The Menstruality Podcast - 225. The Courage of Genius (and What Your Cycle Has to Do With It) with Alexandra & Sjanie

Episode Date: January 8, 2026

To help you ease into 2026 purposefully, we’re talking about how the cycle helps you to live in your zone of genius today, which is to say, how practising menstrual cycle awareness helps you to know your own nature and stay close to what you’re really great at. We go through the inner seasons of the cycle one by one, sharing how each one can help us to do the courageous, radical act of claiming ourselves and what we love in a world that celebrates constant productivity over joy. We get practical too by sharing a specific zone of genius practice to each cycle phase - enjoy!We explore: The power of doing absolutely nothing in your inner winter at menstruation, or the dark moon, and how it anchors you into connection to your purpose.Why it’s so vital to have periods of time where you can experiment in inner spring, to be messy with no inner critic allowed.How to work with your premenstrual discerning energy to take stock and to reflect on what is working and what isn't in your life, so you can stay close to yourself and your zone of genius. ---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, 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. Hiya, thanks for tuning in today. So to help you ease into 2026, I'm with Alexander and

Shawnee today and we're talking about how the cycle, the menstrual cycle, can help you to live in your zone of genius, which is to say how practicing menstrual cycle awareness can help you to know your own nature and stay close to what you're really great at. We go through the inner seasons of the menstrual cycle phase by phase, sharing how each one can help us do this radical act of claiming ourselves and what we love in a world that celebrates constant productivity. over joy and we get practical to sharing a specific zone of genius practice for each cycle phase. One of my favourite bits was when we spoke about the power of doing absolutely nothing in your

inner winter menstruation or the dark moon and how this is one of the core ways to anchor into your purpose and into your genius. So let's get started with the courage of genius and what your cycle has to do with it with Alexander and Shawnee. Hey, you two. This is our first convoy of 2026 that we're recording in 20206. And we are all wrapped up, bundled up, wearing coats and blankets because it's so cold. And also, we've just been chatting endlessly. We were supposed to start this about half an hour ago. We don't work together in an office. We don't get that like round the water cooler chat time. So yeah, we were like, no. We were like, no. we need to press record. So here we are. Shall we start with our cycle check-in? Does anyone feel like going first?

Given that it's a new year, I might break tradition and go first. How about that? You can do it. I can do it. Day 21 for me. So I'm in my inner autumn. And I think really influencing how I feel today is the fact that we have been out of work mode for three weeks, so not working for three weeks.

And yesterday was our first day back at work. And what happened yesterday was that Alexandra and I. We did a lot of chatting and there was a lot of effervescence and ideas and things popping. And I got so overstimulated by Alexandra's good company that I slept very. terribly last night. So I feel tired from that. But a little deeper than the tiredness is a feeling of being unencumbered, which is really nice. I have the image of a boat that's been in a harbor that's suddenly been unmoored and not in a like lost or ankleless way, but just in a set free kind of way, you know, where the harbour represents domesticity and, you know, social,

I don't know, social towing the line. And suddenly I just feel set off into the wild of the big ocean. Is that difficult for you on day 21? Yeah, I've experienced versions of this. I think the kind of common theme is something around like becoming unhinged, as in, you know, we talk about your polite, socialized self-biting the dust in the premenstruem. I definitely experience versions of that. Sometimes that looks like me completely losing my shizzle. And other times, I experience it as a sort of inner freedom. Yeah, a wildness.

Wildness, that's the weather's coming up for me. Untamed. Untamed. It's good. Yeah. Do you want to go next, Sophie? Are you also experiencing that? I'm on a different kind of vibe,

but I'm curious if how well you slept, if you were overstimulated from all of your effervescent idea sparking with Sharnie yesterday. I actually... You didn't find me that entertainment. No, I didn't find her that entertaining. I slept actually better than usual. It's day 19, I think, of the moon.

But I'm not. actually experiencing something similar to what Sharnie has described. And I do feel I'm out of the grip of the whole lead up to the full moon and the drop for the full moon. And sometimes I can ride that wave, you know, coming into the full moon. You know, I can ride it beautifully. It's like, wee! And, you know, I can feel the wind in my sails or whatever it is. And this full moon, I just couldn't bloody get the way for me just wrong and I just felt all wrong in myself and weird and had bad sleep and I'm sort of coming out of that and I'm feeling better because I'm out of the grip of that so I'm sort of in the lee of the hill the pinnacle of

the hill you know of the mood sort of in the lee of it now it's like few that's over And so But the feeling I woke out I don't know how this is going to bode for our conversation But it felt It felt like the stays are off You know, off the corset Of being held in place by the corset

The staves are all gone ping, ping, ping, ping, ping And I'm released And my brain is on I think, sorry, everybody It's all right, It's the Australian in you. We let her roam free. On steroids.

Yeah, they'll be wild. Yeah, my brain is just going off. It's having so much fun going down random, you know, random pot holes. There's plenty of potholes right here. Random sort of holes, you know, exploring things. And just completely random thoughts. Very creative, very wonderful. So I'm a bit of a loose cannon, I think, this morning with my brain.

yeah yeah okay well i've got some good energy to to temper your wild freedom you to and to rain in the wild ponies because when i when i try and think of a visual for how i feel today day 17 i feel like like a like a a very firm maybe stern librarian pushing her glasses on and like carralling like her whole library of kids because i i feel serious and i can so i can tell now i'm i'm starting the move into inner autumn from inner summer. I get serious at this time of my cycle. I feel confident. I know myself. I know what I'm about. Let's go. It's my favorite, favorite, favorite. Like these next 10 days are heaven for me. I'm in control. Am I? I shouldn't say that. Touchwood. I'm in control with my life. I feel I've moved out of the vulnerability of inner spring.

And I'm, you know, we're talking about genius today and calling and how you're cycle helps you to be lined up with your calling and this is this is the time of the month where I really feel like I can go like let's go and it's so interesting because in my 20s and 30s absolute opposite this would have been my what's the opposite of zones of genius we'll talk about in a minute the zone of shitdom yes that's what my premenstrual phase was for so long but as I got closer to my living my calling now it's my the domain of my calling yeah so here we are I'll I'll corral you if you get too wild. So when we were chatting about this conversation,

we thought a good way in could be to hear a bit about your retreat time together this winter because you always have a few days just you two to be with the soul of the work. That's how I would describe it, but I'm curious here with the words you would bring. And you had an insight about the zone of genius. Really, it came about for me. you know, this year was very, very intense for both of us. But if I'm going to speak for myself, it really stretched me. And the good part about it was I discovered I'm more capable than I'm real,

than I realized about a lot of the things I did. But I was doing stuff that was not in my zone of genius. And I came to the end of the year and I thought, I am almost 73. I cannot waste my life. doing stuff I mean this stuff it all had to be done but I thought I am not really doing

what I am brilliant at and and really we just got so clear in and I think Shani also had a kind of similar moment you know because Shani is particularly capable of many of the things we had to do and that is both a blessing to me

and a curse to her you know we absolutely love this work And frankly, we will do whatever it takes to see it in the world. I mean, I really will. But I really also must, as much as possible, just be really swimming in the rivers of what I love, what I'm really good at, you know, what my creativity is, you know, what my calling is.

And really on our big bleed, it was just a real naming, and renaming of, because of course I know exactly what my zone of genius is, but really renaming it and kind of reclaiming it for myself, saying, I've got to be more in this river of my zone of genius. And you see, I'm very willful and determined and deeply committed to this work, so I can push through. But that is not being in your zone of genius. Your zone of genius is really being in the flow of something.

And Shani was showing with me this morning her sort of insights about Zone of Genius and she knows when she's in it because she's just got this, well, feeling of pleasure but also just energizes you. There's energy. You're just, you know, you're riding the wave. You're in the flow and you've caught the wave. And it's a real joy stream. And that was the word that joy was the thing that was really big for me,

that I've got to get back into the real joy stream. with the things I'm good at, because I felt like doing all this other stuff blunted my zone of genius, actually. So it's presented an interesting conundrum to me. Yeah, and to sort of clarify for anyone listening, Alexandra, it's not that you aren't overall living in your zone of genius, i.e. really living your calling, because everything you are doing is you living your calling.

But what has happened for you and what has happened for me is in the living of our calling, which is to do with the reclamation of menstruality in the world, there's been a lot of stuff that we have to do in order for this work to reach people and in order for us to be able to share all that we have to share. There's a huge amount of stuff that comes with essentially running an organization and all of the administration and logistics and details of that. And I mean, this is part of the creative process, is that, you know, we come up against finding ourselves being co-opted by all that stuff and losing sight of what really, really matters. And so, I mean, this year, a huge percentage of my time has been working as a, I don't know, what would you call it? Like the business manager?

Yes, working as a business manager, an administrator, project manager, so on and so on. So many things. And way less time has been spent in what I feel is my absolute. zone of genius. And so it's been exhausting. You know, it has, it has sucked the joy out of things for me. That's how I know I've lost track. But what's so interesting here, had we not come to the end of the year and paused, we could have both found ourselves just consumed by the momentum of stuff to do and not stopped and taken stock and gone, what? the heck are we doing?

So there was something about this pause and this doing nothing that really allowed the meaning to come back for us. And this is absolutely at the heart of what being in our zone of genius is about is reconnecting with what matters to us, what lights us up, what, you know, what fills us with life force and makes us think, I will do whatever it takes. because this matters so, so much. Yeah, so that's it. And maybe it's worth saying,

because we're using this phrase, zone of genius, quite liberally here. This is a phrase that was popularized by a psychologist Gay Hendricks, who is author of a book called The Big Leap. And he describes the zone of genius as, I mean, some of the characteristics of it are that it feels effortless and flowing, that it's energizing, that it's connected to your

unique contribution, that it's passion driven. So it really is this sweet spot where your unique talents, i.e. your God-given gifts, your passion, and your unique service all intersect as that very sweet spot. And because of that, what you're do is highly, highly valuable and actually really singular. It's really singular. It's really unique to you. So this idea of zone of genius, I mean, if we were to put it in kind of menstruality language, I would describe it as being connected to your creativity. That's what living in your zone of genius is, is living in connection to your creativity. And when I say creativity, I mean that with like a capital C. Yeah, and that connection to your creativity is a cyclical phenomena.

Creativity is not linear. It is cyclical. So the way we connect to our creativity is through connection to our cycle. That's what brings us into that, into that. a creative cycle of who we are, of our, of our unfolding. Yeah, so that's, that's what we want to get into in this conversation, really. Yeah, how the menstrual cycle offers us all these different gateways, portals into living in our zone of genius if we're paying attention to them through the practice of menstrual cycle awareness. And so we're thinking we'll go inner season by inner season of the cycle.

phase by cycle phase, looking at how each one helps you to know and stay in your zone of genius and you've got a specific task or instruction for each one, right? Yeah. Yeah, we want to be really practical about this. So we want to offer something that you can do in each season that will help you to connect your creativity and, yeah, keep you in this river. My inner librarian approves of this. Ah, good. Very good. I can see that. look on her face. Yeah, yeah. No, she's so, yeah.

I'll be checking the homework of all the listeners later. So if we start with, in a winter, the menstrual phase of the cycle, walk us into what you already have, you know, shared so much about this already with talking about your big bleed, but how, yeah,

what inner winter does for our capacity to be in our zone of genius? Oh my God. God. Oh my God. Oh my God. It's everything. It really is. And the key is to do nothing, to rest. And without agenda. To rest without any agenda. And what happens then menstruation can offer its magic which is that in in that act of letting go you open the door to something much deeper in yourself something more mysterious that your everyday brain cannot access you can't access it through your personal will it comes to you when you show up and let go

and it is this well there's many things but at menstruation you remember yourself you're able to drop into a deeper knowing of yourself of who you truly are so you step out of all the societal stuff

of how you're supposed to be all the story your personal history story all that you step out of all that and you drop into something wonderfully mysterious and ineffable where you feel, you feel whole things like love and all sorts of things,

but this knowing of yourself and knowing of what you do, what you're here for, what, you know, your creativity awakens. The thing that you're here that lights you up, that you are called. a service you like let's just call it your creativity or your calling can speak and it's like a knowing in yourself just a feeling of yes this is what's important to me yes this is who i am it's a wonderful affirmation of your being that's very important and with that affirmation comes a kind of revelation about things you know a vision if you like

yeah it's and that that it's like this pot of gold yeah what i love about this um task if you like of doing nothing when you're bleeding is that it really um it interrupts the momentum but it also it gets your ego out of the way. It gets your conditioning your agenda out of the way, which is really, really important when it comes to living in your zone of genius, because oftentimes we find ourselves doing what we're good at, what's familiar, what's socially acceptable, what feels comfortable. And that's our zone of excellence. It's not our zone of genius.

There's a certain amount of comfort that comes in that place. Actually, living in your zone of genius requires a lot of courage. There's a risk involved. And when it comes to menstruation and this doing nothing, you're actually stepping into the unknown. you're dropping your agenda and so it's allowing you to open to life in a way that you ordinarily can't when you're just going about your business and this is so key to connecting with your creativity because our creativity is sourced from this living intelligence within us it's connected to life it's connected to everything it's not something that we do in isolation

you know it's not driven by our ego or our will yeah it's a relationship we have with life and that's go on well i'm just as you're speaking that shani what the other word that's really important here is meaning it's actually awakening meaning this is You know, there are two things that are significant about being in your zone of genius. One is that it has this quality of risk about it, requires courage. The other is that it, you feel, it feels meaningful. When you're in your zone of the genius, you will feel meaningfulness at work. And what menstruation does is connect you to meaning.

It awakens the meaningfulness of you, your life feeling meaningful. and you're what here to unfold, you know, as meaningful. Yeah. And the reason that matters is because when we feel connected to meaning, we feel held by life. And this is very much the quality of being in your zone of genius, is that you are feeling held by meaning. You're feeling held by creating.

creativity and guided is the other thing they eat yeah health and guided oh it feels like this menstrual do nothing experience whether that's whether that can be a whole day or a big bleed once a year or whether it's 10 minutes or what what you can find in the shape of your life it's so precious I'm really thinking of how, you know, for many of us, there's a real grind in life because there are bills to pay. There's just very practical things to do, mortgages to pay, rent to pay. And I'm especially thinking of, say, like, single mamas out there or people who are living with neurodivergence in a world that is so, like, favours the neurotypical or, like, dealing with other ableism or other levels of systemic oppression.

Like, there's so much to do and it can feel so far away sometimes to have, well, how do I connect with this zone of genius? I've just got to get things done and pay the bills and manage and cope. And the menstrual moment can be the sanctuary of, like, even if it's this one pocket of time each month, oh, okay, hang on, what do I love? What really speaks to me? And those moments add up over time. I think that's really important, actually, Sophie.

I'm forever the realist here, a pragmatist. And the first thing is to actually recognize the importance of caring for menstruation so that you're really, even within all the pressures you have with your life, even just having that consciousness that menstruation is this sort of sanctuary time, there may be tiny little shifts you can do with your life that sort of help to bring a little bit more protectiveness to it and then it's just really very deliberately giving yourself these micro moments because I love how generous the mystery can be especially at menstruation when you just take a 10 minute drop where you turn the phone off you start

stop everything and and then to find ways to just increase that more or more, you know, maybe to half an hour, maybe it's a whole hour. Then you do start to get radical with it with time because the more one is able to tend to this, the more it actually helps to shape your life in a way that feels more meaningful. meaningful, sort of drop by drop, you know, tiny shift by tiny shift. And I really, really want to emphasize this because it can feel, well, that's a laugh as if I can do that. So, you know, there's no point even bothering. On the contrary, no, I really want to emphasize the importance of these tiny moves of attention. Yeah. I'm just laughing because when I worked in an office,

But the toilet, the women's restroom was my sanctuary, especially when I was bleeding. Seriously, just like, I can't deal with all the noise and all the people come away, five minutes, just sit there, breathe by myself. You know, these are the little micro movements we can make to just get closer to ourselves and to turn down the noise of the world. That's beautiful. Closer to ourselves, that's a lovely phrase. Yeah, that's what menstruation does.

Yeah, closer to ourselves. So tell us about the practical. thing that we can do. All right. So the zone of genius ingredient number one for the inner winter is a do nothing session, which you can book in your diary. You book out a specific amount of time. You create a boundary around it and you dedicate that time to doing nothing.

Ideally, when you're bleeding, if you don't bleed, you could do it at dark moon or you could just pick a day but create time for a do nothing session and literally do nothing in it nothing literally you say no phone no nothing no agenda no agenda no no multitasking while you're doing nothing no nothing yeah just nothing meandering just just seriously i try and practice this all the time and it's still one of the hardest things, especially since becoming a mum. Like the momentum in me is so strong. But yes, I'm taking heat. Do nothing session. So there are a couple of beautiful quotes that you found from the Red School Community Hub,

Shani, from people describing this kind of, this way of connecting with the cycle to support the zone of genius. And one person said, learning about my cycle helped me to slow down enough to hear what I actually need. And another, my journey was sparked when I began searching for something deeper. I knew there was more to my cycle than managing symptoms. So this is where we start to access the depth. Yes. Okay, we're going to take a quick break in the conversation so that I can share two invitations with you.

Firstly, the doors for the Red School menstruality leadership program are going to be open for just one more month. So if you've been thinking of joining, then now is a great time to step in and get started by booking in your first meeting with your personal mentor and preparing

for a powerful 13 weeks of immersion into the magic and power of the menstrual cycle, starting later on in February. So if you're curious about the menstruality leadership program, I would like to find out more at menstrualityleadership.com you can read all about the program, the curriculum, the modules, you can hear stories from

graduates, and you can take your seat. It's at menstrualityleadership.com. And then secondly, if you'd like a taste of how Alexander and Shani hold space and the kind of community support you could receive on the menstruality leadership program, come on over to Red School's free annual visioning workshop, your menstrual cycle, your Oracle. It's happening on January the 14th, and it's a really delicious three hours of rest and connection and creativity that's become one of the annual highlights of the Red School calendar. It's also a good way to open the door to your Zone of Genius. And you can register at RedSchool.net forward slash Oracle.

Okay, before we get back to the Zone of Genius Conversation, I'm going to share a story from one of the menstruality leadership program graduates Julia about her experience of the course. Hello, my name's Julia. I am a choir leader and musician and a mother. I came to the MLP in 2022. The reason that I got into this work was because I was having big meltdowns on day 19 of my every month. I was feeling quite untethered and scared and not myself on those days and then I'd sort of flip back into normal the next day or two. Really it was it was my body saying to me you need change, you're stuck in a bit of a hole at the moment and and actually I didn't know how to get myself out of it. So I started looking more into Red School's teaching

So when I saw the MLP advertised, it was an instant yes. This is the next part of my journey. I really need this to support me. And I'm really glad that I did do it because it changed my life in a massive way and I'm still studying with Red School now. The MLP taught me a lot of things practically. But the big thing was learning to really feel into my body and to use that as a gauge to help me work out how I was feeling and to help me to decide how I was going to behave. I really allowed myself to rest on the MLP in a big way that I had never done before in my life. And I experienced some quite mind-blowing. things at menstruation, just feeling really blissed out. So yeah, this has affected my life massively.

I went on to have my second pregnancy and this was so different to my first pregnancy. I felt so connected to myself and postpartum it's just been so profoundly valuable. I've just been able to really let my family know what I needed in that time and what support I needed and to sort of claim that for myself. In my leadership as a parent, my leadership in my work, I'm coming from a much more grounded place and I'm not flailing around so much anymore. You know, I'm more able to lead from a grounded place. So yeah, I really recommend the MLP. If it's calling you, then just do it. You will not regret it. How about the inner spring, the pre-ovulatory phase of the cycle?

How can it help us to live in our zone of genius? Ah, well, something that the inner spring offers us, which is so core to connecting with our creativity, is the possibility of play. And that means doing things that are loathing things that are loads of, stakes that are curiosity led and letting it be messy. So it's about engaging with stuff where perfection is just not even part of, you know, part of the palate. No perfectionism allowed. Because when we engage in play, doing things without agenda and just kind of following

our curiosity. And no goal. And no goal. And no goal. It really helps to liberate something in us. And this is actually how we prime the soil of our creative being. It's so easy to step over this. And to kind of get on with planning and doing.

And now, you know, now, you know, I've got this idea. How do I realize it? But actually to create breathing space. in our psyche and to till the soil and really keep our minds aren't bodies fertile play play play play this is really the task of the inner spring for staying in the zone of genius it's just creating this little sanctuary where you can't get it wrong you can't get it wrong yeah so like a no getting it wrong session. Exactly. You know, there are no stupid ideas, you know, when Shani and I are setting off on something. We just, you know, we just have this rule. There is, there are no stupid

ideas, even as we may think each other's ideas are stupid. Also, nothing is to ever be done with ideas. Oh, yes. There's absolutely no pressure of realizing anything, or even thinking how to do anything. It is dreaming at its best. You know, there's, you don't have to be realistic when you're playing. That's one of the things I love about it. It is, I think what you said there is profound, Shani, about it tilling the, you know, creating the fertile soil for things. I think that's actually very significant, this play stage. Yeah. I think it does something to our consciousness that like allows certain things to percolate through that might not have otherwise. Oh yeah. I'll be to name some some ways that we all do this to give some examples

because it might feel far away for some. So some for me are pottering in the garden, not like I am going to plant the potatoes, but more like just going out there and seeing what's what's happening and just poking around at stuff and or I like to, okay, and it might be weird, right, what we're prompted to do in a spring when we know we can't get it wrong. My weird thing is I love nothing more than just going to the forest and finding different coloured leaves and laying them out in interesting patterns for absolutely no reason. Like the wind is going to blow them away any minute or a dog's going to come and shunffle them away, which is what Frodo normally does.

But I just love doing it. My inner child makes me feel happy and there's no purpose, but it just does something to my psyche. Am I in the right kind of terrain here? Yeah, absolutely. Well, I also remember the story you shared in our last. podcast conversation Sophie about how you did this workshop around falling yeah falling with my friend christie aramis yeah that was brilliant yeah you just play out the different parts of you for no

purpose other than to just let the different parts of your psyche you're being have some air time yeah the experimentation of that yes yeah and you felt so free so liberated yes yes I mean, that's a perfect example. It's gorgeous. Yeah. I want to know what you two do. Well, I endlessly play. It's sort of a cornerstone of myself.

It's so it's very interesting. It's a sort of ongoing thing of mine. My brain is sort of wired. It's with ideas. I'm endlessly just riffing and playing, playing with language. And it's very in life. of my spirit, which makes me laugh. I make myself laugh.

So it's a quality of silliness that I actually have in my life. And it's much more to do with what's me and my brain and just, yeah. Yeah. And then things will happen from that. I'll make connections. Something will, it really loosens the soil of my science. which is why I loved what Charlie said about the crucialness is to keep our creativity sort of fertile and alive. And so it keeps me in the joy stream of myself.

I think that's the important thing here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Keeps me in the joy stream of myself. Exactly. we one of the ways Alexandra and I well Alexandra and I play together a lot like our work is from the outside often looks a lot like messing around we get really silly we go off on tangents we laugh

we crack jokes I mean there's a lot of messing around and that for me is a form of play which I really love the other way I like to play is in movement like I love putting a piece of music on and then following what my body does and to just kind of see how it moves and what it's like some unexpected game or piece of theatre or something is playing out through that for me dancing is a huge source of play and particularly when I dance in a way that is really listening and you know without like trying to do anything or make it look a certain way yeah I did it last night for an hour. I was just in my room playing around in movement. It was so fun. I felt so enlivened by the end of it. So good. Okay. And it's about letting it be messy. No inner critic

allowed in this get it wrong. No getting it wrong session. Yeah. And no product, no outcome. No result. Absolutely nothing to show for it. Oh, isn't that radical? Nothing to show. show for it. In a capitalist, you know, society of productivity and endless productivity as a rebellious act. Yes. And again, this is where staying in our zone of genius is an act of courage, you know, to dare to play. It's hugely risky. It's hugely courageous. This really is breaking the, you know, breaking all the societal rules, that's for sure. I kind of also want to to add here, you know, that it, you know, there's nothing to show for it. And yet sometimes if we have incredible breakthroughs of ideas or inspirations that come

from it, this, but you can't go into play going, okay, you know, I've got to have a breakthrough here, you know, it doesn't work like that. You've just got to be playing and just letting loose. And then suddenly there's a stream coming out of it. Oh, my God, look. Wow, look where we're going. Yes. Okay, I'm going to move us along to summertime,

the ovulatory phase of the cycle. How does summer help us to? I love all the language you're using to ride the wave, to be in the joy stream, to be in the river of you. Yeah, and to stay in that zone. if we can use some of that summer energy for what brings us pleasure that really holds us in the creative stream and so much of how we tend to use whatever energy we have in the summer is for productivity

and getting stuff done. So it is very, very radical to dare to claim some of that aliveness that you feel for yourself, for your own pleasure, for doing what you really, really love and what lights you up. Yeah, this is really important. And, yeah, what were you going to say, Alexandra? Well, here, the tendency is to use this energy that we have, as you said, to kind of do all the jobs we have to do because our lives are so full with jobs.

And, you know, why not get on and just tick some things off your list? Of course you're going to do that. But it would be an utter tragedy to waste the whole of your summer energy just on ticking all the job. you will, ticking all the jobs off your list because you will feel, I want to say, I almost want to say a bit broken, actually.

Yeah, depleted. Depleted, yeah. Bereft, that's the word about it. You'll feel bereft. And I, so that it's like a non-negotiable, do something here that is utterly you. You know, you're, perhaps you have a secret dream

you're wanting to realize in the world. You do something towards that. Or that you just, as you said, Shani, just doing something for the sheer pleasure of it, something that you love to do. So it's both about just who you are and just doing something that you love to do. Or if you have this sort of secret, you know, something that you're really wanting to be doing more of, that you give yourself space. Carve that out to just tend to that. It's absolutely, it's non-negotiable space. and that's crucial also for keeping you in this joy stream of your zone of genius,

keeping the soil that you're being fertile. If you have done just something by the time you get to the end of your summer, you will not be feeling breathed. You may be feeling a bit tired, but you won't feel like you have abandoned yourself to everybody else. Yeah. Yeah, we have the possibility of being in a flow state in a summer. Yes. A place where time just falls away and you get absolutely absorbed in the experience.

It is so deeply engaging and satisfying and pleasurable that the whole world falls away. And that is so refreshing to our soul. You know, someone in our community, and maybe we'll tell the full story in a moment. But she just used this word soul tired. And I think this is really how we nourish our soul is through this kind of creative expression. And that touches a place in us which very few things can.

So go salsa dancing, go for a wild swim, go for a walk and go and see a beautiful sunset or book a pottery class, whatever it looks like for you. Go sit in the sauna all day. Yeah. The wild spa sauna, can I just say anyone's here in the UK, highly recommend the wild spars sauna in Sussex in the forest. So good.

Okay, in autumn then, next. what happens in the pre-monstrual phase of the cycle and how can it help us to be in our zone of genius? I always think of the inner autumn as the time where I always feel the inner autumn calls us back to ourselves. Yeah. Really, it is the return, because we can so easily lose ourselves in the inner summer.

You know, that, yeah. And as we kind of come down into the inner-winter summer, awesome, you know, all that sort of perhaps reactivity or sort of overwhelm we might touch into or criticalness and everything. It's actually all feedback about how we've been doing really. And so I think of it as a call to yourself and to meet that call to actually listen to that critical voice. It's very cool. So this is, um, This may not feel quite so pleasurable as the summer and spring jobs, if you like, in Adverted Commerce. But it is, it's a deepening, it's a firming up of yourself and deepening and a solidifying of yourself in a good way,

a sort of firming up of you, of your zone of genius, so you don't spiral out really and lose yourself. So it's so important that, yes. Shani, do you want to pick up? Now, I'm just thinking of how easy it is to go off track in life and to lose sight of our priorities and our values and what we love. It's so easy. It's so, so easy. In a way, it's almost happening on the daily for all of us.

And what I love about the pre-menström is that there is, as you say, Alexandra, this call to take stock. And if we heat that call, if we actually slow down enough and reflect, we can, we get insight. We can see very easily. Oh, wait a second. Like, what the hell am I doing? Like, this has not been working for me. Like, this has been really draining my energy or this is out of alignment with what I want. Or this is, you know. Or I just gave all my energy to everyone else all summer. Exactly. Exactly. And that kind of reality check moment every month is the thing, it's like the ongoing course correction. So if you imagine that what happens at the winter, you know, when you have your do nothing moment and you get a

sense of what matters to you, that's like the compass point that gets set. And through the menstrual month as that journey of you, your creativity, your becoming starts to unfold. You're off on track, on your way towards the realization of this thing. But strong winds come and you get set of course or, you know, maybe you fell asleep at the wheel of your ship and, you know, you slightly lost the way. This pre-menstrual time, re-adjusts you to the compass point to what matters and ensures that you are on course. And over time, that's really significant. Like, in one month, that might just be a small something that you change because you've dared

to meet your inner critic. You've dared to kind of hear from yourself about what's not working. But over time, that amounts to significant life changes. Yeah, my pre-menstrual phase made me change my career and my first marriage and move to the other side of the world. Didn't happen in one menstrual cycle, but over two years. That could be a great headline for a temploid. My pre-minstrum made me end of my relationship. Change my life and liberate me into what I really am here to do.

All hail the pre-minstrum. There are three quotes that you pulled from the community hub which speak to these small shifts or different ways that in autumn schools us. One said, I'm learning to notice when something is too much and to honour that. Another, my cycle shows me when to pull back

and I'm finally listening. And then there's a deep relief in letting go instead of pushing through. These are the kind of things we get to see in that discernment moment of the pre-Manchure, aren't they? Yeah. That's beautiful. So, yeah, the kind of task here is to take some time to pause and take stock

to really hear the feedback that your critic is giving, just to feel how your being actually is and to recognise and understand what's not been working for you. Do an inner stock take session. Yeah, it's an inner stock take session, isn't it? Yeah. Do you want to share the story from that Sharnie was referring to earlier about the woman who was soul tired? Yeah, I really love this story. So, you know, she didn't come to psycho awareness because she wanted to sort of improve herself or become more productive.

She came because she just felt something wasn't working in her life anymore. And she was tired. She said it wasn't dramatic tiredness. It was this soul tiredness. I just thought that was quite profound. And she spoke about how slowing down for the first time and just learning to rest with her bleed instead of just pushing through it.

You know, she said she didn't sort of get the whole kind of five-year plan of her life. But this was so powerful for me. She started to have a sense of meaning. returning just by slowing down and taking a bit of space at menstruation, a sense of her life having meaning started to come back again, just of its own volition through doing nothing. So she didn't sort of try to fix herself or kind of demand things of herself, and she didn't push or rush. It was just this process of allowing. and her sort of deeper meaning,

it didn't come through pushing through effort. It actually came through stillness. And her words were, it came from stillness from doing nothing long enough to hear what had been waiting underneath all the noise. Don't you think that's lovely? It's beautiful and it brings us full circle back to inner winter. and how that is the foundational piece for all of this.

Yeah. Yeah, it is the stillness, the still point at menstruation. Wow, what a gift we have. Right here. Right in our own bodies. You know, the crucial thing here is to care for your cycle and to care for the place you are in in your cycle. So in other words, practicing menstrual cycle awareness.

And what you're doing then with that is you're staying in the river of what your nervous system and what your energy can manage. This is what we call the healing and well-being layer. And as you stay in the river of that more and more, you start to open the doorway to your zone of genus. it starts to emerge, just as that woman described. And then we have what we call next level cycle awareness, evolutionary menstrual cycle awareness.

This is what we teach on the menstruality leadership program. We also teach on the healing and well-being layer. We just really unpack that and flesh that out more. But this evolutionary cycle awareness approach really helps you to, awaken into your zone of genius and to ride the river of your zone of genius if you like to be able to really stay in it to awaken it at a much deeper level

and to care for it it's a whole new level of engagement with yourself so it's like you go from this sort of surface level of being into a much deeper layer of knowing an embodiment within yourself that really holds you in your zone of genius. The MLP is coming up. It's starting in February. Can you say a bit more for those listening and thinking,

I want to do this, I want to live more in my zone of genius this year. This is where I want to be about how this evolutionary, menstrual cycle awareness, how it helps you? Could you say, could you unpack that a little bit more? Well, wonderfully, people are going to be held in a container over 13 weeks. So that already creates a sort of sanctuary for, as you said, play and experimentation and discovery. This is something we found is so powerful about the menstruality leadership program is the holding that it offers people. And because of the level of support, and there is extraordinary support on this program, I mean, it isn't just Alexandra and I.

We have an exceptional team of mentors. There are a team of 10 of us that are dedicated to holding and supporting everyone who is on the program. And this kind of holding really makes space for people to get into their own. in personal practice of menstrual cycle awareness in a very deep and detailed way. And a lot of the information that you hear us speak about or the things that you read in our book start to awaken in your experience. And this is where our zone of genius lies. It's nothing that our head can make happen or that we can think our way into.

it comes through this deepening connection with ourselves and our cycle day by day by day. So there are lots of practical things we teach on the menstruality leadership program that really help to turn this practice into something that becomes profoundly awakening of your creativity, of your leadership. of your power. For example, we teach the menstruality skill set, which we lovingly call the dark arts of menstruality, these 12 very specific skills that you can draw on at different points in your life, at different points in your creative process, different points in your MCA practice that allow you to work with what's happening in a way that deepens you into your cycle and into menstruality and therefore into your life. It's wonderful. I couldn't live without these menstruality, dark arts. They are so core to my life, so core to my creativity

as well. I mean, everything we create, Alexandra, is, you know, those are the skills we're drawing on. They are. They are. So the course is starting on the 20th of February this year, and the doors are closing on the 7th of February. So about a month left to join. And if you're wondering, if this is for you, then maybe a good next step would be to come to the Oracle, New Year annual visioning workshop that's probably just become the highlight of the year in many ways.

It's just such a gorgeous, a gorgeous workshop where you're working with your menstrual cycle as your Oracle. And it's free, and it's on January the 14th of 15th, February. I mean, January, the 14th of February. Yeah, so it's coming up soon, 14th of February. No, no. Come on. So if you can do this, get your librarian head on. The 14th of January. And I'll put a link in the show notes at redschool.net forward slash podcast so that you can come and register. Or actually, it's redschool.comnet forward slash Oracle to join, isn't it? I know that.

RedSchool.net forward slash oracle. Okay, well, I'm fired up and I'm taking your task seriously and I'm going to go and I'm going to put a pleasure session in my, I'm going to do something pleasurable session in my diary for my, like as my summer ends and then good luck with your autumnal stock take, you too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm already looking forward to my do nothing session. Yes.

Thanks so much. It's just been wonderful. Bye. Bye. Bye, Sophie. Thanks so much for joining us today. As a reminder, the Your Menstrual Cycle, Your Oracle Workshop, is coming up on January the 14th.

It's free and you can register at redschool.net forward slash Oracle. And the doors for the menstruality leadership program are open for one more month. You can find out all about it and take your seat. at menstrualityleadership.com. All right, that's it for this week. We'll be with you again in a couple of weeks' time. And until then, keep living life according to your own brilliant rhythm.