The Menstruality Podcast - 231. REPLAY: What’s Going on with Pre-Menstrual and Menopause Rage? (Alexandra & Sjanie)

Episode Date: March 26, 2026

Today we’re replaying one of our most popular episodes -  a frank and feisty chat about one of the hot topics in our community - premenstrual and menopausal RAGE.Have you ever been driving in your car and felt compelled to wind the windows up and actually roar because you felt so wildly angry on day 24? Or, if you’re navigating menopause, have you experienced your own ‘burn-the-house-down’ moment when your fury threatened to destroy everything you’ve built so far in your life?What is going on with this rage? Why are so many of us feeling it? And what is it trying to tell us? ---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 Sharnie, as well as an inspiring group of pioneers, activists, change makers and creatives to explore how you can, and unashamedly claim the power of the menstrual cycle to activate your unique form of leadership for yourself, your community and the world. Hey, thank you for tuning in today. We're replaying one of our most popular episodes today.

It's a frank and feisty conversation about one of the hot topics that comes up again and again in our community, rage, and specifically pre-menstrual and menopause rage. Have you ever been so angry? that you were driving in your car and felt compelled to wind the windows down and actually just roar out because you were so furious on maybe day 23 or 24 of your cycle. That's happened to me lots of times. Or if you're navigating menopause, how you experience your own burn the house down moment when your fury threatened to destroy everything you've built so far in your life. Today we're chatting about what is going on with this rage. Why are so many of us feeling it? And what is it trying to tell us? In the middle of the conversation,

I'll share an invitation to Red School's upcoming live cycle power course. There's a free webinar about it happening on April 1st. And if you're dealing with the kind of rage that we're talking about in this conversation, the cycle power course and the community that gathers around it could be a great place for you to explore what's going on for you. But for now, let's get started with what's going on with pre-menstrual and menopause rage. So let's talk about rage. Just a little topic.

As I've been thinking about this, I've just been realizing how angry I am as a person. And how angry may be a lot of us are a lot of the time, whether we're present to that or not. But boy, does the pre-menstruem and from what I hear, menopause, show us our anger or a lot of or allow or, you know, awaken our anger. And that's our, that's our topic today. But before we get in to that, how are you both doing cyclically? Well, it's day, I think, 26 probably of the moon. And I was really pondering myself today.

Yeah, the complexity of being me. And I kept thinking, yeah, there's a sort of denseness, a denseness of material in me, which is kind of deep, but it's sort of dense too. It's like I have to do a bit of mining, I think, too. But I'm definitely more in some sort of complex, more complexity within myself. Yeah, and simultaneously,

there's a sleepiness there despite having slept. So let's hope I can stay away. wake till the end. And a slight ungroundedness. It's a weird combination of forces. So it requires a certain discipline to be me today, I think. So he's hoping I've got the muscle to be me in all my complexity today. We're all autumnal.

We're at Eust 22, hey, so. They do. This is perfect. We hadn't even clocked this until this moment. We're all in the anger zone. We're all in the anger zone. Well, I really relate to everything you just said, Alexandra. I'm awakened to my complexity. I was angry on my dog walk, mainly because my dog stole someone else's ball

and then wouldn't give it back to me. And then my anger's always just right there, right there to be woken up by Frodo. And I just sat and breathed. I was like, yeah, okay, I'm angry. I'm angry at what's happening in the world. I'm angry at some different things that are happening in my life. I'm grieving with a friend and that's awakening anger. So it's, yeah, I'm in the right place for this conversation.

I'm in the depths. I'm angry that women aren't allowed to be angry. Lots of things right now. But I would say perfectly poised for this conversation. I'm a day behind you. and, yeah, feeling a similar flavor to both of you. And noticing that today, so for the last couple of days, I felt like I've been hanging off a cliff edge, white knuckling it,

and really trying to hold on. But today, the falling apart is stronger than the whole thing. on. It's like gravity has won out or we could say the descent of the cycle has won out. And I just feel like, yeah, there's a kind of surrender kicking it in my system or, yeah, I realize there's something so much bigger than me at work and actually there's nothing to be done but to let go into that. Your trust in life is always so moving to me, Shawnee. Beautiful to witness.

I know it's not comfortable. Yeah, that's so true. Let's distract you by having a really feisty conversation about premenstrual and menopause anger. Yeah, so we felt it was a really important topic for us to explore anger. And looking back, I noticed that it's not something that we've really explored in depth yet in the podcast. You know, we've spoken about the premenstruem. We've spoken about the burn the house down moment in menopause. But we really want to have a whole

conversation about what is going on with this premenstrual and menopause rage that so many of us experience. And, you know, our MLP for this year is starting in just a couple of weeks now. And for some of the students that come, rage is a really big theme. You know, they really, get in contact with something that they haven't contacted before or able to express or understand. And we want to, yeah, look at this experience that is so often denied, especially for women in our world, this experience of anger. So I want to find my way to a question. Yeah, why are we so angry in the premenstruent and in menopause? What's going on here? Yes, good question, Sophie. Good place to start.

So if I start with the premenstruem, you know, I think of, well, I'm going to just talk about the whole cycle. The first half of the cycle, there's this sort of, we're being brought sort of out of ourselves. There's this expansion of energy. There's this affirmation of who we are, energy within us, that yes force, you know, this feeling of filling out and becoming something and reaching a sort of pinnacle of something. and reaching a sort of pinnacle of sort of yesness if we're sort of alive with ourselves. You know, there's good energy in the system.

And we have capacity within us, and that capacity gives us a certain kind of buffering and armoring in the world. It's really important having that. And it's also strengthening our ego. It's really good, healthy ego development. And as we get to ovulation, ironically, we are at least connected to ourselves at that time, you know, or we can easily lose connection with our deep, deep, holy self, or, you know, all our needs. I'm not saying we're out of connection with ourselves, but, you know, the multiplicity of needs that are going on within us and so on. And then as the cycle turns, and we come into the second half of the cycle, there is this contraction going on.

and a dismantling and undoing that starts to happen. Our energy is dropping. And in that, we are becoming more permeable. We are connecting to ourselves more to our vulnerability. And ultimately, we are being exposed more and more to what I would call our holy self, which is what really happens at menstruation. So there's this increasing permeability and vulnerability.

And we are feeling. more. So we're feeling ourselves more. So we're feeling our repressed parts more, the parts of us that we've sort of overridden just to kind of be nice and get on with things and, you know, maintain harmony in the world. But these parts, of course, still need caring for. And this is where we start to feel and see them. And we are also simultaneously feeling the world more strongly. This is really important to remember. I don't want it to be all sort of personalised. There's your personal kind of vulnerabilities, your personal shadow side you're coming in contact with. But your permeability is allowing, basically it's allowing you to feel so much more. And therefore you are feeling what's happening in the world

and that's going to be impacting on you more strongly. So basically, stuff can come out more easily. So where there's been repression of something, you know, it's the lid is being lifted. And it blows. The top blows.

Because you don't have the same kind of restraints. Actually, something I was saying to us earlier was how the closer you get to menstruation, the more your sort of polite, socialised behaviour that we all, you know, try to live by and it's important to have these codes of conduct but they actually basically start to break down and you become more feral shall we say and really you couldn't care less there's a moment of real abandon that comes you know kind of real losing it moment before you bleed where all the

restraints are off and so that's how it comes through and then that process is echoed in menopause coming into menopause, we're becoming more and more permeable, more because we're being dismantled. We're ending a whole cyclical, you know, menstrual cycle years. And it's all being dismantled. And in fact, it's even greater the force that's going to be unleashed within menopause. Really, rage, I would say, is the top emotion that women and people experience in menopause. I mean, there's a whole range of feelings, but it seems rage tops the list. So it's increasing permeability and inability to hold stuff down and getting in contact more and more with ourselves.

I just, I feel so much relief hearing you say that because that's exactly what I feel when I'm premenstrual. What I want to say to aid, it always comes out at aid, is I'm feeling so much more. It's a lot, feeling all of this, feeling everything that's happening in the world, feeling everything that's happening in our world. And he stays on his steady rhythm. And to hear the way you describe that, I feel honoured in my experience. It makes sense of my experience. It makes me okay and not mad, not bad, not wrong for, you know, not quite knowing what to do with this charge that comes through me when I'm premenstrual. and we can talk about that later in the conversation, you know, what to do with this.

There was something you were saying earlier, Shani, about the connection here to vulnerability that was so moving. Yes, I'm going to find my way there just picking up this thread of losing it because I've just sort of heard it in a new way when you were describing that, Alexandra, that there is a kind of time and people. place for our psyches to be orderly and controlled and to play the game and cooperate with society and, you know, to create harmony. There's a time and place for that. We could say the first half of the cycle is really serving that need in our psyche and that need in the world. And then there's a time and a place for being overcome. by something much bigger than us that is beyond us and sort of outside of our control and almost too much to hold.

And there is a time and a place and a necessity in our psyches to completely lose it with the enormity of that. Alexander and I were talking about this morning how important it is. that we as human beings have places, safe places where we can vent. And it's not just our psyches that need that. It's the world that needs that. You know, that complete, wild, unscensored loss of control. And the cycle has that built into.

to it. And it's intelligent. It's intelligent because it's allowing, well, it's allowing us to evolve essentially. Because when we stay in our kind of tidy places and spaces where everything is controlled and, you know, within our like, you know, what our mind wants things to be. nothing ever changes. So actually this rage that's unleashed in the second half of the cycle is, it's the life force of evolution. It's like it's what's needing to be seen or recognized or felt that hasn't been acknowledged. So it has a profound purpose, I want to say. It's really, you know, it's life force. Yeah.

Alexandra, what would you say about vulnerability in this context? As I was saying earlier, you know, you're becoming more permeable as we come into the premenstrual phase, which is another way of saying this is we are becoming more vulnerable. We're actually also becoming more human because if we remained in that eternal summer, energy, it's deadness ultimately and numbness and loss of feeling and loss of our capacity for feeling others, feeling for others, you know, our resonance with others. So it's like our humanity is waking up in the second half of the cycle. And for our humanity to be alive, we have to be in touch with our vulnerability. And being in touch with your vulnerability is not

always a comfortable experience. And if we are, if we are, you know, if we struggle to value ourselves, if we have a low sense of self-worth and goodness knows, we've all got a little dose of that going on somewhere, you know, sometimes bigger, sometimes smaller, but yeah, where we're struggling to sort of really value who we are and feel comfortable and safe in who we are. So we've had a lot of trauma too, you see. It may not feel safe to be who we are, to be in ourselves. So as we come into that vulnerability, we're coming into a lot of complexity of feeling. And some of that feeling may be simply too much and our vulnerability. And yet there is life force wanting expression. You see,

just because we don't feel great about ourselves, our essential essence is still. alive and going, I need expression, you know, like you to come out into the world. And if our sort of wiring of ourselves is not, I don't know how I can't even finish that analogy actually, but you know, where we're fighting who we are, not really able to value ourselves, there isn't a sort of clear channel for that energy to flow. And so it comes out. So anger can be our defence against our own vulnerability, not wanting to feel that. I'm wanting to project it out onto others and to blame others or whatever.

Yeah, do you want to pick up from there, Sharnie? Yeah, that's beautifully described. Yeah, so just, I guess it's important to say that if we aren't pacing and tracking our own vulnerability, our anger can sometimes be an acting out from that place. Yeah. So it's good to keep asking yourself, really, what's really going on here. and to, you don't dare to be honest and real with yourself? And in a way, that brings the power back to you. That's something you said, Sharnie, when we were chatting before this conversation was,

the more capacity we have to feel safe within our own vulnerability, the less likely we are to safeguard ourselves with aggressive reactivity or turn it in towards ourselves as anger towards self, which I know I did for so many years, and I really think a lot of my chronic illness was anger turned in on me when I learned how to turn it out. And these days I'm learning how to hold the tension with it. But it's, yeah, there's been a lot of healing in that for me.

but that I look I was so moved when he said that okay so as we expand our capacity to feel safe with the vulnerable tender parts the less we're going to explode with yeah this aggressive reactivity and another thing that you said shiny oh found of wisdom I'm so glad you're writing these things down just taking dictation from the universe by a shardy um is that anger is also a natural healthy response to violation within ourselves, to the violation of human rights in our world, to the destruction of our natural world, to the dying away of species, to the, you know, the outrageous things that are happening and, you know, collectively and the outrageous things that happen individually. And I'm especially thinking of anyone with a marginalised

identity right now. You know, anger is a very natural and healthy response to the structures of oppression. So there's a, yeah, there's a rightness to the anger too. It's to temper what we just said about the aggressive reactivity. Yeah. Yes, there's a righteous anger. I mean, there's a, I often speak of an indignation of soul. And I feel that's what's fueling the outrageousness that many feel that menopause, that anger just comes out of nowhere. And it just feels like centuries of, this is particularly for women's, but anyone who's felt oppressed, it's like centuries of, it doesn't feel like it's just even this lifetime. It's so much bigger.

it's like a, you have, I just remember it myself as a kind of revelation of just, it felt like a revelation of the sophistication of oppression of patriarchy within my own psyche. And I'd always been someone who was, you know, out there and outspoken and standing up, you know, things. and then I got to see it's such deeper levels how it had got to work in me and so there's that layer of it and then for me there was always this other layer

and this is purely intuitive it's purely come from my dedication to this menstruality work but I profoundly feel and it's almost almost wants to make me cry that at the heart of the heart of the anger beneath all that patriarchal stuff is lies this indignation that of arriving at menopause never ever having had the spiritual path and practice of the menstrual cycle named and validated because menopause is the final stage in that journey.

It is the culmination of something. And, you know, no one would be able to articulate this. This is just my deep feeling and knowing, having sat with this work, that at some deep level our beings are just outraged, the betrayal that they have to meet this initiation, this awakening at menopause and they've had no preparation and I

feel that very very strongly in my core I can feel it now the outrage of that it's so visceral it's so alive in me and actually is what motivates me so much with this work because actually all of us with menstrual cycles know the deepest level of our being something profound going on.

And when that's not named, when we're cheated of that, oh, the rage, oh the rage, oh the rage, oh the rage. And what if a lot of the menstrual symptoms we have, the premenstrual and some really, you know, PMDD, our menstrual pain, what if the heart of the heart of all, that was our spirit so insulted that this, that the power of what's going on here is not only not

named, it's shamed. Now that's the final insult. I mean, I hear you and I feel you. And it feels important before we start talking about, okay, how to work with this anger with through the menstrual cycle and through menopause to just talk about why women are feeling so angry. And how anger, again, this is something you said earlier, Shaddy, anger in men is validated and anger in women is dismissed. Can we unpack that a little bit, especially for people listening who don't feel in touch with their anger or it's coming out sideways in moments in hot flash like hot flash moments and then get shut away again like there's a lot of shame around anger there's a lot of conditioning for girls to be quiet and good and polite and we carry that

with us into womanhood yeah can we just speak into this a little bit So when I think about anger and my experience of it is that it is such an immense force that it is so wild and non-conforming and very provocative. I mean, it's very provocative anger. Even at the beginning of this conversation, when you started talking about all the ways, do you feel angry, I felt myself getting more and more angry about it all. It really incites something. It's actually very contagious, I would say. It has a very powerful effect. And so that speaks to me of power. And it's power that can't be content. controlled. So I'm just aware of how, you know, the kinds of things that we as women have

heard comments like, what's wrong with you? You are, have you completely lost it or you're completely out of control. He's hysterical. She's getting hysterical. Yeah. Yeah. All these kind of dismissive, diminishing comments made in response to, you know, our anger. And yeah, so there is a lot of shame around it. All the time in the political world, when male politicians get angry, they're kind of courageous and like warriors and they're leading everyone. And then when women politicians get angry, they're sort of herodents and hags and fish wives, you know.

It's like, yeah. So, for me, it is, anger is a sign of life for me. It's like when I get angry, I go, oh, someone's home. It's like suddenly I'm back in myself. Now, you know, it's telling me that, it is, it's telling me I'm alive in a way, you know, it's touched the nerve. And so there's something, so it's information, it's life. and it's information, but it's something in my being that's fighting back.

There's been some kind of sort of violation of boundary, however subtle, that's happened. And then, you know, then my inquiry has to happen around that when I feel it. Is it, you know, because I realize that, you know, some of my anger has been sourced from me not asserting me. myself enough, me not knowing fully who I was, not valuing, not valuing my worth and holding my intelligence back. And I had felt so much rage. I haven't thought that directly, but only when I've sat and unpacked it, it's led to that sense of not valuing my own worth. So, although I've reacted to something in the environment, in that moment, it's actually indication of me, going, oh, it's a sign of me just not loving myself quite enough,

and I've just not cared for my own boundaries. So there's that level of inner work around anger. And then there's anger where, you know, someone really has violated my boundaries in the world in some way and where I need to speak out in some way. So there's an anger that has to be used in the world. Yeah. And it's really, it's really like, I think of it like a sword.

And you've got to learn how to use that sword. Because a righteous anger can really shift the dynamic in something. It can really wake others up. But it's a nuclear power in your hands. So we have this extraordinary, you know, anger is power. And there's a real intelligence. work but we've got to be home in ourselves to be able to hold the this power and and and channel it wisely and not splatter our power everywhere in the world because that is that doesn't

I mean you do need a moment of losing it but you need to you know it's like yeah I've done that you need to be able to just let off steam somewhere and and then to come into a place of, okay, well, what's mine to own here? What am I being confronted with? What am I discovering about myself? It doesn't look as tidy as this in real life, by the way I'm saying it, if only. But we're getting there. And then there's, you know, there's the anger that then has to be spoken.

The trouble with anger is that, you know, it'll come out before you've had a chance to think it through. And that's the nature of anger. But I also like to think that the more you get to know yourself, and of course that's the wonder of cycle awareness. Each month you're kind of growing into this premenstrual power a little bit more. You're getting more comfortable with yourself. And then menopause gives you a super duper workout in that department. So that there's more of you online so that when you feel the rage coming through,

there's a level of self-awareness going on with that rage because rage can just wipe out all awareness and just comes and just obliterates everything. So it's about our capacity to come into presence with ourselves more, and that of course involves being more and more comfortable with ourselves, feeling safer in ourselves. I mean, that's really important. If I'm not feeling in a safe place,

I do not want to be shamed. Okay, I'm going to pause for a couple of minutes. To invite you to join Alexander and Sharni for a free webinar next week, it's called Awaken Your Cycle Power, and they're going to explore the power that lives in the menstrual cycle and how you can awaken it through befriending your inner seasons, as well as how you can embody it in your life, to transform everything, your health, your creativity, your relationships.

This webinar is an introduction to their upcoming live round of their most comprehensive menstrual cycle awareness course ever. It's called cycle power and it's for you if you're brand new to tracking your cycle, if you've been practicing menstrual cycle awareness for years or if you're heading towards menopause. And here's some feedback from Becca who was navigating the menopause initiation when she took the course. She said cycle power was superbly crafted and paced.

It landed perfectly with me. Diving deeper into the power inside the inner seasons opened up a new vibrant world for me. Okay, you can find out more about the course at RedSchool.net forward slash cycle power. And that's also where you can register for the free webinar that's coming up on April 1st. I mean, I feel like I've been angry in my pre-menstruem since I, since my late teens. And I was just tracking it back this morning. and realizing that in my late teens, I had two, you know, relationships, as much as anything's a relationship in your late teens,

but with two men who were both emotionally and physically abusive, you know, there was assault happening in both of these relationships. So very young, serious boundary violations. And it really set the tone for my relationship with men in the world, obviously. obviously. And as I tracked back through the relationships I had in my 20s and early 30s, I, my pre-menstrom would awaken such rage at whichever man I was in, you know, and you still hear it

now because I still talk about age, you know, it's still happening, but I'm tracking the process more. but this rage would come out. And it was rage at them, but it was, sorry, it was rage at, you know, some whatever wrong thing they're done, but it was really the rage at these men who had violated me. And more than that, it was rage for all the women who have been violated and for all of the ways that patriarchy violates all of us, men, women, people of all genders.

it's it's uh yeah and then i was reflecting on how when i learned how to practice cycle awareness and be with hold the tension be with this rage listen for it and all of the you know we'll go into this next you know how we can actually work with the cycle to be with our vulnerability to to do the things that we've spoken about but i managed to start to find ways to find ways to take this rage and turn it into something generative in the world. So I've always, for a long time, I was very drawn to Eve Ensler and the vagina monologues and her V-Day movement, you know, because it's so directly connected violence against women and girls and it made sense of my experience.

So, you know, I've been connected with her throughout my whole life and one day we'll have her on the podcast. It'll be such a great day. Yes. I can't wait. But I found out about a project that is a V-Day project in Congo, which is a place called the City of Joy. And it's a centre, a leadership centre for women's survivors of sexual violence. And they come to the centre and they receive healing for their trauma.

And then they're guided and taught and supported to become leaders to go back into their communities and lead in their communities. and lead in their communities. It's so beautiful. And one of the things I started to do was fundraise for this organization. And there was one time where I was able to send £1,000 to City of Joy. And the feeling of kind of at the completion of a loop was entirely inspired by my rage, by my pre-menstrual rage, by my capacity to honour it. And yes, I looked mad and crazy, and there have been times when I looked completely mad and crazy to these lovely men who I was in relationships with.

But yeah, as I learned how to work with it more, it's becoming more and more generative. Yeah. I mean, that's a super story, Sophie, of channeling your age into a generative, as you said, a generative force, a creative energy to change. make change in the world. I mean, that's what I mean about. Anger is very motivating. It's, you know, it brings us alive. As I said, it's like saying, I'm alive.

I'm here. Yeah. And I see it in the woman who runs the city of Joy. Christine, her name is, and she is awake, this woman. You know, she is alive. She has life streaming through her. And again, obviously, you can't look at what's happening in the in Congo, you know, what's happening there.

It's really because of our smartphones and our computers and the mining that causes the civil unrest and the disruption that leads to the sexual violence. It's all, we're all complicit. It's all connected. But you can't not feel rage in the face of it, but she's taken that rage and she is, she is creating, turning it into love, you know, turning it into love. Yeah. That is so beautiful, Sophie, because your story is also speaking to of this other people.

which is that our anger illuminates what we care about and what matters to us. It wakes us up to our calling. As much as it is this life force moving through us, if we really come into it, we know what it's for and we know what we're for. We know what's being asked of us. And that's exactly what you felt. You know, you had that personal experience that was being incited. each pre-menstrom and it was connecting you to this kind of deeper calling in you, which is your

activism, which is your love of women and girls, which is your love of human rights and, you know, the care of life. So it really brought you into something of what you're for. And that's, I, have definitely felt that for myself because I think the most angry I have ever felt, well, there were two moments. I mean, I felt, you know, angry with people, which has been very angry. But the most angry I've ever felt at this kind of big scale was after the birth of my first daughter when I felt that betrayal of. of why had I not been prepared for this? And for me, that meant menstrual cycle awareness,

because menstrual cycle awareness is the preparation for the initiation of motherhood, just as it is for the initiation of menopause. And the rage that I felt when I realized that no one had told me that I had an access, I mean, it was a force that I, I mean, even thinking about it now, I can see. It was enormous what I felt.

And it's speaking to me of my calling. Yeah. And the other time that I felt that level of rage was in connection to the power of menstruation after having an incredibly powerful, bleed where I felt the enormity of what's possible at menstruation, the love that I felt there. You know, hot off the heels of that was the rage and indignation I felt that not everyone who menstruates knows about this power and is supported to experience it. So I'm really relating to your story as rage being a signpost.

It's really good. To our calling. Yeah. I'm also thinking of the story you often share, Alexandra, of during your menstrual pain, of raging at the patriarchy and how your partner held space for you to rage and rage and rage at the patriarchy. Yeah. Let's speak about how. to work with rage. I mean, this conversation has been woven through with with examples of this,

but particularly around holding the tension. And just before we do, I want to point people to a couple of episodes that may be helpful if this conversation is really like, oh, I really need to know more about this. In episode 58, the power of your premenstrual phase, we looked at the power of the inner autumn, so in more depth and really, really unpacked it. And then in episode 64, how to awaken your pre-menstrual power. There's a lot of how to around how to handle this phase of the cycle. And I feel like we probably spoke about menopause in those conversations too. But we have an episode 98 with Sophia Stile and Gemipolo, who are in a lesbian relationship going through menopause together or, you know, in the run up to menopause. And they speak about

how they're dealing with the rage that's coming up together, which is really fascinating. So just some some other references for if you want to go into this in more depth. But can we speak about what it means to hold the tension with rage and how to do that through a cycle awareness lens? Yes. This is quite a muscle to flex. And the thought that I had just then when you asked that question was it's the real work of alchemy.

It's like holding the tension is your capacity to be sufficiently present with this force that's moving through you and to have some self-awareness around it and to be able to manage the charge of it rather than just exploding, but holding the charge of it. And in that act of just staying with the anger, staying with it, it's not about repression on the contrary. It's about actually staying alive and allowing yourself, staying really present with it and alive and feeling it. And in that act of holding the tension, it's like an alchemy takes place. You start to come inside something. You can sort of unpack it a bit.

I'm really dreaming into my own experience here as I speak. But it's allowing me, and it requires a degree of this coming back to self-worth again and that safety of being, it's sort of predicated on one's capacity to take one's own side and to have some self-worth in there. And as I, so yes, to be able to meet the chart, and to really sort of question it or just delve into is what's this about basically,

you know, what's really going on here? What has actually been touched in me? And sort of playing with it, really. And, you know, what needs to be spoken here? Because I don't dismiss it. I don't make it all about. Oh, me, you know, it's my shadow side. I'm just acting out. I don't actually. I think it's very important not to do that. I think it's important to face that side of things. But actually,

you're also having a meaningful response to something in the environment that's really got you. And what needs to be addressed there? What's not happening there that needs to be addressed? What's the shadow in the relationship? For instance, so this is actually really interesting in relationships, in couples, In this case, I'm not actually sure in same-sex relationships, but certainly in heterosexual relationships. I suspect the woman often becomes the channel for the unexpressed within the relationship, just, especially premenstrually. I don't want to say that men can't be, but if they haven't, you know, premencerally, particularly, we've got greater permeability going on as we've spoken about.

So it's like the hidden tensions that are in the field of the relationship. It's, you know, it's, it's seeking, they're seeking release and they go, oh, here's a little vulnerable one when you come through this one. So actually, it, it isn't just about you. It's actually about the relationship as well. And it's so important for the partner to respect that rage and to recognize it isn't you losing it, inverted commas, there's something wrong with you, but it's actually communicating something in the field between you, something even as the man, you're not expressing or sharing and your

partner is now becoming the channel for that. I often used to experience that actually, well, not often, but I did experience it. Yeah. And thinking of the stories from women and people in menopause on the MLP, I'm thinking that menopause is a huge, moment for this, for all that is not aligned in the relationship to come up and come through? It's absolutely, it's massive, Sophie. This is the moment of feedback. And it can be really tough. I want to just really acknowledge the partners in all this because, you know, you're both responsible for the shadow side. It's just that, you know, the one who's in many. or the premencerum is just that much more vulnerable.

But it requires a real holding on both sides. And I have to say, one of the greatest gifts that my partner gave me at the time, the guy that used to hold me in my period pain whilst I was cussing the patriarchy, was that he met me in my rage. He bloody fucking met me. It was just the best gift to have the best gift to have the, this solidity of not trying to control me, you know, just real presence and receiving the rage. I mean, I totally love him for that.

I love that guy, Alexandra. I love him so much for you and for all of us. Oh, can I say he was doing serious holding the tension work? Yes. And I say, you know, really helping me to alchemize something. you know, there was something waking up in me. You know, that, yeah, that's holding the tension in action. Actually, that's a very good example to talk about it, you know,

between two people, the holding the tension thing, because it's, holding the tension is different to acting out and expressing one's anger. Because when we do that, we're actually subtly displacing ourselves from the source of that anger. It's very interesting. I mean, it feels powerful in the moment. It's a lot easier to direct that energy out at another person.

But actually to take responsibility for that rage is a lot harder. And that's what holding the tension is. You take responsibility for it and you feel it and be with it and let it work you. I had an experience earlier this week with it with exactly this, where I would have just loved, loved to lash out at the other person, you know, and instead I just felt it and felt it and felt it. And the more I felt it, and my car is a really good place for feeling this,

because nobody can get to me. You know, I'm not going to be interrupted, I'm not going to disturb the neighbors. And I felt it and felt it in my car. And felt it so much and so deeply that it brought me into myself and into what the feel, it kind of cleared the cobwebs, the illusions, and kind of made me realize what was going on for me,

which I hadn't been conscious of. And if I'd just lashed out at the person, I wouldn't have had that instant. sight, for one, but two, that connection to that place in myself, which was a place of great valuing of myself and dignity in myself and respect of myself. So it really brought me back into my worth and worthiness. So I was changed by that experience. And if I had just acted out, actually the other person probably would have acted out in response to me and we would have replayed the same old usual drama and all gone away without tails between our legs

feeling ugly and bad and, you know, having heard someone we love and there. No one the wiser, you know. And when you were feeling and feeling in the car, what does that look like? for you? Are you, is your breath helping you? Is like, what's going on? I take of all the breaks around my feelings and I really let myself experience it. So a lot of that is internal, but sometimes I would speak and say what I'm feeling. And in fact, that, can really connect me to what I'm what's really going on if I can kind of follow follow the words follow the impetus um yeah so it's following the movement of energy in my system and sometimes

that might be screaming and shouting um it's quite nice to imagine the person in front of you and what you would really like to say or do or do, you know. Often we want to strangle people, we want to kill people, you know, but in our imaginations we can really feel all that. In our bodies, we can really feel all that. Yeah. Making low sounds helps me like, you know, like really letting it come out and feel my root, the root of my body helps me too.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I definitely need to move in some way. Yeah. Wow. Well, thanks you too. Oh, hey, just before we go, let's mention that holding the tension is one of the menstruality leadership skills that you teach on the menstruality leadership program, along with 11 others. and that it's starting in a couple of weeks. And do you just want to say a word about how you're feeling about it? Yeah, about it coming up. Oh. We are both feeling so good because this is such a juicy, deep dive into all the nuances and possible experiences of menstruality,

which is always revelatory and very creative. And yeah, we have so much fun. We do. It's very powerful. It is so lovely seeing our work meet these individuals that come. And what gets stirred and awoken and the revelations they have and the unfolding from that. it is the process of really working this initiatory dynamic of the cycle

and what it can open up. It really is that in action that is so thrilling to see. Yes, very satisfying. It's very satisfying. It's just so revelatory. It's like, oh my God, yes. Oh, oh, we're so powerful. like what's going to happen?

And if anyone's wanting to hear some examples of this, then on the menstrualityleadership.com page, there's several stories from graduates of the past sharing the kind of revelations they've had, the kind of insights they've had, how the MLP has helped them to transform. So you can find those at menstrualityleadership.com. Okay, well, I think we should say to everyone,

if you have questions about the cycle and anger and menopause and anger that have come up out of, this please send them to us because i would personally love to do a part two i feel like we've only just got started actually that would be amazing just to hear people yeah questions and experiences yeah and yeah we can we can explore that more so you can email me at sophia at red school dot net okay and we will angrily make our way into our premenstrual dark moon days Yes. Our anger plugging us into our callings.

Yes. That's great. Thank you for being with us today. If you know someone who would benefit from listening to this conversation, please forward it to them. And if you know you'd like to work more with the power of your cycle and explore what's going on with your own rage that comes up, perhaps in the premenstrual phase,

or that you're experiencing in your menopause journey, come along to the free webinar next week with our, Alexander and Sharni. It's on April 1st. It's called Awaken Your Cycle Power, and it's an introduction to their live cycle power course. Okay, that's it for this extra bonus episode this week. We'll be with you again next week. And until then, keep living your life according to your own brilliant rhythm.