The Menstruality Podcast - 173. Cycle Awareness and Ending Violence Against Women & Girls (Tamsin Fagan)

Episode Date: November 21, 2024

Menstrual cycle awareness has the capacity to create meaningful change in all areas of life, and today we’re exploring an aspect of our collective human experience which isn’t talked about enough...In a couple of days, it will be the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, and today our guest is Tamsin Fagan who has been doing the difficult, courageous work of ending violence against women and girls since she was 19. Tamsin is a women's safety advocate, womb medicine woman, a menstruality leadership programme graduate and ceremonialist and today, she shares her personal story of domestic violence in her childhood, how she is applying menstrual cycle awareness in her activism, and how she has worked with her own cycle to heal her trauma. We explore:How working with the playful curiosity that comes naturally in inner spring has helped Tamsin to reclaim the lost, innocent play and exploration of her childhood.How cycle awareness can help to prevent violence, help women who are experiencing abuse, and support survivors to recover and heal their trauma.What all space-holders and  facilitators need to know about violence against women and girls, and how to create safety and belonging for a woman if she discloses violence or abuse.---Receive our free video training: Love Your Cycle, Discover the Power of Menstrual Cycle Awareness to Revolutionise Your Life - www.redschool.net/love---The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email [e-mail]---Social media:Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.schoolSophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy

Welcome to the Menstruality Podcast, where we share inspiring conversations about the power of menstrual cycle awareness and conscious menopause. This podcast is brought to you by Red School, where we're training the menstruality leaders of the future. I'm your host, Sophie Jane Hardy, and I'll be joined often by Red School's founders, Alexandra and Sharni, as well as an inspiring group of pioneers, activists, changemakers and creatives to explore how you can unashamedly claim the power of the menstrual cycle to activate your unique form of leadership for yourself, your community and the world. Hey, welcome back to the podcast. So as we speak about all the time here, menstrual cycle awareness has the capacity to create meaningful change in all areas of life. And today we're exploring an aspect of our collective human experience, which isn't talked

about any way near enough. So it's a conversation for all women, for anyone who loves women, it's for anyone who wants to dismantle the patriarchy so that one in four of us doesn't have to face domestic or sexual violence in our lifetimes. So in a couple of days it's going to be the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women and today our amazing guest is Tamsin Fagan, who's been doing the courageous work of helping to end violence against women and girls since she was 19. She shares her personal story of domestic violence in her childhood, how it's inspired her calling today, how it fuels her now and how she's applying menstrual cycle awareness in her activism and how she's worked with her own cycle to heal her trauma.

So let's get started with cycle awareness and ending violence against women and girls with Tamsin Fagan. So Tamsin, thank you so much. Thank you so much for your work. And thank you so much for coming on the Menstruality Podcast to tell us about it. I'm so excited. I have so many questions for you. And I'm so grateful that you're here. Thank you. Oh, thank you so much for having me on. I excited to to share about this yeah thank you. We always start you might know with a cycle check-in just hearing how you're doing where you're at how it's influencing you so I'm curious we chatted before and you mentioned you were on day eight how's that feeling for you? Yeah it feels really nice actually this day has usually been quite a anxious day but yeah over the past few cycles or the past sort of half a year I guess it's been slowly turning into excitement

that anxiety so yeah I'm excited I'm feeling good what's been the key for that for you because I'm also someone who experiences anxiety and inner spring and I love that reframe around excitement and I've been told like the difference between anxiety and excitement is breath and which breath we're bringing that feels a bit oversimplified but it helps me I'm curious what's helped you know what's helped you over these last six months with that yeah it's really interesting that you bring the piece around the breath because it has been that coming into stillness and using practices like breath work and pranayama and meditation to just really still myself and then also a lot of time in nature and just really tapping into that exploration time of your spring and being like oh what's out there and

seeing what there is and you know and like tapping into the excitement that's so beautiful it's like the more than human world right yeah out like this world is heavy this human world is heavy a lot of the time there's so much as we're going to get into today there's like so much in our world that needs to shift and change and whenever I'm away from all humans and just immersed in nature I feel like I can breathe I can relax and rest and get some space yeah I'll plant an animal kin they're always there for us yeah I'm on day 20 and it's a sorry I'm not I'm on day 19 I'm getting ahead of myself because I love the inner autumn the pre-menstrual phase now and I look forward to it feels like coming home to me but it's also a great part of my cycle to have

a conversation like this um just because a big part of my pre-menstrual life I've been outraged furious about what's happening to women and girls in the world so yeah let's work with cycle awareness to end violence against women and girls comes in yeah let's do it today i'd love to speak to you about your experience you know you're a graduate of the menstruality leadership program here at red school you've worked with your cycle in your own trauma healing process I'd also love to speak to you know as an activist you received a scholarship for the MLP to bring cycle awareness to your work supporting survivors of domestic and sexual violence right yeah yeah so I'd love to hear about you know your journey with that with this work and you're currently in this 16 Days of Activism piece.

I'd love to hear about that. Well, so many questions. But maybe you could start by telling us some of your story around this work. Like what what sparked this path for you? Yeah, so I started volunteering in the sector when I was 19, when I was at uni. I was volunteering at a women's refugee charity in Liverpool and then when I graduated I was 21 and I started working at an anti-trafficking charity working with women that had fled modern slavery and then I moved on to working in domestic violence I worked as an IDVA which is an independent domestic violence

advisor and we worked with women and people who were at high risk of domestic abuse and then my most recent role was working at a charity called MASH Manchester Action on Street Health and they support women who are sex working so I've kind of done like a broad range of different support um but really the the drive and the inner flame that brings me to this work is my personal experience of being a girl and growing up in a house that had domestic violence in the house and witnessing and experiencing what that did to my mum and then also what it did to me it's something that I've been able to transmute with cycle awareness as well so to really fuel this fire and to really create change so yeah it's like a personal

sort of journey as well as just all of the women that I've had the honor to walk alongside in the work that I've done as well and yeah with the 16 days of activism so this is an international campaign that is headed by the UN and I came into my sphere through this work that I've done for many years and a lot of the organizations you know around the world will do 16 days to try and spread awareness of the work that they're doing and it starts on the 24th so in a few days and yeah I really I thought it'd be a good idea to have this conversation around this time just because it is it's in people's consciousness it's it's being spoken about but what I want to say is that this is

beyond those 16 days you know this is beyond there's just something that happens behind closed doors or down dark alleys like it's it's a it's a culture you know it's an issue with our culture this violence is within our own all of our bodies all of our hearts all of our psyches um and it's very rooted it's ancestral you know women have been facing violence for thousands of years so it's it's it should be what i'm calling for is for it to be at the forefront of all of our minds you know um and within all of our hearts because it's also interconnected with all these other issues you know what we do to women is what we do to the earth and the the violence that we're seeing towards women is the same violence that we're seeing towards the earth and we can't really

address these other issues without tackling this too um and cycle awareness as we'll get into is really a way to get to those roots and and and tend to them and get to the nitty-gritty so yeah I'm very passionate about it as you can probably tell I can feel it and my I'm vibrating over here for loads of reasons like to feel you at the stage you're in your life now all the work you've done so far and all your life to come I'm just I'm excited for for the world and also reflecting back on you know I had some sexually aggressive violent experiences in my teens and that was what woke me up to this epidemic you know I didn't know I grew up in a very sheltered way really I didn't I didn't know and then I read the vagina monologues Eva Anzler who's now known as V and that turned me onto the V-Day movement. And I learned about the city of joy in the Congo.

Have you come across this? So it's a, an amazing women's leadership program and center for survivors of sexual violence in Congo. And what they do is they work together to heal the trauma and then guide and train the women to be leaders in their communities and I just every I just love everything about this and the way Eve Ensler speaks about it is you know the reason why these women in Congo are experiencing the violence they're experiencing is because of the exploitation of the earth in this part of the world, the minerals and metals that are being

mined for our computers and phones is creating civil unrest, which is fueling this violence against women. So like we're all complicit in this, like whether we're talking about the violence in our own countries, the violence across the world, like like you said like I could cry right now like we are it's our problem yeah what you're making me think of as you speak to that is just how cycle awareness it gives us the blueprint to tackle these issues you know and it's facing the truth that we get you know in the luteal phase in our autumn and then we can transmute it we can let that truth that that pain those wounds that that fear that guilt that shame that resentment that anger that is keeping us complicit with the system and let it die at winter let it decompose into the

earth let it integrate so that we can receive the wisdom and yeah as we come into spring we can then start to vision up new ways from this new enlightened and spacious way you know it's really the medicine that's needed is the medicine that's needed i mean what let's let's look at cycle awareness and and how it can support this but just i'm just want to stay with this point for a moment like for those listening what would you say to someone who feels the fury of this in their premenstrual phase in their inner autumn what can they do with the rage like how can they work with it inside what's been your practice here oh yeah I mean my practice has just been letting it out like just just being with it and not suppressing it because that is the violence right it's the suppression

of this power and I work a lot with the dark mother and I really see that that pre-menstrual phase is where she's the most loud and she's like just looking around and seeing all of this violence all of this pain and she's like like ready to just burn it to the ground and it's really important as as women and psychical beings that we let her come up out of us and and let her be seen as well let her be heard and it doesn't have to be you know in like a for me I just really love to do embodiment practices and just really let that rage out but it could just be speaking your whole truth and calling out the bullshit when you see it um is a really beautiful way to just like yeah i see it as almost like just slicing through um and yeah not being because there's a third

piece here as well you know a lot of this comes comes down to this is our power right as as women and people who bleed that we have this dark mother within us and a lot of the violence a lot of the the control of us comes from the fear of this dark mother that we have within so it's really like noticing within yourself am i scared of this part of myself am i am i fearful you know of this am i fearful of other women who are embodying this you know and and owning that and being like okay okay make and and making space for that fear and making space for to express that and be like it's okay give feed that fear compassion because you know we've we've been put here you know we didn't ask for this this is we were put in this in this fear state because it's been shunned and shamed and said don't let that out otherwise you

know bad things will happen um so having compassion for that part of yourself that is fearful or you know doesn't want to let her out um and then seeing if at your bleed you can use this as a time to decompose what you're ready to decompose what what is in the way of you living in that power and that truth um has been a really therapeutic process for me yeah I love you weaving the connection there like I remember many times in my life where in the premenstruum weather has really helped me like pouring rain rushing rivers high winds on sea cliffs like I need we need big weather to meet these big emotions inside but then like when you've released and allowed it to move then there's more space in inner winter for you to yeah for or for that for you to yield to the natural composting process

that's happening inside yes beautiful okay well we've already got in let's let's keep going how how do you see that menstrual cycle awareness can support prevention of domestic and sexual violence, power and control over women our bodies our sexuality um our relationships our connections and so then when we have that fact and we have that knowing the prevention then is to restore that balance and put the power and control back in the arms and bodies of the women right um so really the prevention is like a cultural shift it's it's it's a an honoring of our power and if menstrual cycle awareness is tapping into our power it's around education and i really feel like having spaces where men and boys can learn about our physicality and the menstrual cycle, what we go through at menarche, what we go through at menopause, what we go through if we birth children. And really coming into a space of one, so it reduces the fear because if the violence comes from the fear you know it reduces that but also coming into a space of respect and honor

because there's also this thing around men and you know just people in general when we talk about violence against women and girls almost like going into this like savior yeah space and being like okay well i'm just gonna protect you and as a it's about shifting that into being like i see you i see you as as my as powerful as equal different but i see you in your power right i'm not here to i'm not here to protect you i'm not here to defend for you because I know that you have the power within you. And yes, this really comes from education, but also an acknowledgement of the pain that is in men's hearts as well, you know, because they are feeling fearful. They're feeling shame. They're feeling guilt. You know, if we think about the about the witch trials for example men had to watch their wives their daughters their sisters be burnt and not be able to do anything about it so they're harboring all of this shame and all of

this guilt and the cycle really gives us like men you know tapping into the cycle they can really bring these emotions to this and and see it as a therapeutic process you know there's also another piece here around power because if we're talking about the rebalance of power cycle awareness brings women back into their power and there's a piece here though because a lot of people are aware of this i'm sure that most people listening to this podcast will be like yes tuning into my power and in my menstrual cycle but it's about having the awareness that we're making sure that we're you know coming into power with rather than power over so that we're not regurgitating the same pain that we've experienced as women so making sure that we are you know acknowledging um queer people for example and coming into power with rather than just re-performing the same sort of structure

um um and also just with the piece around the dark mother as well and this pain that we feel during that premenstrual phase and just how a lot of women and a lot of people are really in that dark space you know and one thing that I've noticed recently sort of this year and being in a lot of like you know women's wellness spaces or women's spirituality spaces is that there can be this sort of tendency to close the door on the darkness to not face it to not face the reality of the situation and maybe there's women you know with that have been diagnosed with mental health or maybe they're rough sleeping or maybe they you know are self-medicating with drugs and alcohol but these spaces are like gatekeeping. No, we don't want to look.

We don't want to look at that. You know, when actually this is, we all have that pain within us. We're just not facing it within ourselves. So it's really also about, I see this work as like bridging the gap. Because we've got, you know know the violence against women and girls sector which is doing this incredible work but I feel like cycle awareness and acknowledgement of our menstruality is missing from there but then also these spaces that really honor our menstruality and really honor our bodies as women are missing the reality of what is going on I feel like what you're pointing to is that spiritual bypass is a

real problem and I what I love when I'm in many cycle aware spaces is because as we look at the four seasons and we know that yeah spring and summer might feel brighter and lighter and maybe that's where the world wants us to be love and light high vibes only but then oh boy via negativa here we go the pre-munchtrum like we yeah whether we like it or not once we're being more present to our cycle it takes us in and I want to ask you about the dark mother because for some people listening they might not really know what that means or I wonder if you could just walk us into what that means for you that that term the dark mother yes so she's got many faces globally she had many faces like quite literally she's spoken to in many cultures but for me she is the energy of the earth right and and the energy of that particularly that that autumnal

and winter phase where everything dies and sheds its skin or decomposes and this all comes from a space of love of saying you know what this isn't serving you anymore. This isn't healthy anymore. We need this to go. We need this to move. And it's that energy of saying, come here and I will hold you and I will let this go. When we talk about in terms of cycle awareness and the premenstrual phase, many of us feel the dark mother

so loudly because there's so much that needs to go. There's still so much that we're holding on to within our culture that is is it's done it's not serving us anymore so we're all like here like oh my god there's there's so much that needs to go yeah and then the dark mother is coming through thick and strong with that powerful like one face that people might be familiar with is Carly you know she's spoken about quite a lot and she is that like fierce like like fire breathing like there to just burn it all away and when we feel that energy rising within us and then we're like oh my god am I crazy oh what's happening oh but really she's

just asking for us to express some truth so that we can let some let some shit go yeah because she is part of life like death is part of life right and we don't want to look at it for good reason but you know yes yes let's stay with uh I can feel myself wanting to go into your story, but let's stay with this. Like we've spoken about the prevention and how cycle awareness can support with that. How about intervention and recovery? Yeah.

So this part of the question feels really like it's the most tangible. It's like, okay, how do we actually, you know, get into the nitty gritty of this? How can we really tend to this? And in the violence against women and girls sector we talk about having a person-centered and trauma-informed approach and i'm sort of saying okay well how can we be person-centered if we're not acknowledging the fact that you know the majority of people that are accessing services domestic and sexual violence services are people with that cycle right but right now currently in in the sector it's not something that is spoken about so i'm saying how can we be person-centered

if we're not acknowledging the fact that we're moving through these cycles and we're not showing up the same every day, you know, so how can we be tending the needs of women and people with cycles if, if we're not acknowledging this, you know? And then on the trauma informed approach as well, you know, the way that trauma and the menstrual cycle are so interconnected it's almost like essential that we have this this um understanding like as practitioners as caseworkers as therapists working in the sector how can we not have this at the forefront of our mind you know for example

there was a study done in 2021 that said, you know, people are more likely to have flashbacks in the luteal phase if they've experienced trauma. But if this isn't spoken about within the sector, we aren't having that acknowledgement. And then if you're a practitioner or an advocate, you know. And you don't have that awareness, how can you be really meeting that person in a trauma informed way? And just really practical stuff such as, you know, if someone is reporting to the police and they have to go to a meeting with the police or a meeting with social workers. As an advocate, you can have that understanding of that. OK, well, this person I'm working with, they actually have this trigger on this day so we're going to not organize that and I'm going to advocate for that need you know and really make sure that they feel held in this and also the point around social care as well just around how when there is domestic violence in the home

often social services are very focused on mum very focused on making sure that you know she's consistent she shows up to meetings and she is proper you know and she's you know being the good mum um trope and how can we be acknowledging women and centering women in this um and being good advocates you know when working with those practitioners as an IDFA for example when you are advocating for someone's needs speaking to a social worker saying you know what mum might not be able to come to this meeting because she has endometriosis and she might just not be able to turn up because she's in that much pain and the trauma has actually exacerbated those symptoms so she's really struggling but having that wisdom and

understanding just currently isn't in the sector so it's really important that we start having this conversation and this has implications all over the shop it's like social work all areas of mental health any any all areas of health and then it just keeps on expanding it's like yeah I've just had a conversation this morning with Alexandra and Shani about like the future is menstrual it's coming out in a couple of weeks and we were talking about the the impact that this can have across the whole world and this is just one example like yeah why should a woman who has an endometriosis and a great, great deal of pain, why should she have to pull it together to get out, to go out and do something difficult? Why shouldn't it be organised in a part of her cycle where that's going to be more useful for her? It's

just so obvious to us, isn't it? And like, kudos to you for bringing it. How is it landing, like, what you're bringing to the people that you work with how is that going some people are really ready for it and like yes this is what is neat what's needed but there's also there's a there's the culture within the sector is still very fast paced and firefighting because you know the perpetrators of this violence are fast paced there's a lot of referrals coming through um so it almost feels like we've not got the time to slow down and tend in this way but then there's also a lot of people a lot of specifically frontline workers that i've spoken to that are like we need this you know we really need this

and that also touches on another point around intervention of of you know it's not just about the people accessing support the majority of people that work in the sector are women and people with cycles so there's also this factor as well of like having the understanding and the knowledge of your own body and your own you know internal tides and what's happening for you means that you are you know when you have capacity to hold others and when that is waning and what you need to do to tend to those needs um there was so many times you know when I was working in the sector where I would be going and you know doing a safety planning session with a woman and I'd be in horrific amounts of pain with with my bleed

and just having to you know overdose on ibuprofen just to you know focusing and trying to get through and then I'd be absolutely burnt out and not have any time for myself when I go home because I was just giving my all you know and this this transcends this sector but how can we be how can we ensure you know working in in a space that is you know stating that it's but in the empowerment of women and we're regaining power and control for women when the workers are actually overriding their own needs you know to provide this support it's kind of like we've got to do it from within so then we can share that you know with the women that we're supporting as well.

I'm going to pause the conversation for a moment to share an invitation with you as I like to do in the middle of these podcasts and my invitation today is to join us for the menstruality leadership program. As I mentioned at the beginning Tamsin received a scholarship for the program a couple of years ago and these scholarships are funded by the menstruality foundation which was created by Alexandra and Sharni and the scholarships are designed to bring menstrual cycle awareness to communities that are on the margins so the scholarships are for black indigenous and people of color lgbtq folks and people living with a disability and you can apply at menstrualityleadership.com for a couple more days the deadline is this weekend and yeah the menstruality

leadership program is starting early next year the doors are open for a few more weeks it would be wonderful to have you with us you can find out all about the course hear stories from our graduates and explore the curriculum so much more at menstrualityleadership.com that's menstruality leadership.com and just before we get back to the podcast conversation with Tamsin I asked her a few questions about her experience of the MLP so I'm going to share some of her responses here and then we'll get back to the conversation about how cycle awareness can help to end violence against women and girls so before the MLP I was practicing cycle awareness because I had read wild power and it it was shifting in me it was it was making sense to me it was really helping me but I think that I couldn't really

understand like what it was meant to do for me if that makes sense like okay yeah cycle awareness yeah sure and they're in what day I'm on thrill like great but then with the MLP it was really like oh this is like gonna like heal some stuff like this is like powerful you know I don't think I realized how much it was gonna change yeah so I think the greatest takeaway for me from the MLP was yeah this shift that has happened in terms of tending to my trauma and what I've been through and gave me an almost like a blueprint to work with yeah it's been really therapeutic MLP massively influenced my calling and purpose in that you know I've been working in the valencian youth women and girls sector as I said since I was 19 but after you know this this process

of the MLP and even before that when I started practicing cycle awareness it was almost like I was descending what I thought was away from the sector I thought I was like giving up and not and not doing that anymore and then I went almost like down into the underworld with the dark mother and did all of this like work with the MLP and then now I'm rising again and I'm realizing, oh, there's actually a new way to tackle this. There's a new way. There's a more embodied way. There's a more rooted way that can really get to the core

of what we're dealing with. And it's cultural and there's layers to it. And cycle awareness really helps us to tend to each layer so it's just given me like a new framework that yeah helps me tackle the issue but also means that I'm not abandoning myself in the process because it can be exhausting you can get burnt out we talk about vicarious trauma a lot in the sector which is where you know you pick up a lot of um what you hear other people have been through and having cycle awareness really helps you to tend to your needs so that you're not dealing with that yeah it's it's life-changing and then so the third piece of how cycle awareness can support those experiencing domestic and sexual violence and then their trauma recovery is the recovery part.

So when someone has experienced violence and people are working with them to to support them, how can how do you see menstrual cycle awareness coming into that part? Yeah, so this has been the biggest part of my journey I would say as well in terms of my own recovery and yeah in terms of tending to trauma they say you need to come back into safety and connection so connecting to your body and finding that rhythm and understanding that rhythm that you move through each month will support you in coming back into a space of safety and and you know having that awareness of okay okay I'm on day four and this isn't you know an anxious day for me will help you just be give yourself that that grounding almost of like this is where I'm at you know and then with the connection piece it's

again just building a relationship back to yourself back to your own body back to your own emotions back to your own psyche with menstrual cycle awareness you're really kind of tapping into the different layers of our being so you know there's the physical aspect of it and a lot of the time when someone goes through domestic or sexual violence a lot of physical symptoms can come up in the womb in the pelvic area um such as you know painful bleeds um facility issues missing periods infections just pain in general um and cycle awareness can really bring us back into that rhythm and and to know when these symptoms uh are most alive and then we can almost like create a treatment plan based on that you know so focusing on different sort of like body-based modalities or you know

having a talk therapy session around that time when you know that it's like the most alive for you maybe around that luteal phase where you need that extra support just having that awareness just provides the grounding so that you can really um receive the the care and support that you need and then on the more like emotional level as well what I've already spoken around about that the cycle itself helps us to transmute emotions and a lot of the time after you know a sexual assault or after an abusive relationship we can be holding a lot of shame a lot of guilt a lot of resentment a lot of anger a lot of pain a lot of fear and the cycle itself helps us to process and decompose those emotions by just just being with

it you know by just having the space and there's a final piece around like the spiritual aspect and with this I'm just talking about you know the womb the collective womb and if and if people don't really have that that language or connect to that like it's just community right it's just community we all come from a womb and we will all decompose into the womb of the earth we will all go back to the earth um and just having that knowing having that awareness having that um understanding just brings us into connection because it's like okay we're all just humans it reminds us of our humanity and just having that when when you're someone who has been through trauma and having that awareness of like okay well safety is i'm held by the earth I'm held by the womb I'm held by the mother

and the connection is that and we all are you know we all have this um so yeah it kind of moves through those layers of our being and can really tend to each part of us in in whichever way we need in that moment and that has been yeah the deepest deepest healing for me just also speaking to in terms of what I've already mentioned around almost like women's wellness spaces and them not having the the knowing of how to hold this you know the reality of violence against women and girls and there's been a lot of times this year where i've been in these spaces and i've witnessed it firsthand where you know a woman or person has arrived with something quite traumatic and they disclose something and it's it's not been

handled because people just don't know how have the knowing of how to do this and i really feel that there is a need here of an awareness of how to handle a disclosure of abuse and how to hold a woman in that you know um because we've got a lot of that understanding in the vogue sector but not a lot in these spaces that are rising and growing you know these these women sacred women's spaces but there's not this knowing of how to hold a woman who has gone through something deeply traumatic you know and also just an awareness of when someone has been through something like that what how it can then fizzle out into their whole life and then you know we see like I've already mentioned like women who are really struggling with their mental health or maybe they are off sleeping and how can we create spaces where those

women feel also feel welcomed you know rather than keeping them on the fringes um and it's really about having a deeper conversation around inclusion and opening the door and not gatekeeping. So there's also that in terms of intervention. I feel like there's a really deep need in these spaces to have this conversation. Yeah, that it's part of the sacred work we're doing. Yes, we're gathering to nourish ourselves

and we want to give this nourishment out to others who might not have access to it yeah it's so important so I mean it's a big conversation we could have a whole conversation about it but what are a couple of things you'd say to someone listening who is a space holder and let's normalize the fear that arises in us when someone discloses something you know you've you spoke about it at the beginning of the conversation it's normal to feel fear um what would you suggest to someone if they're in a space and someone discloses how could they begin to hold the space that's needed for that yeah this is a really good question. I think what you've already just mentioned there is just naming, naming or owning the fear and owning where you're at with it. And really just meeting this person as a human being to start with, with empathy. of just thanking them for having the courage to bring that and and holding space for that holding

space for the gravity of it and saying okay I'm here you know just standing side by side with them and then it's really about being clued up on the options as well yeah if that person then does want some extra support it's around knowing what how you can where you can guide them towards so there are other services there's different avenues of support out there if someone has come to you and they've just you know gone through an assault there's referral centres that you can send them to domestic and sexual violence services that you can refer them to there's helplines as well just having the helpline numbers doing the research to gather those resources together so you have them on hand

should someone need it and then also just the process of of being a human it's like the process of being a human just being like this is big you know and And just being in your humanness with that other human is a way that we can help them feel safe and that this is a person I can trust, you know? And not thinking, okay, I'm the practitioner, so I must know how to do this. And I must just get rid of all that and just be a person that's sat with another person

and listening to their experience yeah that's so so beautifully said and it's good to remember I'm not sure what the latest statistics are but I feel like when I was more plugged into this it was one in four women experience some form of sexual violence in their lives yeah I think it's moved to one in three now I read the other day okay even more reason to have this conversation yeah yeah so it is likely to happen that if you're holding space especially for women and let's name two that the queer community are the people often who experience the most violence like trans folk gender expansive folk they're they're the ones experiencing the most violence

in our in our world so so we need to be human to human totally and our cycle awareness practices will help this to own our fears I'm thinking of this great yoga teacher called Susanna Barkataki I don't know if you've come across her yeah yeah so she was I saw a post recently and she was like so you know yoga yoga isn't about love and light yoga is an ancient practice you know originating from India which is about embracing all of ourselves you know union with all of ourselves and and she was saying how difficult it is for her as a brown woman to enter into these very white yoga spaces where it's like high vibes only um love and light here please and how uh destructive that is and the importance of like as you've been saying just letting the dark goddess be letting all of ourselves be and you know you know how I know that you're a daughter of the dark goddess because that you've used the word decompose

more times than anyone ever on the podcast gotta let it all that stuff just disintegrate into the crap yeah so I'd love to speak to you about how you've worked with your cycle in your trauma recovery process you wrote a post I'll link to it in the show notes so you wrote a post on Instagram and you went through the different phases like starting with physical pain from endometriosis which you currently experience the endometriosis there's like the symptoms of that is that something that's healing yeah yeah yeah yeah I I've been able since the MLP actually during the MLP I had my first pain-free bleed wow ever I'm so happy I'm so happy for you that's amazing yeah and so you're talking about you know working with physical pain in the menstrual phase anxiety in the follicular phase

or inner spring overwhelm ovulation and i had a conversation with the cyclical business community that i run all about that last night we were all just like why are we so overwhelmed when we ovulate and um depression in the in the luteal phase in the inner autumn so yeah could you yeah walk us through whatever feels most alive for you around how you've worked with your cycle yeah so really I guess we can start with follicular because you mentioned that. I think I kind of spoke to this at the start in that I've really been able to shift this like panic and anxiety. Just with that acknowledgement of the cycle being the developmental stages and understanding that when I'm'm in my spring my inner child is here you know my inner child is is is speaking to me and is feeling through me um and when I had started connecting to her around that time I realized she was just calling out for me to just hold her, you know, and that

spending time in nature and coming back to that exploration, you know, has given my inner child within me the chance to almost, like, have the springtime that she didn't have during those years, you know, that time to explore and be free and to get things wrong you know wow yeah the permission to get things wrong the space yet things wrong so huge yes yeah just just shifting now has changed things like drastically for me and just knowing that it's spring and that's when nature is so alive and is bursting with all this vibrancy it just made sense to me that during my spring I was meant to be outside in nature I was meant to be exploring you know the forests and just getting to know

and then that learning aspect as well of like when you know when we are children we're always learning so it was really like I was like going out of like my notebook and like learning about all the trees and stuff and just get and now I've just got all this knowledge about the natural world you know it's really just shifted it for me um because obviously when we're children we're just like these buckets of like okay just give me all the information and I was really just tending to and letting her explore um and then yeah with the overwhelm uh ovulation like this is this is such a big piece that I had like a huge moment during the MRP where this stage this this season felt really oppressive it felt really like the energy was too much like it was like stopping me from living almost it was just like ah just there's not really words you

know it's just like almost like controlling me um and not letting me flow and then during the MLP I had this realization that it wasn't the energy within me it wasn't you know the oestrogen rising that was oppressive it was the trauma that was blocking it down you know it was the trauma that was saying it's not safe to let it out it's not safe to be you it's not safe to express yourself it's not safe to use your voice because I had to make myself really small and really quiet and put myself in a box just to feel safe to protect myself so when I started feeling this energy rising of all my power and all of my truth it was like oh no it can't be helped yeah keep it down keep it down keep it safe yeah so really I've tended to that through just

expression dance sit song like just really and that's been a whole like it's it it was jolty at first it was difficult at first it was really like uncomfortable but now having that practice of like just dancing and it not having to be you know a performance and singing and it doesn't have to be you know perfect notes and all of that just really letting that expression out because that's what's been blocked has really again helped me to shift and also just the awareness that it wasn't my energy that was oppressive you know just the awareness and then and't my energy that was oppressive, you know, just the awareness. And then really being able to like hold that and bring awareness to that

and say, okay, what is me then? What does want to be expressed that's me? And what is it that's not me? And how can I, what does that need so I can let that go? So I can move that. Yeah. so I can let that go so I can I can move that yeah and then coming into autumn luteal phase with the depression yeah it's almost like I wasn't giving myself space to process everything and there was so much to process and again just not having the awareness at this time is is is a

amazing time for shadow work it's amazing time to focus on all of those wounds and all of those emotions that we have been carrying and then it was almost like because I had experienced trauma it was like a build-up a buildup, a buildup, a buildup. And then because in ovulation, I was like pushing my power down. It was like all of this stuff was just like in luteal. And it was all consuming. You know, there's no space to hide from it and lose your face there's no space to just like push it down you can't push it down anymore it's there it's like a volcano

erupting inside that's lava is going to come out whether we like it or not yeah yes yes exactly that's it it's a volcano and it's really funny that you speak to that because during the MLP in one of the practices I had a visual of a volcano erupting so it's really yeah I'm with the volcano analogy it feels that way too like physically in the body the heat and the like I'm plucking it more and more in myself because I'm trying as a parent as a mother I'm trying to catch it sooner before I blow before I blow my fuses and it's like if I track it that's like okay the lava's rising the lava's rising I was riding let's pour some water let's pour some water it's like yeah it's it's a thing to track isn't it yeah it's definitely a

thing to track and then having space to just let it out just let the volcano erupt so that it doesn't just erupt on you know my partner because she dropped something you know like just I let it out and I let myself process it and I let I I give it space to just be there you know I need to do this you're reminding me like I haven't been dancing enough I haven't been roaring enough and I'm all the people I don't want to yes thank you thank you I'm sure there's other people listening who are like yes shit safe spaces for this to come out there's also always driving and rolling your window down in the middle of nowhere and just roaring out of your window yeah i like that one too yeah totally yeah this is powerful this is where it all comes from right balancing against

women and girls it's this fear of this power to burn things down so it's all interconnected this dark mother this luteal this pre-menstrual time of us being with that eruption is what is has been feared and what has been shamed and what has been pushed down and the biggest form of i guess activism change making is just letting her out just letting her be seen yeah befriend her allow her in your own life yeah and then let that ripple out and change things in the world yeah totally and then to bring it back to menstruation and that pain it was like all of that that has been you know growing and and i've been being with throughout the whole cycle all of that pain and the trauma and the memories and the flashbacks and then at menstruation i was just you know numbing myself with with painkillers and and and and also like

hating myself you know so i wasn't letting the natural process of allowing these all of this stuff that I've been holding all cycle to just let it go you know and my womb was screaming at me to feel just feel me and I will help you transmute some of this you know I will help you let go of some of this. So I think cycle awareness, if there's one main takeaway for me, is just like that ability to take something that isn't serving you and just turning it into something that can actually help you. And the MLP, just having that space where I had this time that was just to focus on this you know it's no coincidence

that I had my first pain-free bleed during that time and I think having the the holding really helped me just release some of this and integrate some of this and tend to some of this thank you so much for every single thing you've shared and every single thing you're doing and I'm so inspired by you if people are listening and they want to hear more from you get in touch with you how can they do that yeah so I've got a website which is zammyhealing.com zammy spelled z-a-m-i so people can yeah contact me through there wonderful thank you so much and thank you so much for being with us today I wish you all the best with your amazing work got my hands at your back thank you so much for having me it's been amazing to yeah share this and to have this conversation and I hope it inspires a lot of other people to get talking about this for sure thanks love

thanks for being with us today as you probably heard throughout the conversation this is a topic that's so close to my heart. I hope it's inspired you and inspired you to work with your cycle awareness practice with whatever you care about the most, whatever you want to take a stand for, whatever you love. So I hope this has left you inspired. I'd like to share again an invitation to join the menstruality leadership program at menstrualityleadership.com and I will be with you again next week and until then keep living life according to your own brilliant rhythm