The Menstruality Podcast - 209. The Future of Leadership is Menstrual: A Revolution in Power (Alexandra & Sjanie)

Episode Date: September 4, 2025

In a world where fast-paced technology and artificial intelligence are on the rise, where each day brings fresh news of global injustice and conflict and where radical shifts are needed to create a sustainable future on earth, it’s no wonder that we can find ourselves overwhelmed and numb. But, the daily practice of menstrual cycle awareness can serve as a powerful antidote, and today we’re exploring how cycle awareness can create a ground of connection to ourselves and our sense of agency and power in challenging times. They also illuminate menstrual cycle awareness as a cyclical, soulful leadership model which can help you step more fully into your leadership and live into your unique way to contribute to the future you long for. Through teachings and stories from the Red School community, Alexandra and Sjanie share about the power of the daily cycle check-in as a fundamental leadership practice, the cycle as a living rhythm of rest, renewal, energy, and release, and how the power of the second half of the cycle invites you to trust your inner voice over the noise of the outside world.We explore:Menstrual rest and connection as the ground of our Feminine leadership, where we can reconnect with our purpose and our innate goodness.Menstrual cycle awareness connects you to a kind of power that is sourced in the Feminine. How the cycle guides us home to what we were made for - to our calling and the deep meaning at work in our lives. ---Receive our free video training: Love Your Cycle, Discover the Power of Menstrual Cycle Awareness to Revolutionise Your Life - www.redschool.net/love---The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email [e-mail]---Social media:Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.schoolSophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy

Welcome to the menstruality podcast where we share inspiring conversations about the power of menstrual cycle awareness and conscious menopause. This podcast is brought to you by Red School, where we're training the menstruality leaders of the future. I'm your host, Sophie Jane Hardy, and I'll be joined often by Red School's founders, Alexandra and 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, thanks for tuning in today. So in this world where fast-paced technology and artificial

intelligence are on the rise massively, where each day brings fresh new, news of global injustice, of conflict, and where hugely radical shifts are needed to create a sustainable future here on earth, it is no wonder that we can find ourselves feeling overwhelmed and numb. But the daily practice of menstrual cycle awareness can serve as a powerful antidote. And today, we're exploring how cycle awareness can create a ground of connection to ourselves and to our sense of agency and power to affect change in challenging times. I'm chatting with Alexander and Shani and they also illuminate menstrual cycle awareness as a cyclical, soulful leadership model which can help you to step more fully into your leadership and live into

your unique way of contributing to the future that you long for, whatever that looks like for you. So through their own teachings and through some powerful stories from the Red School community, Alexander and Shani share about the power of the daily cycle check-in as a fundamental leadership practice, the menstrual cycle as a living rhythm of rest, renewal, energy and release, and how the power of the second half of the cycle invites you to trust your inner voice over the noise of the outside world. We haven't recorded a podcast episode for a couple of weeks and I haven't edited one for a while so it was so good to be back and just so good to be back

here with you. Thank you for tuning in and I hope you really enjoy this episode. Hey, good morning. It's been a while you too. Shall we do a little check in? Yes. Yes. I feel I just noticed then a little hesitancy to speak. Not like you. It's not like me. Do you feel like going first? Oh, you're pushing me out there now. It's almost like a shyness. Okay, I'll go first. How am I?

Well, we are just back from our month of, yeah, we just had summer holidays. And I feel well and that there's some energy in the tank. I am still landing. And so I don't feel completely. settled. I'm not unsettled, but I know I'm not quite here yet. And I think that was the hesitancy almost, you know, oh, am I here enough? And then the other thing is that we've got next week, we've got this wonderful community retreat for our grads. You know, I'm in gear with that. My consciousness is aware of having to, you know, get ready for that and travel to that. I think

I think I'm in a void, really, with that, which is what I go into before a big event like that. I go into kind of spaciousness, emptiness, and it's hard for me then to do practical stuff. But I can feel this sort of sweetness and kindness and gentleness within me. It's a feel the graduates coming together, and at Hawkewood, too, which is quite a sacred place for Red School, isn't it? We've done many of our trainings there. Yeah, and we had a book retreat, a writing retreat, where we finished one of the, I think, final drafts of Wild Power there.

The first draft. Yeah, the first draft, and some key ideas landed while we were lying on the grass under this incredible truth. Yes, that was where the whole MCA piece fully landed. We were sitting on the grass, weren't we? Those trees at Hawke would know things, they're very often. They do. Yeah, it's amazing.

And it feels so good to be gathering with the graduates because these are people who know the work, you know, this is their path, this is their life. And to come together with people who are so committed to menstruality and be able to play and go deeper and just have the kinds of conversations that you can only have when you're just hanging out together in person. I'll move on to my cycle checking because it's relevant there because I would have been

there at the retreat but he's starting school so I'm I decided to be here so that I can be ground for him while he starts this next massive adventure and I do feel in a really good position to do that I'm on day 21 which is my grounded time of the cycle and I just also had the privilege of having three weeks, not working, driving around France, visiting Mary Magdalene's cave, the cave where she's said to have lived out the last 30 years of her life, which I went to 20 years ago. So it's a kind of a full circle moment. Yeah, and I'm just feeling so quiet inside. And I realized I was chatting with you to about this before that. I realized that before the holiday, there was so much noise in me,

so much unfelt feeling from really all the different crises that are happening in the world and I couldn't stop to feel it all because it hurt too much. Then I was on holiday with not much to do apart from parents of four year old

all over France, which turns out isn't very easy. Holidays are different when you've got small children. But it was, yeah, I didn't have any input and I could really just feel like process all the feelings.

of the last few months and I just feel so much calmer inside and so much readier to get back out into the world and you know contribute in whatever way I can yeah I'm feeling in a really really like the best place I felt all year. This is what swimming in the Mediterranean Sea and visiting sacred caves can do. I'm so blessed and so lucky. That is so good to hear. Yeah I've got a little tinge of that stillness in me today as well. My experience of myself is quite complex and multi-layered as it tends to be. So I am just now two months away from turning 49 and I'm on day 13 today. And the autumnal coloring of this life stage is very, very strong for me. So on one hand, I am feeling that kind of smoothness of the inner summer energy.

My nervous system feels very soothed. I feel like landed in that way that the inner summer can bring just like a feeling of arrival, which is really nice. And actually it is a bit like you, Sophie, it's taken me the whole of my time off work. to decompress and kind of re-regulate and relocate myself in time and space because it's been one of the most difficult years of my life on all sorts of levels. Like you, I had a lot to feel. Yeah, it's amazing how much time it takes to really come home.

I was reading someone's post in our community recently who said, yeah, I stop and rest administration, but I don't feel rested. And I thought, yeah, well, because it takes time to come to a place of restedness. We don't just stop and then feel rested. And certainly that's been true for me. Yeah, and then the other sort of element of my experience, which I will share, because I think anyone in their late 40s or maybe even in menopause might be able to relate to this is just how my.

I, the lens through which I see life just has this slightly shady tint to it. Yeah, I've, I'm a Sagittarian. Like, I'm a born optimist. I think anyone who knows me would, you know, one of the key things you say about me is I'm optimistic. I'm a sort of positive glass-half full kind of person. Well, not so much anymore, it turns out. Yeah, I just, I'm kind of seeing what's not there, what's not working, what's

not okay and it's a it's a very kind of harsh um experience of life actually it's very dry it's very it hurts uh to not be in touch with that innocence and with that um kind of effortless trust actually so yeah it's taking a lot of inner discipline to keep coming back to that place in myself that is innocent and that does look at the world with delight and wonder and yeah so that's me dry a little dry and crusty wow wow it's so moving to hear you speak it feels like a good lens to bring to this conversation actually like dry and dusty and sort of desiccated as it might feel um because when we talk about leadership the call for each of us to step into the next level of leadership, the way that we can lead

in the world, is loud, isn't it? There is a lot happening that requires our love and our care and our attention and our fire and our passion and all of it. A lot of our great, you know, culture leaders are calling it a polycrisis, you know, the wars and the civil unrest all over the world, Palestine, Ukraine, Haiti, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, like the list goes on and on and on. This, like, rise of far-right fascist politics fuelling, white supremacy, misogyny, you know, so much of what we're trying to undo here at Red School, this misogyny rife in the world, the exclusion of marginalised folks, the ongoing climate, environmental challenges, you know, it's it's a lot that we're facing in this poly crisis and you know as you two were dreaming into this

conversation you were also named a couple of the other challenges that we're facing and I wondered if you could speak about them the first one being that our modern lifestyles which are dominated by speed and pressure and technology this rise of AI that's happening that it's numbing us you know that we feel numb. It's what I experienced before my winter in the middle of summer that I just had. You know, I was numbed by all of the intensity. You know, could you say more about that,

about how our modern lifestyles are numbing us? Yeah, I just want to presence myself, you know, with what you've just been saying, Sophie, because as you were speaking, I could feel a kind of disturbance happening in my body, you know, started to feel really kind of uneasy, like, whoa, whoa, yeah. And this feeling of overwhelm coming, yes. And then I locate myself again and remember what I've come to serve here in the world.

And it is this work around cyclical consciousness and the menstrual cycle. And the numbing is occurring, I think partly when numbing, with the enormity of everything that's going on it's our way of otherwise it's like a trauma response isn't it and um secondly speed pressure the incredible um pressure and speed at which we have to live the pressure the speed at which information is coming at us at all the kind of technologies that are evolving all the time and I notice how I struggle

because I'm in my 70s and to try and keep some purchase on it and then there's another part in me that thinks just step away. I can understand why people step away because it requires a lot of chi for one thing concentration and I don't want I just don't have that yeah but speed

the world is going too far is going faster than our psyches are designed for the bottom line our psyches do not move at that speed and consequently to survive we have to in a sense override our physicality our feelings our heart and we come up into our heads and it's like our heads are now firefighting everything and you know with all the stuff we have to do and things are managed and the price that it's paying in compromising our souls for one of a better word is our humanity the price to our humanity is it's hideous actually so we then are losing connection with ourselves

because of that and so now we are prey to being just taken over with whatever is happening. We're losing our connection to ourselves and our own sense of knowing. So this is where the work of menstrual cycle awareness is just so crucial. Shani, I'd love you to come in now. I'm really taking you in, Alexandra. It's very powerful the way you're framing it. In a way, this numbness is a sort of vacancy.

from ourselves and actually from our connection with life. Yeah. I've heard the term compassion fatigue, and I think it's really relevant here. Yeah. Almost like a natural response to shut down. Yeah. I'm also just aware of how part of the way, certainly this is true for me, part of the way my psyche works is that when things are happening,

very quickly, I tend to be unconscious of them. And I'm just sort of tracking back through time and certainly through my lifetime how technology has evolved and how our relationship with technology has become so like a part of our moment-by-moment lives. And because that's happened so quickly, I'm aware of how unconscious I've been of it infiltrating my life. And exactly what you're describing there, Alexandra, it's, I'm having a rude awakening.

I mean, I felt at the summer, a kind of shock at realizing where we are in terms of technology and how what that means for our body, hearts, minds, and souls. what it's doing to us. Like I had a really rude awakening to it. I was like, oh, my God, how did we get here? You know, and thinking about our children, Sophie, I could cry because I'm in a community where there's a lot of talk about, it's very distressing, the effects of technology is having on children

and interrupting their developmental process. and all the kind of life skills and soul skills that make us human. To think of young people not at least being grounded in rhythm and grounded in nature and grounded in this connection to ourselves, I at least had that kind of childhood. But here we are. You know, here we are where babies and toddlers are like carrying devices around with them constantly and is just integral to their life. And there's no judgment here.

in any one. I do think as, you know, humanity, it's happened so fast. We've all been unconscious of it. Yeah. And we're all just experiencing the kind of whiplash, the stress, and not quite fully recognizing why yet, you know. Yeah. Just when I came on here, Zoom said, would you like an AI companion for this? Like a human companion. I'd like someone to come and hold my hand. but yeah it is it is distressing that's why I'm so excited about this conversation and why I'm so devoted to coming back to my cycle as my guide in life because it feels like you named this in your you know your notes for this conversation as an antidote

yes yes yes pathway pathway through the forest through the jungle of all that we're facing in our modern world Yeah. I mean, everything we've described here is just a recipe for overwhelm. And I think so many of us are experiencing that high levels of stress or illness or, you know, mental and emotional health crises and so on. Something that I've really been aware of, you know, very, very lately is just the rise in sort of AI. I mean, the world is changing so radically and so fast. I mean, we're in a whole new era, a whole new landscape. And I'm not necessarily anti that.

But what I do feel in response to it is the sense of like, oh, my word, this work, menstruality could not be more timely, could not be more necessary. In fact, now more than ever, one of the most powerful resources we have is our connection to ourself. You know, there was a time in history where you could underestimate the power of that because there wasn't such a strong polarizing force pulling you out of yourself. But our connection to ourselves is becoming quickly one of the most powerful skills, resources and necessities, because the moment we have connection to ourselves, we are back in a place of power.

We're back in a place of agency. And that is a profound antidote to overwhelm, you know, to feel your own ground and to feel that place in yourself that holds power. And we all have that in every moment. It is the place we can come back to. And menstrual cycle awareness is holding us in a practice of that, which I think we really need. We need the container, I know I do, of daily committed tracking and attending to how my mood and energy is shifting what I'm needing. This is so powerful.

You could have dismissed this years ago. Like, oh, it doesn't really matter what I need. You cannot. This is now like life skills, survival skills. you know, how am I? What am I needing? Yeah. Can we tease that apart a bit how the practice of doing a daily cycle check-in is calling us home to our agency and power in an overwhelming world? Can we sort of slow that down and tease apart how that happens?

Yes. Let's sort of unfold a little bit more how menstrual cycle awareness works, this antidote, if you like, to the enormity of what's happening in the world. So at its simplest level, you're checking in with yourself each day into your feelings, into your energy, into just the condition of who you are today and what your needs are, is Shani articulated. But the very act of doing that, it requires a kind of pause. You're interrupting something. So the simple act of doing it starts to shift something.

And the process of doing this over time, moving through the different phases of the cycle, what you're doing is you're learning to draw on. the resources, if you like, the different phases of the cycle. So you're opening up sort of different kinds of information about yourself, which is strengthening your inner life, you're in a world. I'm thinking most particularly actually of menstruation. And really, I would say this is one of the most powerful things we can do in these times. And I feel so strongly about this.

is really caring for the menstrual time, not the least of which is, of course, you get in taking more rest then, but what menstruation can open you to, because menstruation, as we've written about and spoken about often, is opening you to your deep self, to the rightness of who you are. It's a high, holy, spiritual moment. and this for me is the most extraordinary anchor and antidote to these times because you are literally plugged back into yourself but more than that you feel yourself plugged back into the world into life itself into meaning so it is the most exquisite food that you sup on here that is, if you like, the fuel that will nourish the whole cycle.

And when you've had that experience of menstruation, and then you go out, of course, into, you know, the first of your half, you start to move through the cycle. And of course, it's very easy to lose connection to that, except that you never fundamentally can. It doesn't forget you. I think that's the important thing. That what you're doing each day with menstrual cycle awareness

and checking in with yourself, is in some ways just keeping a line to that place, a remembering of something. And the very fact of listening to yourself and recognizing what your needs are, being able to care for that as much as you can, like tending to your nervous system, is keeping you within yourself

and with your own sovereignty, if you like. This is actually what we mean by leadership. at its very core, it is to do with this connection with yourself. So when we say the future of leadership is menstrual, this is in part what we're referring to is having this ground of connection to yourself so that you're in connection with your own personal power. But as Alexandra said, you're also in connection with a greater power. You know, that's why we talk about this being feminine leadership, because it is power that is sourced from the feminine.

And that's what menstrual cycle awareness is doing in this daily, seemingly inconsequential practice of doing a cycle check-in, you are being inducted into this way of being, this way of being, you know, which is the way of the feminine, which is a whole different way of perceiving the world. It's a whole different way of relating to the world. It's one that's, you know, we talk about it being the veer negativa. It's meeting life on life's terms and really feeling yourself being held by life and guided by life so that you are in relationship with this support, which I feel is what we're all needing to be able to kind of trust something bigger

that is moving us and moving through us and guiding us all into a future that is more just and sustainable and has reverence for nature again. And it honors our humanity. And on us our humanity, yes. So much in what you just said, Sharni, about the feminine, and it's making me think of something that I'm hearing the recent graduates of the last two, three years of the menstruality leadership program say

is what they're most, one of the things they're most grateful for about the menstruality leadership program is that you've named these feminine leadership skills. So you've 13, 12, 12. 12. The 13th one is just a blank mystery in space, an unknown. You've got to leave space for the mystery. So these 12 feminine leadership skills that are the how-to of this, you know, something I found in my life journeying, questing to understand what the feminine is. It's felt kind of amorphous in many ways, vague sometimes and something that you've done in the program that's tease out these different skills. and, you know, explore the different skills on the Mentholity Leadership Program

and it's really giving the participants something to take into their lives, to continue to work and practice, to live into this kind of leadership that you're speaking about. Yeah. Yeah. It requires a huge discipline, actually, to hold to this way.

Although just holding to that cycle awareness practice every day. It's like having a, you've got this unbelievable, a little cord to the mother source within you. That's what you're holding on to. But it does demand something of us when we're having to interact with the world. And these 12 skills that we have described, I was about to say 12 squirrels. I know. I totally heard you say squirrels.

Twelve squirrels we've come out with. That's the alternative program. Yeah, that's the old show of the program. These skills are just absolutely foundational. They're core. I can't live without them. Yeah. I'm practicing them every day.

And I have a deep trust in them, actually. It's interesting. It's the sort of combination of cycle awareness, understanding about the cycle, and having this experience of knowing what I'm built for, which my bleed gave me. over and over again and then was firmly cemented in

at menopause so that I cannot abandon it I must have signed in my last blood to keep to this way and it's so easy to be affected by everything in the world and that affects my nervous system and my energy and everything but these 12 skills become this

absolute sort of bedrock that I keep coming back to that keep me moving forward with what I've come to serve and to not and it they're like a bulwark for me a what a bull walk B-U-L-W-A-R-K love your word sometimes I do love language they're like a buffer i suppose is another word yeah um against the onslaught that's coming they keep me in a kind of disciplined place with myself and i even want to add alexandra it's what allows you to embody this knowing because because of the times we live in we're all so seduced by information and it's kind of fun and entertaining to learn about cyclical living. But it's actually the process of embodying your cycle that is where this power lies and

where this leadership is sourced from. And it's the practice of cycle awareness. And actually what we teach on the MLP, next level cycle awareness, it's called evolutionary cycle awareness. That's what actually brings you from the ideas and information into an actually integrated everyday experience of trust in cyclical life and leaning into it as a resource because that is, I mean, a life's work for all of us because we've, you know, we live in a culture and a time that is, A, designed to move us away from trusting nature and trusting cycles and trusting life and we've been we've been taught the opposite is true so we're all in this work of recovery and you know that's why I think doing this in community and having these

very practical skills and practices is where it's at you know because there's no it's not a quick fix I think we're way beyond quick fixes yeah we're all in this for the long haul this is, you know, a long, long game. I'm going to pause the episode just for a moment to share an invitation. Alexandra and Shani warmly welcome you to come over and explore their annual leadership training grounded in the wisdom of the menstrual cycle. It's called the menstruality leadership program. You can find out about it at menstrualityleadership.com.

the doors have recently opened for the 2026 program and there's a super early bird saving of 500 pounds when you book before midnight on the 1st of October and if you'd like to know more about the feminine leadership skills that we've been chatting about in our conversation today Alexandra and sharnie are going to be sharing more about them in their upcoming free event online event which is called how to channel the powers of menstruality to step into your leadership It's coming up on Tuesday, the 16th of September, at 11 a.m. New York time, 4 p.m. UK time. But if you're not able to be there live, if that time doesn't work for you, please do register and they'll send you the recording afterwards. They're going to share more about cyclical leadership, all the details about the menstruality leadership program, and they'll also be able to answer your questions.

So you can find out more about the course and about the free event and register for that at menstruality. leadership.com. I just keep thinking, you know, back to the overwhelm that we've been talking about and something that you did at the beginning of the conversation, Alexandra, something that's so important to remember is our leadership is just the one thread that we're holding in the great tapestry of, you know, all the different solutions that will help to create the future that we want.

You did at the beginning, you said, oh, I feel overwhelmed. Let me locate myself in what I am here to serve. And that's what we're talking about in terms of cyclical leadership. It's, you know, what are you here to do? And it looks so different for each of us in our own lives, you know, and so many different examples of like through our relationships, our parenting if we have children, our work lives, our creative life, it might be very quiet and personal.

And there's a story actually that I'd love to share that Sarah shared in our community where I would say her leadership looks like her own personal healing right now, but I'll share the story and we can see. So Sarah says, I really want to thank you for your work. Your book, podcast and website found me last summer, already some months into a quite scary burnout place. I couldn't work anymore and my menstrual and premenstrual pain, nausea and weakness was really immense. Reading your book last summer, I decided to give my all to my cycle's needs. And I now finished 13 months of doing that. In my first all-in, no medication bleed, the pain was almost unbearable. But I also felt that if there was power in that pain,

it was flowing in me and that I could do anything. So in the month after that, I was holding on to wild power like a Bible, and I still do. Very deep healing work was and is happening in my life over the last year and the red thread that you offered was such a lifeline for me and with all the challenges that I still experience I feel more and more that I really exist and that I might allow myself to do that like so much of me was shut down quite is so moving this right so much of me was shut down because it was not safe or welcome to exist before I'm now looking to find my voice as I experience a kind of silent cry of outrage in me when witnessing the absurdity and violence against bodies and rhythms in the normal everyday life, not to mention in places of crisis.

I'm on the cusp of going back to my working life and pray that I will bring the healing that has begun with me and into the life of others. It feels like such a beautiful example of the kind of leadership call that we can connect to through the practice of cycle awareness. Yeah. And then it looks so different for each of us, how that plays out in the world, but the ripples that will come out

from this committed healing path that Sarah is on are we don't know what they will be, millions of, I don't know. So moving, it's so moving. Sarah has tasted something in herself that she now can't go back on. I mean, she knows she exists now. It's so powerful there.

It's beyond words at this point for her that she's feeling something so deeply. And as you keep practicing cycle awareness, you are nourishing that. You don't, it grows. It gets stronger and stronger. Thank you so much, Sarah, for that story. It's amazing. Yeah, and it's one of the ways that cycle awareness. awareness is such a grounded practice because it again and again just invites you to meet yourself

where you're at. And so often our minds have other agendas and want to be in places where not and things we ought to and should and so on. But cycle awareness really brings you to what needs tending to now. And what's so magical about it is that when we meet ourselves where we're at and we tend to what needs tending to in the moment, that is what opens our, I want to say, creativity. It's what opens our leadership or evolves our leadership into the next iteration. It's very organic like that. And so when we say it's an embodied and an embodiment practice,

really it is something about how. it keeps bringing you back into the reality of your own experience and the reality of your life as it is. And that being a source of power, even when it doesn't look like it. Who would have thought that pain or even disconnection from yourself was a source of power? But when you come to meet it, it turns out that that's what's opening. And I really like that. I really like remembering that leadership is, you know, we said it's about our connection to ourselves, but it's also about our relationship to power. And that is like an ongoing, evolving relationship. It's not a static thing. You know, you don't sort of awaken to your power and then, you know,

you're done. Bingo. It's a creative unfolding. It's a developmental process. It's a process of awareness. And menstrual cycle awareness is. holding you in that evolving relationship to power. Her story, sorry, your story, is just, God, it's so actually comforting, I want to say. Because it's, yeah, wow, it's very, very comforting to me to hear it. Yeah, and when we commit to this practice of, okay, how am I doing today? What cycle day am I on? How am I feeling physically?

How am I feeling emotionally? simple, amazing practice, it impacts all our relationships too. And there was another story that came in that just so tickled me and made me so happy. So I wanted to share it from Clara, who's a graduate of our menstruality leadership program. So she said, this morning's gem of a convo with my five-year-old son. Son, mum, so he's five years old, this kid. mom if you're bleeding when it's your inner winter what happens when it's your inner summer me clara well that's when the egg has grown and is released and i can make a baby then or not son and when you're in your inner autumn that's when you don't have as much patience and you get more frustrated i have to remember to be more gentle then clara yes thanks for that Like this kid is growing up inside rhythm and cycle and honouring. It makes me so happy.

So gorgeous. What I'm sort of with here is, and it was something you spoke to earlier, Sophie, which is this, you know, when we're talking about leadership, we're not talking, we could be talking about grand, big things that you are called to do in the world. but it's also the intimate and day-to-day small things that that we are tending to. And this is just a lovely micro moment that is huge, you know, in what's implied in that. That's shifting something. So there's no, there is no small leadership ultimately. It is all every act of honoring our humanity. of tending to rhythm and caring for rhythmic life

in all its facets is shifting things, is shifting the access of things. Each one of us has, is a thread in the tapestry. And the menstrual cycle is helping you to know your thread, your path, your way. And to trust that and to trust the magnitude of that, the impact of that, it's so important to hear there is no small in this leadership work whatsoever.

And you touched on there, Alexandra, the importance of rhythm, which, you know, when I said like our leadership is evolving and like an ongoing practice, rhythm and letting ourselves lean into rhythm and be rhythmic is what keeps us in connection with our power and also keeps us in connection with our purpose. That's the other piece. We, we, we, we, things become meaningless very quickly and we lose our sense of agency and a sense of our worth and our value and even an awareness of how much effect we have. We start to see and perceive ourselves as being ineffective. I mean, that is one of the biggest cons I think out there is that we can't affect change.

And, you know, that really leaves us feeling hopeless. isn't it? But when you're living rhythmically and you're honoring rhythm in all these ways and bringing it into your family life, is that beautiful story illustrates, your sense of purpose and your feeling of your value and the necessity of you is just fueled on and on and on. It's like this wellspring of resource that keeps like pumping through your blood, through your heart, And that's so important, particularly in the face of everything that can make us feel hopeless. And there's a lot of that right now, you know, rhythm, rhythm, rhythm. I just want to, yeah, emphasize that.

So the other piece that we reference at the beginning about how the practice of menstrual cycle awareness can help us to embody this soulful, cyclical leadership from the feminine is how it helps us to move. from being caught up in what the world and culture tells us we should be and look like and do and say to who we know ourselves to be from the inside out to sovereignty. And in my notes here it says the awakening power of the second half of the cycle. I've just gone through it. okay one way this shows up with my relationship with aid in my leadership in in our relationship is just bang on cue day 19, 20 whenever my premenstrual truth-telling voice will tell me what is wrong with the relationship and then I skillfully or not so skillfully deliver that to aid

and we have an argument and it's very uncomfortable and the next day we go oh yeah okay this is what we need to correct this is how you need to show up how I need to show up like I'm sorry I love you and we move on it's so like it's clockwork it is rhythmic reliable not comfortable but reliable and we're laughing about it you know it takes my premenstrual truth to show to pick up the rocks look under the stones find the insects and the bugs you know and and sort them out yeah it's um the power of the second half of the cycle is me on it's a secret weapon of the cycle that comes along to like rock the status quo i mean the status quo within ourselves it keeps us alive and awake but it's us disturbing the

world no wonder the second half of the cycle gets demonized because you know no one wants to be made to feel discomfort you know but i'm like i'm bringing truth here yes she should be praising me all the ways the pre-menstrual queen who is bringing this I always used to say the nova cane is wearing off, you know, we're waking up. That's what's happening in the second half. You're starting to wake up more. It's not that you weren't awake before, but the first half of the cycle, I mean, is gorgeous. It is this lovely expanding energy where you get this, you know, if all is going well,

you know, with your overall health and everything. this rise in energy and it just sort of fills you it's this doubly affirmation, this yes and you're kind of riding a wave and you've got energy and you've got ideas and agency you know and you can really get out and do things

and this is our culture runs on that kind of energy doing doing doing but and it's addictive you know I'm sure you've experienced it you know, in your, in a summer, that moment of coming off that high of sunny chunk, you come off it. Just keeping going like that, keeping going, of course, burnout, you know, it's what's happening

everywhere. I think it's happening behind you right now because someone's car alarm is going on. Oh, yes. Alert, alert, alert. Exactly. Good. Okay. So we've got the alert going here, enter the second half of the cycle, see, peace, to save the day.

And it doesn't feel comfortable because, of course, it's interrupting momentum, but if you kept on with that momentum, you'd just be deadening yourself and becoming more and more incensitive to yourself, to others, to everything. So the second half of the cycle is this energy that's drawing you inwards. It's a contracting energy. And you just immediately become more permeable. And in that permeability, of course, you start to feel things. It's like nerve endings that we're getting a little flattened and deadened and suddenly sort of can come back to life a bit, and they're all a bit sort of stingy and reactive, you know, with sore.

because they've been deadened. And so yes, it's a waking up that happens to your deeper needs. And it's making you more permeable to life, which is often why we can feel overwhelmed, more overwhelmed in the second half of the cycle. We have to be careful of that, you know, by what's happening in the world. At the same time, this awakening can loosen this deeper knowing within us. This is the juice, you know, of the second half of the cycle.

And you spoke Sophie about truth-telling that comes through. There is this strong, catalytic power that can come through that can affect change in the world. You know, it has a potency behind it that is different to the power we have in the first half of the cycle. And it's a potency that when you're aligned with it, it's hard for people to argue with it. They feel uncomfortable with it. But, you know, it's like you wake up somebody else with that. It really got me thinking about leadership because I'm just as you're speaking, under reflecting on how seductive outer authority is.

We're talking about leadership. We're talking about being in touch with and aligned with our inner authority. Outer authority is so seductive. I mean, who doesn't want someone to just tell us what to do and how to do it? There's something so innocent about that. And, yeah, so I just want to kind of acknowledge

how seductive it is. the first half of the cycle, and particularly the inner summer, is really a, it sort of supports us to be in harmony with that outer authority, to kind of go along with things. And the shadow side of that is unconsciousness and its complacency and it's a kind of forgetting of your own knowing. So what I love about the second half of the cycle is how it, um, it, um, you know, Yeah, sometimes in quite a shocking way, certainly often in a real reality check kind of way, wakes you up to your own authority and reminds you

that actually you have to take responsibility, not only for yourself, but actually for the impact you have in the world and whether that's benign or benefic or, you know, like you can't be a non-participator. You can't be a non-contender. None of us, especially as adults, we don't get to step out of responsibility. And the second half of the cycle just kind of taps you on the shoulder and says to you,

actually, you need to take responsibility and you need to recognize that you have an effect and that you can be effective. And this is the other piece. And Alexandra, you were feeling this so strongly when we were talking about this podcast previously, is that you are reminded of actually how you uniquely can contribute. You know, this is the other thing you're awoken to in the second half of the cycle is your calling, you know, what you're made for, how you can be in service of life. And to know that and be in touch with that is no small thing.

I'm so moved by what you said about the, how, what was the word intoxicating. It was seductive, yeah. A lot of the women I work with and I experience this all the time. It's like inside a patriarchy that has told us that we're not worthy. Of course we look for the stamp of approval. Yeah. Like that what we're doing is right and good and okay. And of course we look for the next certificate or the next that can show us that finally we're worthy.

and the radical act of saying, I am worthy because I am. You know, actually, I mean, I was someone, as you know, who struggled a lot with shame. And it was the menstrual cycle, well, menstruation that saved me because it kept restoring me always to the sense of, I'm okay. You know, it was just a steep experience of just belonging

and goodness within myself and of course what came out of that was knowing what I'm made for, my calling. It's extraordinary how that happens and that is without that, without those two experiences, I would be without meaning.

And it's to know one's life is meaningful is just the greatest gift medicine of all. and to know that I have some my life is worth something you know of course it's worth something just through existence but no I've got this expression from that this creative expression that I can bring that is adding something to the world and so yes and and this is it I said earlier

it's this fuel that nourishes and fills and guides you and motivates you It's extraordinary. And I just love how the cycle wakes that up. And I'm actually just thinking of that wonderful story we've got from Amelia of her experience of doing the MLP and how she's just come out with this extraordinary sort of summation of something for herself. She says, I dream of publishing, teaching and building communities where menstruation is not a private

burden, but a public resource, especially in my artistic home dance environment. I imagine an artistic ecosystem where cyclical leadership prevents burnout, deepens creativity, and offers an alternative to the extractive models of cultural production. This vision may be ambitious, but it feels urgent. I believe that by daring to honour and research the cycle, I can help shape a future where women's bodies are not obstacles to creativity, but its most trusted allies. God, you know, that's so powerful what she has said about, you know, what she stepped into through doing this work. She's just finished this year's MLP. and a really powerful example of taking the work to exactly where you are

and finding a way to apply it for her in this dance community and in the dance environment yeah she's an academic as well so she's working within that academic culture and yeah it's an incredible seed she's planting with that vision yeah and she lives in poland and it you know it's extraordinary just to mention the ripple effects of her doing this work and following this vision and call and what that will have, you know, the effects that will have on Polish culture and Polish women and so on. Yeah. So if you're listening to this and you'd like to know more about the menstruality leadership program, a really good thing to do is to come to this

free event that's happening on September the 16th where we'll go into more. depth around some of the myths that we hold culturally and collectively around leadership like but I'm not a leader you know we've spoken about that a lot today but like we need to debunk this one totally we have to be perfect you know oh god yeah no no um and we'll talk more about how menstruality can be your your own custom made path to embodying your power and as I mentioned earlier we'll look at these 12 menstruality inspired feminine leadership skills as well and loads more it's a really big hour and a half isn't it it's beautiful so that's on september the 16th and you can register to join for free at menstruality leadership.com yeah any closing words from you two

oh my god i just want to say really care for your bleeds because what you'll get The more you can give space to menstruation, the more you're going to feel and know something about yourself, that is your contribution, your gift to the world. You may not even have words, folks. It may not even have words. But you will feel and know something profound that's going to move and guide you. and the world needs that from you. Yeah, menstrual cycle awareness is a revolution in power and it's built into your body. So I just really, if you're listening to this, I just want to invite you to see yourself

as being part of this future of menstrual leadership, one that is cyclical, one that is rhythmic and one that's sourced in the feminine, because it's in you, is utterly in you, and the world really needs you to participate in this. Yeah, so I hope you can journey a little bit deeper with us. We'd love to, yeah, share more of this with you. Thanks, you too. See you next time. Thank you, Sophie.

Adios. Thanks for being with us today. As always, I love hearing from you. I'd love to hear what landed from this conversation. You can get in touch with me at Sophie atredschool.net. And also let me know if there are conversations you'd love us to have, topics should love us to speak about, guests that you'd love me to interview. and if there's someone that you think would benefit from this conversation, please forward it to

them. And lastly, if you'd like to help the podcast, the best thing to do is to leave a review on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify and a rating. It's the best way to help this podcast reach more people. Okay, thanks for being with us again. I hope you enjoyed this episode and I'll be with you again in a couple of weeks. And until then, keep living life according to your own. brilliant rhythm.