The Menstruality Podcast - 2. How Menopause Initiates us into Leadership (Alexandra & Sjanie)

Episode Date: October 7, 2021

This episode re-writes the collective story of menopause from a looming disaster to an initiatory pathway into your unique way of leading; in your family, community, and work in the world. If you’re entering menopause, or find yourself in the midst of this initiation, this conversation with Red School’s co-founders, Alexandra and Sjanie will dignify you, affirm your experience and give you insight into the deep process at work in you. (It’s also a resource for any person who menstruates who wants to prepare for the transformational power of menopause.) We explore:The ‘Ground Rules for Initiation’ that allow you to craft your own form of menopause sabbatical - even amidst the responsibilities you hold, using the 1% change rule. The menopause leadership superpower of discernment, and how to practice your ‘NO’ (without justifying it).How menopause makes you into an organ of intelligence, anchoring you in deep time, transforming your loyalties and plugging you into a bigger consciousness.---Registration is now open for our 2021 live round of Menopause: The Great Awakener. You can explore the five phases of menopause here: www.redschoolmenopause.com.---The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email [e-mail]---Social media:Red School: @red.school

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. Welcome back. Thank you so much for joining me today. This is episode two and I'm with Red Schools founders Alexandra Pope and Sharni Hugo-Wurlitzer and we're talking

about how to rewrite the collective story of menopause. We look at the menopause leadership superpower of discernment, the art of no and how you can practice it without justifying it. menopause makes you into an organ of intelligence, those are Alexandra's words, how it anchors you in a sense of deep time and plugs you into a bigger consciousness. I'm really excited to share this conversation with you. Let's start with our cycle check-in as we always do. Alexandra, I'd love to start with you. What does a cycle check-in look like after menopause? I sort of feel like I multi-cycle, Sophie. I'm operating on sort of all sorts of different time scales now and it feels quite free form but and by that I mean I feel deep time at work in my life overall life process and I'm talking here about my creative process you know serving my calling and I'm feeling held in the cycle of that very strongly

and um and and then in particular any particular creative projects that were involved in and the cycle of that and that really organizes me so you know we're just finishing off the menopause book. So I feel very much in the autumn, late stages of that creative process. And in the overall shape of my calling, I feel probably late summer, I'd say, in that really on a roll and really relishing it and feeling a kind of maturity with it and on a day-to-day so I'm managing those sorts of levels in me and then on a day-to-day basis I do pay attention to the moon cycle more in terms of the phase rather than the specific day although I do like to clock where full moon is because that really affects me it affects my sleep and I get also quite overcharged and I could use too much energy if I'm not careful at that time but also for me interestingly the dark moon and the new moon I get this incredibly sort of ecstatic, sort of high kind of almost union moment just before the dark moon. And then the new moon comes and then on about day two or three, I get quite high.

And then day two or three, I could crash if I wasn't careful. So I must pay attention to the moon cycle. And I think I'm on about I think it's about day 12 or no, day 11 today, actually, of the moon cycle and I think I'm on about I think it's about day 12 or no day 11 today actually of the moon cycle so I'm very conscious I can feel it I can feel the energy in me rising there's a there's chi in the system and Shani where are you at in your cycle today and how is that informing you as you enter into this conversation about menopause? So yes I'm day seven and I was just feeling into it as you asked me the question I feel quite fragile today and a little bit, I want to say, discoagulated.

I'm not sure if that's a word, but yeah, discoagulated. And somehow in all that, my heart is very present. I'm feeling sweetness with my own heart. My heart is very much here in the fragility and dyscoagulation um yeah and how and you asked that other question how is what the place I'm in today informing me as I enter this conversation well I just noticed that um because my state is somewhat fragile, it's bringing me into a real presence with myself. I'm needing to really be here in order to be here. And that feels like a very good place to be having a conversation about menopause from.

Also because, you know, for me it's a somewhat academic, well, or shall I say creative conversation. I obviously haven't been through menopause yet, but I have spent the last year in a very deep creative process with Alexandra writing our new menopause book so I'm feeling full of menopause creatively and very connected to this theme and yet I am obviously in the cycling place, very much sort of living and breathing my cycle every day. So, yeah. I'm on day 22 and I'm noticing know I that that rage that rage that simmers throughout the month and then just starts to like come up in my later on in my inner autumn I can feel it and I know that

that's a theme from talking to the menopausal women in my life that rage is a real theme so I'm I'm tapping into that collective rage so many of us feel yes you are wow so Sharni as you mentioned you two are deep in this creative writing cave with your menopause book and I would say the theme of the book is that menopause as an initiatory gateway into power and authority yes yes Sophie it's a real awakening or revelation of that actually yes and so you're you're writing it it's coming out in June next year and um you know in a world which often sees menopause as a disaster that's about to happen or or just actually looks away from menopause and makes it invisible. This theme of your writing feels so radical and so necessary. And I would love to hear how this new story of menopause came about. How did it develop in you?

Ah, Sophie, yes. You know, I've been dreaming into that. And it was a process. It, of course, began with my own journey through menopause. And my own journey through menopause was very organic. It was not a drama. It happened sort of organically. It unfolded kind of in right order. I had a feeling of being readied for menopause and of menopause being necessary, like I had outgrown my cycle. And of course, everything I write in the book, because the book focuses on the psychospiritual elements of menopause, you know, I ticked all the boxes and all the processes that people go through, but I felt equipped to meet them. And it felt dignifying, for want of a better word. And it was challenging. Yes, I had to face my shadow.

I had to experience that betrayal, that feeling of being betrayed by life, of, you know, being abandoned in a sense. And how revelatory that was. But I think the key theme was the sense of having been buffered through through my menstruating years. So, of course, you know, I had been doing all this cycle work for years before I got to menopause. And perhaps most importantly within that was that I was because I'd suffered very badly with menstrual problems and overall health problems, I had really developed a strong health care practice and healed so much. So I was in a very good place in terms of my health, which is why I think it wasn't this extreme event that so many seem to experience. And so I came through menopause. And it's almost as though,

as I got out the other side, I could see the shape of it more clearly, because when you're in it, you're in it. And I mean, you honestly don't see the wood for the trees when you're in it. But if you've been rooted in the cycle, as I was, I had a feeling of okayness. There was some kind of order at work. And there is an order at work at menopause. That's what I really want to communicate. And that's what we're writing about in the book. So I could feel myself in a way buffered or guided subtly.

It wasn't at a sort of conscious conscious level but a subtle level guided by this so there I am on the other side of menopause and um of course by this time you know I did what all good menopause women do change everything change countries change jobs you know man you just change everything in your life I did all that and there I was left Australia stopped being a psychotherapist and here I was back in the UK and you know pursuing this wholly new work that no one knew they needed menstruality and so I began doing this work and and this is where the story gets interesting i uh was going to italy running workshops on on the menstrual cycle and we have an italian woman to thank uh for for i always say she hassled me she would just write the email say please would

you do a workshop on menopause for us and the reason I wasn't doing it was how do I communicate this I didn't know how to do it Sophie I just felt so huge because menopause is so huge and what it does to your psyche to your soul to your spirit you know and how can you articulate that in sort of ordinary mundane terms um when you have to go and face death or really in a sense that's what you're facing um and um i didn't know how to do it except this beloved woman i think her name was antonella um kept asking and so i just said yes and i always remember that first workshop we did until in fact we had to run two because it packed it was just completely packed out and then we packed out a second week just women were

just we had them hanging from the rafters and it was that first group that sort of broke the ice because I remember a few days before I had a plan but there was something missing and then something landed in me and it was the clarity about the five chambers of menstruation becoming the five phases of menopause because menstruation is initiatory you do go through a death and rebirth but it's only over you know three or four days whereas menopause you're doing that over three or four years and suddenly I saw and it's so obvious now it's always obvious in hindsight but it just landed and it was just three days before that workshop I got it and I sort of rejigged the workshop and I sort of crafted this exercise around these five phases and that was the beginning Sophie and what happened was you see I

would teach in these work because I've done multiple menopause workshops. And it's everything that we teach and everything we write of in the book, the whole kind of thinking we have about menopause has been crafted out of the experience of teaching these workshops and women's responses, their stories, their insights insights their experience of the exercises um have um really unfolded these stages and and illuminated them and then about a year ago um we went through a bit of a revolution didn't we shani in terms of naming the we changed the names of the phases and we just got a whole i i had to bring in a whole new level of understanding about that first stage of menopause and what we call betrayal the the really the hot spot of the initiation and that was only um it was actually the beginning of 2020, Alexandra. Yes. Yeah, I know.

Can you believe it? It's nearly, yeah, nearly two years ago. But we've been in a pandemic, which is a bit of a time warp. So, you know, but it's so interesting because, you know, what you're describing here is that this is a living body of knowledge. And, you know, that's our experience, Sophie, is it keeps evolving. And this name change was so significant in really honoring the, even more so, honoring the depth, power, and the sacredness of this initiation. That was my sense alexander it was suddenly um the the the true depth was named through that renaming of that first phase of it was shani that's you you sum it up really well

it was that it was the capacity in me actually to dare to name it because it felt dangerous it actually felt quite shocking to say it like that yeah can I don't actually know this can you tell me what it was and what it is now I can bet you you yeah I can remember I could absolutely remember so the first phase used to be called separation and you know in the menstrual cycle in menstruation we talk about the first chamber of menopause as separation and we also lovingly call it the void and the new name that we've given it in menopause is betrayal I so want to go into that with you, but I'm not going to because our theme today is leadership. But I do want to flag that for anyone who's listening, who wants to explore these five phases, we will definitely have a conversation about it down the line on this

podcast. But also it's the backbone of our Menopause, the Great Awakener course, which is, we do a live round of every year, which is incredible. And I always feel so honored and lucky to be witness to the courageous women that take that journey. And that really goes deeply into the five phases of menopause. Shani, so you've co-authored this book with Alexander about menopause and you're still cycling, as you mentioned in your check-in. So I'm intrigued to hear about how this new story of menopause lives in you and what does, yeah, what does menopause look like from where you're standing yes well I've had this incredible privilege I feel quite moved saying this but I've had this incredible privilege of really being up

close to the experiences of women who go through menopause you know having heard so many stories and having taught alongside Alexandra um and also being part of just such rich deeper conversations that Alexandra and I have had about menopause so I feel like I've um oh it's almost like I've gotten to see you know gone to see the um uh the preview of a a show or something you know the dress rehearsal I've sort of had a peek behind the curtains I feel incredibly privileged in that regard and I have a real sense of um both the enormity of it and the incredible sacredness of it. And so, you know, here in my 40s, I'm 45 and I'm still menstruating. I feel very much like I'm preparing for menopause and I feel very awake to the fact that it's on the horizon, you know, so on the distant horizon, but it's on the horizon. And, you know, it's a bit like

remembering that you're going to die, how it wakes you up and how it sharpens your day. I have that kind of quality of like, oh, yes, okay. This time I have is precious. And there is preparation that needs to happen. All good initiation requires preparation, the kind of preparation that you'll never really be prepared for, you know, that kind, you know, you've given birth, Sophie, you know what I'm talking about you prepare to the rafters you're never really prepared so I feel like I'm very much in that preparation ground and my experience of my cycle now in my 40s is um how would I describe it it's uncompromising is how I would describe it. My relationship with my cycle is uncompromising now in my 40s. There's very little leeway for me to not be true, to not show up for myself, to not care for myself in the way that I need, to not look after my health, to not

be doing what matters to me. I feel this kind of, I guess, an urgency and a heightened commitment to really being here and sort of getting myself ready. Yes, getting myself ready. So yes, that's what it's like for me. And to anybody listening to this who's in their 40s, you probably know what I mean. You can't cut corners with your health anymore. And I just uh, whenever I do, whenever I think I can get away with X, Y, or Z, um, I discovered that I really damn well can't. And, you know, my cycle goes for a loop. My cycle plays havoc because our cycle is our stress sensitive system. It's, it's, it's the first thing that gets, uh, hit. And, you know, I notice that. I notice my cycle going wonky and I notice all my kind of, you know, the weaknesses in my constitution showing up.

And that's very sobering. Yeah. It sort of makes you a little bit more mature each and every day. Yeah. Yes, Shadi. each and every day yes shirley in your first book wild power you speak about how the our cycling years our menstruating years are gradually supporting us to unfold our calling which is our unique way of serving in the world. You call it our calling. And our cycle supports us to embody this. And knowing and embodying our calling is so key

to taking our role as leaders in the world, in our communities, in our families, in our relationships. I would love to hear you speak about what happens to the calling at menopause yes sophie well it's a workout it's a clarifying it's an awakening too so it depends on the place you're in when you arrive at menopause you know some people have a strong sense of what they're serving in the world from quite early on and they're even able to articulate it they're already on a sort of a clear path um others um you know from fairly early on and then for i think for many your 40s are very much a waking up around you know when you turn 40 there's a sense of what's it all about you know what am i really about and i think sometimes our callings can start to come

through more clearly then too. So you may have been playing with something or aware of something through your 40s. And equally, there are some that turn up at menopause who don't really connect with that word calling at all. They don't know what it's about. So when I use the word calling, I'll just say something briefly here. It's, you know, you are called to something. It is about serving something in the world. But I just want to say, it's also just about doing something that you love, that you feel your whole being is going yes to, that there's something so heartfelt about it and that you can't not do it and that it lights you up and it may be very challenging and often our callings are huge are way too big for us so and when we think oh no no no I can't do it so what happens is when you get to menopause, you go through this enormous process of proving, you know, like that, you know, when you prove something of really refining and coming more deeply into what it is you're about.

And I'm going to describe how this happens, how your calling can speak so profoundly at menopause. So it's like this deep river that may have been showing, as I've said before, that's been underground, underground, underground, and it's been perhaps coming to the surface more and more. And then at menopause, it's like this sort of geyser that opens and comes through very, very strongly. But there are certain conditions that have to happen for that to come through in you. And the first thing is that you sort of have to lose yourself.

And that's, you know, so many women speak of, you know, their brains going and they just can't think anymore and they don't know who they are and they don't know what they want. And I want to say this is normal. This is the death part of the initiation. So it's like you lose your way and everything that you thought was meaningful just feels shit now, to put it bluntly, often. And it's like, you know, what is is it and you don't know what it is and there's a long period of just knowing what you don't want and getting getting rid of stuff you'll do this huge clearing in the early stages of menopause you'll just want to empty and release and you'll be letting go of people too in your lives all sorts of things you just want to just say no to because you just don't have the heart for it and what's

happening there in terms of the calling is you're actually clearing a space for it to come through more there's still one more thing that has to happen but you're clearing a kind of spaciousness and you're clearing what's not you and what's interesting is you know there'll be many things that you're really good at and um but you you just can't do them anymore it's so interesting you can only do that which you feel utterly aligned with and and it's an emergent process and you really have to trust the no and it's hard to trust the no sometimes because it can feel like quite a bleak landscape at this point and I you know we write in depth about this in the book and how to hold and support yourself because it's really such a

it is almost the most powerful potent time in menopause so much deep kind of structural soul renegotiation is going on below your consciousness that you just are not privy to but you've got to damn well trust and so you're clearing this space and it goes on and it goes on as it goes on and there's a whole lot of emotion that goes on and reaction and that rage you spoke about sophie and then with time something starts to happen and we call this a sort of revelation phase where sort of lights start to go on it'll appear and and it's like oh wow maybe there is possibility maybe there is new life but what starts to awaken is you start to awaken to yourself in a way you haven't done before, perhaps ever. And you suddenly understand and get yourself. Now, this is really crucial for the calling.

You suddenly understand your own nature and what's really important about this is not just understanding it but deeply receiving it recognizing it and and going wow that is who I am so what you're doing is you're coming into coherence with that self in a way you haven't done before it is the most profound moment of self-acceptance and and only you can do it this is something you face alone no one else can say you're great yes yes that's you you have to do that for yourself and in that moment it's almost like all the cosmic forces line up for you honestly honestly I mean it won't look like anything on the surface but deep down something happens and in that alignment you have this sort of clearer channel for something. And I describe, and this something is your calling. It's now so self-evident what you have to do.

So it sort of poured out of me through menopause. And of course, you know, coming into menopause, I knew what my business was. I got the call, if you like, at 48. I went through menopause probably at, say, 53. But at 48, I remember having this thought and I I suspect I because I've heard it from others that it may be and we describe it as a feature of the sort of preparation of menopause where you suddenly get instructions and my instructions were uh were simply um leaving i had to leave australia and

i had to stop being a psychotherapist i knew it was over i knew it was over in australia i'd been there 18 years it was something like 25 by the time i'd left and my work as a psychotherapist was to stop and you know and i finally did it was like 20 years of that work and um and it took me seven years I just knew it and I didn't argue with it and from that moment on I just started sowing the seeds I didn't know how the hell I would do it and but I just started planting seeds and that's a story in itself and seven years later I am walking through those arrival gates at Heathrow to be greeted by my mother and I was literally coming out the other end of menopause at that moment so you kind of get the call so it was like the calling or menopause

was basically sending a message down the line saying darling get your act together because there's going to be some big shit that goes down at menopause if you're not prepared for it so these are my instructions because we've got business for you so I listened I'm proud of myself and um and of course I knew really I'd been cultivating my calling because I had been doing my men the menstruality work before then I'd written a book and wrote another book on the pill through menopause and so um you know I was I was an artist with a day job as I like to say and through menopause I ditched the day job and went with the art which is the calling um and then you come out of menopause and you can only do that which you were designed for basically and that's your calling what you're serving in the world what's important to you

what you care about and it can be something very big and grand like what we're doing or it could be something much more intimate and subtle and um you know you know within your family or within your community and there's nothing all all of these types of roles are needed it's just so important to realize if you'd like to discover more about the initiatory power of menopause, we invite you to visit redschoolmenopause.com, where you can find out about Menopause, the Great Awakener, our upcoming online immersion exploring the five phases of the psychological and spiritual process of menopause and how they can deliver you to a place of great meaning, authority and belonging. Find out more at redschoolmenopause.com. I'm intrigued to hear in all of your listening to women's stories, if there's a story that comes to mind of a woman exploring or deepening her calling through

menopause. We do have good stories, don't we, Alexandra? They're peppered throughout the book. That's one of the great things about this book is we've just weaved it with women's stories. Alexandra, why don't you share one? Yes, there's a story of Sue's, which I absolutely love. So she is an acupuncturist. She's been an acupuncturist for years. And she was feeling, as she was coming up to menopause, she was feeling music knocking at the door. And she had been in her youth a musician and a performer and but she's she's basically when she got into

her 20s she just found the world because she was into jazz I think and she just found it too male dominated and couldn't cope with it and just stepped away from it so she became this acupunctist and was this for years and as she came up to menopause she was wanting to pick up her instruments again and to start to play and then she came to um one of our menopause workshops and um she did an exercise in which she saw this image of herself performing on a stage and it was like she'd taken drugs she was she suddenly it would hit her you know because this was sort of built on this sort of awakening around music and um she was just so high I'll never forget I can still see her image at the workshop she was just so high uh on what was sort of coming to her it was sort of expanding inside her and then I had a conversation with her recently because we bring her story into the book.

And she told me how she has, this is it. She's following her music, but she's set up a music foundation and she's living and breathing her music. I don't know if she's going back to being an acupuncturist because, of course, the pandemic shut. So she was going through menopause through the pandemic so that was shut down so she has really uh radically reoriented herself such a good story i love it so for the people listening who are having a rough time or suffering with health challenges and symptoms as they experience menopause and they want to they want to have access to what you're talking about this the deep work that you're talking about this leadership potential what's the best way to approach that challenge you're going to laugh rest and do nothing

i can almost feel people throwing books at you alexandra the outroar but but how but how i know and this is the problem yeah this is the problem with menopause because it's not recognized as a sort of right of sacred right of passage and you know like you you know you just had a baby um well almost a year ago now so you know and you took um you know, like you, you know, you just had a baby, well, almost a year ago now, sorry. And, you know, and you took, you know, you took maternity leave. You took time out to, for all the obvious reasons, but because it's a massive initiation, you know, underneath the web. And, you know, that's what menopause women need. And it's not because it's a problem or it's a health problem. It's because it's this extraordinary rite of passage where you go into the underworld of yourself and of life.

It's a spiritual event. And you're trying to negotiate this great these you know cosmic spiritual forces whilst having to put food on the table yeah yeah it deserves a sanctuary doesn't it i mean you deserve a sanctuary in that time you deserve to actually be given the space to move through it without being i want to to say, harassed by the world. I mean, we know what this is like at menstruation. We get a little taste of it each month where we really want to need to retreat and have that time out. And, you know, women going through menopause need that on steroids.

You know, they need that amplified they absolutely do shani and because the problem is the reason why well there are many reasons but the kind of heart of it for me i see women turning up at menopause and having all these awful problems is because they're exhausted their bodies are exhausted and um you know it's life is extraordinary stress it's stressful and stress impacts your health and it shows up in menopause symptoms just as shani was talking about it when she was talking about her cycle how when she's stressed it shows up in her menstrual cycles symptoms and there's there's no medicine for that but rest you've got to find ways to de-stress so i know oh this is so you know i can i can just feel women's rage with me now okay how can i

bloody stop and i'm going to be very fierce now I can feel it coming on this is non-negotiable and it's an outrage that you don't have this space or it's very hard to get but we're going to have to get smart and we do have instructions in the book which I know is not coming till June next year you're gonna have to hold your breath for a little while longer but we talk about or don't hold your breath as the case may be keep breathing keep breathing actually i'm going to come back with that breathing thing so remember that um but um we do have some tips and tricks in the book but one of our favorites is the one percent change so i'm going to give you this now you have to look at your life and go jesus it's impossible

and i'm bloody well going to find one percent i am going to find small tiny changes and one of the things you probably don't fully recognize yet is that one of the superpowers of menopause is the power of no. You will just feel it. You will feel yourself wanting to say no to just about damn well everything. And that no is on your side. It's actually helping you to create space. So when someone asks you to do something and you think, well, I could do it because I'm capable of doing it. But do you really know is the answer? No, you just say no. asks you to do something and you think, well, I could do it because I'm capable of doing it. But do you really? No, is the answer. No, you just say no. And by the way, you don't even have to justify the no. It's so bloody powerful. No, I'm not available. You say they don't have to know what's in your diary. You look at your diary and you can just say I'm busy. No, is the answer.

And but you've also got to give yourself permission so that's the first step you've got to give you you've got to feel you're worth it that you can have space and give yourself a permission to start to find those one percents and I tell you one percent begets two percent as we always like to say and so on and so it goes but I am going to give you one tip now for dealing and this saved my life too it's so wonderful alternate nostril breathing i learned this out of a book from um an ayurvedic practitioner dr claudia welch but your yoga teacher can share it with you. You will find someone on the web doing a, you know, YouTube, someone teaching it for sure. And she recommended it for hot flashes.

And actually it was the one thing, because I didn't have hot flashes at all until I was coming out of menopause. And that was when I was moving countries and I was exhausted and I didn't get really hot flashes as such. I just got not severe or more like sort of night sweats or whatever but it was alternate nostril breathing was just one of my core practices for soothing my system but it helps with stress it'll help with sleep and she said do it for 15 minutes a day and you know I still religiously do it because it helps with sleep it just and I and I do religiously do well most nights I will do 15 minutes if I

haven't got time I won't of course but there's something about that 15 minutes so that's my top health tip on top of rest and do nothing the reason I'm saying rest and do nothing is because you can't manufacture this calling it comes to you and you have to get out of the way and you have to let go and forget about it so that's why rest and do nothing and forget about it is very important. Shani there's an aspect that you brought into the book, which you both refer to as the ground rules for initiation. And I think this is really relevant. I'd love to speak about it here, because obviously, as Alexandra is saying, what women need as they come into menopause is to have a sabbatical they need to go and sit on a mountaintop for a week or a month or a year and obviously that's not possible in almost all of our lives like most of us have this huge array of responsibilities work home caring for children

family members community and this is particularly relevant for marginalized people, for example, foreign of color and other people with less privilege. There's just not a capacity to be able to step away from our lives in the way we want to. So I'd love to hear you speak about how we can engage with this initiatory process that's calling us into leadership when we're juggling so many other things and I know this these ground rules for initiation um came from your experience of of birth I think and mothering uh yeah it's come from a couple of places Sophie so yes the my sort of initiation into motherhood um was a training ground for how to navigate initiation in the

world. And also every month at menstruation, I have another little practice of this. And, you know, right now I'm busy making a huge life change so any big life change um is a kind of initiation so any big trance you know initiations are transitions so any transition is an initiation and i'm busy moving town moving house kids starting new school so i'm in in in it at the moment as well so yes so what we you know we in the book we write about these 10 ground rules for initiation and I might just share a couple with you and I think these are things to sort of think of almost as like your first aid kit you know when you're going through big change and I'm going to remind myself some of them now which is going to be very helpful for me as well you kind of want these written somewhere where you can just see them just

get them tattooed on our bodies yeah exactly exactly we need an email to us once a month when we bleed or you know when you're going through menopause you need the message to come through but yeah I'd say you know stripping back any non-essential stuff so anything that you can cut down on or cut away in your life do it so you're just kind of tending to the essential whatever that might be for you and it's you know this is something where you really have to look at your life and go actually I can get away with not doing x y or z now is the time to be getting away with things really this is not like peak performance time this is what can I get away with right now okay so that's the one thing Alexandra see this in action with me I'm like can I get

away with only working three hours a day so it turns out I can while running a business writing a book you know so on and so forth another another another little rule here is to actively carve out pockets of time just to be alone, to be quiet with yourself. So when life is normal, you can kind of get away with just rolling in from one thing to another a little bit more. But when you're going through a big change, these pockets of time, these little islands of sanctuary are critical. I'm going to use that word critical because that's how I experience it. I just need to take myself away and sit quietly and do nothing and be alone and let my nervous system decompress or recalibrate. So that's really uh an important one and that could look like i'm speaking personally here as well because i need to step out of my mothering experience

it can look like take the baby or like take whatever whatever you're holding and going outside for five minutes and breathing exactly exactly. Exactly. Yes, absolutely. Exactly, Sophie. It's these little pockets of time that all amount to something and you really want to pepper them through your day. So, you know, if you're, if you're working, instead of having lunch with the people you work with, go and have lunch on your own, or instead of, you know, doing that little extra something during a break, take your cup of tea and go and have lunch on your own. Or instead of, you know, doing that little extra something during a break, take your cup of tea and go and sit quietly somewhere. So it's just these little moments that really add up to something. And they are, I'll use the word again, critical.

I really feel that. So yes, that's a good example, Sophie, handing the baby over, really important. And, you know, along with that, I would say, and this ties in with the first thing I said about stripping back your life, just cut yourself some slack. Really, it's okay to be below par. I'm saying this to myself very loudly and clearly right now it's okay for yourself to be you know not at your best not performing at your best not working at your best not um you know domesticating at your best or whatever the case might be um you know you're gonna you're gonna come back to brilliance you will come back to brilliance right now you've got to drop perfectionism you've got to really settle for just being like all right it's so hard for us all to do like we sort of have uh i know i'm speaking on behalf of humanity here we all have these unrealistic expectations of ourselves to

maintain high standards constantly well when you're going through an initiation high standards are not your zone it's just not the game you're playing right now um so I think that's a really good one that's great thank you it's they're all really I'm listening you know I'm really soaking it in because I need to hear all of these things as well right now. Yeah. And they're beautiful. Alexandra, I'm coming back to something that you alluded to earlier, which was the power of no, because I know from hearing the stories of the women that we've worked with on our courses, that there are specific leadership powers that get cultivated through menopause. And I'm actually excited, hopefully in my lifetime,

for the world to understand that the leadership powers that wake up in women through menopause are exactly what the world needs. And we should be sitting at the feet of these women and listening and learning so that we can understand how to exist in our world in a more sane and beautiful way yes it is it is it the power of no is the what's the word really it's the the beginning of a very powerful power that comes that you evolve into through menopause and becomes a sort of guiding power post menopause and that is the word discernment so discernment is the capacity to go no it's not that not that not that this incredible kind of restraint and patience to know where exactly you must put your mark, you know, where you must put your attention. It is an extraordinary refinement of spirit and and a kind of deep knowing. So the know, which is your superpower as you step into menopause and your capacity to been practicing mightily in your pre-menstruum

every month and that is hold the tension which is one of our other favorite powers so it's like the power of no and the power of holding the tension which um sort of come together to create this exquisite. And I think of it as a real spiritual power discernment that that comes through, you know, on the other side of menopause. So let me just feel into this more with you. So the holding the tension so you're saying no to things and you're in this kind of empty space the things and you've got to hold the tension of the unknown of not knowing quite what it is yet and i spoke earlier about deep sort of uh reconstructions going on in your soul sort of at a subconscious level that you're not really

consciously privy to but are happening but if you can be patient with the unknown and and you come into an alignment with yourself then there's this is where discernment it's all i almost want to say discernment is born but i mean you can have discernment before that, of course, too you but also what is what is right that is what is you know what life is wanting what's needed there's something it's bigger than you i think of discernment as being much bigger than me so it's it's an incredible refinement of knowing within yourself. I mean, man, this is the power of powers. That's exactly what I'm thinking as you're speaking, Alexandra. I'm thinking, wow, what an incredible capacity to have that level of fine attunement.

Yeah. And, you know, there are times when I don't know and i you know and i know that's discernment at work you know when you a challenge comes up and um you know something that is you know i can't figure out how to deal with this and um there's something that kicks in for me now that's all part of this sort of discernment piece which is that I now know to wait to hold the tension around the disturbance, the challenge, the provocation, whatever it is, and to stay with it and of course that allows something other to emerge within me and somehow those seem to me the ingredients that help me with time to be able to know how to respond to be discerning to bring a discernment to a situation so it's it's a power that has a lot of discipline

in the back of it as I'm hearing you describe that Alexandra I'm also reminded of how know, really the process of menopause itself is what has trained you in that ability that you now have, you know, the unknownness of menopause, the provocation of menopause, the challenge of menopause, and then holding the tension through that has given you the skill. So you've kind of been, what's the word um tooled up for post-menopause life haven't you that's a really really good way of describing it shani yes i think that's what menopause does for us it tools us up for a very particular type of service in the world this yes these are the ingredients of our post-menopause leadership life and the

very specific um this very specific tooling up that we go through this is really sophisticated and nuanced stuff that you're talking about here, you know, the process that you're inviting women into, it's complex, it's internal, it takes discipline and time. And as I'm listening to you, I'm feeling this fire in me grow around how much we need to rewrite the story of menopause and how much we need to honor and dignify this process so that women can trust themselves to go to the places that you're talking about that they feel buffered and supported by those around them to be with these powers that are emerging oh gosh i i feel so moved when you're saying that um sophie because yes how no wonder women are suffering because there's there's no recognition

and there's no time and space and they're not resourced and they're not supported you need you need financial resources you need emotional support to be able to meet this so we need this massive cultural shift around the whole menopause conversation so that those coming into menopause can feel dignified and can feel that they have spaciousness and the right to be able to honor their experience. And that actually, when they come out of menopause, they're coming out with gifts for society. Exactly. Yes, Alexandra, I was just about to say, you know,

this is not a sacrifice that society has to make. This is a luxury that our society has to have women go through menopause. And if we are to support them, we will all benefit. The benefit comes back to our communities. It comes back to our world. It comes back to our planet because women who go through menopause um and are supported to do this are a profound gift a profound gift they are they are one of the things that i've heard you talk about in terms of the gift that um women who go through menopause bring back to the what the gifts that they bring back to the world one is expanded consciousness or i've heard you refer to it as a feeling of

being directed by life a kind of embodied knowing yes Yes. Yeah, we have a very different type of intelligence post-menopause. I don't want people to get kind of worked up about their minds going. They will go for a while, but they come back, but they come back with a very different ordering. You've got a creative brain. Your brain will be sparking and exploding with ideas. But it's not you're not just thinking with your head your it's like your whole being it has been is is is an organ of intelligence now and it's an it's an organ of intelligence that's both rooted in the earth but I always think I always feel like you know I have one foot in mundane life and and the

other foot in sort of sacred time or deep time and and I'm and I've got my you know I've got my own sort of worldly egoic demands and needs and drives and then I'm orchestrated by something that's much bigger than me now um surrounding me so you know i talk about yes my ego is alive and well but it's been knocked off its perch quite a bit but there's this bigger playing field around it now of consciousness of of a bigger consciousness at work so let's call that life or the soul of the world if you like or whatever one's languaging is around you know the other the divine the sacred and um and you're sort of uh you're in service to that you're sort of almost i hesitate to use the word channel but you're kind of a channel for that

but you're not just a channel for that you But you're not just a channel for that. You have it's like a creative alchemy between I speak for myself. It's like my particular nature, who I am and my sort of even my egoic drives, you know, because I'm very ambitious and driven. Those things they've never that hasn't been thwarted by menopause. One iota, in fact fact it's even stronger um you know i've got that going on but and it's that creative alchemy between my nature and this bigger consciousness that's sort of coming in and yeah i think you get what i'm saying yeah alexandra you, the way I experience it with you is that, in a way, that's where your loyalties lie now.

Your loyalties lie with life. That's what you're loyal to. And that's what you are serving. Yeah, it's very beautiful. That's it. Yeah, thank you, Shani. That's a nice mirroring back. Lovely.

So we've spoken throughout this about the deep need to rewrite the collective story of menopause. And as with all groundbreaking pioneering work, togetherness is really important for this isn't it being together being with people who get you and who understand and who are speaking this a similar language is key to this and I'm so I'd love us to speak a little bit about the program that you've created menopause the great awakener what's it like to be with a group of you know I can't remember how many women we've had on these courses it's sort of two or three hundred but what's it like to be with a group of women dignifying and honoring the menopause experience. You know, it's very, very moving, isn't it, Shani?

I find it, I get really, you know, I've taught this material, you know, many, many times, and it's never the same experience. It's always different. You know, a new group of women come in and their engagement sort of awakens the power of menopause. It awakens something. something and um it don't you shani don't you feel that somehow each time we run it that you can feel the sort of consciousness expanding around yes and you know i think because it is such a profound experience that people go through when they feel that they're being met in that place it is um I feel that the relief is palpable you know there's such a sense of relief to be met in that

place but also amongst women between each other it's's like there's this real sense of humanity, shared humanity that, you know, they realize, oh, hey, I'm not alone in this. And actually there's nothing wrong with me. I mean, that's the biggest thing. I'm not going mad. I'm not going mad. It can feel like there's something so wrong with you.

And then you realize, you know, to really hear and appreciate the sort of order that's at work in menopause and to have your experience contextualized. And then to recognize that, ah, there are these other people, these other ones alongside you who are experiencing something similar, you know, their version of it. It's so, yeah, I just want to use that word humanity it feels like such a coming together of humanity it's such a sweet and intimate experience and you know we get to swim in the sea of that every time we facilitate this work lucky are we it's really i actually really it's like a an adventure to see sort of what's going to come out because yeah it's the stories awaken my understanding more and more yes yes yeah yes and i just also want to add that you know someone wrote to me recently saying you know I can't

wait for the course to start again because I want you know because she wants to do it again she did it last year and that's one of the things we offer that you can keep going through it so um and and this is because because menopause goes on for so long in fact there's quite a few people i know who've done the course um three times actually someone has done the workshop and yeah and then come to me online and um it's it's the redoing of it and you can redo it for free um uh it's the redoing of it over and over as you're moving through menopause. So it becomes really powerful. Because you're sort of meeting it from a different place, but also because there are so many layers to the experience that every time

you come to it and explore it afresh and share your experience, it's also in your sharing of the experience that you then come to sort of see, know, or integrate something a little bit more deeply. So it's very rich in that way. Yes, actually, that brings up another really important element that we offer in the course, Sophie, which is listening, the option to have a listening partner. And quite a few have commented on the power of that and have gone on since the course to have kept their listening partnerships going and that has been this very powerful thread of unfolding for them of their process so this thing of community of gathering with others and you know having

buddies is just really important yeah in fact it's one of the other ground rules for initiation is to gather with people who understand what you're going through you know mothers unite and all of that yeah so important thank you you two this this is the beginning of a long conversation that we're going to have throughout this podcast. Right now in this moment, I honestly can't think of anything that feels more important to do than speak about the kind of leadership that can awaken through this phase of a woman's life, because it's exactly the kind of leadership that we need to turn this tanker around where you know it's exactly it's exactly what we need and I want to thank you on behalf of everyone listening and all the people who are engaging with this work and for future generations you know this is this is going to take a while I imagine the rewriting of menopause and I'm so grateful that you two are pioneering the way so that my children and their children can live in a world that actually honors and dignifies menopause thank you so much

thank you Sophie Thank you, Sophie. No problem, Sophie. Thank you so much for being with us today and listening to the Menstruality Podcast from Red School. Please subscribe and follow wherever you listen to podcasts and leave us a review. It'll really help us to reach more people with this podcast. And if you'd like to discover more about the initiatory power of menopause and understand how the five phases of the psychological and spiritual process of menopause can deliver you to a place of great meaning and authority and belonging, we invite you to visit redschoolmenopause.com. Great, that's it. See

you next week. And until then, keep living life according to your own brilliant rhythm.