The Menstruality Podcast - 181. The Spiritual Power of our Wombs and Menstrual Cycles (Usha Anandi)

Episode Date: January 16, 2025

We live in a world where we so often feel that we need to live like men, work like men, and push ourselves like men in order to be valued. When the truth is that we are more-or-less twenty eight different women each month, and there is immense power and magic in this innate ebb and flow. As our guest today, Usha Anandi, the Founder of Womben Wellness says that women and people with cycles have four personalities every month, and each one has distinct spiritual gifts. Today we walk through the four inner seasons of the menstrual cycle, exploring the spiritual powers that become available to us as we move through the cycle month. Usha who is also known as Erin Foley, is a devoted Mother, holistic nutritionist, childbirth educator, full-spectrum doula, and herbalist committed to changing the status quo by alchemizing modern scientific information with ancient, energetic practices to serve the whole woman.We explore:How Usha didn’t plan to work in this field, but her menstrual pain continually led her to her Calling to heal herself, and guide others to do the same.The importance of avoiding the capitalist, patriarchal traps of pushing ourselves in inner spring and summer by ‘bio-hacking’ our bodies to get the most out of them, and instead embrace our natural pre-ovulatory playfulness, and our innate ovulatory capacity to be at the centre of our family and community lives. How connecting to our inner autumn truth-speaking powers can school us in expressing our calling and taking a stand for what we most love. ---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.hardyWomben Wellness: @wombenwellness - https://www.instagram.com/wombenwellness

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 there, welcome back to the podcast. Thank you for being with us today. You've probably noticed this, that we live in a world where so often we feel like we need to live like men, work like men and push ourselves like men in order to be valued when the truth is that we are more or

less 28 different versions of ourselves each month and there's immense power and magic in this innate ebb and flow. I imagine you get this because you're here listening to this podcast and as our guest today Usha Anandi who's the founder of Women Wellness, says, she says that women and people with cycles have four different personalities every month. Have you noticed this? And that each one of them has gifts. Today in our conversation, we walk through these four inner seasons of the menstrual cycle, exploring the distinct spiritual powers that become available to us as we move through the cycle month. Usha, who's also known as Erin Foley, is the founder of

Women Wellness and is a devoted mother, holistic nutritionist, childbirth educator, full-spectrum doula and herbalist committed to changing the status quo by alchemizing modern scientific information with ancient energetic practices to serve the whole woman. So let's get started with our conversation with Usha, the spiritual power of our wombs and menstrual cycles. Ah Usha, thank you so much for coming on the podcast I've been really looking forward to this conversation for like probably a year I've been exploring your work watching what you're doing and really loving the way you express yourself around the cycle the freshness of it the depth of it and I think we'll go on a bit of a wild mystery tour today. Very excited for it.

Oh, I'm so excited for that. Thank you so much, Sophie, for having me on it. It's really an honor. Where are you at in your cycle? How's it feeling? Where are you at today? So I am in inner spring, which is my follicular phase. And I'm feeling that freshness. I'm feeling alive. I'm feeling clear and ready. I love

inner spring. You know, I used to spend a lot of time in Canada. It's where a few of my best friends live and the fertility of spring there after a long winter, you can just smell it. You can feel it, the life in the air. And so that's where I am. And it makes me feel really ready and open for what life is going to bring. I'm also an inner spring. I'm on day 11, 11 or 12. I often start to lose track of my days at this point because I just start springing. And interestingly, I've been taken into a winter because just last night, my mother-in-law was taken into hospital and very quickly we've learned that she doesn't have long and we wondered um you know how long she had she's 92 she's had a good innings and I'm just it was really beautiful this morning to track like thank

goodness for cycle awareness because now I know why I feel timeless and liminal and spacey and disconnected or disconnected from a lot of things but very connected to myself and very connected to my partner aid it's his mom so yeah I'm just tracking both of those the inner spring rising energy and then this winter that life has just gone and so grateful for the context of cycle awareness so I can make sense of that and help him make sense of it too yeah absolutely and that's the gift that we have as as women you know is is to have this inner tempo that's guiding us while we also meet the outer reality of life and those two coming together to make this very rich experience yeah it's so true and sometimes it's like a tango it's quite spicy and sometimes it's very um yeah like raging rivers and sometimes it's calm yeah yeah I love that

where the two meet is that that's where the life is at isn't it yeah yeah I would love to hear some of your story to get us started. I know that from listening to you, from following you for a while, that you had a journey with painful periods at the beginning, and it was sort of pain that propelled you onto this path. I'd wonder if you could walk us into the beginnings of your connection to cyclical living and cycle awareness and the cycle. Yeah. So I always say that, you know, I never wanted to do this work. It was not my intention. Some people have that. I certainly didn't, you know, I wasn't born thinking, oh, I'm going to teach womb wisdom to the world. It wasn't a part of my awareness at all,

but the womb, my womb and my health continuously brought me to my knees again and again. And looking back, you know, as we all do, we can look back on our life and see that the universe is leaving little breadcrumbs of like, oh, there was a clue. There was a clue. And we follow those breadcrumbs until we get set on this path. And so, you know, I grew up Catholic in a very Irish Catholic home. And so I learned very early on that women were lesser than witches were evil. The earth was something to be dominated. Our bodies were not to be trusted. Our bodies were not to be shared or shown. And I'm very rebellious of a very rebellious nature. And even as a young child, I had this sense of like, this is absolute bullshit. Like there was some deep knowing in me that this is wrong and I couldn't place it. I didn't know what it was, but, but I just knew this is wrong. And I think my first initiation into really the magic of the womb and into the mystery of my own body was when I got my first period. these dolls that have stories about them. And they had this book about the female body, you know, and we all probably got gifted one of those books as a child of like, you know, our mother's like,

here you go. And for mine, you know, didn't say anything to me, just gave me this book. And every night I would flip through the pages of like, wow, this is what my breasts might look like one day. This is, I'm going to start getting hair in my armpits, you know, and, and the development of my body. And so I would read that book every single night before bed, just fascinated by my physiology, even at that point. And I would ask all of my friends, you know, what's it like, what's it like to get your

period? What's it like to bleed? Cause I was actually one of the last ones of my friends to get my period. And so I was really excited for that transition, that initiation into womanhood. I was ready. And then when I got it, I was sleeping over at a friend's house and I came home and went to the bathroom and pulled down my pants. And there's this like brown kind of creamy, you know, liquid on my pants. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, this is it. Like, Oh, you know, I still remember where I was this feeling of like, it's my time, like it's here.

And I went out into my kitchen when my mom was there. And I said, Mom, Mom, like, it happened. I got my period. And one of my teachers, Dr. Ray Castellino, he teaches that all humans have a blueprint, that there's this ancestral knowing in ourselves of how things should be, the way physiologically, the way one could say the animal of our body knows this is how it's supposed to go. And so my blueprint at that time, this inner knowing was like, this is a time to be celebrated. This is a time to be welcomed. This is a time to be initiated by my matrilineal line, my mother to teach me and guide me in this new way.

And so I walked into the kitchen with that desire and that eagerness, but instead I was met with this total disdain and shame. And my mom just shrugging her shoulders and saying, welcome to the club. And she threw me a pack of pads, you know, I had no idea how to put them on. That was for me to figure out, even though my mom's a medical professional. And that was like a schism in time, where we arrive with something, life meets us with something else, and then it changes us. And so from that point on, this excitement and eagerness and desire to embrace my body changed into this shame around my body. And I inherited and took on the shame that was in my mother line. And eventually, of course, it's no surprise that that turned into painful periods that turned into irregular cycles that turned into every time I would get my period being like, what the heck,

you know, who's doing this to me? Why? Why do I have to deal with this? And so that was like a really, really important story for me because that was a moment in time where I realized that I really desired something different than what most women were being offered. And it took me a few years to come back to that, to come back to that desire to embrace myself, come back to that desire to explore my physiology. And yet I knew that it was there. I knew. And this is something I've noticed about women. We always know. Yeah. And we don't want to admit that we do. We always know if that relationship isn't right. We always know if that job doesn't work for us. We always know which way we're supposed to go, but Oh my gosh, we do not want to tell the truth to ourselves because that is scary.

And so I knew and it took me some years to remember. But that is really like a place where I come from of feeling that shame and that disconnection. And that's really informed my work. What would you say to someone listening who's thinking, yeah, I know. And I'm, you know, that's in that process of remembering, but is still feeling, you know, as we do, shrouded, stuck, blocked by the stories of shame. What would you say to her I would say surround yourself with women who also know and women who model what it's so easy to forget what we are and the power that we hold and the truth that's within us and for me when I lose the song

of my soul it's women who always sing it back to me and remind me, oh yeah, this is who I am. And so the people you surround yourself with and your close circle, it's really important to make sure that it's full of people brave enough to listen to what's going on inside and move from that place of alignment. Because when you're not, they will be. When they're not, you might be. And so we help each other. We grow and change together. Yeah, it's so true. It's so true.

How is it for you when you bleed? Is that a time when you find yourself plugged back in? Is that a time that's easiest for you to access the remembering? That's a very leading question. Yeah. How can I sit here and say no yeah so um it's interesting because my relationship to my bleed has changed a lot since I became a mother you know I used to be able to just clear my schedule in entirety, have, have my, you know, bleed to myself, do whatever I want. And now, you know, I just finished bleeding like

two days ago. And it's quite a lot to manage that deep knowing while also mothering a young daughter. And so for me, it's not just my bleed that taps me back in. And I think about it like we always have an umbilical cord to the heart of mother earth, but when we're bleeding that it just plugs in a little bit deeper and we can feel. And it's funny because I know a lot of women might, you know, not like their cycle or if it's painful, my gosh, how, how could we like the, the, the pain? You know, it's something we generally want to run away from. But when I bleed, it's like, everything is right in the world. Everything makes sense. Again, it's like premenstrual days can get, as you said earlier, little bit spicy, you know, little bit challenging. And then once my blood comes, it's like

this beautiful relief and clarity. And I teach it, it's like the veil's thin and we can actually see what's there and the ceremony of it. You know, I had this, um, this deep knowing, and this is maybe a little bit off topic, but I, I had a miscarriage a few months ago. And when I was laying in bed and miscarrying, I had this deep knowing that women don't need the same dogmatic practices, the same rigid routines for spirituality. We don't need that rigidity in order to connect to universe, source, God, whatever word you use to describe that energy. Why? Because we have ceremony and that ceremony is our womb. That ceremony is our cycle. That is our spirituality. And guess what? It's encoded in ourselves. It's physiologic. It's in our body. We can try to run away from it, but it's there. We're going to menstruate. We're going

to bleed. We're're gonna ovulate all these things that is life and death that is meeting source every month so that was a big awakening for me and that's a little roundabout way to answer your question sophie i've got loads of questions for you about that about the cycle as our inbuilt spiritual path um alexander and sharni at red school they talk about it as being our like inbuilt mindfulness practice you know the menstrual cycle awareness this built growing the muscles of coming back checking in trusting how we're feeling coming back checking in trusting how we're feeling is a spiritual practice in and of itself but I just want to take us back to around your menarche your first bleed and I find myself being really curious about the innocent joy that you experienced

and I think we all have a taste of it, but it sounds like it was particularly loud in you. And I'm just curious how you see that. Like, was there someone in your young years who taught you that your body was sacred and powerful, or did you come in with it? And why do you think you came in with it? And how does that work for you? How do you see that? It's a great question. So no, no one taught me that my body was sacred and powerful you know that that's something that I grieve as I'm sure listeners do as well as that so many of us are initiated without any elder guidance and our bodies do the initiating um so, I didn't have that, that guidance or teaching. It was a deep, innate knowing. And I think that the knowing for me arise out of rebellion, because I was so steeped

in the opposite. I was so steeped in your body is disgusting. Your body is dirty. Your body is disgusting. Your body is dirty. Your body is dangerous. It's something to hide to keep yourself safe. You know, there's so much shame that I marinated in, in the church, in my house. And yet joy is the easiest thing to follow because you don't have to put any effort into it. It's just yourself, your heart expanding. And I remember the most joy for me was going outside, picking herbs, you know, singing songs, feet naked on the ground. Like, that's where I found my joy.

And that's where I found this sense of myself. And so I think that we all have that joy for children. They're just so close to self. It's so easy to see it. And as adults, we get so many layers of other people's stuff put on us that it's hard to find out what's ours. But that joy for me and that curiosity more so was always there. Who am I? And what is this thing that everyone's telling me that is bad and dirty? And well, you telling me not to go there, I'm the type like you tell me not to go. That just makes me want to open that door more and more. And I'm so grateful. You know, my dad, who was a big fear monger and, and, you know, he now follows my, my business, woman wellness. He watches all of my videos, all of my posts. He calls me,

Hey, I just learned about coriander and how it can help painful periods. I just learned about fennel and what it can do for PMS. And it's like a beautiful healing that happens in the whole system when we follow that joy. Yeah, it ripples out in ways we can't even know. Oh my goodness. Well, as you know, as you were talking about what you loved as a child, the like the herbs and that we say herbs in England. I know. I love it. I'm like, please just say that again and again. It's so nice. Yeah, I'm like please just say that again and again it's so nice yeah I'm like the hebs and the singing I'm remembering one of my favorite things to do when I was a child was lean with my head against the window in the car and watch the raindrops

coming down the car and sing to the raindrops like I would just do that for hours and I'm thinking now probably because we're both in this inner spring place of what a beautiful practice it is for all of us to remember what we love to do when we were in our inner maiden years and then bring some of that out in inner spring. Like for me, I love, I just love walking on the beach, picking up stones and shells. I love it. I don't live near the sea, so I don't get to do it very often. But I'm just feeling like the medicine of that, giving ourselves a little bit of that inner spring, innocent joy every cycle month as part of our spiritual practice with our cycle. Absolutely. And I think that, you know, it's interesting because, you know, I teach about living in alignment with your cycle. For me, I plan my business in alignment, my food, just exercise everything in alignment with that blueprint.

And what I notice a lot of modern teachers teaching, and I also have taught this at certain points, of innerspring is the best time to get things done because it's when we have, you know, estrogen increases vagal tone. So we actually have more resilience to stress. We have that clarity. And so, of course, in this patriarchal system, we're like using this time that is spring is all about wonder. Like, wow, look at the beauty of this.

After the darkness of winter, can we just take a moment and smell the blossoms and walk in the green pastures? And wow, look at what's on the other side of that darkness. It's really a time to frolic, a time to play. And yet so much modern cyclical living teaches this is a time to get stuff done. And I think that so many modern women, myself at points included, and I'm, I'm learning this through my daughter. She's teaching me this. Play is the ultimate healing. Joy is the ultimate purpose. Enjoy our lives. What a concept. And when you bring that into inner spring, there's so much more expansiveness there. And it sets us up for health in the later parts of our cycle. You know, if we're pushing ourselves so hard in inner spring, we're going to pay for that in inner fall. We're going to have a hard

premenstrual time as so many modern women do. And because the circle goes on and on, it's like what comes before really dictates what comes after. And so I love that, Sophie, that idea of bringing more play and wonder into inner spring. I think it could do so much for women's health. And I'm thinking about like the autumn years of our cycling lives. And there's so many women and people in our community who are navigating these perimenopause years. Alexandra Sharni call it the quickening, these years running up to menopause. But just listening to you now, I'm thinking, wow, imagine years of frolicking in inner spring. Like, yeah, there's stuff to do. You know, we have lives, we have responsibilities and there's time to frolic like there's a moment for frolicking like imagine like if if we've

frolicked in our inner spring if we've like allowed celebrated like given ourselves to life in our inner summer I wonder what that can look like if we've accrued many years of that then when we're when we're entering the great initiation of menopause how our nervous systems might be compared to a lot of women who haven't had the cycle of wireless knowledge because it's still no way near mainstream yet will be one day it's coming yeah it's coming we're here we're doing this yeah yeah you know I realized um because as a woman it's like there's cycles within cycles right like we have menarche then maybe we go through pregnancy postpartum if we choose to that's part of our life then we go through perimenopause menopause like but every month we have a cycle within that month in in fertile years. And so there's these like spirals, circles within circles, cycles within cycles.

And it's this never ending deepening. And I think that for me, you know, as on, you know, still very much in my fertile years, still not really looking towards perimenopause yet. So very much in my fertile years, wanting to have more children, you know, still in that place of kind of my maiden time, even though I am a mother. And what I've realized is that so many modern women, myself included, we're putting so much pressure on ourselves to have the wisdom of a post-menopausal woman when we're in our 20s when we're in our 30s our 40s and it's like that doesn't come now for a reason that is something that comes as we circle around the cycle and deepen and spiral inwards

again and again and when we try to force that wisdom, force that achievement, that success, you know, collapse timelines, it's like we're all so obsessed with going faster than what our bodies really want. Then we're really missing out on, you know, some of the most important times of my life have been those times where I was just playing

and was just frolicking and I hope that you know anyone listening can think how can you bring a little bit more play into your day because when did we learn that play was not important that joy and wonder was not a necessity for the human spirit it is and our wombs are a reflection of what's going on internally at a deep emotional and spiritual level if we're not well spiritually emotionally we're gonna feel it and our wombs are gonna show us that. I feel like I'm really following the leadership of a lot of the Black women and activists that I'm following in the wake of the, well, for a long time, but now, especially in the wake of the election. And say, for example, Tricia Hersey from the NAP ministry, who's saying, we will rest, we will rest. And like claiming that and claiming black joy claiming

space and peace and restedness like I'm really I love how it's just working against grind culture hustle culture and as you referenced earlier like the way patriarchal capitalism can just hijack cycle awareness and turn it into biohacking cycle syncing and like get the most which kind of takes us to inner summer because i think i think there's a trap here too where we go right this is where i can do it all this is where i can be superwoman for everyone and like I'm curious to ask you how you see the spiritual power of of ovulation and inner summer and what's available to us here if we say bye-bye to the patriarchal capitalist crap that we have to make the most of this and do everything yeah I love what you named there and you know it's so funny because the biohacking thing just like

really gets me. I'm like, one day I'll make a video about it because it's like, we don't need to hack anything. Like the idea that we need to hack our bodies is just so fascinating when like true health comes from living in alignment with the body. So, so much to say on that. And with the inner summer and ovulation, estrogen makes our brain really oriented to tending and mending. It's a mothering hormone. And so it makes us really aware of what's going on with the people in our lives, how to keep them close, how to keep them happy. One could say that this is about, you know, trying to get pregnant. One could also say that this is just the woman's beautiful ability to be the center of family

systems. And when she's healthy, she keeps everything together. We really are meant to be the center and centered in those systems. And I believe in the world. And so the play here is like estrogen noticed that in myself in my inner spring and inner summer, my follicular phase and ovulatory phase, I feel extremely oriented to everyone in my life. And I often can put myself on the back burner there. as building my business and becoming a mom and balancing all of that, tried to juice these phases of like, how much can I get out here? Like how much productivity, how much creativity I'm going to put all my filming there, all my product, my course creation there, all my teaching in this phase. And it really dawned on me during ovulation, you know, when my skin is brighter, I'm feeling more sexually desirous. I'm feeling like I'm loving my body so much. I just like want to go naked in a field and roll around in the earth. I just have this awareness of like, before it's for anyone else, this is for me before I give it to my partner to the world to my students anything this energy of

dripping with sensuality aliveness you know that is for me and I'm gonna revel in that first and drink deeply from that by slowing down and enjoying it. And that's something I noticed I have a hard time doing. Maybe women listening do too of like so easy in follicular phase and ovulation to just go super fast because we have the energy to do it. And then after we ovulate, it's like, oh my God, what have I done? Cancel this, cancel that, that, who did that? You know, it's like an alternate personality. Like we have four personalities every month and one just fills up our calendar, you know? And so really that spiritual sense of I'm going to drink from this well and be nourished by this well before I give this well to everyone

else. We have some exciting news. We received so many messages from our community saying that they'd missed the December deadline for the menstruality leadership program so we found a way to keep the doors open for a little bit longer so if you're feeling called to join us for this program in 2025 we're starting on February the 7th you can register now until midnight on Friday January the 24th and if you'd like to hear more about the menstruality leadership program or you have questions please come to our live webinar that's happening on Tuesday January the 21st you can register at menstrualityleadership.com I'm going to share a story next from one of our graduates about how the menstruality leadership program supported her and afterwards we'll get back to our conversation with Usha. So first, here's Julia.

My name's Julia. I am a choir leader, a musician, and a mother. I came to the MLP in 2022 because I was having big meltdowns on day 19 of my cycle every month. I was feeling quite untethered, scared and not myself on those days and then I'd sort of flip back into normal the next day or two. So when I saw the MLP advertised it was an instant yes, I really need this to support me and it changed my life in a massive way and I'm still studying with Red School now. The big thing was was learning to really feel into my body and to use that to help me work out how I was feeling. I really allowed myself to rest on the MLP and I experienced some quite mind-blowing things at menstruation, just feeling really blissed out. And by resting at menstruation, this really helped me to go with the flow of my cycle and to not push myself and push myself during my summer only to crash and burn as winter came around. So yeah, this has affected my life massively. In my leadership as a parent, my leadership in my

work, I'm coming from a much more grounded place. So yeah, I really recommend the MLP to you. If it's calling you then just do it you will not regret it so beautiful and it feels like the way you entered that with the woman at the center like the hearth of the family the hearth of the community I keep seeing a beautiful post going around the interweb saying, I don't even want a government. I want a council of indigenous grandmothers, like woman at the hearth, wise woman at the hearth. I feel a call to that in my family. And also I'm having to pattern it myself because it wasn't something that was modeled to me

not that my mama didn't run the family because she totally did and still does but it's a kind of being the sun that everything orbits around I have to claim that daily so I've sort of established some things like we have a family mealaltime. We hold hands before the food. It's like my moment of putting my feminine, I'd say, at the center of our house. It's the fire at the center of our house and we orbit around that. And it takes some, like, I have to dig deep to just believe that that's right for me to do that because of my, I guess, my inner patriarchal conditioning of not putting myself at the center. Yeah, it takes so much, you know, when we grow up being told that this lie is true, that, you know, in order to be valued, we need to work like men, live like men, push ourselves like men. And the truth is, we do not have the same capacity as men. We have a completely different capacity, completely different magic. Are we equal? Of course, we're equal. Come on. That's so like, when it's like, that's the conversation. I'm like, really, this is where we are. Like, come on. I thought we were past that. But apparently,

in some spaces, we're not. But it's like, as a woman, it is, you know, in stories and books, they talk a lot about the hero's journey. I'm not, no, if you're familiar with Joseph Campbell's work, but he talks a lot about the hero's journey and this journey that men have to go on to find themselves and who they are and go out into the world and conquer. And women have a totally different journey. We already have what men have to go out into the world searching for. It's within us.

It's encoded in our physiology. And yet, because we've grown up learning our periods are disgusting, our vulvas are shameful, our bodies are for use of others only, others' pleasure only. We miss the fact that the treasure for women is not outside. It's in here. And that connection to source spirit, it's already there. It's in our womb.

And so it takes a huge breaking of the spell that so many in the world are under and the re-remembering of that in order to really center ourselves in our family and know that when I say women at the center, it does not mean men aren't important. Other people aren't important. It means women drink deeply from this well of aliveness. And we have this power because of estrogen, because of our capacities of our nervous systems to feed other people in the system with that aliveness. And in order to do that, we need to be supported. It's not just women, put it all on your back, do it all. It's how can we create this reciprocal systems

where women are so deeply supported that we're able to stand at the center in our superpower, fully nourished by the systems, the partners around us, and then bringing health to all the systems. And, you know, just as the earth has been decentered and we see the effects of that in the environment, in our health, women have also been decentered. And there's no coincidence that, you know, as we go back to the earth and realize that connecting with the earth, with her elements, with her her seasons that's the true health that there's also this resurgence of coming back to women at the center of the family and how vital that is not just for the individuals but for the collective i'm like preach preach over here like yeah I I'm curious too about your leadership your connection to your calling in in a summer

around ovulation because I had I haven't spoken about this on the podcast yet but let's give it a go so I had I had like a big ovulation experience there's a woman in our community Cicel Neland who named this like we can have a big bleed where we like give ourselves many days to rest and really really drop and really touch the spiritual powers of menstruation but we can also have like a big ovulation where we really give space for the ovulatory powers to flow and I'm a mum of a four-year-old too, so I'm always just like sneaking in my practice around all the things. But I was taking a walk on the day I was ovulating and it was like I could feel a herd of stampeding elephants

charging through my being of like, yes, this is who you are. This is what you're for. What didn't come in words, it came in a sensation that plugged me into myself, but in a different way to menstruation. It was like, I need to sit with it and stay with it because it's one of those like pieces that landed and then I spiral around with it until it shows me what it is. But I'm curious how inner summit informs you as a leader informs you as you you know keep expressing your calling in the world yeah so it's interesting I love that you know expression I'm I'm always just like I'm so enriched by sitting with other women who also have the practice of sitting with their

wombs because I'm like, oh, that's so cool. You know, I've learned so much. And I think for me, because I am such a tender and mender that I've spent so many years of my life using my follicular phase and my ovulatory phases to nourish everyone else. And I used to do that in the way of, I would specifically record things, create, you know, new courses, record podcasts like this when I'm in my follicular phase and inner summer, because it's when I felt most open to the world. But now actually I'm kind of like saving that time for myself to try to repattern the fact that for so many years I got something and then I just gave it away in a very martyred sense of like, wow, this wisdom just come through. I want to share it. And I think that that's something that so many modern people I've noticed around me do is like, we get a teaching, we get

wisdom, we have something, and then we want to share it. We want to show other people like, look what just came through me, you know? And I would have that in the way of like being really creative, right? Getting an idea, putting it directly on Instagram, writing a blog about it right away. And now I'm more in this practice of I'm going to sit with it, you know, for a while and be nourished by that thing. And then I'm going to let it come out when it when it wants to come out naturally and be born. So actually for me, my leadership, a lot of it comes more from the work that I do when I'm premenstrual. And for me, my premenstrual time is a very, very powerful time. I've got a lot of major Scorpio placements in my chart. So I'm very interested in that beyond the veil. And that's really when I'm premenstrual, when all the shit I've been

hiding from myself, it's going to come out at that point. And so I see my premenstrual time as like, I don't really have any fear, you know, when I'm in and that's not saying, oh, I'm fearless. But when I'm in my follicular phase and ovulation phases, I've got a lot of estrogen. And so I do care what people think I'm trying to keep the system together. I'm trying to keep it all in harmony. That's what estrogen in my body does. Then when estrogen declines and progesterone comes up, I'm like, I don't give an F. Like, I'm going to say what I need to say here. And so that's really where my, more of my leadership comes from of like, I don't have a filter. I'm going to tell it like I see it. And

you know, when we think about these kinds of crones, wise women who are beyond their, you know, perimenopausal years and into their wisdom years, like sit around some menopausal women, they're going to tell you exactly what they think, you know. And there's the beauty in that of the decreased estrogen makes us not so oriented to keeping everyone together. Now it's about our spiritual journey. And so I get that like titrated taste of that when I'm premenstrual. And that's actually more in the last years where I draw from and how I lead and how I teach and share. I really see it in you. It's like, I'm going to say I see it in you now. I'm not going to be able to describe it're it's like I'm gonna say I see it in you now I'm not gonna be able to describe it because it's kind of a mysterious thing but I see that you're plugged in to who you are and what you're about and I see it stream through your mouth in words and through your brain and your spirit in

words and it's something that I hear so often from our community say women who are applying for the menstruality leadership program that they say things like I want to free up my voice I want to take a stand for what I love I want I want to express myself and I what's my question have you always had that capacity to express is it like a natural thing in you is it something that your pre-menstruum has schooled in you like what tell us about tell us Usha so um definitely always had that desire to share you know my mom my mom shares that when I would go to birthday parties when I was three years old I would get up someone else's birthday party on a table and start singing. I'm a little teapot.

And my mom would be like, what's going on? Like, what should I do? Should I like get her down, you know? And so always had that inkling, like was in musical theater, was in debate, always had a very strong desire to express through my voice. But for a lot of years, I really, really censored myself so, so much. I censored myself so much because I was so afraid to show who I am. I had so much shame around things I'd done. Like, you know, we have shame. We grow up in a culture where shame is very palpable and present. It's almost like, you know, like toxic gas. We breathe it in. We don't even see that it's there.

And then I think that not just kind of apprenticing beyond the veil, which is me just really learning from my body when I'm premenstrual, but also becoming a mother and being in postpartum. I had a really, really hard postpartum. I had really bad postpartum depression. I had postpartum psychosis. You know, I gave birth during COVID and there was no one around. And that was a huge initiation for me where I had to meet these parts of myself that I hated and felt so shameful for. And I wasn't at my best. But guess what? I still had a business. I'm still the provider. So I still had to show up and I had to expose parts of myself that weren't ready to be exposed. I wasn't the perfect person. I,

the words weren't coming to me as easily. I was completely rearranged and changed. And that journey of finding my footing in that and, you know, learning and growing and being okay with myself and being able to put something in the world and someone hating me for it, disagreeing with me, that was not a capacity that I used to have. You know, I started leading trainings when I was 19 years old. Like I was like pushed into it very young and I wasn't ready, you know, and I was trying to be this thing that I wasn't. And I think that's what a lot of women think they have to be is like, oh, in order to have impact, I need to be totally healed. Or in order to share my voice, I better make sure that I'm saying the right thing. And it's like, right now in my life,

I'm just, I'm in relationship with this very specific thread of energy that wants to move through me. And I don't give a crap about anything else, but serving that energy. And if someone disagrees with it, that's great. Let's add more voices to the conversation. I got a lot to learn, you know, and just being able to be okay with that and hold that charge of, I'm going to say something, someone that might not agree with it and not collapsing and not throwing it all away and not being so freaked out about it. You know, that's a, not just being, you know, with my cycle, but some, some really expensive and years of therapy. That's like, that's helped me do that. And so I think the most powerful thing

that women can do is just tell the truth about our lives. And that takes a long time for some of us to be able to do it. So yeah, there was always that inkling towards expression, always had that natural desire. But over the years, the truth and potency of what I've expressed has been fine-tuned more and more as I've been more okay internally with my own truth. Thank you so much for modeling and sharing offering ourselves forward from that unformed place I had that I had a very similar process with postpartum I was like I don't know who the I am yeah anymore for like years I was hosting this freaking podcast oh my god it's hard like everyone I've not got it together

but yeah isn't it just so like relieving when another woman says, oh, I haven't got it together. And I'm noticing that in you, this undefended quality of, but simultaneously, I know the truth that's coming through me. I love how you keep saying I'm apprenticing beyond the veils. I love that term. And I've got a lot to learn. Yeah. And it's what I'm attracted to, you know, Sophie, like I'm so, and I think it's because, you know, I have like my name, Usha Nandi, that comes from my teacher.

At one point he was my guru. Like I've been in very, in very like patriarchal lineages. I'm naturally called to that, to surrender my life to something greater. It's like, yeah, sign me up. Sounds good. You know? And I think that now I have like a very, I would say healthy skepticism around kind of these like internet gurus or people who are holding the flag, like follow me. I know the way I'm really repelled by that. Um, because I, maybe this is just the point in my life, but I'm an apprentice of my own womb. I always say I'm a

student of the womb and I'm just like right here, just studying, studying my womb, apprenticing my womb and sharing what I've learned. And it takes a lot, a lot to admit that we don't know. And yet, holy shit, like how refreshing is it to sit with someone who is so wise and clear and also vulnerable enough to say, I don't know, but also I do. I'm so connected. This is coming, but also I don't. And it's like, yeah, to hold those two truths, it expands in our system and creates so much more space for the humanness. And that's what I'm obsessed with. I'm obsessed with that humanness, getting into the dirt, the realness of what we are. Like, I don't need to bypass anymore I used to I'm not interested in being perfect it's like I want to be as much me as I can and overflow with me and I want to be around women who are the

same because them being them fully gives me more permission to be me you're making me think of a what's up like lot years long conversation i have with my friend christy and we always laugh because when the other one's crying or really angry we're like oh this is feeding me like is this like sadistic that like i'm loving that she's crying it's like the realness of the emotion is delicious it's nourishing yeah yeah that's so funny and it's like you know when one of your friends is going through like a spiritual awakening and they're in the shit of life and you're like this is gonna be so good for you and it's like i think that's so weird but like we know

that through apprenticing our bodies that after winter comes spring and menstruation clears it out so that we can have more space and clarity you know after the death there's the rebirth and yeah it's it's beautiful to have women who hold that cycle and that circle for us because it's really hard you know to remember that there is something often on the other side yes so true um speaking nourishment, there's something you've created, which we want to talk about PMS foods for PMS. Yeah, tell us about that. Yes. So, you know, I've noticed that a place where a lot of modern women struggle myself included is the premenstrual phase. And I believe, you know, on a spiritual level,

this is because when estrogen drops, all of a sudden we're not focused on everyone else. And there's a lot of shame in that for women, because when we're not focused on everyone else, we're selfish. We're, you know, who are we? We don't want to be selfish bitches, right? It's like, we want to be giving and devoted. And so not only is this a time where all of a sudden we're focused on ourselves and that's a learning because we don't know how to do that, but it's also a time when we have less resilience to stress. And so if we've been running and grinding and hustling after our periods are over in our inner spring and inner summer, we're going to start paying for it in our

inner fall. We're going to feel that depletion. We're going to feel the emotions that come with it. Maybe it's anger, frustration, feelings of sadness, depression. And I've been through this myself. After I gave birth to my daughter, I was very depleted. And all of a sudden, my premenstrual time started getting way, way harder. And so one of the things that I'm really interested in, in that I teach, you know, as a student and practitioner of Ayurveda, and as a holistic nutritionist is, how can we work with the medicine that the earth provides to create more nourished women and a more nourished body so that we can really extract the wisdom of our physiology and enjoy the cycles of life rather than hating our bodies. And as someone who has struggled with PMS, has struggled with painful periods, I know that when these symptoms are

coming up, it's really hard to celebrate having a womb. It's really hard to be like, oh, I'm so powerful. It's like, oh, my period's painful again. What the heck? Or I'm so angry and frustrated. So what I created is a deeply nourished digital guide. It's a downloadable PDF that you can just download. And it has a whole list of foods that are medicinal for the premenstrual phase. It has different information about the four phases of the cycle and why the premenstrual phase specifically is so important to nourish ourselves in as we prepare for our bleed. And it's something that you can have on hand when you go to the grocery store that you can print out, put on your fridge.

Having a list of foods for me, it's just like a nice, you know, I went bowling recently and it's like bumpers on a bowling lane. It's like, it's just keeping in that lane, making sure that when you go into the grocery store, you're not confused, you're not lost, you're not overwhelmed, that you're actually giving your body the nourishment that it needs to be well and balanced so that you can extract the wisdom from your cycle and align with it and live your life from that place yes that that sounds wonderful i can't wait to download it and put it on my fridge um thanks isha this has been really really really delicious do you have any final words i feel like the i feel like the golden thread we've been holding is

apprenticing to our wombs, the spiritual power of the cycle. Yeah, I think that the most powerful thing that we can do as women is admit to ourselves our own power. And that's terrifying to do. And so knowing that, that the womb is the holder of that power, the holder of your wisdom. And I teach that we don't need to awaken it. We don't need to activate it. You know, my business partner is like, when are we going to do a womb awakening or a womb activation? And I'm like, because our womb is awake, our womb is active. for everyone listening no matter how disconnected you feel from her from your womb you know the womb has been there the energy is there and it's just waiting for you to drop in whenever you're ready it's there and that current will take you you can let go of

the branch you are held by that it's right. And I'm right there floating along on that current with you. Just learning about it every day. Me too, baby. In the canoe, paddling. Exactly. Hey, rapids coming up. Holy crap. Oh, it's been absolutely wonderful to be with you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Sophie. It's been so fun. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening and being with us all the way through until the end today. If you think this episode would inspire or uplift a friend,

please forward it on to them. And if you're interested in joining us for the Menstrualityality leadership program there are a few more days left to join and we're having a live webinar next week on Tuesday January the 21st which you can register for at menstrualityleadership.com. Okay I'll be with you again next week and until then keep living life according to your own brilliant rhythm.