The Menstruality Podcast - 143. How to Practice Cycle Awareness when your Cycle is Unpredictable (Alexandra & Sjanie)

Episode Date: April 25, 2024

Do you have a menstrual cycle that doesn’t fit within the archetypal menstrual cycle maps? And are you - or someone you know - wondering how to practice cycle awareness when you have unpredictable, irregular cycles and are never sure when your period is going to arrive? When cycles become unpredictable it’s natural to feel uprooted, frustrated, powerless, confused, and even experience a sense of betrayal from your body. Today, Alexandra & Sjanie explores the three main reasons why cycles become irregular, how Menstrual Cycle Awareness invites us to exercise the muscles of inner listening, sensing and knowing, so that new kinds of embodied, cyclical intelligence can be revealed within us, and importantly, how to actually practice cycle awareness when you are off all the usual maps.  We explore:How to cultivate trust in your body and your cycle process, especially if you’re feeling lost, angry and experiencing self-blame in the face of your unpredictable cycle. How giving attention to all of life’s rhythms and cycles can support us when our menstrual cycles are unpredictable; including your circadian rhythms, the lunar phases, your overall life cycle and the creative processes you’re inhabiting (particularly in the years running up to menopause). Why life’s big transitions can cause irregular cycles, the deep initiatory wisdom at work inside the disturbance, and guidance for how to work with life’s ‘void’ moments. ---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 Menstruality Podcast. Thank you for being with us today. This episode is for you if you or someone you know has a menstrual cycle that doesn't fit within the archetype or menstrual cycle maps. It's for you if you're wondering how to practice cycle awareness

when you have unpredictable irregular cycles and you're never sure when your period is actually going to arrive. If you have unpredictable cycles it's natural to feel uprooted sometimes, frustrated, a sense of powerlessness, confusion and even some people experience a real sense of betrayal from your body. And so today I'm with Alexander and Sharnu and we're exploring the three main reasons why cycles become irregular. So health reasons, peak initiation moments, reasons like menopause or motherhood, postpartum time and when we changed, but we're catching up with that change, which can really happen a lot in our 40s. So we look at those three main reasons, how to actually practice cycle awareness when we are, when we do find ourselves off all the usual maps, and the new kinds of embodied cyclical intelligence that can be revealed within us, especially when our cycles

are unpredictable. So let's get started with this episode with Alessandra and Sharni, how to practice cycle awareness when your cycle is unpredictable. Ooh, I feel like this is going to be a powerful conversation and I can't wait to dive in. Let's start with our cycle check-in. Where are you both at? Shirley. Alexandra. I can start. You break us in, Sophie. I'm on my quintessential inner autumn premenstrual crunch day, day 23.

Oh. It's the day that when I worked in the Tree Sisters team and we tracked our menstrual cycles together as part of our business practice, day 23, they nicknamed me Grumpy Gertrude as a way to bring humour to the spikiness that can come from me here and it's been spiky um my inner critic's very loud it's it's been a painful couple of days actually but last night I harvested something really helpful with aid whom I'm so grateful he trained as a Samaritan a few years ago. He's such a fantastic listener.

So I was just letting my, you know, I felt quite mad last night. I felt like I was really losing it. And he just held me and he was just repeating back the words he was saying. And I found my way to some clarity, which is, oh, I need space. I need space. To quote my three-year-old who's learned at forest school to say I need space when instead of go away I need space for me I need some empty open space so thank you pre-munch drum for giving me that wisdom you could do it in a slightly more elegant way next time. But it's slightly less brutal bashing, please.

Yes, please. Oh, Sophie, that is funny. So I think it's about day 25 of the moon, but it's also springtime. And I can feel the springiness of springtime, just the lighter mornings. And it's just amazing there is a quality of energy in the air that's nice it's sort of possibility and you know just i love spring so there's that going on but the day 25 i just feel inside a sort of expansiveness inside you know i can feel a kind of silence in me now i've got to talk on a podcast you know but there's a sort of resting there's a kind of patience in the side

in the it's not silent on the inside but it's just it feels quite big on the inside and um there's a gentleness in there yeah oh so relaxing yeah i was telling alexandra this morning um because i'm day two and i'm having this experience where when I'm hearing people say things, words are reaching me in such a sort of somatic, felt way that I feel myself really being kind of inducted into what's being said rather than the words being kind of ideas or meaning they're actually kind of touching me moving me changing me and I just felt that again when you were speaking sort of animal amoebary something very wordless and sensitized happening in me today and i really got to experience what I can only describe as psychic super highway into this bleed. Because I was away dancing for six days. And as part of that, I was in a three-day movement medicine ceremony,

which, so this was during my inner autumn, where I got to really be with myself and have the kind of space you are speaking of and longing for, Sophie Jane, and really let myself kind of move more deeply into my own experience which is what I feel I so need when I'm in the inner autumn and a lot or a lot moved through my system in that very held safe sacred space and an enormous amount of healing which means I've liberated so much energy in my system so when I arrived in the void yesterday or the day before, I had such a clear, clean, energetic that I was in. It was like being just plugged into this direct knowing.

I feel like I could have read tea leaves or or anything really I was just in such a knowing field and felt such a sense of incredible spaciousness and yes and that is was for me just such a kind of smooth sweet way to be lowered into my bleed um yeah so i'm in a pretty deep space today and uh i'm gonna do my best to answer your question sophie jane but i can't promise i can't promise that i can translate my false sins into actual words, but let's see how it goes. It's wonderful to take you in, Shani, because as you're speaking, you're moving your body as if you're still in that dancing ceremony.

I wish everyone could see your arms are moving and your neck's moving. I can feel the freedom in your body. And I'm so grateful for the place you're in because I feel like the conundrum where we're speaking to today is really big and up for so grateful for the place you're in because I feel like the conundrum we're speaking to today is really big and up for so many people and it's quite a mysterious chunky topic so I'm glad to feel your epic connection to everything right now I think it's going to going to support this conversation because the truth is that so many people in our community have irregular unpredictable cycles and it's challenging uh I was talking with Lauren about this Lauren what's Lauren's title these days she's the program coordinator yeah which you know says about

0.01 percent of what she does because she basically holds the whole of the structure of red school together and boy do we love her the red school angel I think we've called her that she has a fairly unpredictable a very unpredictable cycle at the moment you know we don't know that it's going to be day 60 or day three and um she was naming some of the things that she feels and that we see in the community like people feel powerless they grief comes up for people a sense of being uprooted or like unplugged or lost or confused, and a feeling of being betrayed, which can then, like betrayed by our bodies, but can then be turned into blame, self-blame, which I know oh so much about right now because my critic is,

that's the weapon it's using this month but blaming ourselves what have I done wrong why you know what's wrong with me why isn't my cycle correct and right and oh so there's a lot and I just want to share a quote that came in to our community hub on circle most menstrual cycle teachings share from the perspective and the lens of people with quote regular cycles whereas those of us who experience irregular cycles are not really represented in a lot of awareness illustrations education and teachings so that's what our conversation is about today how to practice cycle awareness when your cycle is is irregular so i think i just want to say something first about menstrual cycle awareness that it is um the art and practice of connecting to yourself

at its simplest level but within the context of your menstrual cycle or the experience you are having so um whatever experience you're having it is about connecting to the it's about you connecting to the experience you are having. And that is the kind of base thing to hold on to. I mean, if you've got a regular cycle, then of course there's that sort of comforting feeling of feeling the changing rhythm moving from one to the other and all those different powers and things that unfold and but if you've got a very irregular

cycle that all falls away which is probably it's probably because um ovulation isn't happening and if that's not happening then you're not getting the subsequent sort of cascade of progesterone and so on i'm no expert on the hormonal level but um so you don't uh within a regular cycle of course then that lovely familiar pattern uh isn't there and so i can easily understand why people would feel uh frustrated powerless uprooted betrayed completely i get that yeah your body's not doing what it's supposed to be doing so this is uh really good that you're just beginning alexandra by just breaking down what is at the kind of core of menstrual cycle awareness because in a way it's easy to get seduced and distracted by the archetypal cycle but really at the heart of menstrual cycle awareness is that it is a mindfulness practice

and it is a practice of giving attention, trusting the place you're in, even when your mind can't make sense of it. And even when it is out of the expected order of things. And I want to say, especially when it's out of the expected order of things, because there are cycles within cycles. And this is something that our mind doesn't really have privy to, but it is the deeper process that is going on for all of us. Our menstrual cycle is one cycle within a larger cycle of unfolding through our lives from menarche to menopause and through these peak moments of initiation like menarche, motherhood if you choose to go that route menopause etc so there are these cycles within cycles and then of course there's the creative cycle of our life there are the outer seasons and the sort of cyclings of the cosmos and so on and so forth. And the reason I'm naming that is because your personal menstrual cycle sits within that context and is being informed and shaped and held. So please all hear this. You are all being held at a very deep level, regardless

of the predictability or unpredictability of your cycle. And now that we're talking to those of you with irregular cycles, I just want to tell you a little secret. Those who have irregular cycles are actually in a much bigger, deeper, more hardcore training of, you know, practice ground and menstrual cycle awareness, because you can't let your mind take over. You can't, you know, organize your life accordingly. You're having to be much more responsive and awake to your own experience. You can't outer reference. You really have to come back to your own authority, your own knowing, your own experience, which is such a power move, can I just say. So all of you with irregular cycles you're in big school congratulations and if you're listening to this and you have a predictable cycle just enjoy it

pay more attention yeah and pay more attention yeah you know when you talk about the cycles within cycles within cycles i'm also thinking of something you say often coming back to the health um the cycle is the fifth vital sign piece that we are in a a global cycle a planetary cycle where we are in a global cycle, a planetary cycle, where we are experiencing unprecedented levels of stress in many of our cultures on Earth, most of our cultures on Earth, I'd say. And that cycle health problems, missing cycles, can be also seen as like an early warning sign, like we're the sign like where the

canaries in the coal mine showing up that something is wrong in our system i feel very very very strongly about this one the menstrual cycle our hormonal system is our stress sensitive system um so our menstrual cycle is responding to who we to what's happening on the inside of us it's giving feedback about yeah how we're doing on the inside on all levels but it's also responding to what's happening on the outside it is this kind of tuning process all the time. And it is, yes, it's our stress-sensitive system. And the reason I feel very strongly about this is because I, in the past, suffered, you know, strong health problems.

I never, I had menstrual pain. I actually had a very, very regular cycle. That's the one good thing about it. But I had, outside of that, I had big health problems, actually, which is probably why I had very bad menstrual pain, which was a serious betrayal. I mean, that word betrayal is very significant for me. And I was fierce in myself in not reducing it to my problem.

I didn't want to see myself as a victim either, but I saw it as, as yes i have a very sensitive body and yes there were things i needed to attend to and see it you know it taught me a lot about myself you know healing my body powerful powerful um but also um i i felt i uh it was what was happening in the world you know the the levels of pollution in our environment the levels of stress of things yeah the lack of uh care for cyclical life yeah um just all sorts of as as you name Sophie they're huge and now I mean it's even more extreme now than it was then and um i chose to dignify myself and to see myself as part of a bigger organism and that you know i was sort of flashing something within this bigger organism called life it's like you know i was part of nature i am we're all part of nature and like

nature is screaming different things to us and the nature of my body was screaming things and um and as part of all that i chose to see my experience as meaningful to consecrate it to deliberately consecrate it as meaningful meeting our irregular cycles and i think this fifth vital sign this idea it's it's giving us feedback i think we need to keep coming back to that as the sort of real base note of everything it's feedback it's feedback and so it's it's it's like asking us to attend to something and and and i don't want to bring any language of failure or anything like that in at all it's like uh any kind of disturbance i choose to see any kind of disturbance within my being or anything that I have to deal with as an invitation into evolution, into discovery, into expansion.

And so, yes, I mean, it's like menstrual cycle awareness is asking you to stay in relationship with the experience you are having. And in that act of doing menstrual cycle awareness, what you're doing is you're really exercising that muscle of inner listening, of sensing and knowing. And it's like a different kind of intelligence that you're developing. It's not your mind. It's not a different kind of intelligence that you're developing. It's not your mind. It's not even your feelings. It's another kind of quality you're growing about yourself that allows you to sort of access another layer of information. And it might sound very grand what I'm saying when we think of the simple act of, you know, just tending to ourselves each day.

But it is in that simple act of, you know, just tending to ourselves each day. But it is in that simple act. And the act of doing that cultivates another kind of intelligence that allows you to go, this is what I have to do, or I know what's needed, or, oh, wow. Yeah, so, I mean, what you're saying is really helpful it's um uh naming that irregular cycles are a uh is our inner guidance system speaking to us calling us to pay closer attention to ourselves our needs to cultivate greater levels of wellness and health in our body and being and what you're also saying is that actually through the practice of menstrual cycle awareness we can receive more guidance about what we are needing to tend to in ourselves in order to create

better, greater health and well-being. So the irregular cycle situation, we could say, is a kind of disruption or physical disturbance that is waving a red flag for you to turn towards yourself and kind of up the game of self-care, we could say. So when we think about it like that it's um it's a gift you know it's an early warning sign yeah if you'd like to look for ideas for that self-care then there are so so many in our episode with lara bryden episode 13, which is all about healing different menstrual challenges, such an amazing resource. So head over there, episode 134 of the menstruality podcast.

Okay, so we've named one of the three reasons that cycles can be irregular. Let's look at the second one, which is that when we've changed, but we haven't adapted to it, that can lead to changes in our cycles. Yeah. So it's really helpful in terms of understanding this one is to recognize that our menstruating years, that we change through the course of our menstruating years, which is an obvious thing to say, because we all know we're growing older, our lives are changing, you know, we're evolving as human beings, that happens. But there is a very particular pattern to that change that happens. But there is a very particular pattern to that change that happens. And it follows the archetypal movement of the inner season. So, you know, in our 20s, we're more in the spring of our menstruating years. So the kinds of needs that we have are really similar to the

kinds of needs that we have in the inner spring of our menstrual cycle. And then in our 30s, we move into the summer of our menstruating years. And there again, the kinds of needs we have, as well as the kinds of powers we have are similar to what we experience in the in a summer of our cycle this ovulatory time and then in our 40s we move into the autumn of our menstruating years so this then means our needs become more similar to the kinds of needs that we have in the pre-menstrual, in the inner autumn. And just like what happens in the menstrual month, I mean, we've all experienced this. You're in the inner summer of your cycle. You can go, go, go. You can juggle all the balls. You can say yes to everything. You can pull a late night. You can get up early in the morning. You can do all the things. But then suddenly, the cycle changes. And you, there's this kind

of internal gear shift, your energy changes, your capacity changes. And if you're not paying attention to your changing needs, you know, you hit a wall, a collapse of exhaustion, or, you know, you become overwhelmed or like completely agitated or you start to feel unwell. Your immune system like takes a deep drop or whatever the case might be. Burnout, burnout, you can experience burnout. So our needs are changing through the seasons of our lives. And particularly this is significant, I think, in our 40s

because we are wired so differently. I mean, it's a gradual change, you know, from the end of your thirties into your forties, it's gradual, it's incremental, but we absolutely are changing. And I feel that in myself, you know, I, I just have, my constitution is different now. My nervous system is different now. My body is different now to how it was in my 20s. And a part of me has had to catch up with the reality of who I am now. And, you know, when we don't, when we don't gear change,

when we don't stop trying to run with the young kids and do all the things that shows up in our, well, in our mental and emotional health, you know, the fallout that so many people feel in their 40s, outbreaks of enormous anxiety, panic, yeah, rage, it disrupts in all kinds of ways. But also in the body, so many people experience a health crisis in their 40s, the kind of crash, the burnout of having lived too fast for too long and not adapting to one's changing body and needs. And irregular cycles, you know, so this is really an extension from what Alexandra was saying. Irregular cycles are one of those big warning signs that you're needing something different now, that your health is being affected, your wellbeing is affected, and you need to change. You need to do things differently. And more often than not, it means you need to slow down the pace of your life which i just want to

say is kind of crazy because often people in their 40s are at like the height of their career they've got big families you know you've built a life at this point and when you've built a life you have responsibility so there is a a creative tension in this, I really want to name. But the thing is, you're in your 40s, and you have the maturity and the wherewithal now to kind of dig deeper. And it means stronger boundaries, you know, taking more responsibility for ourselves um it's it's a big ask but it's what's required and um and it sets us up then for menopause which is another big big gear change a kind of full stop of sorts you know it's the winter of our menstruating years and so we really need this gear change in our 40s in order to meet that pause that we're being invited into at menopause again so that we don't

smash into it at full speed and then experience the you know the health crisis that many do. I'm just going to pause for a moment to share a resource with you. If you'd like to explore more about practicing cycle awareness when you're off all the usual maps, we recommend reading Sharni and Alexandra's book, Wild Power, if you haven't already. It celebrates the big red rule the only rule of cycle awareness which is that we're always working with the cycles that we have not an idealized version and how to listen for the wisdom of your inner seasons as they are however

they're showing up for you with your unpredictable cycles and we're celebrating wild power's birthday this month with a buy one get one free offer until the end of may so please visit the podcast page for this episode at redschool.net forward slash podcast and you'll find the link to get this offer okay back to the conversation with alexandra and Sharni. It's such a feminist move as well, this actually slowing things down, actually taking space. And what I mean by that is there are these societal pressures, particularly on women in our 40s. Some have children, some not not but they're often elderly parents and oh where does the caring role land on usually on the women you know who are often also working often taking on more child care it's like again canaries in the coal mine are we showing that this system isn't okay are we

showing that women shouldn't have this much pressure on our shoulders holy fuck yes yes and so that move to pace ourselves to slow down to make space which is why in autumn is asking me to do today is changing things in the collective so i want to dignify it honor it it's not you being selfish we are we need to change this situation. Yes, Sophie. And this is what is so significant about us meeting ourselves in the place that we're in, for example, in our 40s, is that when we come into alignment with who we are now and what we're needing, the system around us, our family, our communities are all having to adjust to this new configuration, constellation, and that's good for the whole system. Yes. You know, the whole system needs to change, as you said. So, yeah, we're a significant part of that each in our own way. Yeah. It's good for the planet.

It's slowing down our consumption. It's good all around. Yes. There was a comment in our community hub recently where someone was expressing their concern about how their cycles were changing and becoming irregular and they're in their early 40s and um and i replied to them and i just want to also name this here in the podcast because i think it's really important um that uh we come out of this mindset of it being inevitable that our cycles change in our 40s. It is not

inevitable that our cycles change in our 40s. But what is true is that our hormonal system is shifting in our 40s gradually and incrementally. and what that means is that our tolerance for stress decreases dramatically and this is also really part of this changing needs piece which I just want to name very specifically so what this means is if you are experiencing a lot of stress, your body isn't going to be able to metabolize that in the same way it down to inevitable, I really urge you to see it as a call to a gear change and to a different way of being with yourself and making the changes in your life and how you're living that are going to really support you to tap into the power that's available in your 40s, rather than just into the shadow and the disruption and the all hell breaking loose aspect of it because there's enormous

power here but we need to change gears in order to be in contact with that so um yeah it's it's the time for a whole new level of self-care the game's got to be upped for anyone who's in this the middle of what shani's talking about we did we've done a couple of episodes about this phase of life i think i'll link to them in the show notes at redschool.net forward slash podcast you'll be able to find them on the page for this episode can we get practical for a moment so i'm imagining say a woman in her 40s she's got a shit ton going on in her life she's on day 60 of her cycle she wants to track her process can you just walk us through what does she do in the middle of her busy day to practice menstrual cycle awareness

as a woman within a regular cycle in her 40s? I would each day take a moment to tune into myself and ask myself you know what is the tone of me? What's the atmosphere I'm noticing in me? So it means actually taking a moment to be with themself and to ask myself, what are my needs? What's speaking to me, just really tending to my energy, my nervous system, and all those elements, the feelings in me, and really just being with them noting them that it is that simple to just do that but the other element I want to bring in where cycles are going on for a long time like this, you know, day 60, that's a long time,

is to, and you can really feel like you're out there in the cosmos with nothing holding you, well, is to actually just be deliberately conscious of other rhythms. We spoke about this earlier. So just, I mean, the obvious one for us here you know in the normal heavens here is that you know we're in spring right now you know clocking like i did earlier um but to also note the moon phase as well and if you're feeling like you know because one of the things when you don't have that regular cycle is there's there's there's that there's no call to drop and um i mean i'm fierce around

spaciousness for myself as you well know um but it's kind of nice just to really i i sort of see i'm very conscious of the dark moon because I become very, a little bit loose and wild and rather high. And if I don't pace myself and really don't, you know, I have to be kind of quite chilled, you know, I can actually get exhausted. It's interesting. So I am, you know, I'm conscious that the dark moon is coming

up and i'm going and i'm deliberate i don't feel it in my body you see that menstruation takes you by the scruff of the neck and goes you're coming with me you know stop drop surrender don't move no don't no no i'm going to shut everything down in you your brain's not working i don't, no, no. I'm going to shut everything down in you. Your brain's not working. I don't have that happening. But to actually be deliberate about resting, say, using perhaps the dark moon as an example, as a container, the moon cycle as a container, and the dark moon as a kind of rest movement i we all need containers i need a container yeah and i feel held on a number of

levels um you know i feel like there are a number of containers holding me much more subtle not as not very embodied and real like the menstrual cycle so um yeah the the point you make alexandra about bringing uh rhythm into giving our attention to rhythm just generally i also want to add day night rhythm so if your cycles are regular just creating rhythm in your day is very significant so getting up at the same time going to bed at the same time meals at the same time creating a rhythmic day you're really paying attention to rhythm overall and that is lowering you into something so um yeah the moon cycle the season cycle and more immediately the day night rhythm very very very very helpful yeah i just love what you said alexandra in terms of a question that people can ask themselves, what's speaking to me? What's speaking to me?

Because I think that question can open up whole worlds inside us. Like you know earlier, you were speaking to the inner listening of menstrual cycle awareness, the sensing and the knowing, and it's knowing on those deeper levels. And one of the things I love the most about menstrual cycle awareness is it gets me asking myself those questions regularly and I get to be with the deep level of myself which is it just makes life so much more rich and beautiful and interesting and even the shitty stuff yeah it gives it meaning like you say dignifies it and that I think that question is so valuable. What's speaking to me? You know, what am I interested in? What book do I want to look at?

Who do I want to talk to? What do I want to eat? Where do I want to go? What environment do I want to be in? It's like, Ooh, how can I make a little bit of that happen? And who knows where it will take me. And I'm also thinking of Lauren and talk in terms of the containers that hold us one of the things that lauren said in our cycle checking when she was showing about her irregular cycle at the moment because lauren's in her hang on is she in late 20s late 20s and she said well one thing i'm really noticing because of my menstrual cycle awareness practice is the place I'm in creatively in the

creative cycle because we've just got going with the 2024 menstruality leadership program and she's in a void space because so much of her work has been getting everyone in and safe and sorted and nurtured and cared for and that's done and so she was noticing that void place and that was holding her she was allowing that cycle to hold her it feels like a good practical example of a cycle that can hold us yeah oh can i just say that is you know that you know post-menopause that is what is holding you you're in the cycle of your calling and the creative cycle within that. And it is so alive and real for me. Yes.

And understanding about the understanding I've grown into through menstrual cycle awareness means I'm sort of at home. It's just sort of organic, respecting those cycles, the creative cycle and where you're at within it and the different things you need to care for just as you did with the menstrual cycle thank goodness for cyclical intelligence so the the third reason that you name for why cycles can change is around or why cycles can become unpredictable is around peak moments of initiation like menarche first periods motherhood if you choose to or are able to go down that path menopause i'm sure we've got gazillions of stories about menopause and the menopause hinterland here but i just maybe i'll kick us off with a story from the postpartum window is that all

right with you or shall we go sequentially and just say something about menarche first yeah definitely menarche is um a good place to start because um it's the first of these initiations into the menstruality path and it's a a good example because we all recognize the huge flux that we go through in puberty, both in terms of our kind of identity shifting and the huge hormonal shift that's happening. So our entry into our menstruating years is part of a bigger shift in our being as all initiations are, you know, we're dying to the self we were, and being reborn anew. In the case of this, you know, you're going from girl or young person

into the beginning of the journey of womanhood, adulthood. So what's happening is this huge reorchestration of your being. And that is not a, you know, on-off thing. It's not a one moment you are, one moment you aren't thing. It's a transition. And transitions are precarious. They're full of unknown. They are, I want to say, a little bit of a kind of negotiational battle with who we were and into who we're becoming. It's like, we don't let go easily, do we, as humans?

And I change it. Yeah, it's like, and then eventually it's like, okay. Okay, all right, I'll change. But this is happening from within us. This is impulse changing us. But part of that negotiation means that our cycles are leading us through the wibbly wobbly unpredictability of that so you know when you first start menstruating it's not uncommon for young people to have you know irregular cycles or unpredictable cycles etc and then at some point they kind of settle into the new ground of who they're becoming.

I almost feel the relief in my system as I imagine my daughter, you know, getting there. I mean, she hasn't even started bleeding yet. I've actually seen this in older children, how they kind of eventually settle into this kind of new space in themselves and they come out of a more kind of i want to say neanderthal state into something which you could identify as being you know more human but yeah something settles and then the rhythm kind of takes hold and then holds holds you holds you holds you I think that's a nice um example and there is a version of that that happens in motherhood yeah I mean you just described my first year of my son's life perfectly I felt all of those things yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah so annie says hi sisters i've noticed since giving birth 19 months ago my moon time is very different i began ovulating again eight months postpartum and i'm still breastfeeding my bleed has gone from three to four days to six to seven days long and instead

of day one being heavy and painful day two is often very heavy and very very sore my cycles are on average 36 days but can be as high as 44 days and irregular anyone have any ideas why day two is so hard any ideas on how to ease it i've tried everything track regularly avoid gluten and lactose rest as much as i can and i take on all the advice I've learned here there is a lot of great support in the community hub isn't there on circle I'm also seeing a homeopath I heard that pregnancy can fix menstrual challenges but it hasn't at all yeah how can we speak to Annie here well firstly just to say Annie you are doing all the right things because it is really important that you attend to your health and that you get support from good practitioners and that stuff is all so, so good. And I think it really helps to, again, come back to this thing of the cycles within cycles that are holding us and the motherhood initiation is a bigger cycle that you're in and in a way it's the dominant

cycle that you're in your menstrual cycle is sort of courting you it's returned and it's courting you into the kind of new you the new way ahead the the mother that you are becoming but at the moment you are really in a um a void of sorts i want to say it's it's all you know just two not even two years out of giving birth you are mush like the caterpillar mush before it becomes the butterfly you're in that sort of unformed place. And so I hope when I say that to you and to anyone who's listening is that you can just take a really deep breath and feel a bit of kindness towards yourself and to your body because it's a lot and never mind the fact that you your entire life has changed

the demands on your attention time energy the disruption on your day night rhythms all the things I mean you are living in a completely different world to the one you were in before you became a mother. There's so much unknown and disruption. So the irregularity of your cycle and some of the kind of pain and all that that's going on is the call into your new self which can only happen gradually with huge amounts of kindness and gentleness and patience and very much like the menarche example i gave you know you're you're um in negotiation with this new self you, who you are now and who you're becoming. And that's a little bit of a tussle for our psyches and therefore for our bodies. I feel like I'm the feminist voice raging against the patriarchy today, funnily enough, on my day 23.

Ha! Fancy that. Imagine. Imagine. But the world takes a lot of notice of pregnant women and people. And hopefully in the postpartum immediate window, like the first 40 days. But really then the attention just goes way off and left like my friend put a message out on her substack just saying like wow this is getting harder and harder because her little one's I think nine months old and it's like this is where it's really hitting her so I guess just a word to the mums who are feeling it in all kinds of places of their motherhood journey and they you

know this I hear this all the time I should have it more together by now god and it just makes me want to weep because like you said mush we're talking mush here like honor yourself as mush and shiny you gave me advice you said so if you've just got to give yourself two three years and more yeah it's slow it's slow yeah it really really takes time yeah yeah um as i was listening to you i mean i i can't speak to the mother at peace because i haven't had children but i was reminded of uh this is a very practical thing health practice actually i just wanted to throw in and then on the back of that i then was reminded of another thought i think chinese medicine is extraordinary at being able to actually read you know what's going on depleted or not sort of playing its part

and then i sort of moved on to this word nourishment and i thought our hormonal system needs nourishment we need nourishment it's and i think that's a really good word to come back to always with its nourishment of our bodies, but also of our souls to think in terms of nourishment as a base note for all these aspects of why cycle awareness is, you know, why our cycles might be going off. And of course, you know, that word nourishment arose when I was just thinking about the sheer enormity of what it takes to both grow a child, you have to have strong, they say in Chinese medicine, I believe, kidney chi. It takes a lot of kidney chi. and then that act of birth i mean that's mind-boggling and then you know all the the whole new world you stepped into and all the uh responsibilities and the nurturing you're having to do which is 20 24 7 i know the breastfeeding um you know that i'm just thinking on a very physical level you know making milk and that coming out of you. And, and yes, as you say, Shani, now you you've got to be utterly and wholly present to this utterly

powerless being this utterly dependent upon you and nourishment. No, you know, where's the nourishment, the actual physical nourishment to fill up your body after this enormous act. And then just the nourishment to fill up your body after this enormous act and then just the nourishment of you your being when you're having you know who's mothering you who's where's your food coming from literal and metaphorical yeah so this word nourishment i want to throw into the mix actually yeah it's very key beautiful i feel like there's a final piece to speak to around the late 40s the what you call the menopause hinterland when cycles can become very unpredictable so i'm going to read from wise power there's this book called wise power that i

don't know if you've heard of it it's quite good it's quite good oh good it's got quite a few good reviews on amazon as well okay great I must say that so the menopause hinterland as the quickening intensifies towards the end of your 40s and into your 50s there's a gray area between the quickening and being seized by the great void of menopause. You're moving out of one gear but haven't yet shifted into another. Perhaps you're already noticing the common physical signs of menopause, having periods every few months, your cycle length shifting or bleed changing, or you're experiencing a cycle without ovulating and there's a flattening out in the cycle's regular energetic fluctuations. Yet you haven't been fully seized by the menopause initiation itself which has its own order.

Once you're actually in it you'll know, you'll have dropped into another holding, that of the menopause process. We call this vulnerable transition the menopause hinterland or the little void because it's titrating you for the great void of menopause. It's a somewhat nebulous time characterized by increased restlessness and disorientation and the beginnings of a systematic destabilizing of all you've held true. The menopause hinterland is a time of gradual reckoning with the dawning reality of menopause and your readiness to officially declare that you're fully in it. Yes and I just really want to add that you're prepared through your menstruating years, you are prepared for this destabilization. It's an increasing permeability that's happening

as you get closer and closer to menopause. So in your late 40s, there's an interesting confluence of forces, I think. There's certainly a kind of pinnacle of kind of, I feel, or there almost should be, i want people to experience this of feeling um like feeling your own kind of power you're feeling real sense of authority and power and satisfaction you know with um what you have been doing, just a sense, almost of mastery, actually. I feel there's some sort of rising to a pinnacle of that somewhere. And I would love people to be feeling that.

And simultaneously, it's like there's a sort of crossover with that sort of peak of something. And then this increasing permeability, this destabilizing that starts to come in in various ways. So you've got these interesting sort of cross currents going on. You've got to be kind of awake to yourself and um yes because you know your hormones um i mean it's a huge shift like the beginning of our menstruating years it's a massive organization within your biology and similarly now you know there's this rewiring going on and as shani said with menarche um it doesn't happen overnight it's not an on-off thing

it's a process it's it's it's a big transition uh and you know because you're dealing with, just as with monarchy, you're dealing with the death of the ending of one way of being, and you're birthing yourself now into another life stage. that friend death you are suddenly realizing your you know there's your mortality there's uh yeah it's there's a fragility that's there yeah yeah i really i want to speak to that uh word void that was mentioned and this is um you know we talk about the menopause hinterland as being a mini void before you enter the great void of menopause and voids are death moments moments, moments in inverted commas, because it can go on for a few years. And this is where our practice of cycle awareness is really important, which is that at the end of every cycle, the end of the inner autumn, we move into the void of every cycle, the end of the inner autumn, we move into the void of the cycle.

And we've named it the void. It's the first chamber of menstruation. It's actually the beginning of the end. Because it is this moment of being, we could say, abandoned by the holding of the cycle, momentarily left, momentarily abandoned. And why that is significant is that that abandonment is inviting us into a reclamation of our own inner light, our own inner divinity, our own inner holding, our own inner aliveness. And the reason I want to kind of name that is because when we're having irregular cycles

whether it's for health reasons or any of the kind of initiatory reasons or other reasons we will all have an experience of going into a void it has a void like quality overall and um rather than this being uh a moment where you disconnect from yourself and go oh this whole menstrual cycle thing is bullshit it's like i don't have a cycle it's not doing what i'm supposed to do you know screw this i'm not practicing cycle awareness uh the the um courageous move is to stay with yourself to stay with yourself and coming right back to the beginning of the conversation where Lauren named some of those things that come up in the void so this could be in the menopause hinterland or the void whenever we feel it post-motherhood when the creative cycle

powerlessness grief betrayal uprooted shame self-blame, disconnection, confusion, all those things. It's a profound opportunity to make all of that sacred in yourself and really learn to be with yourself in that place. so all hail the void wow that was so beautiful shani and a good place for us to wrap up this conversation and i'm curious if people have questions if this has brought up questions for you please send them in to me at sophie at red school.net because we really want this podcast to be a conversation and we want to speak to your questions

and your thoughts and your musings. So please send them in sophie at redschool.net. Thanks, you too. Bye. Good night. Thank you. Thank you, Sophie. Thanks for staying with us all the way to the end here if you are someone who has unpredictable

irregular cycles i really hope that this episode has inspired you given you some support and some ideas and as i mentioned we'd love to hear how this landed for you any questions that have come up please email them to me at sophie at redschool.net and if you have a friend who is dealing with irregular cycles due to health challenges or any of the transitions we've explored today then please share this episode with them and we'd love to hear what they think and finally to remind you we're celebrating wild powers birthday this month with a buy one get one one free offer, which is actually available until the end of May. So please visit the podcast page for this episode at

redschool.net forward slash podcast to get your free copy of the book. Thank you again for being with us. Thank you for being part of this community. And I'll be with you again next week. And until then, keep living life according to your own brilliant rhythm