The Menstruality Podcast - 165. How to Make the World Love Periods (Jane Bennett)

Episode Date: September 26, 2024

What do you do when you’ve discovered the incredible power of menstrual cycle awareness, and you’re keen to share it with your loved ones, colleagues and community, but whenever you try to talk about it, you receive reactions that range from disinterest to disgust?The truth is that menstrual shame is real, it is pervasive and overcoming it is a key part of restoring the power, beauty and magic of the menstrual cycle at the heart of our world. Luckily we are standing on the shoulders of giants here, like the menstrual trailblazer, Jane Bennett, who has been busting through the menstrual taboo for 40 years.  Jane Bennett is social worker, researcher, writer and educator as well as the founder of the Chalice Foundation. In our first Menstruality podcast episode with Jane, we explored how to navigate create a positive menstrual culture, and what she  learned from gathering the stories of over 3000 women and girls about current attitudes to the menstrual cycle to write her book About Bloody Time: The Menstrual Revolution We Have to Have.Today, we explore:The historical roots of menstrual shame in a patriarchal society, and the compassionate, smart ways that Jane overcomes it in her educational work.How Jane works with Brene Brown’s guidance around cultivating shame resilience, and the importance of loving presence and curiosity in the face of menstrual shame. Jane’s top tips for how to support your loved ones to have an aha moment about the menstrual cycle so they can get onside and support you with your menstrual cycle awareness practice.---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: @red.school (https://www.instagram.com/red.school)Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardyJane Bennett: @chalicefoundation (https://www.instagram.com/chalicefoundation)

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 me today. So I have a question for you. What do you do when you've discovered the incredible power of menstrual cycle awareness and you want to share it with your loved ones, your colleagues, your

community, but whenever you try to talk about it, you receive reactions that range from disinterest to disgust. The truth is that menstrual shame is real. I experience it all the time when I tell people that I host a podcast about the menstrual cycle and menopause. It's pervasive and overcoming it is a key part of restoring the power, the beauty, the magic of the menstrual cycle at the heart of our world. And luckily, we're standing on the shoulders of giants here, like the menstrual trailblazer Jane Bennett, who has been busting through this menstrual taboo for 40 years. Jane Bennett is a social worker, a researcher, a writer, an educator and the founder of the Chalice Foundation and Celebration Day for Girls. In our first menstruality podcast episode with Jane we explored how to create positive menstrual cultures and she shared what she learned from gathering the stories of over 3,000 women and girls about the current attitudes to the menstrual cycle to write her book about bloody time the

menstrual revolution we have to have and in my conversation with Jane today we explore the historical roots of menstrual shame in our patriarchal society some really useful tips that jane uses from brene brown's work about cultivating shame resilience and jane's top advice for how to support your loved ones to have an aha moment about the menstrual cycle so they can get on the side and support you with your menstrual cycle awareness practice jane bennett i've been looking forward to this ever since we had to reschedule last week and before that, because you really are one of the mothers of this movement. You have been working on this for so long, and it's just a real honour to be able to sit with you. And the question I'm really holding is how to make the

world love periods. Hi, Sophie. It's a great topic too. And I'm forever pondering that myself and looking at all the different ways that suddenly work or don't for a long time, or it's a perpetual question, really. Yeah, there's so much we can unpack I mean it's connected to so many threads around shame and our culture and yeah so we've got lots to get into today but before we do I'd love to start as we always start which is with a cycle check-in and I'd love to hear what cycles you're with in your life at the moment, clearly I'm post-menopausal. So it's probably, I can't remember now, you know, I'm day thousands and thousands. I can't remember what it is. I work it out every now and again. And as far as the cycles I'm in, I'm very aware of the, you know,

we're in the middle of a little string of eclipses at the moment which is always interesting and uh I am feeling that extra edge and sparkiness that can come with a you know betwixt and between eclipses so I'm I'm just curious and noticing that yeah and we've just passed the autumn equinox here so that means the spring is coming in yeah yeah big time I'm watching I'm watching sort of flowers but you know flower spikes coming up in the garden and uh when I got up this morning there was a kangaroo just outside the kitchen window you know they they pop off when I turn the light on but they're just there you know doing their you know having their breakfast oh that's so lovely um I'm

in my inner summer which is really handy because my husband's away so I'm with my son and my dog and they're a lot and work is a lot and so I'm really enjoying this ovulatory energy and just relishing it and making the most of it and already plotting my slowing down and rest in a week's time I've got some plans for that yeah what I'm with for today is you know there are lots of different people in this community gathered around this podcast. You know, there are the graduates of the menstruality leadership program. Hi there, if you're listening, who are really committed to bringing this work of honoring the power and the magic of the menstrual cycle out in the world. There's also many other professionals who are sharing about the cycle the power of the cycle about menopause and then there's a whole load of women and people

who um are just really turned on about this practice of tracking our cycles and being with our own rhythms and our own ebb and flow and the and the agency that we have over our lives then and our inner lives and our outer lives and all of the magic that comes with it and what I'm with to explore with you Jane is what do we do when we have all of this passion and we want to tell people about it but when we tell them the reactions range from disinterest to disgust, really. And like, what do we do about this? Because obviously, we're all inside the truth that there's something very magical here. And maybe we can start with that. Like, I'd love to hear in your words, why you feel why you've

devoted 40 years to this, right? Like why you feel the world needs to be in love with the menstrual cycle? Well, probably quite similar to all of those who you've spoken about, who are listening, who are passionate about this work. And it came alive for me in my mid-twenties when I learned natural fertility management, which are fertility awareness methods, to manage my contraceptive needs. And I'd already had a little bit of a journey with the pill and an IUD, which at those times didn't have hormones attached to them, neither of which were great. Then I discovered a diaphragm and I quite loved the diaphragm. It was a lot less intrusive. And then I got to know Francesca Naish.

I was living in Sydney at the time and Francesca Naish started natural fertility management and she put together the current methods, you know, the Billings method that was discovered by the doctors Billings in Melbourne in the 50s and 60s and the symptom thermal, the temperature method, which together is the symptom thermal method, as well as the lunar cycle, the work of Dr. Eugene Jonas from Czechoslovakia. And so this, I was doing some work in the same multi-mode clinic and thought, oh, this sounds really interesting. This sounds really interesting. And it still took me from the moment that I heard about it to the moment that I actually made an appointment and it and it took two things one was uh a new boyfriend who was also really interested and so it was that you know we're we're on this journey together uh so that was great and

the other thing that happened that I realized later was while intellectually I thought this sounded really good nothing in my life up to that point had given me any indication that I could know my body and read the signs of my fertility well enough to make decisions about contraception which clearly for anyone making decisions about contraception, which clearly for anyone making decisions about contraception is pretty important. But with the support of my new boyfriend, we went along and saw Francesca. And in those days, it was an audio tape and ronioed sheets and, you know, a description from her and an appointment in a month's time. So I went home and started taking my temperature and checking mucus and filling in my chart and, you know, reading the notes. And it was all sort of very interesting. And what I found, you know, certainly by a month in that I could, you know, see the

pattern of my cycle. And by the second month, I could start to say, okay, I know I'm not fertile then and I know I'm not fertile then. And those windows, as I got more familiar with the whole process, were able to grow. And to me, it was a massive epiphany. I mean, the capacity to, it was like a veil dropped, the capacity to read myself and see that, oh, I can see, I get those symptoms every month, a few days before my cycle.

It empowered me to be able to do something about that. It empowered me to be able to help myself and understand the ebbs and flows and ups and downs of the cycle and make choices for myself. So that's where it really started. And, you know, soon after that I was, you know, I've got the passion that I really wanted to share this. And I, you know, got together with Francesca and we, you know, wrote resources for natural fertility management together and ran training programs for a long time.

And we still do some work together. So but, you know, along the way, and that happened, and we sort of managed to convert people and particularly health professionals that were very keen to share this too. But I have to say on the back of my enthusiasm, I was really surprised because I thought this would be amazing for everybody and as soon as they'd hear about it,

they'd just jump at it. And it was many years later that I realised, you know, this is the nature of this deeply unconscious thread of menstrual shame, the menstrual taboo that runs through our society. And it's a collective thing. It's a collective unconscious thing. So for many women and others who menstruate who may not identify as carrying menstrual shame themselves, we do collectively

because we're mostly fairly polite people. We don't like to bring it up with other people in case they feel uncomfortable. So it stays underground and stays quiet. And for in a large part, people stay isolated in their experience and ignorant about what's going on for them. And all the fallout from that for health and wellbeing over a lifetime. So that's sort of where it got me going. And so once I really started to understand the process

of menstrual shame and see the many different ways that that manifests, you know, you can really start to see it everywhere. In fact, my Celebration Day for Girls trainer team, we came up with an acronym, which is B-O-M-S, BOMS. And what it means is because of mental shame. So you'll see something happening or you'll see a response or you'll see a lack of something that's really obvious. And we just say it's bombs, bombs, bombs, bombs, bombs.

So the nature of this is like a, I sometimes think of it like in homeopathy they talk about a miasm. And a miasm is a fog that makes it really hard to see things and it spreads throughout the population. And I think menstrual shame is like that and deeply unconscious and, you know, it affects everybody. It affects relationships. It affects, as I said earlier, it affects our health and our well-being

and really is undermining in all quarters really. Our connection to ourselves, our capacity to be with our own selves and our own bodies, there's like a wedge in the way or a veil in the way because I just always want to get to the roots of things. I mean, this is a big conversation, but it just feels important to just name it. Like, let's remember menstrual blood is the life blood that feeds the embryo. This is sacred. It is potent. It is it is magical really like it's the stuff of life and just brief like history of time what do you attribute this menstrual shame to like when it when it's such a incredibly magical substance a lot has been written about that and part of it would be lost

in the mists of time. But I do think in all the different forms of patriarchy as it's developed over thousands of years around the world, the part of the menstrual cycle that makes sense for patriarchy is ovulation because that's when we can conceive, that's when we're at our sexiest and often most interested in sex, and conception is productive and it's bringing new life. Whereas menstruation, you know, is messy.

It's often uncomfortable. It may be oftentimes women are needing space to do their own thing and to be themselves and may not be so socially pleasing and pleasant at those times and are a bit more, have a bit more agency. So menstruation would start to, and you can see it with the ancient Greeks whose writings we still have, like Galen, you know, we start to see it getting, you know, a really bad rap because it's not understood as it's important for our health, it's an important cycle and women and all parts of that are important. So it got that bad reputation because what's the point of it from the perspective of patriarchy?

So we can still see that played out, and this is a bombs, if you like, in a lot of how I can't give you a percentage, but I think it's way too high of how medicine is practiced that will see the cycle, unless you're wanting to conceive as unnecessary. There's no purpose to it. We'll just wipe it away. And then when you want it back, well, either it'll come back naturally or we can give you something else for it. So it's not understood to be of value in and of itself.

So obviously we're starting, other than we understand great benefits of it, even science is just starting to catch up a little bit with some really good uh research particularly from professor geraldine prior in canada who's showing us the uh the incredible benefits of having a full menstrual cycle and natural ovulation year after year after year uh and how well that sets us up for health and well-being in menopausal years? I find it fascinating that given the incredible feminist movement that we've seen over the past several decades, it feels like the menstrual cycle and menstruation are like the ugly duckling. There is so much that women have claimed back for

ourselves and space that we're taking in the world. And also for, you know, from an intersectional perspective, women who are also on the margins because of their race or identity, you know, there's so much more space, there's still so much more work to be done, particularly in this political climate that we're in. But there's I just find it fascinating sitting with you right now, Jane, that like, wow, still, you know, so many of the women I speak to who are very empowered in their lives probably call themselves feminists. When I tell them that I host a podcast about the menstrual cycle, they squirm, you know, and they look away and they don't know what to say. And they think I'm weird. I'm trying to ask you a question now,

but I'm all like G'd up with my ovulatory energy about this. Maybe, you know, what have you seen in terms of reactions in your own life and how have you met those reactions? I've seen lots of different reactions and I've contemplated them a lot over the years. And in the late 90s for about seven years, 96 to 2003, I had a small cloth pad business.

And one of the things I used to do is you know put these go to go to you know alternative fairs and put them out in baskets and have a big sign and you know and and it was really really interesting the different responses that people would have. So sometimes, you know, people would come by and have a look and say, oh, what are these for glasses cases? Or this is this new headache thing. And then they'd read a bit more or I'd talk to them. And, you know, it wasn't one response. There were so many different responses. But there were certainly people who'd go, oh, oh, oh,

and they'd get very urgently busy going off to do something else um and then and you couldn't pick them you couldn't pick who would it wasn't the most switch you know switched on looking or the most alternative looking uh sometimes it would be the straightest looking that would be going, oh, this is such a great idea. You know, how do they work and what do we do? And I'm going to buy some for myself and my sister. And so it really varied a lot.

One of my favourites was a couple of guys coming by. They were a metre or a couple of metres back from the front because there were some women looking at things and one guy was explaining to his mate what they were for and he would say oh yeah my wife you know really enthusiastically they're really great that means they don't have to do this and this and she really loves them and I like to help her fold them and put them back you know when we bring the washing in and, oh my God, it was, it was great. So you get all kinds. What I did learn with the people who had a, you know, a strong negative reaction, I, rather than get distressed about that, I realised that, you know, this is possibly the first time they've bumped

into a different approach, a different way of looking at menstruation, or having it expressed openly and comfortably. And I just like to, my fantasy about that was, it would, they wouldn't forget, it would winkle its way in and so into their mind. And next time they would see something different, they might be a little more open to it. So these things take time. And I think, you know, we're looking at the long arc of history. And when I look at where things were in, say,

the 90s compared to now, there is, you know, there's been this amazing flourishing of efforts and creativity and, you know, and activism and philanthropy and books and stories and podcasts and, you know, it's just there's so many conversations. So I think that's really important. And for people just circling back to, you know, what you were asking about people who are wanting to share this, I think you do what you can do.

You know, if there's an opening, you talk about it. And you can always open the door and say something and see if there's a response. And, of course, it can be wonderful when there's a response and somebody in a positive way and someone who's curious and wants to know more. And some days you won't feel like that because it's, you know, it can feel a little outside your own comfort zone and that's

okay too i think one of the most important things we can do and and that someone who is exploring and excited about and comfortable about menstrual cycle awareness is is the the the presence with their own cycle and their presence even with someone else's discomfort. So if you can be aware of the, you know, what this embarrassment or shame looks like or notice, oh, that's where that's coming from and aren't sort of drawn into being reactive yourself, but are just able to see that and be present with it. That staying present and staying in your own body,

which is also what menstrual cycle awareness really helps us do, is really powerful. And it may or may not be that that person will say, oh,, is really powerful. And it may or may not be that that person will say, oh, this is so interesting, I'm so glad you're telling me about this. They may, but they may not. But the fact of you doing that and being present, maybe you might feel compassion, you might feel love, you might feel equanimity about their response.

You may feel irritated by their response too, of course, but still present with that, you know, and that is a catalyst. You know, it's quite powerful. And I think if we can just see that we're at the pointy end of something here and we are going to get all kinds of reactions um so i would encourage everybody just just to keep going be sensitive to the to the moment push the push the edges um and you know find find the places that you can have conversations and you know lots of wonderful creative ways you can do that too.

You might leave a couple of books on your desk or have a little sign-up with where you are in your cycle or, you know, have conversations with the powers that be at work and make sure there are products available for when we get caught out, when people get caught out, or that there's conversations happening about workplace policy or there's conversation, you know, there's lots of different ways to do these things.

And what do we do at home for, you know, we might know where we keep our cloth pads or whatever we're using, but, you know, do we have in our toilets or our bathrooms visible menstrual products for women who come, who, you know, may suddenly get caught out, and a bin that they can use. Just simple stuff like that. Just, you know, find what I would call the low-hanging fruit,

what are the simple messages and that are overt uh there's just a few ideas from the top of my head Sophie wow it's such a wealth of practical ideas and I'm also very moved by what you shared about how menstrual cycle awareness cultivates our capacity to be present with ourselves and particularly with discomfort and that our capacity to do that with others is transformative in and of itself like that is a way of dissolving menstrual shame by being with ourselves and what it's making me think of is like early on in the practice of cycle awareness I experienced quite a lot of doubt like is this real am I really is there really a pattern here

like do I really get grouchy at the same time every month like and then later into my practice or my inner spring there's all kinds of stuff going on in here like pre-ovulation that I didn't realize like it's just a never-ending journey isn't it but the the more we practice day after day after day checking in how am I doing how's's my energy? How's my mood? If we can find a way to track where we can look back at previous months to start to really see the patterns. And then it's not like someone outside of us, again, an authority outside of us has told us, you should practice menstrual cycle awareness because you have four inner seasons. No, it's I practice menstrual cycle awareness so I know myself I know how I

change I have my own evidence I don't need the stamp of approval or authority from anyone else and that um authority is also transformative isn't it absolutely incredible and and you know it's black and white really compared to the um the, you know, you can't know yourself. So you just do what I say approach, which I would hope is starting to dissipate. But it's still out there and there's still a lot of disparaging of, you know, the experience of women and women being able to say, this, this, this is what I'm experiencing. I know what it is. I know what's happening here. So, you know, by practicing it, and by getting that sense of, you know, we do know ourselves, and we, as you said it beautifully, you know, we have that authority for ourselves. It's radical, it's revolutionary and it's so empowering to be

able to stand with that clarity in the centre of our own life, even on the days when we feel maybe like shit or maybe totally confused. But if we know it and we've observed it and it's like, okay, this is what happens here this is one of the one of the ways that this manifests we can still be present with that we can trust ourselves and and that the and that the wheel keeps turning yes okay i'm going to pause this conversation with j Jane just for a moment to share an invitation if you're listening to this and you're feeling passionate about creating positive menstrual cultures and moving through menstrual shame in your relationships at work with your community

we invite you to visit redschool.net forward slash cycle power where you can find out more about Red School's new cycle power course it's a six-week self-paced program guided by alexandra and sharni the co-founders of red school to awaken the magic of the menstrual cycle in your life by embodying the power of your inner seasons the four different phases of the menstrual cycle it's for you if you've been cycle tracking for three months or three years or more. The intention for the course is to help you learn how to restore your own inner ecology so you can soothe your nervous system, express your needs, hold your boundaries

and be nourished, especially by the spiritual power of menstruation. You can find out more about the course at redschool.net forward slash cycle power i'm thinking of a story that lucy peach shared with me have you hung out with lucy peach i haven't we we live at opposite ends of this vast country here but yeah but we know certainly know of each other and we've been in contact yeah well she was she might have told you this you might have heard this story but she said when we interviewed her on the podcast that she was chatting with one of her theatre friends a male theatre friend and he said Lucy you don't half talk about your period a lot mate like you

really do and she said well it's a big deal for me like and what would you rather I spoke about my shit and he said well yeah actually I think I would I think I would prefer it and it's just like just to normalize again the kind of experiences that that we have you have a phrase that I discovered when planning this conversation with you around helping people move from resistance and denial to acceptance and excitement you've already spoken you've shared so many great practical ideas for this but maybe we can just unpack this a bit more you also speak about this idea of shame resilience like what guidance would you give to us listening about cultivating shame resilience as we go out in the world and chat about our menstrual cycles? I'm so glad you brought that up.

Well, I'll just give you a little bit of background. I somewhere along this wondrous journey for me, I was diving into Brene Brown's work. And I'm sure everyone listening is very familiar with Brene Brown, and particularly her research into shame, which she speaks so wonderfully about in her TED Talks. And she, with all that research, she found that the, and she was studying women particularly, so she found that the women who weren't living with shame to such an,

you know, weren't crippled by shame, had, she studied them, she did the whole science number on it and realised they had particular qualities or they were good at particular things. And that's how they dealt with these tricky sort of things. And, of course, Renee wasn't especially studying menstruation. However, I felt that it really fit beautifully. And so there were four things that she particularly found that, you know, really helped with shame resilience and that it wasn't just that you're naturally born with these and you have it or you don't have it.

You can practice them and you can have them uttermost in your mind. So one is practice critical awareness. So think about what your responses are, what the responses are around you, what's going on for somebody. And, you know, and practicing it, I I mean I'm adding this bit but practicing it with compassion as well with with a kind of a neutrality and and compassion uh that people aren't meaning to be mean or nasty it's just something that's that's unconscious for them um she also talked about uh you know, that goes alongside practicing critical awareness is seeking knowledge, seeking to understand what's going on.

And again, probably anyone listening to this podcast is already well on the journey of seeking to understand their own cycle and the ins and outs of of the menstrual cycle i think we can all ourselves the the menstrual nerds those of us that in in a list yes we're in good company yes we we do love it don't we uh another is to recognize and understand our own triggers so being practicing that uh awareness being able to notice when we're triggered. And one of the ways to understand shame, I mean, shame does not feel good. If we're feeling shame, we really want the, you else or it's getting their their sense of shame around a particular topic you're getting triggered um uh you know we just want to disappear and that's why menstrual shame stays you know largely so unconscious because we just run a mile.

We don't want to sit and look at it. We don't want to really unpick it and unpack it and see what it's all about. And that's why I've really noticed over the years that shame and particularly my focus on mental shame, it shapeshifts. It shapeshifts quite quickly. So while someone might gain awareness in one part, it can turn into something else. You know, shame of why didn't I know?

I should have known that earlier or I'm ashamed of how I, you know, taught my children about this, you know, 10 years ago or whatever it was. There can be lots of different ways that that can change. Another is being, you know, when we're feeling shame, and this is hard to do, is to reach out. If we find ourselves triggered, when our impulse is to scuttle under a rock somewhere, is to reach out to somebody we feel will understand, someone we feel safe with, of course, but it can still be gut-wrenching to actually say

what we feel ashamed about, what we're feeling ashamed about. But reaching out and connecting rather than isolating is key and then to be able to speak about it to be able to speak about the shame we feel um and like a lot of things that are the most difficult to communicate about when we you know when maybe when we first do it, it can feel huge. When, and even subsequently, if shame, the feeling of shame is present, it can still feel big. But when we've exercised that muscle and we do it and we know it's good and we know it's going to help, it does get easier and it makes sense and it can be over really quickly, you know, and we're able to, again, just notice, grow from it

or even laugh at what the trigger was. So these are the features of shame resilience. And, of course, we can have shame about all kinds of things, but particularly at this moment, just being aware of those features that we may have noticed in ourselves in the past, our reluctance to speak and be open and connect with others and where that comes from. And I'm sure many who have done the leadership program

and who are listening have explored their own past experience and how they were educated about menstruation and have worked through a lot of these features of shame resilience because of that process. But I think, again, just coming back to the theme of our conversation is being aware that other people, when we're wanting to share our experience with friends and family and colleagues, is they may be at another point

in that continuum. And it can take time. But the most powerful thing is how we show up, I think. Yes, coming back to that presence piece again, cultivated by our own practice. Yeah, and time is so important like it it is very slow work this isn't it and it's good to name it you know been tracking my cycle for 13 years and I'm still you know still have this edge with my husband around I need and deserve rest when I

bleed you know it's like okay 13 years in so come on you can claim this but every month there's always a little challenge around okay can I am I allowed is this okay you know so we all have our edges that it's just a work of a menstruating lifetime and then comes menopause and menopause is its own all huge initiatory process. Indeed. Thank you for breaking that down. I wrote them down actually. Number one, critical awareness.

Number two, seeking knowledge. Number three, exploring our own triggers. Number four, reaching out. Number five, speaking the shame as pathways to cultivate shame resilience as you were speaking I was thinking about the trauma that we carry all of us but particularly women or those like socialized as female just the trauma of living in a patriarchal society and the multiple small but very impactful traumas that we experience throughout our lives around body image how we're perceived what people have thought was possible for us or not the opportunities that we've had or not you know they they're cumulative you know and that's part of the

the miasma i think you called it the miasm the miasm yeah the fog around there so like orgasm but miasm I'm I'm really moved by this like bringing compassion and presence to where people are at in their own shame journey yeah I think I might do a bit of shaming myself of people who aren't like down with this menstrual thing yet you know and it And it's like, no, no, it's yeah. We're all on, like you said, we're all at a different place on the spectrum. Could we speak about what you're currently exploring and doing and teaching with Emily, you know, about skilling menstrual teachers up so that they can head out into the world and teach.

Why have you felt called to move in this direction now? Wow. Well, we, with Emily Stewart and others on our Celebration Day for Girls leadership team, which is a group of women who have been running that particular workshop for quite a few years. I just realized that there may be people listening who don't know what Celebration Day for Girls is. Would you mind describing it for us? Sure. So Celebration Day for Girls is a program that I created in the year 2000. So it's a millennial baby. And I created it because I was invited by a local school

to run a program for girls in Australian Year 5, so, you know, turning 11 in that year, and their mums. And the school wonderfully gave me a whole day, you know, have a day, have a day to do it and a day on the weekend. I hadn't been trained to teach children. I hadn't had an experience of teaching children. I was a mum, so, you know, hang out with kids. But, you know, I was asked to do this because of my experience with natural fertility management. And of course, I was never in a thousand years going to say no. So I created Celebration Day for Girls and, you know, it landed and we had a ball and then, you know, gradually I started

to do it in other places. And then in 2012, you know, this really grew and grew and was getting to the point where I can't do all of this. And, you know, there were certainly other women interested in running this program too. So in 2012, I started training women. And in 2012, I actually ran a training in Australia and in the UK. And, you know, we've run those trainings ever since. So we've got facilitators now in 29, 30 soon countries.

Wow. And, yeah, and the program is run in Spanish, French, Chinese, German, Afrikaans. I can't remember. Quite a few languages. I can't remember them all. So that sort of was the foundation of this. And then we have felt over recent years that we really wanted to provide a very solid foundational course

for menstrual education because sometimes people would want to come along to our training, but they really just want to get well grounded in what they need for menstrual education. It wasn't that particular program that they wanted or they didn't know. So over the last couple of years, we've sort of particularly, you know, created the curriculum and worked very carefully on what is it that, what are the things that we really need to be well grounded in for, to be able to offer menstrual education?

And, of course, there's different styles, different philosophic sort of underpinnings and so on, but still there's skills and abilities and tools that we can add on top of our own mental cycle awareness practice or our own fertility awareness practice or whatever else we want to call it. It's beyond that. It's like, okay, we've had that, you know, for those who have, we've had that experience or we're continually having that experience.

We get how important this is. We want to share it with others whether it's young people or adults or older older people going through menopause we want to share this the value of understanding this and the the value of these practices. How do we do it, though? You know, it's and how do we do it in different settings? And how do we do it for mixed settings? How do we do it for boys and men as well? And, you know, different age groups and different time allowances.

So what might be our purpose for, you know, one group compared to another. So there's lots of things to think about and lots of foundational skills and knowledge as well as practices and ways to, I think one of the things we do, we gave a lot of thought to as well, you know, through our understanding of menstrual shame and, you know, and really unpacking that in the course so that the participants can really get a good grip on that too, is then how do we set up aha moments? How do we set up the skills and help people really pudding is that so far we've had, you know,

very positive responses from those who have come to the course. And in the first, so we're currently in our second intake. And a lot of the participants are already menstrual educators who are discovering that oh okay this really adds a lot to what I'm trying to do and that's great to know that we're able to help with that and it's very gratifying it's like oh okay we're looks like we're on the right track. I'd love to hear a bit about what or maybe you could just like give one teaser a tip for something that can help to create aha moments around the menstrual cycle maybe maybe I'll

particularly ask this question through the lens of speaking to a partner because it's a question that we get loads at Red School could you give us a tip for how to create an aha moment between you and a partner or you and a close friend okay i'll tell you about a particular activity that i've done that i that i i was really contemplating hard at one point i had a short amount of time with groups of teachers in schools around Australia and sometimes New Zealand who weren't necessarily introduced to menstrual cycle awareness or didn't have a practice. And I had a short amount of time to kind of how do I get that aha? You know, it's big and so I

gave this a lot of thought so what I what I have done and you know I'm sure everyone's familiar with the uh the four seasons uh metaphor uh but I use it in a different way and so what I did was get get cards with, you know, pictures of the seasons, pictures of the four sort of stations, if you like, of the day, so day, night, dawn, dusk, and I'd sort of put them out on the floor so we'd all be standing up. And I've done this with a group of 47 men as well. So I've done it with, you know, small groups and larger groups.

And so put these out and say, okay, just go to your favourite season. Go to your favourite season. And then I'd ask a few people, tell me about that. So it's quite light. It's easy. It's not confronting. So tell me, you know, what do you love about winter or what do you love? So we get a bit of that.

And then I put the stages of the day on top of those. So I would put night on winter, I'd put dawn on spring and so on. Okay, you know, move to whichever is your favourite, excuse me, your favourite time of day. And we sort of follow that follow that around so it was done quite lightly you know it wasn't like this is a big really big serious uh activity uh and sometimes i'd say oh well can i just stand in between these or i like this and this i said well just for the sake of this exercise just you know pick one uh so so we do that and then on top of those I would put menstruation on winter I would put pre-ovulation on spring ovulation on summer and and so on and and then the energy changed in the room it's like oh usually it would change and uh and so okay go to go to the favorite part of

your cycle now with groups of women who hadn't been introduced to this uh practice before that was that was quite radical you know do i have a favorite time of my cycle and, you know, and sometimes or very often I have to say it was so poignant and tragic what they would say. So I very often heard, well, that half of the month is right off for me. And, you know, they were working in uh you know workplaces where there was no time or space to take care of themselves or do do anything differently which of course exacerbated

what was difficult about their cycle anyway there's a lot of personal stories there um but that and then we so we'd have you know we'd go through and have a little talk about that too and then we'd unpack it so I would unpack it by saying and you could do this equally with a partner or a group uh I'd unpack it by saying you know when we're when we're in the seasons you know for people who are not thinking about inner seas where we're in the seasons we're in the seasons, you know, for people who are not thinking about inner seasons, when we're in the seasons, we're all in spring or summer or winter at the same time. So we can understand when someone's got their big woolly boots on

and their woolly hat and three jumpers and coats and stuff. It makes sense. If someone were to walk down the street in, you know, a bikini, you know, in bareini, you know, in bare feet, it would seem really odd. And similarly with day, you know, stages of the day. I mean, we have different preferences. We like different things, but we're still in it.

You know, there's still sort of some norms around that and observable norms. Most people sleep at night rather than some people work at night but it still has different qualities so the point I'm making for those groups is that the menstrual cycle is equally powerful and yet it's invisible for each woman is going through her own powerful changes within the cycle, but we are, you know, as well as the seasons and the day-night cycle. So that in itself, and we can continue to unpack that depending on the conversation, you know, and what's coming up for people,

but that in itself creates a big aha. It's not, it's changing the narrative from, well, it's something very private that you hide away and you pretend that's not happening. So as far as I know, it's not happening. Back to actually, you know, this is a really important part of you and how you are meeting the day and how you are present right now and, you know, whether it's the,

you know, what are the superpowers at different times, what are the challenges at different times? What are the challenges at different times? And this is all playing out, even if it's not obvious to everybody else. But if we empower women to be able to know it and share it and ask for the help they need or work longer hours and get more done at particular times, whatever needs to happen or put in put in an all-nighter on a painting she wants to get finished or whatever it is uh that that's all understood in this uh context so that's that's a big long answer to your question but I have found that one way or another it always works. Wow that is genius I love that idea that's so beautiful thank you Jane. Would you let us know how people can find out about the course? Yes so if they go to chalicefoundation.org. So that's just all one word as it sounds,

Chalice Foundation. There's a page on there about the course. At the moment, registrations, enrolments are closed, but people can request to be informed, join the newsletter, we'll let them know. We definitely don't inundate you with news because we just don't get around to that sort of thing very much. But we will let you know when the enrolments open again.

And we will, the next intake will be in, the next start of the next course will be February next year. And then we're planning one mid-year and then one later in the year next year. So there'll be three intakes next year. There's a certain amount of the material is on Teachable. So once someone has enrolled, they can start to access that. Then we have eight discussion sessions online, live online, that we can look through a particular module each week

and really unpack it and have time to really talk with each other and the other participants. So it's a real blast. We've got participants from eight countries in this intake. We're actually running it in two time zones just to help it work for everybody so that's a lot of fun it sounds absolutely magnificent and i wish you all the best with it and i just have one final question because i'm thinking back to in the 90s when you started exploring this to where we are now and how much progress we've made and

I just would love to hear what you would love to see in the next 10 20 30 years when it comes to help you know the world being in love with periods gosh what a what a delicious what a delicious question well i would like to see that it's it's just becomes normal that uh we we know how to educate we know how to uh in in a really way in schools and in families and then in workplaces too. So that it just becomes normal. We just expect to be able to take care of ourselves and ask for what we need. And there's policies to support this in schools and at work.

And we understand that this is, you know, just really healthy and really normal and really wonderful for not just those who are menstruating or going through perimenopause or menopause, but the whole of society and the release of creative energy and health and wellbeing and spirituality is who can say where we'll be. Watch this space. Watch this space. Exactly. Jane, it's been absolutely gorgeous to be with you. It's been a real honor and a joy

and um yeah i i'm so grateful for everything that you've done to help to steward this movement and midwife it and bring it into the world and so deep gratitude from me and from our listeners and i look forward to chatting again next time you You too. Thank you so much, Sophie. It's been delightful as always. Thanks, love. Bye. Hey, thanks for joining us today. Thank you for listening all the way through.

If you enjoyed this podcast, it would be so great if you could leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen and make sure that you're subscribed or following. It really helps the podcast to reach more people. And as I mentioned in the middle of our conversation with Jane, if you're feeling called to reclaim the magic and power of your cycle,

come on over to redschool.net forward slash cycle power. All right, that's it for this week. I would love to be with you again next week. Until then, keep living life according to your own brilliant rhythm.