The Menstruality Podcast - 167. How to Mother Ourselves Through Menopause (Chameli Gad)

Episode Date: October 10, 2024

Today on the podcast we’re exploring how menopause can be an initiation into greater self-love, self-compassion and self-mothering. This is our third conversation with  Chameli Gad, the founder of Awakening Women. Each year she’s come back here to generously share her menopause process, which unfolded throughout the pandemic and included the death of her son, and her divorce.In our chat today, she explores the fruits of her menopause process, from the other side, and she is as honest about her current peace, ease and ecstasy as she was with her mid-initiation pain and suffering.Chameli is a mystic and Goddess Wisdom Keeper. Rooted in earth honoring, devotional women’s spirituality and goddess-centered tantric yoga, she is especially appreciated for her love of mythology and storytelling as a key to spiritual awakening and embodiment.We explore:What it means to ensure that your inner “mama is in the house” in menopause, in three different aspects: the witnessing mother, the nurturing mother and the guardian mother.Chameli’s ‘baby dolphin’ menopause dream and how it has radically transformed her capacity for self-compassion.What Chameli learned about boundaries in menopause, and how she moved from using boundaries as a way to control others, and instead as an act of leadership that arises from within us. ---Join our free online event: Awaken The Power of Menopause - Oct 21st-23rd 2024 - www.redschoolmenopause.com---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.hardyChameli: @chameligad - https://www.instagram.com/chameligad

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 so much for tuning in today. So it's World Menopause Month this month. And on the podcast today, we're exploring how menopause can be an initiation into greater self-love, self-compassion and self-mothering. This is actually our third

conversation with Shamali Gad, who's the founder of Awakening Women Institute. And each year she's come back here to generously share her menopause process, which unfolded throughout the pandemic and included the death of her son and her divorce. In our chat today, she's actually sharing the fruits of her menopause process from the other side. And she's as honest today about her current ease and peace and ecstasy as she was with her mid initiation pain and suffering while she was going through it. So Shamali is a mystic, a goddess wisdom keeper rooted in earth honouring, devotional women's spirituality and goddess centred tantric yoga. And she's especially appreciated for her love of mythology and storytelling as a key to spiritual awakening and embodiment. I've personally been studying with Shamali and the Awakening Women community for over 12 years.

So it's such a joy to share her with you if you don't know her yet. Let's get started with how to mother ourselves through menopause with Shamali Gad. Shamali, thank you for coming back to be here on the podcast with us. So for those who don't know, Shamali has generously been sharing her men on the podcast with us so for those who don't know Shamily has generously been sharing her menopause process with us over the past two years so starting with your conversation with Alexandra about what menopause awakened in you then you and I had a chat where we went all over the place like we talked about your early menopause honeymoon with a pod of dolphins in Hawaii we spoke about the the depths that you'd been taken to and what prompted me to reach out

to you now is because I always love talking to you and I just took this journey with you a few months ago with the eternal mother with these well it felt to me so I'm curious to hear if this is how it was for you but it's like the fruits some of the fruits of your menopause process so I really wanted to ask you lots of questions about how menopause has awakened this new connection to mother to mothering yourself to inner mothering but before we before we go into all those hundreds of questions how are you doing and what um what cycles are you with in your life at the moment what cycles are you tracking I remember the first conversation I had with Alexandra, where I was very honest with the depths of darkness

that I was going through and I just came out of or was kind of in the middle of digesting and processing and I hope today that I can be equally honest with my ecstasy and joy and gratitude and peace I receive overwhelming responses and sharings from women from that conversation such a relief they expressed many expressed such a relief that somebody put words to what so many are going through and it's curious to me. I feel comfortable sharing the dark. That's always been part of how I show up in my seat as a facilitator is to share the pathways that I discover in my life journey.

And I have just noticed a growing edge of being honest with my joy and ecstasy and actually noticing as oftentimes a an uncertainty and insecurity from people I share it with it's harder to to actually be present with someone that's just, you know, it's not like, oh, everything is fine. But, you know, when I'm really sharing the truth of my experience in this moment in my life, is that I have never, never been more at peace. I have never been happier. I wake up every day with such a gratitude. I wake up with like, and not taking it for granted. It's every day lands deeper and deeper sense of, I'm on the other side. I'm alive. You know, part of my journey with menopause was also death of my son, my stepson. So it was facing our immortality in so many ways. And the fruits of that for me is a tremendous

recognition of the miracle of life and such a gratitude for each day because I know that it can end at any time. My son was 25 and it was just, he was gone in a moment. And so there is no guaranteed guarantees. And instead of that being a source of worry or fear, it has become a source of immense gratitude and wonder and, um, and relaxation. and relaxation it's not like oh now I have to do all my bucket list or nothing like that all of that also gone away it's very simple all I want to do like I wake up every day in the home I have created for myself and the companions that I live with, I live with two dogs and two cats, which are very, very at the center of my relationship these days. It's a very conscious and rich relationship that keeps deepening every day. And I wake up and we wake up together in love.

Every single day there's love and peace and kindness in my home and that is something that when I was a child I grew up in such a volatile circumstances and without knowing it I have lived with a certain kind of hyper vigilance in my body even after decades of embodiment practice and it was that menopause initiation falling apart kind of a death and rebirth that has allowed me to come out with the relaxation in my body that is so new and i'm in awe of. So kindness, peace, simplicity. These animals also brings me out in the wilderness every single day. So also the relationship to trees and plants

and the animals, they are very in the center of my life. Like 90% of the time I spend in relationship with the non-human world and a lot of people like my ex-husband he lives next door and he sometimes comes in and like aren't you lonely you are just here and I look around and I have all these eyes kind warm bodies we are around me I'm not alone and you know my house is surrounded by eight very very large you know californian pine trees i'm not alone i am in constant communication and it's such important importance for me in this time of my life to to give that to myself that this matters this is important not

many will understand people will see it as an absence of relationship and I see it as the the most rich and fulfillment fulfilling relationship that is I could have right now it's just and it's deepening every every single day I'm learned learning so much and a lot of my teachings come from that relationship so that's me I really really relate I feel that my the intimacy of the relationship I have with Frodo is a quality that can't be matched by any human relationship and I have no words for it but you just put words to it really beautifully it's those that those eyes of love that wake up and just joy like every morning pure unabashed

joy play we go out to the woods it's just me and him in the wild yes yes and i believe that also that these animals it's a particular kind of dharma that these um domesticated animals have yeah and i see it that they they have a role of initiating us into that kind of undefended love that we feel towards them. It's just so pure. And we are loving an animal that has more instincts and is not cultured. Although they are domesticated, not cultured. So somehow we are invited into a remembering of ourselves yeah i take it also as a that i'm a student of what they are modeling and

mirroring to me and and that like i'm exploring like how can i be in that kind of love with humans and with the world yeah that i i i believe that they are here to teach us our capacity to love I on Instagram you often share your dogs and you do you put hashtag I think dogs are god that's it yes um okay so you just hinted a little bit in there about what menopause showed you about your early years and your attachments. And it revealed a lot to you about what you were holding in your body that you weren't aware that you were holding. And I wonder if you could walk us into that. I'm thinking of back at the beginning of the eternal mother sadhana when you said you know I'd been practicing with the goddess for three decades

but there were still parts of me that I wasn't like letting the mother in or wasn't wasn't letting myself receive that mothering that you were giving so abundantly to everybody else yes yeah it was a you know like I described early in earlier talks we've had you know the the menopause process for me was like a perfect storm with so many things falling apart in my life including the pandemic and death and divorce and it was like so many things at once. So there was no way that I could keep it together. There was a falling apart. And all my identities that I had called normal or me,

they became almost like cartoon versions of themselves. They became so extreme, like all my coping and all the ways that I have taken myself to be. They became so extreme, like all my coping and all the ways that I have taken myself to be, they became so visible and they didn't work anymore. A lot of our identities and coping are giving us the gift of feeling comfortable. Even if we pay a high price, there is a comfort, for example, to have a role of being very generous and taking care of people it's it's a benevolent quality that a lot of people will appreciate and applaud and also for me as a spiritual teacher there's a lot of spiritual

concepts that will support that kind of living but when it started to become very visible and amplified i began to see that even something that looked on the outside as something benevolent what happened inside me was that i was leaving source i was leaving my own being which i you know had done from very early age leaving myself into a role and that role is then intrinsically disconnected you know so and disconnection doesn't create uh love it creates it can creates a lot of good things. But ultimately, when we have said yes to the evolutionary path, like my path is this goddess path, if we're lucky, we will be shown the price we pay inside. And it can be quite confronting.

For me, I was shown how that pattern, me moving into that role and leaving behind, what I was leaving behind was God, was goddess, was source, was innocence, was just such a pureness within me that never got a chance to fully live and be as that dolphin the dolphin self uh i don't know if i told you about this dream i don't know last time but uh i remember i was doing a lot of work i had a lot of help to begin to then to not only notice the pureness and beauty inside me that i was leaving behind but all the the parts of me that was also left behind, that was a lot of pain. That is the reason why we leave ourselves. We try to play a role, then I can be safe

and I don't have to feel alone, you know, desperately needy. I don't have to feel um despair you know what like I was identified with being someone who loved life I mean one of the things you described was how this leaving of ourselves starts so young so young it's about life or death we have to adapt to become a self that will be received by our caregivers with love right exactly exactly and like I shared with you I grew up in a very volatile home so my system was in constant life and death fear so for me it was like oh I can move into this role. Look, they are smiling. Oh, this I can do. Yeah. And I got very good at it. And for example, I had an identity of I love life. And when that started to crumble, what I was left with was like suicidal despair the pain I was in when I was a little little body little girl and and by

not leaving that but turning towards that pain I thought I would die but there was a you know the moment you turn towards this there's something else present you know like one of the things that create kind of chronic trauma responses we carry with us like this happened long time ago why is it still in my body and one of the things that keeps it in the body is isolation is that sense of being completely alone which is unbearable for a child and once I started to then not leave but started to turn towards it there was a presence there yeah that changed everything but there was a lot of you know this is a practice like i said i've been practicing for decades i've done all of the therapy and the shadow work and the embodied spirituality and nevertheless you know that there are these pieces that will not reveal themselves until i have created enough safety

and presence within me so i'm able to tolerate this myself and tolerate these parts because what we do is that we we internalize that rejection and judgment and criticism of of these parts for good reasons because you know if we feel we can't function from that place but it's of course not a it's not gonna last forever and in fact we make it last forever when we keep resisting it and pushing you know what anyways I was just you know thrown into pain despair I just couldn't you know I was I was spending so much time kind of curled up in the ball under my bed like I just wanted to disappear or curl up in the ball in the corner of my bathroom just I wanted to I just could not be here and luckily I

had support I had support from people who could hold space for me and trusted the process that this is what I needed to go through and the paradox is that those most kind of parts of ourselves we think are broken or we can't go there because then, you know, we're just going to be this sticky, needy little puddle of yuck. My experience is that through integrating these parts as me, I realized that it was so much power and joy and love held hostage in these hidden corners of my being. So for me to embrace

unbashed neediness led me to an incredible power and resource and a capacity to feel needy or not needy, no need to resist or identify with either. And back to the dolphin self, I had during this process, I had this dream. You know, I shared last time that I was swimming with the dolphins earlier in this process. And then last year when I was really coming out of the underworld, but I was in this middle place, I had a dream. And in the dream, I found I was digging in the sand and I saw a little eye. And then I started to dig more and more.

And I lifted up a baby dolphin looking at me with the most magical eyes. And it's the most beautiful, loving being I've ever seen in my life. And in this dream, I just realized that, you know, this is my essence. And this is what I am stepping on, leaving behind when I play all of these roles. And since then, you know, my sadhana, my spiritual path, my worship, the center of my life is that now it's this baby dolphin's turn. I'm going to guard it. I'm going to create circumstances for this magical part of me to exist yeah because oftentimes when we grow up we are affirmed when we do something you know that's good that's bad you know that's

how we can get conditioned into society and there are many parents that doesn't have they don't have the capacity to affirm beingness just that that dolphin beingness is that magical creativity and love it's not necessarily doing it's a being yeah and when it's not affirmed it's, it doesn't have circuits in the physical body to actually move and speak. Just when we are affirmed, when we do this, when we are toddler, like you have a little one, he's literally shaped, his body, everything is shaped by what is affirmed, by what he's doing. He's crawling, his brain is created. So when I discovered this beingness, this, and of course, I've been in spiritual circles for my whole life. Yes, I have always so much have been affirmed and beingness all the way after 30 years of that practice the dolphin child revealed itself and so now I also

exploring like out in the woods I explore even just like a toddler would it's like how how does this want to move so I can create circuits neurological pathways in my body for that to to express itself through me and it's yeah it's a magnificent work and you know for you as a mother it is that balance yeah that you have of affirming the uniqueness and beingness and wilderness of your boy of your boy at the same time you you will also your job is also to guide him to function in society yeah so it is that it's that balance but the beauty is that you don't have to do this perfectly of course you can uh condition him to to behave in certain ways and that so that he can have a good life in society but the whole the difference is is your presence like if you are there with him you can't protect him from pain but if he has this experience that you are there with him that's that becomes part of his story which is a very different story

than many of us are carrying yes yeah the more I get to mother him the more I'm learning about mothering myself and I actually heard myself the other day say to myself oh so if you're being really hard on yourself there I think wow god who said that that's the first time and I really do connect it back to the sadhana too. I was really blessed to have three days away from the family by myself at a lovely sort of spa retreat centre place. And I just took the sadhana and that's all I took. And it was just for those three days. So I really got to walk with it and be with it. So we can talk about it.

But just a couple of questions from what you shared you said that there was like a readiness in you to see this now to face this now but I'm also wondering if whether there's a readiness or not menopause will tear away or like there's is there a dismantling process that kind of whatever needs to be seen will be seen whether we're ready or not? Do you know what I mean? Yes. Of course, one can't say for everyone, but a lot of women experience that, that they are thrown in. For me, it was not something I chose to do. Yeah, it was a dismantling. There are many ways people come out of hard times. For me, it was not something I chose to do. It was a dismantling.

There are many ways people come out of hard times. Some come out bitter. Some come out with a very shaken sense of, or their trust has been shaken. For me, that was a big one that I experienced. I could not, I could not accept, you know, that it was this sense of, I have given my life to goddess and then she takes my son. Like, I could not accept it. It was a, I was, I was howling to her. I felt so betrayed by her and

of course from there one can go many different ways and depending on what kind of support we have what kind of capacity we have also depending on what our life path is supposed to show us and where we're supposed to go. And for me, that led me just into some kind of core betrayals that are so deep, deeper than even my physical forms, like such a deep sense of betrayal that I got to visit. That was actually the opening to the eternal mother teachings coming, which was through the portal of that despair and betrayal. And again, where I came out, it's not, you know, it's almost like I hesitate to say it because, but it's the truth. I came out on the other side with a trust that cannot be shaken. It's a trust that I don't have to build up or hold

on to or believe in it's the trust when you have see things for what they are which includes death which includes brutality which includes all of the things we think we have to run away from and and pretend it's not part of life or part of the divine even so i believe that the tools and the pathways that i have created through my practice allowed me to go all the way through the initiation because there is gold in these initiations but we you know our culture doesn't offer us that many maps of how to walk through it. Most people around us would think that we are going crazy or that we should take medication, which I'm not against. Like there was periods, when I look back, there's periods there where I was thinking, hmm, I maybe should have some medication at that point. But, you know, here I am on the other side but but you know there are ways that we we

don't recognize what is happening because we compare it to our together self and together the way we should be and of course that's where the goddess mythology offers us these maps and pathways where we can hold it in the context of, oh, this has been going on for thousands and thousands of years. I'm a human. I'm going through a transition that humans have gone through for so long. And that so many of the goddess myths and spiritual maps in the goddess traditions offers us that perspective of these are not mistakes these are not only inconveniences that we have to go through and we are happy when we get over it it's actually opportunities yeah when the roles and the masks fall away who are we then that's where we can recognize ourselves as something deeper than the roles and the masks.

Because so many of us, we cling to the roles and the masks, but the truth of it all is that all of it is going to go. None of that is permanent. So we are clinging to, you know, castles in the air. We are clinging to something that doesn't have roots. So there is a tremendous relaxation like i you know i was saying like well now the worst has happened yeah i got that phone call in the night that parents are are fearing i got it the worst has happened and there's actually a kind of relaxation after that there's like uh because we don't realize how much

energy we use on trying to keep that obey as if that is going to make a difference even yeah because there are things that we can't control yeah yeah bless us bless our hearts yes it's so beautiful what you said too about the baby dolphin self and it makes like the next level of sense that why wouldn't you take that baby dolphin self out into the wild woods with your wild creatures who are in that baby dolphin self energy oh yeah and the truth is that you know when we speak about mothering ourself or now it's my turn, I'm going to center myself in my life. I'm going to take care of myself, self-love. Oftentimes we speak about it as all of these are components within the landscape of the individual me.

So, oh, I hear so often with people i work with they say but i don't feel the self-love yeah what do i do like i can't and then we're going to do all of these exercises of loving ourselves and of course all of that can suit the system and and and help us but the the big change i believe is possible when we again recognize recognize who we are recognize the incredible gift of life like the to recognize that oh i'm breathing right now to recognize that, oh, I'm breathing right now. To recognize that, oh, who's actually experiencing all of this? Oh, to recognize that, oh, I lost my marriage. I lost this.

I lost, and I'm still here. Who is it that guides me through all of this? What is it that, what is that force within me that wants to live that that keeps going that you know what is that and to turn towards that inside us and recognize that oh there is a presence within us there is a being here that is deeper than all of these worlds that come and go and once we begin to recognize that there is a sense of facing something faceless but to face it's not to believe or make up anything but to wash eyes clear and see, I'm alive in this moment. We walk all day long as if that is something just regular thing. It's a miracle. It really

is a miracle. And once we kind of begin to recognize that there is a falling in love and a realization that either I allow this beingness to be expressed through this body in this lifetime or not. And nobody can do that for me. There's a sense of leadership. That mothering comes online. But there's a sense of like, this mothering comes online but there's a sense of like this is a either i center it or not either i look for me i give my life to

to prepare the vehicle so that more and more of this beingness can flow through me in the unique way that it does through me. And for me, that is what allows, it makes me open. It makes me wonder. It makes me receptive where love can become, where we can begin to receive that presence into our bodies. So it's not something we have to believe in or do or learn. It's a recognition. It's a realization of who we are and what we are made of

and to really bow down and not take that for granted and say, oh, I have been giving this in this lifetime to lead. And there's so many ideas of what I should fill my calendar with and what I should do and not do. And I can listen to all of that. Yes, I can. And I can spend my life doing, trying to please that. Yes, I can. And I can spend my life trying to please that. Yes, I can. And I can also, or instead, I can choose to take this not seriously, but sincerely. It's like this, to really take on the duty of being me yeah this is my duty to guard like when i once have seen into the eyes of a baby dolphin i don't take that lightly in a way everything is more light than ever but you see i wouldn't you know when i notice myself saying, yes, I can, when I actually feel, you know, when I know that that is leaving myself, I feel a big army booth stumping on the face of this dolphin. And now it's impossible to do it.

Once I'm in touch with that intimacy, I can't stomp on the face of a baby dolphin. I can't stomp on the preciousness of beingness inside my job and this is can sound like a selfish thing but my job is i have been given an assignment from the universe to allow for the uniqueness of this being to be expressed as fully as it can and that's where i'm home that's where i'm in presence that's when i can love other people that's you know that's also how i can um allow for tremendous generosity to come through i've you know there's more generosity coming through because it's not part of a deal yeah of me playing a game so that i can be generous so that everybody can like me and then you know i can feel safe i think i can never feel safe that

way because i'm not home to feel i'm not home in myself to receive the love so it's an endless loop that we go into in those games. So there's that, yeah. So it's that recognition that is important. And that gives rise to a kind of a motherhood. It's like a sense of, for me, it's a sense of mother is in the house. It's like mother is home. And she will say no. She will say yes.

She will do the work of disappointing people. Because she's the leader of this. Yeah, so she is. Yeah, we can. Yeah. yeah we can yeah but that is the you know when i turn inwards toward myself what i experience is loving awareness it's a spaciousness it's a has a certain warmth to it and what i experience is that in all my practice there has been a subtle even in my body you know my whole path has been a subtle, even in my own body, you know, my whole path has been how to bring that presence into the body. Yeah, that has been my path.

And what this menopause initiation opened for me was to see that, oh, I am not receiving presence into my body. I am loving presence flowing into the body so it's a shift of identity of who's receiving what i am loving awareness flowing through this body and that identity shift you know allows us then to to hold all the stickiest there's no need to hide things away in the basement anymore yeah it's a it's a it's a lot of compassion a lot of capacity in loving awareness i'm going to pause my chat with shamali to share an invitation with you as i mentioned at the beginning it's world menopause month and alex Alexandra and Sharni are going to be passionately sharing their new story of menopause as an initiation, as a homecoming to our power, to our true selves, all the way through the month, culminating in a free three-day event from October the 21st to the 23rd called How Menopause Awakens Your Power. They're going to be sharing teachings about the initiatory power of menopause. They'll be guiding you on a journey to experience the

power of menopause and sharing lots of advice and tools for how you can be for free at redschoolmenopause.com you've started to describe um these three different elements of mother that you taught on the on the sadness so the witnessing mother yeah nurturing mother and the guardian mother so I sort of felt all three of those coming through you then and um I had a lot of questions particularly about guardian mother because I feel like is she not like the patron saint of menopause yes like it seems to be such a big part from the women and people I speak to who are in you know whether it's in the perimenopause the kind of quickening times in the 40s coming up to menopause or in the middle of like the thick of the initiation or

the power they then have on the other side or this fierce mother capacity they have on the other side that this um new capacity for boundaries yeah yeah one of the things I loved about the sadhana was you spoke about where we think we're setting a boundary but what we're actually doing is controlling someone else yeah and I wondered if you could speak to that because it really landed in me and it's changed the way I am with aid especially yeah yeah yeah so again you know boundaries in this context arise out of that recognition and love for self, love for life itself. How can I allow for this gift I have been given to be lived through me? Out of that love comes the guardian mother to make that practical. And the guardian mother, she sets boundaries. So it's like a sense of from the it comes from the

inside out so it comes from inside you and then it is a recognition of oh there's practical rearrangements and and and actions needed in order for this my my creativity and loving awareness to flow through. How we oftentimes think about boundaries, including myself, I had a very hard time with boundaries because I experienced it as leaving myself and trying to control another person or circumstances. And most often you will feel very helpless and powerless in doing that because you cannot change another person. Only they can do that.

So a boundary is not to control another and it is a very important thing to see that so many ways we are setting boundaries is actually attempts to control the other so a boundary arises from within you a recognition and leadership of what you need to happen here in this maybe relationship to this person if you notice somebody is acting in ways that um you know are not working for you that are um hurtful to you or are you know not aligned with how you want it to be in the home or whatever. A boundary is to express what you need and also to contemplate and, if possible, express not as a threat, but what you would need to do if the person is not wanting to honor that so it's it's a kind of a disentanglement so that if a person wants to communicate like i have for example an example a person who has been communicating with me in ways that are experience as violent. Like my body, when I get emails,

this is not communication style. I'm surrounding myself with. And I have a choice of what I want to have in my life. You know, of course, a lot of things is out of my control so or influence but some things are and I remember I I shared with her I hear that you are expressing your needs I she had a need to meet I said no because I didn't have I didn't want to do that. So I said, no. Then she started to communicate very kind of, she expressed her feelings in ways that were very,

just dumping on me. And then I expressed to her, you are expressing your needs. I'm expressing my need. When I say, no, that's my need. I take care of me you take care of you right now our needs are not compatible I experienced this kind of communication violent so I choose to not open or respond to your emails any longer. And for me, it was like a sense of,

it was kind, it was clear. It was not even have to blame her in any way. It's to be aware of my limitations. These are my limitations. Old me would think that, oh, I should tolerate this. I should work it through. If I can only explain, she will change and we will communicate differently or, you know, but here in this circumstances that it was possible for me to let go of this relationship. Of course, there are other relationships that are harder in that way, but to see that, oh, I'm allowed to, even if the reason is that I can't stay centered and presence in this in this communication right now I need to remove myself in order because my job is to allow for presence to flow through me that's my job in my life to so that I can be present for the people and on work that I you know I'm here to do and if I'm off center or if I am yeah that's

enough reason to set the boundary and I don't even have to express that like this is what I need I need you know if you can communicate with me you know not using those words and and with this person I had given her the chance many times yeah so at this point it was just clear that this was not going to change but it's a freedom in boundaries is to see that oh I'm allowed to I'm allowed to create the circumstances that works for me some people will be disappointed it may not be right but that doesn't matter what's matter is you take care of what you need so you can stay true to what you're here to to be yeah you can look after the baby dolphins yeah exactly and of, when we are out there controlling someone else, we are not home.

No. We are, like Byron Katie said, we are in another person's business. There is no power. If you feel powerless in the relationship, look at that. It's probably where you're losing your power. Yeah. that is probably where you're losing your power. But yeah, but if only it can change, if only it can do, if only you're, you know, you are leaving yourself and trying to fix a place where you have no power to fix. Coming home to yourself may mean that you have to feel some uncomfortable

feelings in yourself and maybe some uncomfortable truths. And many of us avoid that a long time you know we just stay blaming or state controlling and and i think in my experience of my own initiations we need that nurturing mother more than ever in those times when we're so fragile so vulnerable to be able to advocate for ourselves in that way and to claim the boundaries that we need and to know that that that's okay like I'm thinking of my holiday with aid recently where classically we went to beautiful Anglesey in Wales but on the first day we have this huge fight because now we're finally relaxed and so of course and he he never shouts, but he shouted,

you have been so controlling for two years. I realised from this just place of suppressing my needs, suppressing my needs because of early motherhood, it's just a requirement of early motherhood. It's just, it's a requirement of early motherhood. I had forgotten how to need, you know, I'd forgotten that it's okay for me to need and for me to call on nurturing mother and meet that need. And he brought this fierceness in, which was so helpful. And I'm so grateful to him. It ugly in the moment and since then before I jumped to the control pattern of you need to do this this and this I remember boundaries nurturing mother hey I am so tired I need some help and it changes everything the house feels completely different you know it's a different home like I'm mama's

home mama is home and yeah I guess a question I'd love to bring hearing the voice of the of our listeners is for someone who's in in the thick of the fire of menopause and they know they need more of this guardian mother how to invoke her how to call her in how to so for me my journey you know was that I was brought into the underworld I was you know things were falling apart the roles that I was playing did not work into layers of despair of darkness of of being completely broken and then beginning to feel this new old essence having more space to trickle through and then it was this falling in love or or recognition of how precious that is to actually oh this is my beingness this is this is given to me

all these years you know i've been trying to do this or they said that i should do that you know for many people like i have in my life you know carved my own path since very early age and nevertheless even in that there has been you know these roles then I started to come up from the underworld yeah things started to settle I was like okay I'm on the other side of a lot of the things. And I started to, you know, in the menopause journey and in this journey, there was a lot of things falling apart of old ways. But when I came up again on the surface,

I looked around at the life that i created from the old me the structures it's like i was walking into a house that keepable old me had created and including a lot of relationship contracts yeah where people were used to me being a certain way and then started this was around yeah maybe one and a half year ago now it's been one and a half year ago where my main practice has been to set boundaries because then started the practice the kind of new phase of rearranging things so it can align with the new me and that was not easy it was a lot of difficult conversations you know i had to it was a lot of people i worked with that i had to lay off because this whole big operation was created by all you know uh superman shamli and uh now this new recognition you know was that oh i need simplicity i need a ease i need a

of a completely different structure in my life and I had to have a lot of conversation and some were very supportive some it was a lot of protest yeah it was a lot of disappointment but also yeah blame and protest like because old old charmley was more beneficial to them yeah and I remember in the beginning where i had to say no where i would all me would have said yes yes you can have more money or and i had to say no because my priority was simplicity ease i had to have this kind of guiding torch that guided me through this maze and i just held on to it like, okay, this is, you know, everything has to fall into place around this.

And I remember in the beginning when I started to break the contracts and I said no, where all we would say yes, I had a full, almost anxiety in my body. I had all of these symptoms in my body sometimes i would lay on the sofa and i couldn't even move like there was so intense physical sensations and of course without awareness old me would would make that a sign that i had to go back and fix it yeah so it was like this tempting like oh i didn't mean it you can have it and then i would feel good in my body again yeah because i would then again betray me but i would make them happy and that was the source of my happiness for so long and that didn't work first of all by grace

that doesn't work any longer i just can't do it but it would a lot of tempting to go back so no no no no i didn't mean it oh and then i would lot of tempting to go back. So no, no, no, no, no, I didn't mean it. And then I would feel good again. So I will just, I would go out in the forest and just hold myself with that nurturing mother. That's where, you know, the nurturing mother is so important to have that capacity to hold all of the discomfort it takes to break contracts, to begin to carve out new pathways that are more aligned and true. So for me, that has been a process and now it gets easier and easier. And I have had experiences in this process where I also have my ex-husband living next door. So I get to practice boundaries with him all the time, which is really good because I can be, he's such a good mirror for me because I lived with him for 20 years more.

And so now I can see the evolution. I go like, sometimes I go like, no, I just say no. So I can do that. I can just say, no, the world is not falling apart I'm not you know wow I can just say no and so it gets easier and easier but I'm still in awe I'm going it's like new way to go look at Chameli just and sometimes even old me would would would think that I would have to process, if somebody has a need, I would take it as an obligation for me to figure out how to fix it for them. Even if it was a no, I would figure out something else that I could bring a yes. And now I just have this experience of it's possible to actually just say no,

and a whole, like, there's no entanglement whatsoever. And that person has to take care of it themselves. You know, and then of course, I, my yes is more exuberant and generous than ever, because it comes from a clear clarity. And one of the things, practical things, is really to a sentence that I learned that was important for me was, I hear you, I will take some time to digest it and get back to you. That was very important for me

to not say yes or no right away. And now when i have requests i know because i have this it's almost like an addiction yeah like there's you know like a codependency i call it when i i was used to that it's my job to make other people happier so that means also that some people will have more of that trigger in me. Yeah, if somebody has a lot of problems in their lives, for example, there is a, you know, that will trigger a response in me

that, oh, I can save them or I can fix it for them. And for a long period this year, just like an alcoholic would not go to a bar, I would have a distance to people like that that i that i knew would trigger me that i couldn't help anyway it's not that i would you know not respond if somebody needed help it's just the pattern of thinking that i could fix this person's problems um and it was just like i needed and that's again i'm that's not the right wrong thing it's just to take responsibility for where my limits are and there are some

yeah there are some people that will trigger that again and then i need to take a little distance so i can come back to myself again so So it's just, again, it comes out of that recognition that you are the leader of your life. Of course, we have circumstances and obligations and you are in the midst of toddler phase. Of course, it can be so hard to remember that. Like I hear that a lot when I practice with women. It's like, yeah, but i can't because of this

this this this this and a lot of that is factual but what i also see and i want to you know really express strongly is that we have more freedom than we think there are just as other people are governing your decisions and values and the way you choose to create your schedule you can you you know like you allow all outer circumstances do that very easily and then there is this resistance almost or kind of a hopelessness around, like, you know, but I can't do it myself. I can't lead it myself. And a lot of things is out of our hands, but a lot of things are in our hands. And we can create.

Like I have been creating, like boundaries are also in my calendar. Guardian Mother comes in there. Before, I would plot in all of my appointments. And then what was left over was the time that I get to do other things that were important to me. Now I do the opposite around. I plop in my retreat times, my practice time. And then everything else has to go around that that's just an example of guardian mother i love it and people say oh can you do 10

o'clock and you're like no i'm busy and you're busy lying down with your dog yes i am exactly there's a you know there are archetypes and goddesses around the guardian mother. And I know one of them is the green Tara. She's like a protector. She has that kind of fierce. She's a goddess. They call it like an enlightened action. So she has a fierce guardianship of source and who who we are so she's that capacity within us to to recognize who we are and then to begin to be very pragmatic and sober about what boundaries are needed in order for that to be lived um durga is uh from hindu mythology is one of my teachers and guides. And again, her boundaries come from her love. Like she's so in love with our capacity that she sees. So she has no tolerance for all the roles and games and all of the stuff that distracts us. And so she will guard, but it comes from that inside out and then a third goddess that is very much my

uh beloved these days this last year and it's freya from northern mythology and she's that goddess that is like she's living at the edge of the forest like you can see me like i cut off all my hair for those who don't see it, but I really am savoring and claiming my seat at the edge of the village. Yeah, like I'm this woman living with the animal and with the herbal and plant medicines. And Freya, she is like that that she's that aspect of us that is free of all of the shoulds she's like this you can see her the back of her going into the forest and she's to see a little tail and you she turns around and she has this kind of freedom it's this kind of ah and I it's this kind of sense of look how free I can be you know it is that and i resonate so much with her it's like it feels like my service to the world now is to show how free a woman can be how much can i claim

the freedom and that's oftentimes hard work yeah because there's so many old patterns that wants to pull us in so i'm gonna fail gloriously in this endeavor but oh what a yeah what a boarding failure and talk about the new story of menopause i'm gonna show the world how free a woman can be yes yes watch me go watch me and this is also liberated a lot like the way I teach the way I hold circles the way I hold clients you know it's like nothing can bind me you know not even anybody's expectations or um you know because my my my loyalty is to this thread of freedom and of course that is uh something i can bring into serving others yeah but uh yeah nobody can bind me it's beautiful to witness this in you shamley because i've probably been with you for 15 years and so you're saying similar things and the place they're coming from is is i can feel the difference in you and how it lands in me and yeah it's it's it's so you know i've been teaching this for so long

and you know when i speak to to people close to, I do that all the time. It's just like I say something that, oh, you know, this is the key. And then I realize that's what I've been saying for 15 years. But for me, every day is new. It's like it just keeps landing in new places. And one thing I want to say before we complete I don't know what the time is but the biggest key to all of this I just want to summarize also because we have been speaking about a practice called three mothers and of course we have just done bits and pieces of it so I'm just going to summarize that the the three mothers is uh is you know, when we have awareness of these patterns, there is awareness present.

Without awareness, we will just be in the roles. We think, I am that. Menopause is one of those initiations. Childbirth is one of those initiations that kind of cracks the solidity of these identities. So there is an opening there. There is an opportunity for awareness. There's like, oh, I'm doing this pattern. It's not who I am.

It's a pattern I've learned. So awareness is witnessing mother. It's essential. That's what we cultivate in meditation. It's actually, she's always here. She's what allows us to speak and hear and see right now. Yeah, that's witnessing mother is always here. In many spiritual traditions,

it seems like she's kind of a backdrop and that our spiritual practice is to leave the body and move into witnessing awareness. Almost like we go out of physical into this backdrop. In this goddess practice of three mothers, the witnessing awareness is we practice to receive it into the body. And this is the main key of my practice is receptivity. Receptivity shifts everything.

It's not me leaving. it's not me searching for goddess it's it's a receptivity that allows her to flow through uh and when she comes into the body when she takes form there is a kind of warmth to it it's like a what i call loving awareness like ramdas said i am loving awareness it's most beautiful mantra i call loving awareness like ramdas that i am loving awareness it's most beautiful mantra i am loving awareness and i say i am loving awareness flowing in and once it's flowing in it is love and that's where the compassionate nurturing mother is this is a practice we can when we have all kind of sticky feelings in our bodies, we feel that tiredness and need, you know, in that moment when you fight with your partner,

there is that sense of, okay, I can bring this warmth to myself right now. There is that, it's a receptivity into the contraction. And that's where we allow nurturing mother to come in. And it's essential because without that, we will move into roles again to avoid the pain. And that's what made us do it in the first place. So that's the key that liberates is loving awareness, loving kindness to yourself. And then from there arises that kind of recognition that, oh, this is precious, yeah,

I, this is precious, I'm not just a tool in everybody's idea of what life is, I have something to contribute, I matter, it's up to me to lead, it's up to me to allow for this unique essence to come through me or not. I have the tools. I have the support. Even just this podcast, it's a support. You come back and listen to Sophie speaking to all of these people. There's a lot of support. And that's the tree mothers.

That comes the guardian mother. So witnessing mother, nurturing mother the guardian mother so witnessing mother nurturing mother guarding mother but that the essence or the kind of at the heart of this practice is receptivity so that is something i just want to offer as like really from the depth of my heart to practice receptivity changes everything and it is a moment to moment practice yeah when you feel activated what just explore what happens if you you soften and you receive yeah and see what happens when loving awareness's allowed in. Thank you, Shamali. If people are loving hearing you,

how can they connect with you? Go to awakeningwomen.com, awakeningwomen, plural,.com. And we are also awakeningwomen on Instagram. And I also have a Shamali god at instagram but just yeah awakening women you will find it at instagram and facebook and the website that's the best best way oh thank you so much i love i love your joy and ecstasy thank you we do you until next time thank you so much thank you for being with us today if you would love support during the menopause process in the

run-up to menopause please join alexandra and sharni for their event on the 21st to the 23rd of october it's free it's called how menopause awakens your power and you can register at redschoolmenopause.com okay we're going to carry on having conversations about menopause all month and until then keep living life according to your own brilliant rhythm