. And I was upset all day, so, so upset. And now it's making sense of what happened there. Yeah. Yes, Soph. So good that you remember that because, you know, one of the things and Kim McCabe who runs the Rights for Girls groups

talks about this a lot that if we aren't acknowledging young people and how they are growing that they are maturing that they're changing if we aren't recognizing that and changing our behavior towards them because of that and letting them know that we see who they're becoming then they must act out to prove themselves and to show that they're old and mature and a lot of the you know alcohol abuse drug abuse um uh sexual like acting out sexually yeah all of that is in a way a cry to be seen and you know just thinking about our own monarchies how many of us receive that yeah so just to point people to if they are mothering parenting teens and tweens that we do have a podcast episode with Kim McCabe um I can't remember exactly what number it is but if you search it menstruality podcast

Kim McCabe and also we have our mothering your daughter through monarchy course as well as a resource there just to name for people yeah oh it's such a time my heart is just aching to feel it and of course Shani you're on your way towards this with your littles oh yes yeah my my eldest is 13 now she hasn't yet started bleeding so I'm really um pacing this with her and paying attention and you know it's interesting gosh I feel very moved as I feel into this but it's been very interesting to notice of late how on one hand she is really growing up but very lately she's been wanting me to do things like hold her like I used to when she was a baby and asking me to play the games I used to play

with her when she was little. She's asking for these ways of remembering herself as a young girl. And so I'm really feeling that with her now. And there's just so much kind of sweetness and tenderness in that. And in a way that speaks to the other piece of the confusion that you've mentioned Sophie is that on one hand we so want to be seen to be growing up and on another hand we so want to be held in all of our kind of innocence and to not have that part of ourselves forgotten and and i can feel her really really reaching into that at the moment so something you said when we were chatting before this alexandra was that how we bleed sets the tone for the whole of our menstrual cycle and how we start bleeding what what's happening for us in this menarche phase gets imprinted in some way on our

whole cycling life and then on our menopause would you like to speak to that yes sophie so menarche is the beginning of the journey this is your journey of individuation of discovering and becoming you know being becoming being and becoming who you are and um that first moment and so it it you know we we spoke earlier about it's this massive transition moment. And when we're in transition moments, we're very, very permeable. So we are more affected by things. So whatever is happening around us, never mind how people are relating to us with regard to our menarche, that's one element, but just the atmosphere that we are living within, you know, if there's stress within a family, you know, parents going through difficult things, whatever. And, or of course, good things, but the atmosphere around us is also easily imprinted on us it's like an atmosphere or tone that comes in but in particular

how our first blood is greeted is very important you know if it's just ridiculed or dismissed or you know ignored or whatever that we take that atmosphere into ourselves and and it's it's partly an atmosphere we hold with ourselves because this permeability means our little old, innocent, glorious self is exposed right now. And it feels that. And something in our spirit is deflated, but also in our relationship with our menstrual cycle and menstruation now this is just you know anecdotal but this is a deep knowing too um but how our first experience of monarchy um sorry how mone is responded to our first blood is responded to is how we may also meet menstruation each month as an irritant or a problem or um just you know it's a nothing

ignored um so there's that uh so if we think of the menstrual cycle as this royal route to ourselves, you know, menstruation is this wonderful opening to being able to drop in and taste, get a feel of the deep essence of ourselves. irritability or rejection or just nothingness to it it's like we're we're dampening down or dulling or shutting down the what the menstrual cycle can give us you know what the menstrual cycle is trying to actually do for us on this psycho-spiritual level and um that that it's like an it's just an atmosphere that is carried on through your menstruating years and it really when when you come to menopause I think that's when the reality the fallout of that of having had that suddenly hits us now it doesn't hit us consciously you know the menopause woman doesn't go oh my god you know menarche that's the problem you know no it just turns up as it's part of the maelstrom of feeling that comes through this time largely rage just huge rage and you know we've spoken about that rage before in previous podcasts and what's happening in that rage. But it is, I think, just some primal knowing that we have been cheated of something so profound that it's like we've sort of been slightly locked out of ourselves because of that first message right at the beginning and the fallout of just never

being quite fully in you know deeply connected into because it brings you into this deep intimacy with yourselves you see that's what menstruation is about each month and monarchy is the announcement of the beginning of that this deep deep intimacy and when that hasn't been anointed shall we say we're just slightly outside it and then the rage at menopause because menopause is the fulfillment of something around that deep connection to oneself and so actually you know one of the things that we recommend that has proved very powerful for many that have done it actually is we recommend that um that they do the monarchy ritual they go they they they do uh they revisit and yes folks it's possible to do this it's possible to go back to your young self, to your monarchical self and experience and reimagine that.

And we describe actually how to do that in our book, Worse Power. But we also have a lovely course, self-study course that you can do to reimagine and your monarchical experience and it it it's it sort of it really does shift something with so many great stories um and and it's like you go back and revisit and then it's like this lovely all the way down the line of your psyche of something you know falling into place I'm going to pause us for just a moment to share an invitation and a resource with you if you would love to be held and guided through the rewriting of your own menarche experience we would love you to join our Menarche course.

It's self-paced and includes your very own Menarche ritual pack, beautiful guided visualizations, exercises, worksheets, everything you need to support you through the process. We'd like to offer you 50% off this course before April the 11th using the code SPRING50. You can find the course at checkout slash redschool.net slash menarche. That's checkout slash redschool.net slash menarche or just email us at info at redschool.net and we'll send you the link. Okay, let's get back to the conversation. Can I read something from Wise Power back to you?

It's essentially a reiteration of what you've just said, but what you just said was so big and rich that I think it will serve. It's on page 52 of Wise Power. It's a section called Rewriting Menarche. In an ideal world, our first blood would be met with a welcome. Our uniqueness and gifts would be acknowledged, our individual nature recognized and celebrated, and we'd be surrounded by an atmosphere of affirmation. In this way, the awakening that we go through would feel safe and sanctified, and who we are would feel valued. This kind of monarchical experience

creates a deep well of worthiness sending us into our menstruating years into the world with resilience and a foundation of confidence that helps us to fight for ourselves in the face of life's challenges and stay true to our calling no matter what an initiation like this into menstruality bestows on us an imprint of dignity and sets us up with deep fortitude for the culmination of the journey at menopause yeah i'm reading that something that i'm thinking of is how many indigenous cultures have known the potency of this moment you know there has there has been holding in some cultures I had a conversation with with Cree who is our menstruality justice and inclusion educator an incredible therapist and teacher and she

has done a lot of research around different indigenous menstrual practices and rituals. And we just named some of them in the conversation. And Anishinaabe rite of passage known as the Berry Fest, the Navajo Quinalda ceremony, these flower dancers of the Hoopa people. Indigenous people have known that this is potent known that this is powerful known that it needed holding and I'm sort of present to the people listening who are thinking oh shit it was a complete letdown for me you know or I was shamed or it was awful for me what is this conversation even relevant for me is Is there any, is there any way back? You know, Alexandra, you're saying we can rewrite this experience. I'd love to unpack that. You know,

how can we rewrite it? How does this work? Yeah. How can we reclaim this power for ourselves? I think it starts with us recognizing the significance of that time in our lives and really sensitizing ourselves to the place we were in at that time in our lives at the deepest level, because there was the surface of what was going on, which was like the story that happened and how things played out and what people said to you or didn't say to you and what was going on in your life at the time. There's that sort of more everyday level of what happened. And that's a very good entry point but holding an awareness that what was really going on in your deep self at that time is that the light of the world for the first time, going, here I am.

This is me. And that is such a powerful and such a vulnerable moment. And if that you-ness isn't held and seen, and this is the really important thing, imprinted with affirmation like a I see who you are yes yes you are beautiful and perfect and powerful and all the things you know there's specific things we all wish we had heard so that this is the next piece of the writing. It is, what is it you would long to have been met with? What would that affirmation of your you-ness

have been? And when you kind of go through this inquiry with yourself, it's also a process of you coming back into recognizing your unique nature to really find the words that you would have liked to have heard. You need to really see yourself. You really need to kind of claim what is unique about you, what's special about you, what's magical and one of a kind and powerful and distinct about you? And therefore, all the things you are not. Because our young selves are like, when we don't get that affirmation, we feel wrong. And we come into our menstruating years with the belief that we need to be something other than who we are. And we spend our whole menstruating years like with that ghost of should or to, you know,

looking at other people, just being pulled out of ourselves instead of in connection with who we really are and letting our cycles hold us in who we are shamelessly, shamelessly. So having said all of that, there is a ritual we can do in answer to your question. And something of what I've said is really part of this ritual. And our Menarche self-guided course really holds you through this process of inquiry and rewriting and really returning yourself back into your wild power from that moment forth. But I also want to add that your cycle awareness practice, if you do it with consciousness of all that we've been speaking of, you are bit by bit reweaving yourself back into your wild power. And every time you bleed and every time you kind of dare to step out of the unconscious habit of however you might bleed, whatever you might be replaying or recapitulating from

your menarche. Every time you become aware of that, you make a different choice for yourself. Like I really heard that, Sophie, in what you did for this bleed, you know, things went awry, didn't go according to plan. It felt like life wasn't really there for you, supporting you with what you wanted. And you made this choice to claim what you knew you needed in some way. Yeah, because part of me wanted to give up. Part of me went, well, well, F it. I can't have what I want. So screw it.

I got very teenage. Yeah, exactly. And I'm not. And underneath all that is that I'm not worth it. You know, I'm not worth it. So, yes, exactly. I'm not worth it you know I'm not worth it so yes exactly so what you did there was you chose the new um you rewrote something with this bleed and it delivered it delivered you back to remembering who you are what you for I remember when we spoke yesterday in our meeting and you

were like I know who I am and I know what I'm for there was such a radiance about you that um you know that that's what rewriting one's menarche does is it just brings you into such a sense of yesness and it can be fairly mystical and not like it doesn't have to make sense it's not clear it's not like you get a list of all your qualities or something it's like when I look back to when I've done this ceremony things appear and come up for me like blue whales and wild water and forests and my grandmother you know it's not like I'm being given a prescription of who I am it's all a mystical journey that's unfolding all the time but it's the power of actually taking time and space to connect to reconnect to listen to feel for to really feel one's own nature yeah that was an important part for me to have that recognized my particular kind of nature yeah

okay so I'm thinking of Adele now Adele I hope you don't mind us telling your story we also have a podcast episode with Adele so so when I did a menarche ceremony with you in a group Adele was there Adele Bates and I just will always remember her menarche experience because it's it was so striking and beautiful she got in touch with her you know 11 12 year old self and the unbridled power the wild power that she had the the knowing that she was she could do anything she could make any change she wanted to happen she had everything she needed to be exactly who she needed to be in the world and the way she expressed it I can remember you know her face alight and her eyes bright and and then she said know, and having come back into contact with that younger self and her certainty and her power, now I can feel that I have everything it takes. I'm putting words in her mouth here, but just play with me.

I have everything it takes to totally transform the British education system, which is her calling. And she's doing amazing work to do exactly that. But it was tracing back this, this golden thread of, yeah, of power, of possibility, of knowing her nature, knowing herself and kind of allowing it to stream through from that moment to her present day and then onwards into the future exactly exactly you liberate yourself yeah by recognizing yourself in that way you liberate yourself and unleash your wild power in the world exactly exactly that oh that's such a great story so can we speak to what this looks like like imagine if someone has had a really shaming

experience of their first period you know that they were met with disgust or abandoned in that moment or that they can't remember what happened with their first period is it still possible to do this kind of ritual or how would they approach that this kind of ritual absolutely absolutely um i think it's important that within yourself now as the steps that you start to take. I mean, Shani was talking about it just earlier about, you know, the monarchy course we have. And there's a sort of remembering process, that just simple act of getting a photograph of your young self and just starting to connect with it again.

I mean, I can feel a tenderness in me now as I think about that. And even just beginning to talk to that young self, you know, just baby steps like that. And then I think if there's a lot of shame in the system, if it was a very kind of not a very not good experience, it might really help to have an ally to do it with, you know, someone who actually holds the process for you, the process and the ritual itself. But I think it's very important to take your time.

It's like this very gentle recovery of something because it is so huge. And I know people, I mean, I know, I can't think of the person now, but I have sort of stories in my head of people sort of eyeing the monarchy course and knowing they have to go there, but they can't go there no no no no no

they won't go there because they kind of know the significance of it that it's going to be significant and big for them and then eventually they do go there and do do that and they sort of really get that they're sort of they have a respect for themselves that they pace themselves so that's why i'm really emphasizing baby steps when there's been a lot of shaming or trauma around that time. And because you may it may feel like you're opening something that's just too tender to go there. So, so important to take time, but just getting that for that photograph of your monarch yourself or as close as, you know know just take a guess and find something or if you don't have a photograph you can just imagine her and start courting talking to her just talking to her and then um you know we in our um online course we have uh described steps where you

we've got questions we ask just to kind of induct you into something so it's like opening something very slowly opening it up very slowly and then if you're held by someone doing it and we have our leadership mentors our faculty mentors who do do this both in person and online where they're sort of pacing you with it and holding you. And then there are very specific steps. You know, one step that always sticks in my mind is finding a little present to give to your monarchical self and the care that people take over that, the significance of what they choose. It's so significant so powerful and then that

becomes just a mission in itself and um and then you're building up to uh craft you know thinking about what you would have loved to have had experience what you would have loved to have heard from your parent or caregiver or whoever you, the adult in your life that's looking after you, what you would have liked to have heard. And then the ritual part is the sort of reenactment of that, where in the ritual you allow yourself to become that younger self again. And if it's held for you, the person that's holding it for you may take can take on that role yeah I just want to come in and just really reiterate this for anybody you know

you were speaking about people who may have experienced trauma at this time or it'd be a very difficult thing that it's really well worth reaching out to one of our faculty, Abby, JD, Jane, and Penny. They can hold this space for you in a very strong, deep, beautiful way. And the stories we've heard from them about the kinds of ceremonies and spaces they've held and the sort of transformation people have experienced are extraordinary so it's a very beautiful thing to give yourself in fact I really really encourage it because there's in a way only so much we can do on our own yeah so it's you can find the information

on our website under redschool.net forward slash faculty and if you happen to be in the vicinity of any of them you could actually have an in-person experience which is also really beautiful but I just want to say online it's very very significant really really works. I'd love to read a couple of stories that you shared in Wise Power from people who have been held in these menarche rituals so the first one is from Linda and it says Linda did the menarche ritual and afterwards she said for the first time I was able to see myself for who I am like a remembrance of who I am which I I've forgotten. Her heart was opened as she saw and acknowledged the difficulties that she went through at that time. For Linda, something had

changed after the ritual and she felt proud of herself. When her next bleed came, she reacted with surprise and joy instead of shame and disgust liberating she said to feel pride instead of shame is liberation indeed wow that is quite a radical shift actually yeah to feel uh you know that that sort of um subtle message she's giving herself each month of shame and disgust at seeing the bleed um the dampening of her energy her spirit and then suddenly to and that it was spontaneous it just happened you know the blood came and she went oh wow that it was spontaneously uplifting for her and this feeling of liberation. I mean, that's pretty amazing, actually.

I'm thinking of my own experience, which wasn't of shame and disgust, but it was of meh, you know, not particularly a big deal. Okay, here's a pad. I think my mum did say, oh,'re becoming a woman she gave me a hug which was beautiful but after that it was like nothing flatline and having gone back and reimagined what I would have loved to happen at that time through the menarche ritual. It's like I've gone from a beige relationship to myself and my period to a technicolor relationship to myself and my period to seeing the richness and the nuance

and the uniqueness of myself. Yes. And I think a lot of people had that experience of, okay, just put a pad on and be quiet bye-bye let's not talk about it anymore oh and all the energy that then gets shut down that can be freed up yeah the liberation like Linda said yeah the the the non sort of descript um experience of menarch, which many people have experienced where nothing much happens

and it's pretty insignificant. I think the tragedy there with what's lost is that menarche is such a significant moment of feeling our worth, having our worth seen and recognized and celebrated. And that's a big deal, you know, to kind of step into your menstruating years without having had that feeling of, I'm special, I'm valuable, I'm worthy. So that math thing means we've missed out on that piece and you know if we think about what happens at menstruation every month in a way it's the goddess's repair work happening because

what happens if we rest and honor ourselves at menstruation is we do receive that feeling of you are special, you are valued, you are worthy. We feel worthiness. And I can't help but think that worthiness is right at the core of the core of everything for each one of us. It all comes back to do i or don't i feel worthy do i or don't i feel enough it all comes back to that so you know that that whole meeting at menarche means we possibly don't feel that specialness um so that's uh something to to imprint ourselves with when we go back and reimagine that is our value and our worthiness and to really let that in yes yes yes yes something you said shani when we were chatting about this podcast was that menstrual cycle awareness without a reimagining of menarche is incomplete and i think this story

from wise power that i'm going to read now really illustrates that louise discovered menstrual cycle awareness when her menstruating years were drawing to a close i think that happens to a lot of people doesn't it like when they're in those years come up to menopause and they're losing their cycle they really suddenly feel the power and they want to reclaim the menarche experience i can't express how priceless this wisdom is she says i felt like i was being offered true timeless alchemy that brought so much healing and growth over the course of these three years she did the menarche ritual on two separate occasions i was still menstruating at these points she says it was profound to finally honor something so sacred to give blessing to an

initiation and rite of passage that wasn't recognized as such at the time was vital to my soul and my inner 13 year old yeah and then you add the menarche ritual can also help you to make peace with the experience you had and in doing so help you to make peace with yourself i i just love that story uh louise is it's so the extraordinary power of our imaginal world actually to be able to travel back in time to recover something and how that can ricochet through the system and bring us into a new a fresh relationship with ourselves just like re or it's like our whole psyches are suddenly reordered and that really set her up for menopause you know i know who she is you know she's post you know coming out the other side of menopause now and um she's singing from the treetops she said she really is yeah and she, you know, very diligent with her whole journey,

you know, really doing the deep work. And I guess we could say it's paid off. Yeah, so I'd say that the headline from this podcast is, if you haven't looked back to your menarche experience to reimagine it, then we really recommend that you do that and some ways are in wise power in this section which i think is page 51 52 there are some guidelines for how to look at this but if you want to feel held in the process we have our menarche self-guided course or a one-to-one experience with one of our faculty

but whatever way you approach it like this is your prompt saying yes now is a good time for you to look back and yeah reimagine and rewrite this experience and reclaim the power of it. Thanks for being with us all the way through to the end today. Please follow the podcast wherever you're listening or subscribe to it and we love love love reading your reviews. Thank you to everyone who's been leaving those. Thank you so much. As we've mentioned if you'd like to be held and guided through the rewriting of your own first period experience, your Menarche, we invite you to join our Menarche course, which hundreds of people in our community have loved and received real benefit from. We'd like to offer you 50% off before April the 11th using the code SPRING50. And you can find the course at checkout slash redschool.net slash menarche.

That's checkout slash redschool.net slash menarche. Or you can email us at info at redschool.net and we'll send you the link for the course. All right, 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.