The Menstruality Podcast - 207. How Cycle Awareness Can Help You to Navigate PCOS and Irregular Cycles (Shalize Giane)

Episode Date: August 7, 2025

What do you do when your experience of the cycle doesn’t match the archetypal description of the inner seasons? Many women and folks with cycles experience sporadic, irregular cycles which are very challenging to track, particularly if they’re dealing with health challenges like PCOS, Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. Our guest today is Menstruality Leadership Programme graduate Shalize Giane, who shares generously about her two decades of dealing with PCOS, and the infertility challenges that have accompanied it. We explore her long and winding journey to getting a diagnosis, and how practising cycle awareness has transformed her experience of her cycle and her body, as well as inspiring her to reassess and reorganise her entire life to remove stressors and give her body what it is asking for.We explore:How women and folks with PCOS can feel excluded from the cycle awareness and cyclical living conversation, and why it’s vital for everyone working in the menstruality field to create belonging for all.How Shalize experiences her inner seasons, even with an unpredictable cycle, and what they have told her about what her body truly needs; rest and slowness. Her experience on the Menstruality Leadership Programme, and how it helped her get in touch with and process the childhood trauma, emotional suppression and parental neglect that was contributing to her PCOS challenges, as well as inspire her to start helping other women with PCOS to heal. ---Receive our free video training: Love Your Cycle, Discover the Power of Menstrual Cycle Awareness to Revolutionise Your Life - www.redschool.net/love---The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email [e-mail]---Social media:Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.schoolSophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardyShalize Giane: @misstomadame_ - https://www.instagram.com/misstomadame_/

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, Alexander and Sharny, as well as an inspiring group of pioneers, activists, changemakers, and creatives to explore how you can unashamedly claim the power of the menstrual cycle to activate your unique form of leadership for yourself, your community and the world. Hey there, how's it going? Thank you so much for tuning in today. We're exploring what happens

when your experience of the menstrual cycle doesn't match the archetypal description of the inner seasons of the cycle. Many women and folks with cycles experience irregular, sporadic cycles which are really difficult to track, particularly if they're dealing with health challenges like PCOS polycystic ovarian syndrome. And our guest today is Shalise Guyanne. She's a graduate of the menstruality leadership program at Red School and she shares so generously about her two decades of dealing with PCOS and the infertility challenges that have accompanied it. We explore her long and winding journey to getting a diagnosis and how practicing cycle awareness has transformed her experience of her cycle and her body, as well as inspiring

her to reassess and reorganise her entire life to remove stresses and give her body what is asking for. Shalise also shares her experience about the menstruality leadership program and how it helped her to get to know her cycle, as well as unearth some of the surprising factors that were contributing to her PCOS challenges. The doors for the menstruality leadership program are now open again. They've opened today. You can find out more about the program at menstrualityleadership.com and I'll tell you more about it later. But for now, let's get started with the conversation with Shalise.

Hey, welcome, Shalise, to the menstruality podcast. I've really been looking forward to talking to you because I feel like I know you really well because you share very generously online about your life and your healing journey with PCOS and infertility challenges and I've got so many questions. I'm excited to hear, but firstly, welcome. It's lovely to have you here. Thank you, Sophie. I'm so happy to be here. And let's check in cycle-wise. Yeah, how are you doing today? What cycle day? you on. So I am on cycle day 11. I am feeling better than I felt in the last maybe four months, I would say. I'm coming out of two 70 to 80 day cycles. And I feel like I'm finally balancing out after a failed infertility treatment earlier this year. Usually in the inner summer,

I guess I'm approaching the inner summer. I'm still figuring out how to how to know where I am with this complicated, a regular cycle that I have. But this time is usually hard for me and I feel it because of this rising energy that I just, I've realized through cycle awareness is not really for me. So I'm just trying to really pace myself right now and just like relax my body and mind. But outside of that, I feel good, positive. I'm feeling creative for the first time in the last couple of weeks. It's just exciting. And I'm hoping that I'm approaching ovulation soon, which is also exciting too. So I'm just taking everything is and just trying to do it all slowly. As I learn more about your story and I imagine I'll hear more today in our

conversation, something that moves me about the way you move through the world is your capacity to be with the unknown. And I think it's something that all health challenges, but maybe particularly cycle health challenges, teach us and also infertility, like when we long for a family and it's not coming. It's just unknown after unknown after unknown. And something in me, like I could cry, feeling it. Something in me just bows, you know, to you and to that, that capacity that you hold. Yeah, it's big medicine. Thank you so much for saying that. And that's exactly what I'm going through today, you know, it's like I don't really know where I am in my cycle exactly. I know I am on day 11. I don't know exactly what that means since I'm still figuring things out, but

there is there is peace that I've found in that and it and it does feel good and I'm really thankful for that because I can't say it has always been this easy to live in the unknown, but I've definitely found a lot of peace in it recently. Yeah, so beautiful. Thank you. So I'm a few days behind you, I'm on day eight, and I'm entering into my most uncomfortable part of the cycle. I took myself for a walk this morning because I just could feel I needed to get my head together. I enter my inner spring pre-ovulation and I just, the energy in me goes into my brain and all my anxious thoughts and just supercharges them. So like everything that I was slightly worried about, I'm now catastrophizing about, even though if you look, everything in my life is going really well

at the moment. So I just took myself on a walk. And what I wanted to do was go, Sophie, snap out of it. There is so much suffering happening in the world right now. Your life is great. Get over yourself. And be grateful. And then I was like, well, no, the truth is I'm feeling really anxious and sad. So I did some EFT tapping, which is like my go-to when I can't let myself feel what I'm feeling. so walking along this river and there was a man walking his dog and I was just tapping my hand and my face like he looked at me like what are you doing it's like I am finding my sanity okay and I tapped and I just felt yeah I'm sad and I felt all the different things that I'm sad about and it really soothed me so now I feel a bit more grounded but I just I can just tell

I really have to contain myself take care of myself check out what I where my energy is going really yeah it's like energy hygiene oh i can i can really relate to to that rising energy so i feel it too now i'm inspired to do some tapping so good i wondered if we could start our conversation by tracking some of your life story really like particularly life before you got diagnosed with PCOS and then how it shifted after that so could you walk us back to like what your life was like before your diagnosis and what you were doing, the symptoms you were experiencing, what was going on for you?

Yeah, so it took me a long time to realize when I started having symptoms. It was a lot of backtracking to really pinpoint, you know, when I started to feel weird, you know, when I wasn't, when I started noticing anything, I think it goes all the way back to around the age 11 or 12 when I started noticing the first symptoms. And those were fatigue and just not,

feeling well, just noticing that I was different from all of my friends around me. I grew up as a dancer. So I started dancing at the age of eight. I was always in groups of girls. So I always had lots of friends, girls around me. And so growing up in that way really helped me or allowed me to see how different I was from other girls, how tired I was, how my tummy would not feel great after eating certain foods, how my moods were changed drastically, often felt sad or anxious or even depressed at sometimes, which I didn't know. That's what I was experiencing at that age, but of course it's clear today. But, you know, every doctor I visited, every test I did came out clear. There was nothing ever really wrong with me. So I went through life like that.

Was this before you started your period or after you started your period? This was before. So I got my first period at 14. I was in eighth grade. And so, you know, life was somewhat normal. You know, I was struggling with this fatigue and mood changes and energy level difficulties. But, you know, I got my period at 14. It was an exciting moment. And that period didn't come back until like a year later. You know, I grew up with a single mom. And so she also had a regular menstrual cycles. And she knew what she knew. She didn't know what she didn't know. And to her, my period being a regular at that age was nothing to worry about. So, you know, and even still, you know, mentioning it to doctors at that age, it was like,

oh, it'll regulate by the time you're 18, you know, don't worry about it. So I went throughout life. I love it when my old doctors say don't worry about it, about reproductive systems. Yeah, it was always very, oh, you're young, you know, it's going to regulate in time, you know, just if it's not regular by the time you're 18, you know, that's when you'll have something to worry about. So I went through those years just I'd notice again, you know, my friends having their periods every month, you know, having regular cycles and I was just there having a period every now and then, never knew when it was coming, never was prepared for it. It was kind of really messy

during that time. And you see, and that's an early initiation into being with the unknown, because there's this thing happening for all your friends around you and your experience is different. Yeah. And then you eventually got. a diagnosis it looked like maybe you were in your late teens or early 20s yeah so um went through high school periods stayed irregular i would have maybe a period once or twice a year as i mentioned just just i didn't even think that it was something that was worth looking further into i just was you know going about um and then i graduated high school i started my professional dance career It started off well in the beginning, and then I started gaining weight.

I started dealing with cystic acne at the same time. And, you know, growing up in this entertainment dance environment, I always imagined myself maybe, you know, well, I mean, I did end up pursuing dance, but I imagined myself pursuing modeling and pursuing dance and, you know, taking it as far as I could. And the more, the older that I got, it felt like these physical. symptoms were getting in the way of me being able to achieve those things. I mean, my face at some point was covered in cystic acne to the point where it was painful to smile. And then, you know, I fortunately didn't experience extreme weight gain, but I experienced a body that didn't necessarily match what I was doing in my life. I was dancing every single day. I was eating as well as I knew to eat. And I was still gaining weight and very soft, again, compared to my other dance friends and

the way that their bodies were evolving as they were getting older. And so I went forward with my professional dance career. I started dancing at Disney and Universal Studios. I was navigating these symptoms as best as I could. And then I decided to try out for the Orlando Magic and be a dance team. I did everything that I could to make that team. I got my weight to the point where I needed it to be. I was able to address my acne recommended by the doctors. I went on acutane, which is a whole other story in itself. And I made the team. And while I was on the team, my symptoms just got the worse they ever did. My weight continued to fluctuate, get worse.

I struggled to maintain the physical appearance that I was supposed to have while dancing on this team. I must have a high pressure to have a specific physical experience for that job, for that team. It was a lot and, you know, I did everything that I could to maintain that weight and, you know, my periods were still irregular at that time. And I had no idea why,

my body was like not responding to everything that I was doing. You know, we were having morning workouts, afternoon workouts, dance practice late at night, and my body was still, it just wasn't keeping up. It wasn't fitting the mold. And so I did crazy things to be able to keep my spot on the team, to be able to maintain that. And at some point, my weight just, again, wasn't responding to everything that I was doing. And I got benched from the dance team. And I was told that I couldn't dance.

until I figured my weight issues out. And that was the moment where everything just, I kind of just like stopped everything. And I was like, okay, all these little things that have been happening to me since I was 11 years old have been interfering with my life in so many different ways. And I've been able to manage them. But now this is really getting in the way of like my dream.

It was my dream to be on this dance team. And I was like, okay, I'm going to take this time to figure out what is wrong with me, what all of this means. and I saw a number of different specialists. I saw an endocrinologist. I saw a dermatologist. I saw a number of different gynecologists. I was either put on birth control or medication or some sort of pills and nothing was working.

This was over a course of a few months. I wasn't feeling better. At times I was feeling worse. Can we just pause for like all of the women and folks with cycles who have had to go on such twisting, winding journey is expensive, like seeing so many different practitioners and often being dismissed or just receiving really bad advice or being put on medication. It's like because the medical system has been long designed for the male body. Yeah, thank you for sharing your experience with us and what happened next. I'm glad you, I'm glad you took a pause because

it's it's really was one of the hardest things feeling like i know that there's something wrong with me i've been experiencing this since i was 11 i know that i am not like other girls there's no way that me feeling this tired and me feeling this this this way is normal but to have people telling you there's nothing wrong with you you know just the medical gaslighting is so difficult because people end up feeling like they're crazy you feel like you're crazy and now looking back on it, you know, I'm 33 today. And at that time that I was having all of these symptoms happened to me and feeling so desperate to have answers and no one helping me, that was young. That was really young to experience that. And my heart, like, my heart hurts for younger me

going through that. And so eventually I went to three different gynecologists and I finally, it was a woman gynecologist. She just very quickly told me, she did like an ultrasound. And she was like, oh, you have PCOS. Finally. And I was like, oh, my gosh, this is, is this an answer? Oh, my gosh, this is an answer. This is a solution. And this might be weird.

This is a little bit weird to say, but, you know, hearing a word, a diagnosis, anything felt like very exciting for me. It was like, oh, my gosh, so there is something wrong with me, you know? Now I'm going to find a way to feel better. I'm going to find a way to feel normal. All the while I'm on this break of being benched from my dance team. Like in the back of my head, it's like, I got to lose the weight. I got to like hurry up and get, you know, back on the court.

And so I got that diagnosis. And she said, oh, you have PCOS. In my head, I'm like, okay, what is that? She wasn't even going to explain it to me. She just said what it was. And I was like, okay, so what is it? And she said it's polycystic ovarian syndrome. And basically it means that you have like some issues with your hormones.

You have you have cysts on your ovaries and you're probably going to have difficulty having children in the future. And if that happens, just come back and, you know, well, like you'll have some help. And so at that age, I just had this idea that it was just this thing. that I had, and that was probably going to cause me problems, but still, it wasn't really something to worry about, because she still didn't make it seem like it was something to worry about. She handed me a box of birth control, a new brand, a different brand from the ones that I tried before, because I had explained, you know, I tried birth control. It didn't work,

and she asked me, you know, which brand were you on? She gave me a new brand. It was called Lolo Estrin. She promised that this was going to be the thing to help all my symptoms. the irregular periods, the acne, the weight gain, the mood, energy changes. And yeah, so I left that doctor's appointment, and I felt like I had the solution in my hands. It was like, it was a happy moment. There are two really huge things that happened there. The first, this might cause you problems having a family, which is a huge piece of news to Risteeve. And I feel like it's often dealt out flippantly.

and I had so many flippant doctors on my fertility quest. I've said this before on the podcast, but I will say it again because I'm still angry. I've said it to process. I need to do more tapping around this shillies. But one guy said, oh, look, you're just so stressed about having a baby. You just need to forget about it. Like just stop trying for six months and just live your life. And I've been trying for three years at that point.

I was like, you have no idea how impossible that is for me. And you're saying it as if that's a simple thing. And he was a fertility doctor anyways. Because I'm not a premenstru, because I'd be raging even louder, I know. Yeah. And then also to be handed like a promise of this will solve all your problems is, yeah. I really, like you said, my heart really goes out for that 20-something you, with all your dreams and your passions. but please do carry on.

So, yeah, what happened next is that I ran out of the doctor's office, birth control in hand, feeling like I had the answers. And I took the birth control for two weeks. All of my symptoms got worse. I entered this. What I now understand is depression. At the time, I still don't even really fully understand, you know, what depression felt like. But looking back, that's exactly what it was.

My acne got worse. I was extremely bloated, so it wasn't helping with the weight issue. Mentally, I knew I had to stop. So I stopped the pill. I told my mom, mom, we need to find a way to fix what's wrong with me because it's not going to come from these doctors. And I didn't even mention this, but growing up in the United States with a single mom, we struggled in some ways.

And one of the ways is not having health insurance. And so when this time came that I was seeing all of these specialists, I didn't have health insurance. And I was paying everything out of pocket for my little dancer salary. My mom was helping me when she could. But that in itself also was a huge, a huge stress. So I said, you know what, Mom? Like, no more. We're not like paying money.

We're not doing this anymore. We're going to try to look online and try to find answers. And, you know, that was the beginning of me trying to find a way to heal everything that was going on. and my body on my own and trying to take what I know now as a holistic approach to feeling better. And so, you know, I ended up losing the weight that I needed to lose in order to get my spot back on the team. And I think it's worth mentioning that, you know, I think a lot of women with the PCOS probably struggle with this too. And it's this not being in control with your body. You can work out, you can eat well, and your body can still respond in a way that you

don't expect or respond in a way that is not the same as other women. And that was really hard for me because I didn't know what to do, you know, I didn't know how to handle that. And so I did terrible things again to my body in order to lose the weight that involved not eating, that involved. You know, this is kind of TMI, but I would like take laxatives and try to just, you know, I would eat like nuts for the whole days before I had to, you know, wear one of my cheerleading outfits and I would just like drink water and just like, you know, make it so that I could maintain that spot in the team because again, it was my dream. That was like, that was all I knew. I worked my whole life to be in that position. And so, you know, I made it happen. But

it was hard and so I danced for three years total on the team and those issues continued to be a thing and so for those three years on the team and even for a few years afterwards they continued to completely wreck my body trying to fit the mold that I was having so much trouble trying to fit and the PCOS was still there the irregular periods were still there and I just moved through life, knowing that this was an issue I had, but that there was, I wasn't sure if I was ever going to find an answer for it. I wasn't sure if it was ever going to go away or if there's anything more that I could do. I just navigated life the best that I could, feeling the best that I possibly could, but I still

never felt great, and it was really challenging. Yeah, and then fast forward, I ended up meeting. my husband who was in France. From my semi-stalking of you online, he just seems like such a great guy. Thank you so much for saying that he truly is. He sometimes I feel a little guilty for how lucky I've been in finding such an amazing partner and husband in life. He is not only is he handsome, but he's also so kind and special and sweet.

And I'm so grateful. But upon meeting him, I knew that. all right well you know back then that doctor said like maybe i'm going to have trouble having kids you know so i had this in my head as like as things started to get more serious with him i had this in my head like i think i'm going to have to explain to him that i have this thing wrong with me and if we move forward with you know if we're going to be together forever and we're going to get married we're going to have a family i'm going to have to explain to him that you know way back when this doctor told me that i might have trouble having kids and so i was very transparent

as soon as I felt comfortable enough and I explained this to him. Of course, he was still open to moving forward that didn't hold him back, thankfully. Of course he was, because you're all so amazing. Thank you. Thank you so much. And we were both so young, so I didn't say I was 23. We were 23 when we met. We got married at 25.

And so I ended up moving to France. We got married at 25. And, you know, we knew that we had this PCOS thing on our plate that we need to figure out. And so right away, we went to go see a doctor because this is something I was a little bit shy of saying at first. I don't know why. I think maybe fear of judgment, but right away before even getting married, like we knew like we wanted to start a family. We just had this like very natural connection and like feeling of just wanting to like multiply and like build our little world. It was like very even at such a young age because looking back, I didn't feel young at the

time but looking back you know 23 25 is is pretty young to be saying those kind of things and you know we both wanted that and so after marriage we we went to the doctor we we tried to have answers you know advice you know to discuss and say you know I have PCOS like how can we manage having a family you know this doctor when I was 19 told me that I'm going to need help you know what can we do and so from there we both ended up doing some tests I was confirmed that I still had PCOS. And then it was also confirmed that my husband had a fertility issue as well. I'm going to try to say the word. I'm going to try not to mess it up. It's called Oglioastino zoospermia. So it's a problem with motility as well as in quantity.

That was the same with my husband. We didn't know why for me. I've got lots of stories that I've I've actually shared on the podcast, including a psychic who told me, and actually this proved to be fairly, like, insightful that my just difficult experiences with men in my life had kind of put a wall up in me to sperm. He was like, you have to dismantle that wall. I was like, okay, okay, psychic, how do I dismantle a wall I've built off against men inside me? Anyway, sorry, total tangent. But these are the things we do, right? We explore all kinds of things. But yeah, we found out that aid had fertility challenges too, so it was on both sides. Yeah. I mean, again, I'm not happy that that happened to you, but it's always nice to know

that I'm not alone in this. We are not alone in this. Yes. So yeah, and that was the beginning, I guess, of this, the fertility journey of trying to then, that was the second layer. So it was the PCOS diagnosis, then came this, these fertility challenges and And as of today, it's been eight full years of a fertility journey and over a decade of trying to heal my PCOS. I'd love to see where cycle awareness weaves in now. Yeah, at what point did you discover cycle awareness and how did that start to change things for you?

Yeah, so, you know, the healing journey. me was very non-linear all, you know, from 19 to even two years ago, I would say. I tried diets. I tried supplements. I tried, of course, I mentioned birth control, everything that was recommended by traditional doctors. I tried recipes made at home. I tried everything, you know, possible that I had, you know, within my reach. And it wasn't until I finally decided to stop fully, fully, fully relying on, you know, traditional medical system and really shift towards working with a holistic practitioner. I started working with a holistic practitioner in a non-traditional form,

I guess you can say, because it's one of my best friends who finished her certification. And it's so handy. Yeah. Yeah, she had her own struggles, which led her to wanting to practice that. And I was basically her first client, her first experiment to see how she could put everything that she'd learn into, into practice. And so we're kind of navigating this together, you know, trying things, you know, her, I did some comprehensive hormone testing. I was able to really pinpoint exactly the root cause of my PCOS, which is a huge thing that I don't think is spoken enough

about is, you know, identifying and addressing the root causes of where this syndrome is coming from in the body. And so I was able to start making changes to my diet that were really targeted on exactly what is, you know, imbalanced in my specific body. Could you describe that what you found out? And is it different for different people with PCOS then? Are there different root causes? I think that there are different root causes to PCOS, but I think that there are a lot of commonalities in women who have PCOS. And so it's a little sciencey. But from my comprehensive hormone testing, I learned that I have elevated cortisol in the morning and in the afternoon, which is contributing to my chronic stress. But at the same time, is the chronic stress contributing to the high

cortisol or is the cortisol contributing to high stress? Not exactly sure, but that was proven in the in the labs. And the second thing was that my body has a difficulty metabolizing estrogen. And so that was like a huge thing that helped understand why I have the digestion issues that I have, how I have the digestion issues that I have, and why the ways in which my hormones should be rising and falling throughout the cycle aren't happening as they should. Right. And so from there, I was able to again start targeted supplementing based on the advice from the holistic health practitioner. And is this functional medicine? Is this functional nutrition? Yeah. Functional medicine, nutrition, holistic health. And I was also able to understand, you know, where my gut issues

come from and why I have imbalance of bacteria in my gut microbiome. That's called SIBO. I'm sure women with PCOS maybe have come across this word. You know, I would have bloating when eating. difficulty with certain foods, and that all was playing a role in my body not being able to do what it needed to do. We were also able to identify the idea that I did have some underlying childhood trauma stuck back in my body, in the back of my brain, issues with nervous system regulation, and so on and so on. And so all of that really opened my eyes to, okay, wow, like now I actually know, like,

what exactly I need to be working on and what I'm actually working towards. because in the beginning, I was just trying to address this general PCOS diagnosis without actually really knowing and understanding what needed to be, what needed to be healed or, you know, worked on. So I started making all these changes with my friend who was helping me. It was about two and a half years of working on these changes. And I'd started to see improvements in my digestion. I started to see improvements in my anxiety levels.

I had moments of having the shortest periods I'd ever had. So going from like having a period every four months to having a period every other month. And I started to, although still inconsistent, things started to balance out. There was an aspect of my healing that the more and more I paid attention to how the physical symptoms were improving. I could still feel something in me that was like, I still don't really, like, know who I am. I don't know what this, because at that point, you know, my whole life, my body has always just been this thing that I'm just, like, undergoing.

Like, I just have, like, these things happening to me and happening to me. And instead of feeling at home in my body, it's, it always just felt like, yeah, just this outer shell of a thing that I had to, to live with that I just didn't necessarily like being inside and didn't even know. It's just so much unknown. I'm going to pause my chat with Chalise for a moment to share an invitation with you. As I mentioned at the beginning, the doors for the Red School menstruality Leadership Program which happens once a year have just opened today. And you can find out all about the course at menstrualityleadership.com. If you've been waiting for this to come along and for the doors

open then now is a really great time to step in because there's an early bird offer where you can save 500 pounds a great way to find out more is to join the free webinar about the course which is happening on september the 16th and you can register for that at the same page for free at menstrualityleadership.com and shortly in our chat chelise is going to share more about her experience on the menstruality leadership program and how it not only helped her to understand her cyclical nature as a woman with PCOS, but how it had other unexpected benefits such as how the feminine leadership practices she learned on the training helped her to acknowledge and process the pain, the childhood trauma, the emotional wounding that was living in her body and that she aimed to understand was

contributing to her PCOS. She describes the menstruality leadership program as life-changing and that it opened her up to a layer of healing that she didn't realize was possible. You can find out all about the course curriculum, how the program can resource and empower you to step into your own cycle-aware leadership, whatever that looks like in your life. And you can also hear lots more stories from the Red School graduates at menstrualityleadership.com. Thank you so much for naming that. I really relate to that sense of a dissociation. really. Even to the point where like three years into the infertility, I just felt like my body was betraying me and it was my enemy, really. But then we have to live in, well, we are our bodies, right?

Sometimes I'll say we have to live in our bodies, but there's no differentiation between, you know, who's the we and who's my body. It's something very big to reconcile, isn't it? Yeah. That sense of coming home, befriending, being with the body, when the body is full of of challenge absolutely you know there are so many times i would say i hate my body and i hate that i've been given this body that is so messed up like why why me you know i had so many moments like that and it's so sad to think back and remember those thoughts that i had and and i yeah i just felt like there was this lack of connection with myself that everything that i was doing wasn't helping me gain. And I got to a point where I was like, I was following a few people online, a few women

online that were talking about cyclical living. You know, you can eat for your cycle and you can feel better and you can do this. You can work out for your cycle. You know, change the way you work out in your cycle. And in the follicular phase, you know, you do your cardio and the ludial phase. do your yoga and it started making me aware to, you know, this whole idea of living alongside of your cycle. But at the same time, it felt so foreign like, I don't, well, I don't have a cycle. So I don't even know what that feels like to have a cycle. So how could, I wonder if that could be something that could be for me. And so at the moment where I started feeling this really desperation to understand myself and know my body, I went ahead. I went on a deep Google

search. And I was just like researching. Like I literally typed in how can I understand my cycle or something along those lines. How can I connect with my cycle? How can I like learn? I wanted I was interested in like doing some sort of program or like studying something. I wanted to understand on a deeper level what was wrong with me or not even what was wrong with me, but more so I wanted to just like understand myself on a deeper level. And I came across road school. I think it was like the, maybe the second link I clicked on. And reading through it, immediately it felt like, okay, this is definitely for women who have menstrual cycles and like have had periods.

And like, I don't know if this is for me. But as I was reading through it, I was like, I don't know. It was like this feeling that I had in my body that was like, even. though I don't have a cycle, I think that if I can treat myself as if I have a cycle and try to like work on where my cycle is or what it's doing, I think that that can help me eventually have a cycle. It was just like this really strong feeling that I had inside of myself. And so like an intuitive knowing. Yeah, an intuitive knowing. It just feels important to say because I know there are lots of people who are menstrual cycle coaches or different practitioners that listen

to the podcast, that unless we're aware and conscious of the wide variety of experience of the menstrual cycle that exist, we can accidentally perpetuate the patriarchal crap that is out there in the world in the mainstream so that people like you in this instance who had very irregular cycles can feel excluded from the world of cyclical living and menstrual cycle awareness. And so for all of us to recognize, you know, there are tons of women and folks out there with PCOS who might have like one or two cycles a year and they are cyclical beings. Like they, the work is for them too. So for all of us to be aware to include and create belonging as much as possible. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for saying that. But again, there was like this intuitive

feeling that I need to try to do this and try to learn what this is about because I have a feeling that there is this missing element of my healing that is not being met, this spiritual mind-body connection that I'm not getting through the supplements, the diet, the lifestyle changes. And so Red School felt like I could trust it. I felt like from the content that I saw online from hearing Alexandra and Charney speak that I could trust them and what they knew and the knowledge that they had and what they were sharing. And so I just went for it. I hadn't read the book. I knew a little bit about menstrual cycle awareness, but not very much. But I just wanted to, I just wanted to try. I was, I was desperate. I was

desperate and open. And that's when I went forward with starting the cycle power course. And so I went into cycle power, not knowing anything at all, pretty much. Let's just say that. I knew menstrual cycle awareness, the definition of it. And I knew I had read a few articles. I'd listened to a few podcasts, but like I didn't have the depth that, you know, the understanding that we get when we read Wild Power, for example. So my entry into this really was. cycle power and I don't I didn't really understand what I was getting myself into like I really I thought that I was going to learn about my cycle of course but I didn't know that it was going to bring me on such a deep journey of finding myself and really truly understanding myself and

you know that was the moment where I started learning about the seasons of the cycle I started learning that our menstrual cycle and the symptoms that we have and the feelings that we have in our body is actually telling us something and actually guiding us towards something. And it was so, I was just shocked by everything. And immediately, as I was going through the course, I'm like, oh, my gosh, how am I 32 years old? And I'm just now learning all of this right now. And it just made me eager to just like keep going. and keep, you know, diving into this world of cycle awareness

because with the practices that are included in cycle power and everything that I was working on and myself, I was addressing and seeing and learning, you know, what was really going on with me on the inside and what could be or what was contributing to a lot of the things that I was experiencing in terms of symptoms and how I felt mentally and physically. and it was amazing, and it just made me want more.

And then I decided to go for the MLP. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Amazing. It's so beautiful to hear your experience coming in just totally, yeah, fresh, like without any awareness. And it's reminding me back to when I first discovered it and what propelled me, I think suffering propels so many of us

towards mental cycle awareness, essentially, because it's like, this hurts so much. this is wrecking my life so much that I have to try and I guess Alexandra and Shiny might say it's our cycles intelligence calling us to something like the symptoms are calling us to something but for me it was pre-menstrual

rage and depression and yeah it's just it was night and day from thinking I was well I say thinking I was crazy but really I just didn't know myself and I felt disconnected and scared and confused about myself to like oh

okay I am a cyclical being and I change throughout the cycle and I'm there's nothing wrong with that it's just that the world doesn't talk about it because there's this massive menstrual taboo and massive menstrual shame and we live inside patriarchy and we're uprooted from the earth and the earth cycles and it was just such a relief is like the word that's coming to me right now so how was it as someone still experiencing irregular cycles but learning about the seasons in this way like how did you relate to the information

about the different seasons and did you recognize the descriptions of the seasons in your experience? I just want to say that I'm glad that you say that you felt crazy because I do want to highlight that I often too felt crazy I felt like

what is wrong with me? Like why am I like this? Why do sometimes I feel like this and sometimes I feel amazing sometimes I feel like my head is going to explode and I'm mad at everyone and mad at the world and sometimes I'm so in love with my husband and everything's a jolly joy and you know just everything's a jolly joy that's such a good inner summer sentence I don't know where that came from it says it though doesn't it yeah yeah and it's so destabilizing in a world that wants us to be the same right Right. And so, yeah, so connecting with the inner seasons when, you know, I had heard and understood the different phases of the cycle from a scientific point of view, you know, filicular, ovulation, luteal, menstrual. And so I had that under my belt as an understanding. So when connecting with the seasons, I understood that they were kind of relating to the scientific terms in that sense. But it was hard for me.

to try to understand something that I wasn't experiencing. But I guess the best way that I can say it is that I guess in a way it kind of, it kind of like helped me in reverse. I don't know if this is the best way to say it, but learning about the inner seasons and being able to understand what they were and then try to understand what that meant inside of my body helped me understand that like even though I'm not having a period every month, I'm still experiencing these seasons.

Like I do notice that there are times where I have inner spring energy. And that's true that there are those times where I'm more like in a cocoon space and I don't want to talk to anyone and I want to be more by myself. Oh, that must be my inner autumn. Oh, and there are those times where I feel amazing and like super social and like, oh, that must be my inner summer. And so it helped me kind of connect the dots to make sense of my personality, to make sense of the fact that like, even though I was experiencing, because again, as we said, even though I didn't

feel cyclical, I was experiencing a very long extended cycle. And so I was at moments experiencing the seasons. And so it helped me find confidence in the fact that, oh, I am experiencing those seasons. So I am cyclical, you know, and that was a breakthrough for me to be able to, you know, identify myself as a cyclical woman and realize that I am too experiencing those seasons, even if they're not the same in the same way as other women. I still have them. And what I learned through that is, oh, the issue in my menstrual cycle is not that I'm not like getting my period in time, is that I'm in an extended inner spring. And I'm not missing my period. I'm missing ovulation. And it just added layers into my understanding of my body and the inner workings of the cycle.

And it was like this, just this beautiful feeling of like freedom, honestly, to finally like make all of it make sense. Then at the same time, I felt like, but why am I only, again, why am I only learning about this now? Why is this the first time that I'm hearing about this? And so there was a side of me that felt like frustrated, too, that I was this age now understanding all of this. Is why we need the menstrual revolution. Yes. So that from the beginning, girls and tweens and teens

are introduced to this information right from the get-go or when they become interested in it. Absolutely. What I'm hearing is learning about the archetypal cycle, which isn't everyone's experience, but it mimics the seasons in nature you know the archetypal flow of the cycle learning about it is a way to like a breadcrumb trail back to our own direct experience of the cycle and whatever our version of the archetypal cycle is

and now this all leads me in my life today it's completely changed my life to to be able to come to this understanding that I have seasons that's what makes me a woman that's what makes me cyclical rather than feeling like burdened by all of these changes it's like a sense of pride and I'm happy to explain it to my husband and explain it to my family like this is the season I'm in you guys might notice that I'm a little bit like this for these next few few days or week and that feels amazing to finally be able to just understand who I am after all of these years of feeling so confused about everything. It's like learning a language that explains our reality.

Yeah. Having access to words and language and context that we didn't have before. So good to hear, Shalise. And it sounds like your husband's quite on board with it all and interested. Yeah, thankfully. You know, there are times where I feel like, because when you're learning about menstrual cycle awareness, it's like this like flux of information.

and it's exciting. It's like, oh my gosh, like I have to share this with as many people as possible. And, you know, him being my bestie slash life partner slash husband. Like, I'm just like, oh my gosh, look at what I just read. I'm telling him everything, you know. And there are times where he gets it. And there are times where he's like, okay, I'm a little lost. Like it's a lot for them, isn't it? My husband's ended up, he's, he's been mentoring lots of young women in his work and he's teaching them all about menstrual cycle awareness that's beautiful it's just so wonderful to see how it's how it ripples out so i'd love to hear chalise about your melp experience because it's a real deepening of the cycle cycle power knowledge to go into the menstruality

leadership program and what would you say were some of the core things that you learned or that you took away from your time on that course and in that community again even going into the MLP, I still aren't really fully know and fully grasp the journey that was unfolding that I was like getting myself into. But I was just excited for it. Like I was ready for whatever it was going to be and whatever I was going to learn. And so the MLP, I don't want to make this sound bad, but I cried a lot during the MLP. Come, you'll cry all day. I cried a whole lot. I did a lot of emotional processing that I'm so grateful to have had the time and the guidance to do. From the perspective of someone who has PCOS, what I've learned is that

a lot of us women suffer from things like childhood trauma, emotional suppression, parental neglect, all of which in small ways are true to my story. But I never thought that outside of, you know, going to traditional therapy, there would be a way to address those things. And also a huge part of me felt like a lot of these things that have happened in my past were no longer affecting me because I didn't think about them. They were like so far in the past that like I honestly even forgot about some of it. And it was during the course, specifically through the encounter practice that has, that's

like my, that's like my signature practice, I would say. That's like my go-to, like, safe place practice that's really helped me make the most strides through my, for myself and menstrual cycle awareness. And by practicing encounter, I realized that there were things stuck in the back my brain stuck in my body that were attacking me, affecting me, and I had no idea. And being able to go through the MLP and have the tools that help guide me into finding what those things are was completely life-changing. I don't even know how I could have found them otherwise because they were so deep in me

and they took so much quiet and concentration and support to find them that, yeah, I don't know if I would have found them on my own. And I'm so grateful for the MLP for that. So I was able to acknowledge and address a lot of, you know, as I said, underlying trauma and emotions that were suppressed in my body. I was able to identify specific moments in my life that were affecting specific moments in my cycle. and also see how those specific moments were related to each inner season. And it really opened me up, again, to this layer of healing that I didn't even know possible.

And as I said, I cried a whole lot. And through those tears, I was able to release and let go and understand. And like, you know, just like, because I think there's an important aspect of healing that requires acknowledging a lot of the pain that we have in our body. And so I was able to acknowledge it, pay attention to it, listen to it, and then release it. And while I am still in that process of still uncovering what else could possibly be in there through cycle awareness, today after the MLP. And even, you know, when the MLP ended, I feel the best I've ever felt. Like there has been a change in me and an understanding in me and in my body that, has like literally changed my life and i never thought that i could connect with myself and my body

in this way to the point where like i don't hate my body anymore i want to i know that my body is something now that i can work with and not work against it's not working against me i need to work with it and listen to it and honor it and everything that it is asking me for in order to feel my and that's what the MLP and psychopower taught me. It's great. It's so great. I'm celebrating with you and I'm so moved by the way you describe it. This honoring can happen now that your body is something that you can work with after

everything you've experienced from like age 11. It's so beautiful to hear and I'm really, really grateful to you for sharing all the different details of your experience. and I wish you so much love and care and tenderness and support as you carry on your journey to wherever life takes you, yeah, with your wonderful man. I think he's made quite an appearance in this. He has. Maybe I'll have to interview both of you one day.

I did do an episode actually with a couple who practiced cycle awareness together. Lucy Peach and her partner, Richard, and it was a really very tender conversation. and they've also had infacility challenges, and it was, yeah, it was a beauty. Is there anything that you want to say in closing to anyone who's experiencing PCOS or perhaps working with people who have PCOS about, yeah, how cycle awareness can support the healing journey with PCOS? I mean, the best way that I can say it is from my personal experience. We can spend years focusing on how we eat the supplement.

that we take what's going on in our hormones through these testing and labs. And while those things can have a significant impact on our healing and health, there is this emotional, spiritual, mindfulness side of healing that desperately needs to be addressed in order for a woman with PCOS to heal fully. And I think that experiencing my life with PCOS in the way that I have and seeing how I spent over a decade focusing on all of the sciencey part of healing and seeing the amount of healing today that I feel after connecting with my body through menstrual cycle awareness is, again, the best that I've ever felt. And I think that it is a vital, vital, vital component

and healing. And I think that women with PCOS don't understand their bodies as it is. There's a lot of confusing stuff happening in there. And I think one of the best things that we can do to help women with PCOS is to encourage them to get in touch with their feelings, their emotions, to understand the traumas and the things that are suppressed in their body that are contributing to these difficulties. And I think it's made the biggest change in me. And I believe it can make the biggest change in other women too. Beautifully said. And actually, I realized Shalise that earlier on you said, oh, maybe we could talk more about that later about what you're doing next. Yeah. Tell us. Tell us. To be honest, I don't know fully what I'm doing next. It's emerging.

So what cycle awareness actually helped me realize is that I was not fully living in my purpose. And that was hurting me. And again, another reason. why I think menstrual cycle awareness is good for all women with PCOS because it helps you understand yourself in a way that you probably never have. And so slowing down enough, quieting down enough to listen to myself and really understand where stressors are coming from in my life. I realized that my job in digital marketing in the corporate world was hurting me rather than pushing me towards my purpose. And, you know, it's hard because the world tells us that life should look a certain way,

that we should be working in a certain way, doing things in a certain way. And I had to realize that working in the way that I was working was not going to allow me to heal my body in the way that I needed to. But instead, I need to take a step back, re-kind of just, go through and take a big, giant, like, outward look at my life and see, like, what can I do to give my body what it is asking for? And through the MLP and through mental cycle awareness, the biggest thing that I've learned is that my body is asking for slowness and rest. And it seems so simple to say, like, because, you know, we all wish that we could move a little

slower. I mean, I think most people do. And, you know, at first I was like, is this really, the answer like just to i just need to move slower i need to rest more and that's what's going to make me feel better but it just over and over again in the mlp through through my meditations through my practices it was just blaring in my face like i need to rest more i need to move slower and so i decided to leave my job in corporate marketing which was a huge step for me and i'm going forward with doing something that I've always wanted to do, and that's to hopefully help other women with PCOS work towards healing. Yay, I hoped you were going to say that. I'm so excited for that. It's so needed, and your story is valuable on everything you've experienced, like transmuting some of that suffering

into gold for others. How gorgeous. Absolutely. Thank you for their encouragement. And so moving forward, I have tons of ideas. I'm working on some digital products for women with PCOS who would like to practice menstrual cycle awareness. So I hope to have those done soon. And I have some ideas for some physical products as well. And I'm just going to slowly work on that the best that I can. I feel so blessed to be in a space where I could comfortably stop my current job to focus on this next phase. And that's where I'm at. I'm just kind of figuring things out along the way, trying to still regulate my period,

which is, I guess, kind of at the forefront of what my work is right now, is really getting to a point where I can regulate my period, feel the best I've ever felt, and hopefully the work that comes out of me is going to be really aligned and purposeful. I've been trying to heal for the last, you know, over a decade, but I feel like the real healing is happening right now and leaving my job. And, you know, even on the side, I'm sure I don't know if anyone listening knows, but I do have this social media platform where I have also been sharing my experience with PCOS and infertility.

And even with leaving my job, I have also chosen to take a step back from that side of my job as well, which was kind of difficult because I have developed a community and I have developed, you know, contact with women who we are supporting each other along the way by sharing my experience, by exchanging. And I just felt in my body that I needed to stop. I need to stop everything. I can't share right now. I can't do the corporate marketing. job i just need to really just like slow down focus on the present and and that's that and again still working with living with the unknown and i wouldn't have had the confidence to say i have to stop my job i have to take a break from social media if it wasn't for menstrual cycle awareness yeah because menstrual

cycle awareness gave me the confidence and guidance to know how to listen to what my body was telling me. And that's what my body was telling me about. My body was telling me you need to take a break. And I'm just so thankful because you can have family, friends, your husband telling you to take a break. But, you know, you're not really going to listen. It's just like, yeah, I'll take a break when I'm ready. Mental cycle awareness revealed to me that that's really what needed to happen in order to promote my healing and it's it's beautiful feeling to have to to to have gained this trust in myself and knowing that like no I know that this is what I need to do for myself and it feels great and I'm so thankful for mental cycle awareness for that so good to hear and so if

those listening want to connect with you what's the best place to do that to follow along as you develop your work yeah so I am on a on a break from social media at the moment, but I look forward to maybe in a couple months coming back in a way that, you know, fits my rhythm. So it's at miss to madam underscore. And if you have any questions in the meantime, I'd be happy if you email me at miss to madam blog at gmail.com. Great. Thank you so much. I'll drop those links on our show notes as well. And I've loved everything about this conversation. Thank you so much, Lee. I hope we have a beautiful rest of your day. Thank you so much, Sophie. Thank you for being with Shalise and I today.

I'm celebrating Shalise for following her bodies knowing in this powerful way to slow down and to start helping other women. This is the kind of experience that so many people who take the menstruality leadership program have. It was the same for me as well. They get connected to their sense of purpose and actually feel more confident and clear about taking their next steps to leading in their way, whatever that looks like in their life.

If you're curious, head over to menstrualityleadership.com and do join Alexander and Shawnee for the free webinar that's coming up on September the 16th. All right, I'll be with you again in a couple of weeks and until then,

keep living life according to your own brilliant rhythm.