The Menstruality Podcast - 191. How to Retire Superwoman and Honour Your Needs in Perimenopause (Dr Joanna Martin)

Episode Date: March 27, 2025

In our forties, many of us hit a wall. It can be a time when our responsibilities are at an all time high, just when our bodies are telling us - sometimes very loudly - that it’s time to change the way we’ve been living and working so far. Our guest today, renowned visionary, coach and catalyst Dr Joanna Martin helps us understand how to navigate this phase of life which is often called perimenopause, and which Red School founders Alexandra and Sjanie call the Quickening, through the lens of the archetype of ‘superwoman’.As the founder of One of many, Jo’s organisation has supported over 70,000 grassroots women leaders to have a greater impact without burnout. She recently published her book, Superwoman - Escaping The Myth and in our conversation today we explore how the superwoman archetype shows up in our lives, as well as how to step out of superwoman mode, embrace community and get your needs met, even with all the responsibilities you hold. This conversation is for you if you’re in your forties and looking for ways to show up without burning out. We speak a lot about parenting, so it’s especially for you if this is your path. However, it’s also for you in any phase of your life, if you recognise that you have a tendency to try to push through and do too much, and you want to work cyclically to honour your needs.We explore:The origins of the superwoman myth, and why it drives some of us to embody anti-superwoman, which means we don’t activate our impact potential.Why we can only burn out if we’re not in our body and Jo’s practical approach to get your needs met - the 'Needs Creed'. Jo’s personal Quickening story of meeting her increased need for sleep and alone time, and navigating big emotions as she journeys into perimenopause. ---Join our free online course - Love Your Cycle: Discover the power of menstrual cycle awareness to revolutionise your life here: 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.schoolJoanna Martin: @drjoannamartin - https://www.instagram.com/drjoannamartinOne of Many: @oneofmanywomen https://www.instagram.com/oneofmanywomen

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 Mentorality Podcast or welcome if this is your first time listening, thank you so much for tuning in. So in our 40s many of us hit a wall, it can be a time when our responsibilities are at an all-time high, just when our bodies are telling us and sometimes very loudly that it's

time to change the way we've been living and working so far. My guest today, renowned visionary, coach and catalyst Dr Joanna Martin is helping us to understand how to navigate this phase of life which is often called perimenopause and which Red School founders Alexandra and Sharni call the quickening through the lens of the archetype of superwoman. So Jo is the founder of One of Many and the organisation has supported over 70,000 grassroots women leaders to have a greater impact without burnout. She recently published her book Superwoman Escaping the Myth and in our conversation today we explore how this superwoman archetype shows up in our lives and how to step out of this superwoman mode, embrace the power of community, get our needs met even with all the responsibilities that we might be holding.

So this conversation is for you if you're in your 40s and you're looking for ways to show up without burning out. I want to give a heads up that we also speak a lot about parenting so it's especially for you if this is your path. However it's also for you in any phase of your life if you recognise that you've got a tendency to push through and do too much and you want to work cyclically to honour your needs. So let's get started with the brilliant Joanna Martin. Well, welcome back. Jo, it's so great to be with you. I love any opportunity to be around you and your energy and especially to chat with you for a whole hour. So I'm so grateful. Thanks for being with us. Oh, you're so welcome. I'm really looking forward to it's always so juicy when we have conversations. Yeah. And we had a really good one last time was episode 61. We looked at the five different archetypes to guiding cyclical life.

So we'll talk about them today, but if anyone that wants to go deeper, that's the place to go. But let's start with our cycle check-in. Where are you at cyclically? How's it influencing you? How are you going with that? I am moments away from my period arriving. So I'm in my what I would call sorceress phase. So I'm just coming out of the queen and into sorceress. So I am tired. I need lots of sleep. And the get up and go is feeling difficult to access. But also there's like, I can feel the peace of that descending as well. Like I'm moving out of the frantic organizing period and into the, into the, no, no. I always, I always get that influence right before, like before the bleed starts. So that kind of, I can feel it. I can feel it on the horizon. So it'll be any day now,

but I'm perimenopause. So it's so unpredictable. I'm, you know, I don't know when it's coming. Anytime. Yeah. What does it look like for you to prepare for a bleed, especially when you're tired and like, do you work a calendar around it? Are you able to do that? What does it look like? Yeah, not as much these days as I used to be able to, to be honest. Now I've got a bigger team and we're, you know, organising dates around school holidays and all of that. I can be less flexible around my optimum, you know, optimum times of the month as I used to be when it was me and, you know, one or two others and had complete control. So what it tends to look like these days is as I feel myself entering what I call queen phase or

that sort of pre-menstrual week when the progesterone is starting to drop and I can feel the that energy arrive I also know that's my signal to start looking ahead for the week to 10 days ahead and go okay in about a week's, I'm going to be getting tired. So what can I pull forward into this phase that I've got appetite for like now? Cause if I'm enthusiastic about it, I can get it done in that period. If I'm not enthusiastic about it, I can't get it done with that energy. And then what, you know, what am I going to be needing to look at delegating and pushing,

pushing back and not trying to get done sort of in the week ahead. So, you know, in an ideal world, I kind of have that have that moment. And I would say, you know, six out of 10 bleeds, I've kind of have enough consciousness in that week to do the kind of task. So it's really at the task level, you know, what can I pull forward? What can I push back? So that I can give myself just that extra bit of sleep. But then it's also, you know, it's also just, I say to my kids, like, look, you know, it's, I've got my period. So it's mommy's tired time, there's no problem, but I'm gonna probably go to bed before you guys. And sometimes I say to Greg, can he organise the kids in the morning

so I don't have to get up and do the school run just for a morning and I can lie there with a heat pack on and just veg a little bit more. So just as, you know, you guys talk about that extra little 5% around that time makes a huge difference. I kind of love a menstrual lie-in. Yeah. And I guess that's, yeah, that is getting tricky now. If your cycles are changing up a bit in perimenopause,

how's that feeling? How's that going? It's a massive question. It's not yet like abject chaos. I had, you know, I one one cycle that ended up being three months and more commonly I'm sort of a three week three weeks is the more common kind of upset at the moment or upset you know change I, it's, I'm, I'm noticing, I'm noticing old shit coming up to be dealt with. Do you know, that's what I'm noticing. I'm noticing that real quickening

that Alexandra talks about in, in the book is wise power, isn't it? I'm noticing that, that kind of everything's got to fight for its right to keep existing in my life is what it feels like it's like and if you don't stack up you can fuck off yeah um so I've got a lot of that energy right now I hear that from our community all the time it's like living in an extended premenstrual it's what it feels like yeah it's what it feels like exactly it's like living in an extended premenstrual it's what it feels like yeah it's what it feels like exactly it's like you know it's queen all the way um you know there's boundaries i'm i used to be i think much more tolerant or one might call it people pleasing you know my ability to tolerate um just things like being spoken to rudely and you know i used to be like that's their stuff

these days like you will not speak to me like yeah just it's that um but also i've just i've just come out of a six-week period and i'm hearing this a lot in our community at this exact moment in our global history i've just had a massive somatic release that lasted you know it was a month a month long and I think that's partly partly you know my quickening partly this kind of you know perimenopause but I think it's also partly what's going on for womankind globally currently and processing of emotion on on behalf of the world but it feels like it's all just like right there my old personal stuff as well as what it is to be woman right now in the world with change happening at the pace that it is and in the direction that it

is like there's a lot there's a lot going on I don't think that's all down to my perimenopause you know no it feels like the world's in perimenopause sometimes it's just yeah there's a lot to be angry about there's a lot I mean I'm on day six of my cycle today and I was like I am just outraged this morning on my dog walk and I just I'm just so angry at everything that's happening and it's just like okay I guess I guess I just get to move through the day feeling like fiercely outraged at what's happening in the world and so many of us are and that's a thing to deal with that's a thing to deal with yeah I know and it's how do we how do we be with that and not give up hope do you know like i think that feels really important um

i've talked to a lot of people in our community at the moment who are like you outraged as i am have been today i'm not present to it but you know i absolutely um have been in that very visceral energy around it um but then that you know, there's also that kind of tendency towards, well, what can we do about it? What's the use anyway? I should, I may as well just focus on the tiny little bit here, you know, that I can control what's going on for my family. And that doesn't feel empowering either sometimes and no judgment i think sometimes we have to do that because it's too much to be with all of the time um i think we need that kind of relay where someone's in someone's in action and we can tag them and go

okay i'm just gonna come in for a little minute because i can't do all of that and all of my me at the same time but that kind of I feel like we've just got to think of ourselves in a kind of relay for relay for existence right now find our sisters and know that you know while you're in outrage and mobilization I can be back here in peace and just holding my shit together for a couple of weeks and then maybe we can tag and I'll I'll step in and mobilize again and you know I I think it's the only way I think yeah it's like the olympics of the death throes of the patriarchy we're like you take the baton you're next that's it that's it that's it I think that's where we are and you know in the book superwoman

escaping the myth one of the things you speak about is community is the way out of this superwoman mode and I feel like that's what you're speaking to here and it's actually when I just tune in deeper this is menstrual clarity that I'm with right now this isn't this isn't like pre-menstrual rage I am on day six I've rested a bit this bleed not enough but there is a fire in my fucking heart that's saying this will not this is not okay we'll gather we will rise we will you know that's what this this every month I get some menstrual clarity and it's very fierce this month often it's quite just lovely and gentle but this month it's like a steam train charging through my being but we need that

right now and we need what you're teaching about and have been teaching about for so long in all of your work and in the one of many community and like let's talk about this book um superwoman escaping the myth something I'm noticing in our community you know you're bringing it here with your quickening perimenopause experience is that superwoman can often have like a resurgence in the 40s or not resurgence sorry like a a real um rising up in the 40s we have this like so many um burdens of unpaid labor on our shoulders as women often there we sometimes in that sandwich generation of we're like looking after kids or we're aunties but we have older parents that we're looking after work career it might be picking up at this point like there's

every reason to think we have to be superwoman and be everything all the time and uh you know bread to put on the table and all of it um are you seeing that in your community too it's like especially around the 40s and the quickening there's like not only is the superwoman really strong but the the need to step out of superwoman is also really strong. Definitely, definitely. I think 100% because we're also seeing, you know, at a practical and financial level, often women are starting to feel mortality a little bit more too, like not in a really profound and deep way, but holy shit, how many more working years have I got before retirement, like that pressure too. So we've got that kind of additional burden of financial concern, plus the, you know, as you say, we're parenting,

we're doing all of these things. And our answer to it unconsciously is superwoman, because that's what we've seen modeled of oftentimes um you know uh by previous generations even even if our mother was uh wasn't a working mum she would have been in superwoman mode very likely because that's how that's how often times um uh we see it we see it play out um you know i was brought up by a full-time working mother and in full-blown superwoman mode and a superwoman grandmother who had you know she had three jobs when she was raising her kids you know so I have a lot of kind of familial programming as well as that cultural paradigm that that causes this to be the choice and yeah yeah, I think in the 40s, it's where we kind of really come face to face with it, because it's where we have the collision between the drive

to do it even more to try and solve the juggle with the physical inability to continue to do it because our bodies are changing. So we find ourselves in this place where we're, oh, I don't know that I can keep doing this. Something's got to give. And sometimes it's because our health is starting to give work, you know, diagnoses are starting to come to the, you know, to the fore, or it might just be the joint pains and that I can't get out of bed in the same way or a bit brain fog or whatever, but we're noticing our inability to do it. So yeah, it's, it's the forties is a big time for it. No doubt about it. No doubt about it. Yeah. You spoke a bit about the origins there of where this superwoman comes from, that we see it modeled to us in our families. Can you speak a bit more about the

origins? You unpack it quite beautifully in the book yeah for sure well there's kind of like four cuts i think that result in this in this uh unconscious choice um and i almost loathe to call it a choice because it is it's certainly not conscious um so the first is our cultural paradigm so we're all all born into a society a country that has a set of values which it deems to be this is who we are as a nation and what we value there's some interesting research by a guy called hofstetter the website hofstetter.insights if you want to go check it out but he's rated various countries around the world on various different spectra but one of them he calls the motivation towards achievement and success spectrum the mas spectrum interestingly it used

to be called the mas fem spectrum masculine feminine but i think he's um i haven't actually looked at the why but i was curious to see that he's changed the name recently i'm assuming because of the genderfication of the spectrum um either way uh the spectrum still i think is part of the core issue around superwoman. If you live in a country that is highly motivated towards achievement, success, individualism and competition, right, so that kind of drive, that tells us that that's what is of worth in society, is to be that way the other end of the spectrum which we see demonstrated very well in the Nordic countries you know Denmark Sweden and so forth is the quality of life humility community collaboration end of the spectrum so used to be called the feminine end of the spectrum but he now he now calls it more the quality of life end of the spectrum interestingly life for both men and women in those countries more at the quality of life end of the spectrum, unsurprisingly, is better for both genders.

It's not just for women. And that's where we see the highest rates of natural term breastfeeding, the highest rates of home births, of, you know, justice systems that actually reduce the recidivism rate. You know, like things that generally work, which I find fascinating to look at. So anyway, we live somewhere on that spectrum by our culture. Here in the UK, we're at about 66 out of a possible 100 towards the MAS end of the spectrum. So it's always a good idea to have a look and see where your country of origin is. So for those of us who are born into countries, I was from Australia, we're definitely at that end, that becomes the first part, what your culture says is the way to be.

Then of course, we're born into families that tell us the way to be, especially as girls or women. So I was born into a family, my dad certainly, uh, has some traits of narcissism. Um, so I was always wonderfully celebrated for my achievements and bragged about for my achievements. Don't get me wrong. My dad loves me. I'm, I'm certain of that, but I collapsed very early on, um, that love equaled achievement that I was, you know, I was worthy of love when achieving. And, you know, no judgment on my dad, he is who he is, because of his family of origin, etc. But that certainly was was the case for me. And then so and so achievement in my family was

certainly celebrated, not I was never punished for not celebrating, but for me the neglect or the invisibility when I wasn't achieving was punishment enough as a little sensitive soul. So achievement became a high driver for me. You know, that's what took me off to med school and drama school and, you know, all of the things. And then we have, and it's very interesting, actually, because one of our graduates, Amanda Lakhani, talks about kind of the intersection between, she's a British Indian.

So her family of origin very much have the Indian culture there and all of what it is to be a wife and a mother in that culture but also you know her father always was said we must be very grateful to be here in the UK and all of the opportunities so we've got to work hard to get a good job to um to so she had this massively conflicted thing of on the one hand, I've got to get excellent grades to get an excellent job in order to earn great money, but also be the excellent Indian wife and mother cooking the massive five course meal at dinner time, a recipe for burnout, right? And I think it's important to say also um I shall come back around to that so then then we have the family kind of take on it then we've got all of the

little things that happen to us as we grow up like the personal experiences once I've you know I delegated to my assistant stage manager a task she screwed it up it was really embarrassing that shame taught me that if you want something done right do it yourself you know that lesson so we have these kind of three cuts and then we go into the workplace and the workplace is that shame taught me that if you want something done right, do it yourself, you know, that lesson. So we have these kind of three cuts. And then we go into the workplace. And the workplace is very much driven, most workplaces are very driven towards individualism, competition, achievement, success, with very little in the way of, don't get me wrong, collaboration is a buzzword. But it's, it's usually a group of individuals striving for success collaborating to get some outcome you know it's not a culture of most

workplaces are not cultures of collaboration and quality of quality of life so if we look at these four pieces then the only real choice that a girl will often have to be of value in the world is to go into superwoman mode right to go into this achievement focus drive competitive um you know way of consistently performing over time now that is spoken from a place of privilege as a white woman because for women of color, there is an extra layer to superwoman, which is in order to face racism and white supremacy on the daily basis, superwoman is a survival mechanism. Do you know, it's not just a case of achievement and perfectionism and being, you know, being the best and striving. It's also a case of, you know being the best and striving it's also um a case of of you know uh of of lack of safety

in a culture of white supremacy so um so she's you know she's she gets her claws in this archetype gets her claws in girls early now sometimes we choose her complete opposite sometimes women will go well if that's what success and achievement looks like, I choose not that. And we go into what I would call anti-superwoman mode where we never quite fulfill our impact potential. These women, we still care. We're still deeply compassionate. We still really want the world to be a better place but we don't activate our impact potential because we think the only path to impact is superwoman and if mum was like

that or my big sister was like that i choose not that so still in the choice for anti-superwoman it is a response to you know the pervading archetype of our times um and then sometimes it ends up in a conflict you know one foot on the accelerator one foot on the on the brake so that's kind of how we end up here yeah which brings us back to what we're saying at the beginning of this conversation when it's like oh do i fight with my fists clenched and fight to change this or do i just collapse and go do you know what i can't i can't handle anything that's going on yeah between these two states yeah um the word safety feels really important and thank you for naming that sometimes I can feel it in myself that I'm on the run inside my nervous system is pushing me to keep moving because something deep inside me because of all the

things that you named doesn't feel safe and feels like she has to keep moving and fighting and running and it's one of the reasons why I love menstrual cycle awareness so much that each month when I bleed and drop I get to have a little taste of nervous system soothing and restoration and rest that allows me to touch in to a sense of safety that is more or less available to us depending on whatever systems of oppression we're dealing with, yeah for sure. I wonder if we can talk about superwoman through the lens of the menstrual cycle a bit one of the questions I had was around the connection between menstruation and sorceress and you said this at the beginning you know you're entering into your sorceress mode and I guess that's what I'm speaking about when I

say landing in the safety it's like when I menstruate I can I can trust life I can trust something bigger than this crazy human theater show that we're that we're watching there's also full of beauty of course it's also full of beauty um but it's nice to drop drop a lot of the human consciousness for a while um yeah you said in the book we can only burn out if we're not in our bodies we can only be in superwoman if we divorce ourselves from our needs yeah maybe could you speak a bit about that coming home to the body situation helps us yeah definitely definitely definitely so so in order for us i mean the problem for humans is that we have consciousness

if we were just animals we couldn't burn ourselves You don't see a burned out fricking wolf. Do you know? You don't see burned out horses. It's only becomes possible because we have consciousness. And because we have consciousness, we can choose to ignore the feedback from our bodies. And it starts really early you know it starts because we live in a culture where that is is what so um we've we've uh we've unlearned how to be present to it um you know through the lens of through the lens of the power types for me the power type that helps us most to be connected to our body and our emotions is lover power type so that part of us that loves all emotions um you know lover power type even though you know with with the menstrual cycle piece that we spoke about in our last podcast is most active around ovulation the awareness of

lover energy is you know she can she can be great with the fact that she's in warrior s phase and where you know where you are now she can be great that she's you know that she's in her ovulation and lover energy phase she can also be great with with the queen she can be great with the sorceress phase of of stillness um because she is the part of us that helps us stay connected to the body as a whole so um and and all of the emotions are good for her good with her so i think that capacity to to bring that body awareness into our daily life and to take the beat every day to to check in with our system and say, how am I today? Where's my energy at? What have I got energy for? Because we can have energy, but for different types of things. As I said earlier, you know, in my queen phase, I have, I can have boundless energy for things I'm

enthusiastic about. But if, oh, if it's like I have to, oh, no, not possible to access so it's like what have I got energy for and I think that then by by tuning into cycle awareness can become that first step towards body awareness that is required to not trip ourselves into into Superwoman like for me the two kind of go hands in glove they're one and the same almost and it's a practice like I think we've got to be really tender with ourselves haven't we um and you named it at the beginning it's an unconscious choice we're making because of all the things that you named so just so relaxing to hear you speak about that because I like I forget all these things when I'm moving through the day thinking it's it's my that I'm doing something wrong you know it's this world that

we've built well I think that's it you know it's like the the world calls it forth in us and all of our choices are unconscious until we make them consciously do you know like always as we grow up whatever whatever happens to us before the age of seven, that is the truth. That's what we believe to be truth. It's not until we develop our critical faculty and we can assess these things. So we have to be, as you say, gentle with ourselves. It is not our fault that this is where we've ended up, but it is our responsibility and the possibility sits with us to choose to step into a different way of operating. I think that's, you know, that's the place. It's not, that's why kind of the word choice is a difficult one.

It's not like we didn't choose to be superwoman, but we can un-choose it. We can choose differently. I'm going to pause our chat for a moment to share an invitation. Whether you're experiencing the quickening in your 40s, like we've been exploring with Joe today, or you're in a different life phase and you just want to get to know your needs and how they shift throughout the cycle month, Alexander and Sharni, the co-founders of Red School, would love to invite

you to join their Cycle Power course. It's their most comprehensive menstrual cycle awareness course ever and it's a powerful way to connect to your cyclical intelligence and it's designed to work for you whether you have regular cycles or irregular cycles and at any life stage including the quickening perimenopause. You can explore the course at redschool.net forward slash cycle power and here's some feedback from Sita about her experience of the course. She says, I discovered just how applying many little changes, self-care and awareness has already changed things in my life during these six weeks. Wow, magic. All of my inner seasons kind of got a makeover. This course is like a gentle guide and supportive friend with a backpack full of tips and tools that goes with you and joins you

on your cycle month and keeps you feeling connected. You can find out about the course at redschool.net forward slash cycle power right let's get back to the conversation with joe exploring how we consciously work to step out of this superwoman mode a great beginning place is this checking in this practice of how am I doing and what am I what do I need what do I need and then because even listening for what we need is a very meaningful act it's like we're so used to bypassing them bypassing the needs so tuning in feeling the body what do I need and one of the things I love love love and I think I first learned it from you at the one woman conference is the needs creed came up then didn't it yeah could you talk about this like the the needs creed is yeah yeah for sure as you rightly said women we have a very ambivalent

relationship to our needs they they usually land at the very bottom of the list where everybody else's needs are very high up list. But it's very interesting, you know, because certainly, you know, I see in my husband, his relationship to his needs is completely different. Like if he needs something, he takes steps immediately to get it taken care of. So you know, culture, cultural, perhaps hormonal, perhaps, you know, there's, there's influences in there. But yeah, we talk about the needs creed, because we need, there is only a handful of fundamental requirements that we have to be okay. And most of us do a rubbish job of looking after the only a small handful. You know, it's things like our physiological needs, getting enough water in the day, getting enough sleep in the day, moving our body enough, decent quality food.

Perhaps, you know, I have a need for alone time each day. If I'm not OK, if I don't get some unplugged alone time each day. I am not OK if that doesn't happen. Yeah, right. And it still surprises me, but I'm like, oh yeah, the reason why I'm pulling my hair out and I'm screaming at everybody is because I haven't been alone in silence for like 10 seconds yet today. That's it.

Yeah, it's tough. It's tough for those of us who have high needs for alone time and appearance. It's very difficult um especially in those early years you know once my my invitation to people who fall in that category is to get your kids on board with it early they can understand it from around three or four and if you say you know i'm i'm i'm the best mummy i can be when i have some time by myself just to just to be and and chill out and relax then i can be amazing you

know they get on board with it they get on board with it so party's on board with it sometimes he says if i'm like oh i'm just tired today i'm gonna have a little lie down he's like mommy you're on your period yes i've got it in there yes yes okay so physiological needs so physiological needs psychological needs alone time and but but relational needs as well so so you may also not be okay if you're not with nourishing nurturing people once a week or you know something along those lines and then and spiritual needs um so so we have these kind of categories of needs but what we always advocate advocate at one of many is to create the simplest possible needs create. So you know it's a need if when you don't have it, you're not okay. It's that simple. If you

don't drink enough water in the day, you're not okay by the end of the day. You have brain fog, you are not okay. Now for some people, therefore, regular body work or massage might be a need because without it, their body is in pain. For other people, that might land in the category of a desire in that it brings them joy if their needs are met. But, you know, without it, they can still get to okay without the massage. So it's individual and it's unique to each person. But we have to give some thought to what are those things that without them, I'm not okay. We're not talking about, you know, energy to spare and bouncing off the walls. We're talking just baseline okay.

And most women who certainly join our community, and I'd be surprised if it's much different for yours, most people when they get started are just tolerating less than okay most of the time because culturally and hormonally, it's what we do. You know, hormonally, we're wired biologically, especially of parents, to take care of the offspring's needs before our own, you know, to just kind of jump in there. We've got a boob in a baby's mouth before we've even noticed we need to take a pee, you know to we just kind of jump in there you know we've got a boob in a baby's mouth before we've even noticed we need to take a take a pee you know whereas again my husband I remember when the baby's waking up and it's his turn to go and go and see her he sits on the side

of the bed for she's wailing sits on the side of the bed for a moment has a full drink of water goes to the toilet and then goes into the baby do you know for me i've heard the baby cry it's my turn i'm in there breastfeeding before i've even registered that i'm busting for a wee let alone need a drink or any of those additional things so there's the biology and the cultural piece that you know women are taught that their needs are less than two. It's so true. I'm curious how this is looking for you in the quickening. Like, are you noticing your needs changing? Is your personal needs creed changing or your like push to get those needs met changing? Yeah, I think I haven't noticed the what's on the creed changing yet. I won't be surprised if it does. What's on it is more or less the same, but the amount is changing. So my requirement for a

loan time is going up dramatically. I'm, you know, I used to be able to get away with like, even if I could just have 15 minutes, a 15 minute walk would be enough to combobulate as I like to call it. I think, why do we not have that word? We have discombobulate, but we don't have combobulate. Whereas now, you know, I'm needing a good 30 minutes every day of a walk in nature to both get me reconnected to myself and then some I'm then also needing more time with my heart more time to like consciously feel how am I feeling and what am I thinking about things at the moment so if I was if I was being true to what I need in terms of alone time at the moment. It feels like it's more like two hours

a day. Do I get it? No. So, you know, I will then, you know, make adjustments where I can go and take sometimes like a half a day on a weekend and just be with myself as much as I can. And I'm just regularly failing at it, you know because in in a full life it's hard to do so that that amount that I need of alone time at the moment seems to be very heightened um and my tolerance is definitely reducing my tolerance for not meeting my needs I'm noticing you know I've I've always had a sleep need of nine hours a night which is just very inconvenient in the modern age I'm very similar it's so annoying it's like there's so much I know someone who's who's fine with five hours a night I'm like wow she can do so much I know right

they're just different creatures to us so if we're good at other things and so I I used to again I used to be able to tolerate longer periods of sleep debt. And now I can't. Like, if I don't kind of catch it up on a weekend, I can do seven or eight hours, you know, Monday to Monday or Sunday to Monday, if I know that Friday night and Saturday night, I can have the big sleep ins that catch me up. Kids love it. They get to do their TV time until nine or ten in

the morning um and i'm so okay with that because what i need to be okay is to reset my sleep debt at least weekly you know um and i really notice that at the moment i'm i'm i'm really noticing it so it's not that the needs have changed just quantities and tolerance for not meeting them is not as robust as it used to be yeah I love that resetting the sleep debt weekly that feels like a doable yeah that's all I can possibly achieve that's for sure and how is it going with communicating your needs to the people that can help you meet them in perimenopause, it's so I kind of feel like I was initiated into this perimenopause phase with a complete inability to do anything other than meet my needs for a period. Like it's felt it felt like I had my first hot flush in what was it December. Then I went to

Australia for a month where, you know, it was just traveling and socializing with family and stuff. So I wasn't even present to anything other than have fun and be with family. I arrived back in the UK and it was like, we are here. All of the emotions started pouring out to the point where, you know, there was a period where I was really, really struggling to get out of bed, like to not weep for hours in the day. I went through a chapter doing it. I was not mentally well, although I don't kind of name it. I don't feel like I'm naming it mental unwellness because I'm super clear what it is as well. It's just, it's a predictable result of being in therapy plus perimenopause, plus hitting, you know,

like a bit of a mother load of past trauma, plus global affairs, you know, like it was there. So I feel like because it, for me, started with a, Greg's on board because he cares, you know, he just went, what, what do you need? And, and, and we're taking care of that. And I'm, and, and therefore, thank goodness, I'm, I feel like we're now, now that I'm, you know, back good and centered, I wouldn't say, I wouldn't say it's ended. I know it's not ended. I know there's more to come, but I feel like I'm on solid ground again. And I feel like that's how this is going to roll. I feel like I'm going to go through periods where the ground is just vanished. And then there are times

when I'm on solid ground and reflective. I expect that's how this will unfold. So I've had those conversations with my husband and he kind of gets it um uh not not at a like deep and profound level of understanding how that could possibly be but i think he's one of those allies that will go okay that this is going to be a something let's let's let's roll with it that's not my guy yeah something's going on over there i'm well i'll take the kids for a bit you know thank god right thank god um and my kids to be honest at the beginning of that chapter like that kind of month-long chapter I was doing my very best to hide from them how bad I was feeling about things because there was a big part of me that was

like god what what they what are they going to make this mean do Do you know? But after about, I don't know, a couple of weeks of it, where I couldn't, like, I couldn't get myself out of bed from when they got home at school, you know, like I was struggling. So I, so I, I just kind of called them in. And I just said to them through weeping, you know, tears, I just said, I need you to know I'm okay. I know I don't look okay. But, you know, there are times when we have really big feelings, and they just need to come out. So even though I look like not okay, I'm, I am okay, this is natural, and it's normal. You know, it's because I didn't know how to look after my emotions earlier in my life. And so some of the stuff that's coming out of feelings from when I was,

you know, a seven year old. So, you know, it's it's it's it's all right. It's all just coming out. And so bless them. They both got it. And, you know, Rosie was incredibly loving and caring and and very aware. And James was a bit like Greg, like tolerant and caring and uh and very aware and James was a bit like Greg like tolerant and and and and good and thoughtful and came in for hugs every now and then after about three weeks

he said um mommy when do you think you might be able to cook dinner again because I can't do salmon like that again. He burst into tears, bless him. And I just thought, oh, break his little heart. Like James can tolerate incredible amounts, incredible amounts until his, because he has gluten intolerance. So he's, and he's a foodie, like he's a foodie like he's a foodie waiting to happen so you know average media stretches of mediocre food just not not right james i'm with you fellow like i'm i feel and and my team are just freaking extraordinary you know my team are

extraordinary so i'm i'm i feel surrounded by people who are much better at responding to my request for having my needs met than I am at being able to identify them early enough you know as soon as I can name them that they're they're they're you know they're on board they're on board with it and you know I've got my frameworks for how to ask for what you need in the right way you know all of that kind of stuff without lapsing into victim etc so you know I'm working off the background of 10 solid years of good communication about it generally speaking yeah so yeah I'm I'm we're not too bad that said you know god women coming into out my community it's it's a journey to get there

you know it was it's been a journey for me to be able to get there um a huge journey uh for first knowing that i deserve to have my needs met to being able to name them to myself and then three being able to communicate them yes um but yeah thankfully by the time we're hitting perimenopause and the requirements are going up, there's a good, we're on pretty decent standing as a family, I think, to be able to handle it. Yeah. It's so motivating to hear you speak, motivating in terms of let's get the young ones, the girls and the tweens and teens just clued into their cycle as early as possible so they can be checking in with their own needs all the time and like let's just keep educating and educating

and thanks joe i'm so grateful like you shared really generously there and i can it's like i can feel our listeners especially those in their 40s and in the quickening going oh thank you for normalizing this like this is how i've been feeling too shani's been in a very similar process for the last two months um she's 48 49. um yeah i had shivers listening to you you know is is i'm really grateful that you shared that piece oh you're very welcome do you know like i have to say when i was in the middle of it i was just it was all about saying to the community joe's not very feeling well today so she won't be meeting like you know like when you was in the middle of it, I was just, it was all about saying to the community, Joe's not very feeling well today. So she won't be meeting, like, you know, like when you're in it, you're kind of like, oh, what do I do? You know, I'm supposed to be able to hold it together. This is what I teach. But, you know, by about week three, I was like, no, no, no, that's not serving

anyone. That's not serving anyone. I've got to speak to this and be open and honest about it. Because, and as soon as I did, as soon as I started sharing this with my community, you know, I remember I had about 25 people in my mastery call the other day. And I said, how many of you at the moment, you know, perimenopause aside, not through that lens, how many of you at the moment are feeling very difficult to manage and control your, your feelings like that you are being overwhelmed by big feelings that aren't always easy to pin down to a something. And 30% of the women on the call just went, yep, like right now that feels alive and true for me. And I'm certain there's, well, apparently there

is astrologically, we're at the same astrological makeup of venus that we were at the me too movement eight years ago oh wow so that was pretty i mean i'm not a big astrologer i kind of you know i only started looking because i was noticing a lot of us feeling this stuff and then what's going on on the global scale like what is going on at the moment um And then also, you know, just being met with, you know, such troubling demonstrations of patriarchy, that of course, we're going to be having big feelings. And so I thought, well, yeah, I want to just say, be able to say it out loud and say, it's okay. You know, it doesn't mean you're falling apart, which is not to say if you have like five days as a trot

and you can't do your work and you can't parent, you can't do all of those things, I'm still a massive advocate for go to your GP and, you know, have the conversations. If you're not feeling resourced to be able to handle it, you get the fucking help. you get the help that you need because whether that be you know antidepressants or HRT or whatever you whatever you need to be able to to to manage with the life that you're in you know I think that's really important because um you know there was a time I said to Greg please call please call the

GP now as it was I couldn't get in for two weeks so by that stage I'd you know done my processing on actually actually I think this is not me falling up yes it is me falling apart but it's not a problem that I'm falling apart yeah like the context you named the context that you have the world the quickening like it makes sense and I love the way you modeled um how you spoke to your kids about this uh it I've I've tried it with Artie when I've been crying and he he looks at me in a certain way like with concern in his eyes and I've been able to say look I'm I'm crying something I just need to feel these big feelings because geez I'm around his big feelings all day and and it's yeah thank you for modeling that.

I think they get it profoundly because they too get overwhelmed by big feelings. And especially for little ones, they haven't yet learned that they're seeing us not do it. So I don't know whether, they're probably not even joining the dots that they too can develop the executive function

to be able to shelve things if they want to. But they get it but they get it because they get overwhelmed by it so if you say you know sometimes we get overwhelmed by big feelings and i'm just having a run at them at the moment so you know the best thing to do is let it out in a safe place and this is a safe place and you are safe people so you know thanks for putting up with badly cooked salmon dude oh bless him do you know what I've done recently I've started getting meal kits oh yeah it's gonna sound like I'm like a what do you call it like a sales agent but it's called plant heard and like the food is so good I'm like thank you for helping make my life a

little just a little bit easier so great yeah yeah yeah yeah can we speak about community and superwoman because I feel like those of us who are feeling massive emotions in the face of what's happening in the world, I can feel it in me. I'm like, OK, well, maybe maybe I'll just take an extra hour each night to reach out to that person and this person and see what we can create to kind of hold women right now or hold people right now. I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, pony. What are you doing? Like, you don't have an extra hour at all to do that. But I feel a burning in me to take action. What would you say to those of us who, you know, sparked by these global events are wanting to take action, but don't want to do it in a superwoman way? Well, I'm really moved by what's

happening in my community right now so so one of our fierce warrior s's jen lamarinelle um put a post up and she said you know i don't know what we're going to do but we should be talking about what we're doing um and they i think just two nights ago had a first call she had 96 women in our community register for the call. I'm not sure how many showed up live. A lot were prepared, you know, we're going to be listening to the recording as well. And they came together. On the call, they wrote letters to MPs.

So they did some action together. They talked about, you know, other ways they wanted to mobilize. And by coming together in community like that, it wasn't Jen going, right, I am going to, she took the initiative to be the one that started that call, but knowing Jen and knowing our community, she won't be the one having to keep beating the drum

to keep people motivated. There will be an up rush of, I'm gonna take this piece on and let's take this piece on and what if we what if we mobilize this way etc so I think community is the only safe way to kind of mobilize a safe uh both at a um physical uh um you know it's it's a threatening time to be a woman right um but also at a at a sustainable energy way you know as we were speaking to the relay piece you know when you're when your warrior s is strong you can you can go be more in motion while i'm needing to be a bit more

sorceress and connect and do my inner work or you know i've got more mothering energy that's needed here for whatever and we tag around and and off we go you know so I feel like I feel like it's in community that we can actually a have the biggest impact but b also sustain it um so yeah I think getting plugged that you've got a beautiful community there um you know getting plugged into one another in some way but watch the need I heard you say right I'll do an hour a night to reach out and see yeah it doesn't have to be that like you could just say hey who's feeling the stuff let's come together and have a big group conversation and let's see what bubbles up and what are we doing

and what are you seeing on social media uh um movements that people are initiated because this is the thing we only see what we see but when we come together you know the community they've got they're seeing so many different places that things are mobilizing and that we can lend our weight to rather than rather than having to initiate necessarily we can also respond and put our time slash financial you know um support behind something that's already in motion and i think also you know the critically important bit is to remain conscious and to know when you can and when you can't do you know one of the it was you know and it remains tough you know there's there's a part of me that's watched what Jen's done and gone, oh, I should have been the one.

I should have been the one to do that. You know, yep, that should have been me. Because during COVID, I did have energy and I did create listening rooms and we did, you know, I did spearhead it. And fuck, I just look at what I'm just living out of and, and what I'm living into right now. You know, we're at a massive life change moment as a family too. You know, we're packing up the house and taking the kids

out of school and hitting the road for three months, you know, right now. Yeah. You could see that side of my office. There's not a lot of office left at the moment we're turning this room into a bedroom for airbnb so yeah it's uh it's big change so it's like okay here's what i here's what i can do here's what i can do i can i can get on those posts from jen and say yes awesome go for it you know with my blessing and i can be there if people reach out and ask for something I can maybe the next call that happens I can attend I couldn't this one you know like I can do what I can do and and I can give myself some grace that that that I was I was the one that created the space for that little bit of magic to happen in so you know yeah yeah I think we've got to be gentle we've got to be gentle you know and that doesn't

mean apathetic I'm not fucking apathetic but there's the world's not going to be served if I take that on right now as well as what I'm needing to be for my little community here going through big emotions as everything is changing so you know it's totally that was two good like superwoman moments we caught then well you caught mine for me they're like oh it has to be really hard it has to be an hour a night and I have to like she loves to do that the superwoman in me is like to make a whole schedule of like all this work to-do lists whoa and then yeah that part of us that goes, oh, I've got it wrong. I should have done that. Like the guilt that can so easily come like great catch. Well, good luck on your adventures.

Thank you. Thank you. That was really exciting. And if our listeners want to connect with you and your community, what's the best way to do that? Well, the website of One of Many is oneofmany.co.uk. So come and join us. Be one of many women who want the world.co.uk so come and join us be one of many women who want the world to be a better place we'd love to have you we've also got our one woman conference you spoke about that earlier is coming up uh in may um and we would love you know to meet

your community there so please do grab yourself a ticket it's uh it's a very affordable and uh would love to see you there um and I'm pretty active on the socials. The one that I'm personally most, you know, I'm present on most of them as Dr. Joanna Martin. But the one that I'm personally most active on is LinkedIn. So, yeah, come follow, get plugged in, join the conversations. And, you know, I think between your community and our community we've got two beautiful little very overlapping spaces that are making a positive impact in the world and it's a blessing to be walking the path at the same time yeah yeah I feel the same thank you so much for all you're

doing Jo and take care and hopefully I'll talk to you in a in soon hope so bye oh thanks for being with us all the way through to the end I hope this conversation was inspiring for you I loved how much we laughed even though we were talking about really tough stuff and I just hope that you feel inspired like I did to find ways to show up without burning out in these challenging times that we find ourselves in as a global community and if you know someone who would benefit from this conversation please do forward this episode to them. Okay that's it for this week I'll be with you again next week and until then keep living life according to your own brilliant rhythm.