The Menstruality Podcast - 232. How Menstrual Cycle Awareness Can Support You in Perimenopause (Alexandra and Sjanie)

Episode Date: April 2, 2026

As we enter our early forties, we step into a new life phase with a very different atmosphere and tone. We’re shifting into a new paradigm, often accompanied by changes in our menstrual cycles and ourselves, some of which may be startling or very tricky to manage.Brain fog, memory issues, irregular cycles, heavy periods - the list goes on. You might notice that you have less tolerance for stress, tire more easily, and that your trusty sleep pattern isn’t quite so trusty anymore.Today I’m chatting with Alexandra and Sjanie about how the practice of menstrual cycle awareness can be a vital source of support as we navigate these challenging years. Sjanie shares generously about her own experience of perimenopause, or as she calls it, the autumn of the menstruating years; from experiencing new levels of love, to reckoning with childhood trauma, and how her recommitment to the fundamentals of cycle awareness has supported her. Whether you’re experiencing the psycho‐spiritual shift in the years running up to menopause, or you’re supporting women and folks in the thick of it - perhaps your clients, family members. friends or colleagues - we hope this conversation helps to plug you into the practice of menstrual cycle awareness as a vital perimenopause resource.We explore:How to practice menstrual cycle awareness when your cycle is very irregular and how to claim your rest, even when you don’t know when your next period is coming.What is at work on the psycho-spiritual level in the forties, and how the lens of the ‘quickening’ can help to make sense of the challenges of these years. How Sjanie has navigated her trauma healing process in perimenopause, and the importance of community support in this life phase. ---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 unashamedly claim the power of the menstrual cycle to activate your unique form of leadership for yourself, your community and the world. Hey, welcome back to the podcast. Thank you for tuning in. So today we're talking about perimenopause or as Alexander and Sharnie often talk about it, the autumn of our menstruating years that for many of us happens in our 40s. And as we step

into this new life phase, it can have a very different atmosphere and tone. I know it does for me. For many of us, it feels like shifting into a new paradigm, and it's often accompanied by big changes in our menstrual cycles and big changes in ourselves. And some of these changes can be startling and very tricky to manage. Brain fog, memory issues, irregular cycles, heavy periods, the list goes on. You might notice that you have less tolerance for stress, or you tire more easily, or that your trusty sleep pattern isn't quite so trusty anymore. Today, I'm chatting with Alexandra and Shani about how the practice of menstrual cycle awareness can be a vital source of support as we navigate these challenging years in the run-up to menopause. Shani shares really

generously about her own experience of perimenopause from opening up to new levels of love inside herself to reckoning with childhood trauma and how her recommitment to the fundamentals of cycle awareness has supported her so much in this life phase. We also chat about how to practice menstrual cycle awareness when your cycle is very irregular, how to claim rest even when you don't know when your next period is coming, and the importance of community in perimenopause. So let's get started with how menstrual cycle awareness can support you in perimenopause with Alexandra and Shawnee. Hey, good morning. So we're going to be talking about perimenopause, the quickening, the 40s and menstrual cycle awareness. And there's so much to say. But as always, let's start with

our cycling lives. Shall I kick us off? Yeah. So it's day 23 for me. which was always my worst, worst, worst, most difficult and emotional day until I discovered menstrual cycle awareness. And over a couple of years, got to understand the pre-menstrual phase, the inner autumn phase more. And these days, day 23, is, you know, I feel irked by things. You know, I got woken up at half past five, not by my child, but by my husband clunking around above me

to get his stuff ready to go to the gym. So good that he was going. to the gym. But I was like, whoa, do not wake the mama bear. I'm 5.30. So that was, so I had to do quite a lot of work, forgiveness work, to be okay with that. I'm very lucky to have simple problems like this. Yeah. And so things, you know, frustrate me and annoy me, but my, my capacity to just be a bit light with myself, humorous with myself, oh, day 23. We know how day 23 rolls by now. But, you know, Yeah, day 23 in these autumn of the cycling years, you know, in my 40s, I'm 44.

It has like a delicious quality of like, I know what I'm about. I know what I'm doing and I let's go. So I have that feeling very strongly, which is also buoyed by this. I went to this incredible march in London, the Together Alliance March on Saturday. Just felt there were 500,000 people there. It was like sambor bands playing, people singing. kids, like every generation. And it was wonderful.

So I feel so full of that, like a sense of togetherness and belonging. That is still with me today as well. So, yeah, frustrated, but I know what I'm about and let's go is my vibe. Yeah. I can feel your sort of groundedness and your authority. It's really lovely, actually, because I'm feeling very permeable and see-through and it's actually day 13 of the moon. And I certainly have that degree of charge in me.

But the truth is, I'm in the sort of autumn, lateish autumn, should I say? I don't know of my life. And the increasing feelingness that goes on, you know, the sensitivity to everything is exquisite and not exquisitely good at times, you know. exquisitely good at times, but also not good. It really demands something of me. So I have a lot of complexity on this day today in myself. And I would say actually right now,

just because of sort of multiple things that are going on, I'm feeling quite tender and vulnerable, actually. So it's good to bring that actually into the conversation, you know, to have that base in me as we come into this conversation. about the 40s, which is a journey into increasing vulnerability, because I think up until that point, one has a degree of invincibility that slowly starts to get chipped out, and it's good. Thank you, Alexandra. It's really powerful to hear about that permeability. And something you were saying before we started recording was, you know, in the position of leadership

that you're in, where people are asking a lot of you, requiring a lot of you, organization is requiring a lot. It's quite a thing to be that permeable and that tender and in that position. Yes, it is. And I at times would really prefer not to be. Yeah, I'm getting to the point where I think, yeah, I'm not built for this role much longer. You are built to have epic conversations about menstrual cycle awareness. I can have epic conversations until the day I die, Sophie I'm looking forward to like our podcast interview when you're 99. That's going to be. I'm just about to carque it.

We often have birthday. On your 99th birthday. That's lovely. I'm looking forward to that conversation. Alexander, how old are you now? 73. I mean, if I'm rocking like you are at 73, I'm going to be proud of myself. I think you're amazing, amazing.

Bless you, thank you. Yeah. And how about you, Sharnie? Well, that comment you made there, Alexandra, about your 40s being a journey of increasing vulnerability, I am certainly feeling that and very, very strongly today. So I'm day 22. So by the book, you know, you would think that you and I are in a similar place with your day 23, my day 22. But what's so beautiful about cycle awareness is that it is absolutely not about comparing our experiences.

with other people or trying to fit into any kind of definition of what should be happening. So, yeah, by contrast to you, Sophie, because I can also feel how grounded you are. And I feel so ungrounded. I mean, that term is often used negatively. But I'm not experiencing it as a negative phenomena because I feel so, beautifully connected to myself. I just don't have the weightiness and wherewithal of the world and of my mind and of things that usually keep me grounded. Like I've got no container. I don't really have a strong sense of my physicality. I feel really undefended. And so like wide open. That's the vulnerability.

And it's in combination with the fact that I am on day 10 of a 10 day cleanse. So that context is important because there always these multiple layers to I experience, you know, how we treat our body, how we're eating, how we're exercising, our physical health has a huge impact on our cycle experience. So I've got that lightness and nakedness that comes from having dropped food as an emotional buffer and as a source of grounding. And then the other layer for me is, you know, I'm 49 and there's a very strong sense. for me of being at the end or coming into an ending of this life phase. And, you know, what we know about endings is that they're full of let go.

They're full of being stripped away. And that's how I feel. I feel so many things in my life are being, I want to say, taken from me. But also, you know, sort of beyond my control. like I'm in a process that is happening to me. But yeah, so much of the buffer of my ego that I had in my earlier years is just, you know, dwindling, dwindling. And when you say buffer of your ego, like, tell me a bit more?

Well, you know, the, all the ways that I have propped myself up through the role, I have, the positional power that I have, the worldly achievements that I have, all those kinds of things, but also the habits of being that protect me from who I really am and how I really feel, all the armoring, all the armoring. I was going to bring in the word armor because when you were talking about how vulnerable you feel today and you, Alexandra, I was thinking, yeah, because most of the time we armor up. Like that vulnerability is there and maybe particularly, sorry, this is your cycle check-in, so I'm butting in it, but maybe particularly in the 40s, it's like the world is asking us

to armor up and plow through and get on with it, you know, all the things. And it's like, or can we find a way to actually. be who we are and let this vulnerability happen. That's what I'm witnessing in you right now. Yeah, very, very much. I mean, the world might be asking that of us and menstruality is very much asking and I would even say demanding that we de-armour and that we, yeah, and we let go. So yes, it's all that letting go that's happening. It's easy in this place to let fear creep in. Yeah, I'm just noticing how much present. it takes in order to just stay connected to the place I'm in and how I am in the moment

and not let my mind get involved. That's dangerous, yeah. Recognising that you're vulnerable right now and you might not want me to like drill in and ask you lots of specific questions, I do feel called to do so because when you say you could let fear get in, it reminds me of a lot of the things I hear from, women in the years running up to menopause, women and folks in this perimenopause terrain, often in their 40s, who are experiencing a lot of anxiety, or who have intrusive thoughts, or the mind is doing a lot. And it sounds like you're onto that, and you can see that fear

could come in, and you have ways of being that are holding that out of bay or working with that. Yeah, I mean, I have experienced moments of extreme anxiety, and I treat these things not as symptoms, but as, well, part of the process and part of the revealing to me of what I'm needing, because my needs are changing profoundly in this life phase. So when I notice fear or when I notice anxiety, I'm coming back to the question again and again, what am I needing? And that moves me from my head, from trying to problem solve or fix whatever it is going on. Firstly, it moves me then into my body, into my heart, into connection with myself, and into a place where I can hear what I'm needing and then tend to it. And,

every time I do that, I notice something in me opens. It's like the invitation of that anxiety. Yeah, it leads to an expansion of my heart, of my consciousness. So, you know, the person I am today is not the person I was 10 years ago. I mean, it's so radically different. my consciousness, my connection to myself, you know, who I am is just being profoundly altered through all those moments of, you know, symptoms or challenge and then meeting it in the way that I've just described. Yeah.

Well, let's talk about menstrual cycle awareness in this life phase. And as a way to segue, I've got to say, I might be coming around to your cycle length, Shani, because I bled on day 24 last month. So, and I'm kind of feeling stirrings now. So I might be about to pop. About to bleed. Yeah, it's so interesting this thing about how cycles change or don't change. I was talking to a friend about this recently. You know, some people assume that it's inevitable that your cycles shift in your 40s. And yet many people, I know, Alexandra, you, your cycle was the same and steady right the way through until it sort of eventually broke up and stopped. And for me, my cycle is 25 days and has been that length ever since I had

children. Prior to that, it was 28 days. And my cycle is pretty consistently that length. And then, of course, I know other people who, you know, very early on experience irregular cycles and have irregular cycles throughout, you know, their 40s. And of course, they're people who experience irregular cycles in their 20s and 30s and so on. So, yeah, this is an interesting thing. And, yeah, we'll get into that a little bit more when we talk about how to practice menstrual cycle awareness in this life phase. Yes, definitely. Let's get into that a bit later. Before we get into that, it feels important for you to give us a summary and overview of of the lens you bring to what's going on in this life phase in the 40s, in the years running up to menopause.

You don't call it perimenopause, for example. You call it the quickening. We also call it the autumn of your menstruating years, which I particularly like. So our focus is on the psychospiritual transformation of menopause. and we see that as a sort of as a multi-year process, maybe, you know, three to five years, but, you know, how long is a piece of string? And the 40s are, for me, the 40s, it feels like to me the 40s are a little bit becoming the waiting, the waiting room for menopause. but the 40s are their own sort of cosmos

with their own kind of process unfolding and what's happening when you're coming into your 40s is you are it's a bit like coming into the autumn of your menstrual cycle, the inner autumn. It's a bit like coming into your premenstrum and you know how you feel that jolt sometimes when you go from the inner summer to the inner autumn

like, you know, suddenly you don't feel invincible anymore. Well, you may have a little bit of that going on your 40s. And so the 40s are a journey of becoming increasingly more vulnerable, present to yourself because you're not, you don't have the energy of your 20s and 30s. And in that vulnerability, things can emerge that could not emerge before because the energy you had was like a buffer. It was like an armouring.

So your 40s are a journey into depth. I mean, Shani described it. And in that depth, there are, you know, powerful, wonderful things happening because you're invited into a real deep conversation about, what's my life about? So that'll be one of the themes of your 40s. But you're also going to start to notice shadow stuff come up, stuff you can normally repress.

So your 40s will be a time of a much deeper journey into yourself. And it's also a journey about boundaries, learning about boundaries, the boundaries of yourself. So I would say your 40s are a real journey into a deeper embodiment of power. and to embody this deeper embodiment of power, you have to do more inner work. It demands something of you. So there are more demands in your 40s. I mean, there are certainly more outer demands.

Often our life demands increase at this time as well, more responsibilities with work, family and so on. So you'll have demands from the outside, but the demands of your psyche. And I think what gets called perimenopause is the demands of our psyche and of our physical being sort of rumbling away. And when we're not able to or not resource to or not supported to or don't understand what's happening, then they show up as distressing symptoms. Yeah. But if we can turn towards them, then it becomes this journey into.

depth, greater depth. And that's the preparation you need to meet the great, magnificent, wonderful initiation of menopause. If you're listening to this and what Alexander is saying is like ringing bells and you want to hear more about this way of understanding this life phase, there are a couple of episodes I can recommend. One is episode 185, perimenopause, what's actually going on with you two? And another episode with you too, which is the inner autumn powers that awaken in our 40s. So you can go deeper with those. There's actually a comment from Lauren in our community because you reached out to ask people about their experiences of practicing mental cycle awareness in this phase.

And it mentions a couple of things that you just said. So I'll just weave it into the conversation. So Lauren says, I'm so grateful for menstrual cycle awareness in this life phase. On a very surface, but oh so important level, it continues to. to teach me about my limits and boundaries and the importance of respecting them. That alone has been such a gift of self-love. But on a deeper level, I feel so strongly in this phase, a tug towards something deeper,

a new call for my life. I don't know what that is yet. And I'm really trying to practice patience and the dark art of holding the tension. So Lauren's on the, she's done the menstruality leadership program, so she knows the dark arts of menstruality. So the dark art of holding the tension. as I wait for little glimmers to reveal themselves each cycle if I give my winter the space it needs, of course.

That quote is just perfect because it really captures, for me, the really deep theme of what your 40s are about, which is this call to something deeper in oneself, yes. And that being supported, you know, knowing about menstrual cycle awareness and use, that as your means of being able to feel into that and allow that to emerge is really what will serve you more than anything else in preparation for menopause.

And you can hear the depth of Lauren's practice in there. You know, she's talking about waiting for the glimmers to reveal themselves each cycle. So she's paying attention each cycle day. She's on the hunt for glimmers that might appear. She is. Actually, that's a really good point because what's actually really important here is your actual sort of logical, rational mind cannot answer that question. It cannot do it. It's out of its depth.

You have to come at it a different way. And of course, you know, our ways menstrual cycle awareness, you know, knowing the sort of the depth and breadth of that practice. and then, you know, learning to feel and sense and observe. And above all, you're building this trust in yourself. I would say that's the work of your 40s, very importantly, because that combination of trust and yourself and knowing what you're made for, it's a beautiful combination. Yeah, I mean, my mind is very different these days.

I just can't trust it in the same way. And I hear this loads from others. Like it might be called brain fog or memory loss. My experience is it's almost like my brain just isn't interested in holding the threads that it used to hold. And so now I'll be in a client session, for example, and I'll be like, cool, I was holding three thoughts. They've gone. I wonder what else might arise in their place. I'm having to trust deeply something else other than this strategic, rational mind that has held everything together, not really

held everything together, but has been like had this semblance of holding everything together in my life in my 20s and 30s. Yeah. Yeah, very much. I love that you're saying that. I was saying something similar to Alexandria yesterday. You know, in the spring and summer of our lives, our capacity to control and plan and operate really with the power of our mind is so strong and so so useful. And in a way, we outgrow that in this life phase. And that can feel disturbing because, you know, it does feel like memory loss. It feels like loss of control. It can be disorientating. And it takes some getting used to learning to trust a different kind of intelligence and learning to trust a deeper power. And it really requires us being willing to be in the unknown.

which is, you know, quite a skill to learn, to go from kind of knowing it all, thinking you know what's going on to going, I have no idea what's going on and to trust that and to wait for it to arise. It's, yeah, it's a thing, isn't it? So if I love that, I love the way you spoke about that. And I'm so lucky because I'm working with you and with other women and folks who get this whole terrain. But I'm just imagining folks listening who are inside,

say corporate situations or teaching in a classroom or driving a flipping fire engine. Like I don't know who we've got listening, but, you know, it's such a holding the tension to be with these deep inner movements and be interacting with the world, which is why we need the practice of menstrual cycle awareness. So let's get into that now. How can menstrual cycle awareness help us in these times? And maybe we can start with what is menstrual cycle awareness and how can we practice it when we have a cycle that might be shifting, like as you pointed to earlier, Sharnie, how can we, how can we practice cycle awareness in this time? Yes, that's a really good question, Sophie. And I'm, as I'm speaking about it, I think I'm going to sort of weed back to this,

what you were just saying there about the brain fog and having to draw on a different type of intelligence. And of course, you know, menstrual cycle awareness is going to awaken this, intelligence within oneself and trust in this embodied knowing. So what is menstrual cycle awareness? At its most sort of essential, basic level, it is this art and practice of tuning in to your cycle each day, regardless of whether your cycle is regular or not, and where you don't know, you know, whether it's coming or going or whatever,

that you just notice the day you are on, tuning into your energy, you know, the state of your nervous system, noticing your mind, what feelings are moving through you. And just really presencing yourself, in a sense, with the reality of who you actually are today. Because our heads will have an agenda

of what we've got to do today and we'll be scheming and whatsy dotsy, you know, trying to get us how it's going to work, you know, how we're going to fit it all in, you know, all the sort of management stuff, yeah? And your little old being is going, what that? Because our minds are so fast and in the future. Yes, so it, what did, mental cycle awareness,

brings you into presence with yourself, with the reality of who you are, and asks you to ask the question of yourself, you know, what are my needs today? What is my capacity today? To actually notice yourself and go, yeah, what is my capacity today? Needs, capacity, the state of my nervous system,

you're responding to all of that and then making choices from that place. Now, perhaps you're feeling completely wiped out and yet you've got to show up at work and you've got to do bum, bum, bum. I mean, Shani is, Shani's not so much wiped out, but she's very much in the void today. And we have a very full day today. And I think ideally, Shani, you would love to be off with the, the fairies somewhere happily. Yeah, yeah.

I'd like to be inside the roots of an oak tree just covered in, you know, damp leaves and sniffing the earth. Oh, yeah. I'll join you. And you've got to shout up for this, that and the other today, including this podcast. Next time we'll record the podcast from the inside of the oak tree. I think we should.

Yes, yes, yes. Let's do that. So, you know, your mind will go, well, we can't do that. You've just got to do it. But actually, the radical act is to go, what is at least 1% I can do towards myself today to help me be with myself? So this thing of just doing something, because we do not live in an ideal world when it comes to working with who we actually are in our cycles and so on. So you're just clocking that. Now, if you have a regular cycle, you can clock the place in your cycle where you sense

from what you've learned about your cycle awareness practice over previous months, where you go roughly, you know where your inner summer is and you're in autumn, so on, and you can sort of sense the place you're in. And often then that helps people, it gives people a framing. They go, oh, I'm in my in autumn, yes, you know, that this is, this sort of explains why I just feel a bit reactive. and I don't, you know, I'm hypersensitive or whatever. But actually, if you have an irregular cycle, you just don't have that kind of framing.

But you still bring the same care to yourself. So if you are feeling sensitive and reactive, but your cycles are regular, then what does that mean for you in the moment? It means, you know, you're feeling very sensitive. Now, how can you care for that sensitivity today? What would that mean for you in the context and reality of your life? And the other context, and for this is, so this conversation is particularly for those who are in their 40s and dealing with sort of perimenopause.

This is spoken about, you know, symptoms that are coming up and their cycles breaking up and not knowing where they are. I'm going to invite you to think about your menstrual cycle awareness process within the context of being in the autumn of your menstruating years. So we've got the sort of phases, the inner phases of your menstrual cycle. But when that's breaking up, then you can rely on the sort of macro phase of the journey through your menstruating years. And the macro phase is that you're in the autumn of your menstruating years. So what are the rules that you have for yourself, or, you know, instructions that you hold for yourself when you're in the autumn, the premenstruum of your menstrual cycle? this applies when you're in the autumn of your menstruating years.

So I think that's a really good framing for people when their cycles are not behaving as they ought to in inverted commas. So the important thing here is your cycles shouldn't be, they're not, I can't make that sentence work now. You're not trying to perform to what your cycle should be. You, that's not what menstrual cycle awareness is about. Mensual cycle awareness is about noticing the place you are in in the context of these cycles and validating that and caring for that.

If you're dealing with the challenges that we've been talking about today in your 40s or the autumn of your menstruating years, perimenopause, Alexandra and Shawnee would like to invite you to join them for their upcoming live. online guided journey through the inner seasons of the menstrual cycle. It's starting on April the 17th and it's a six-week journey called cycle power. The course gives you a recipe, an instruction manual to reconnect you to yourself and the natural flow of power within you. This is the cyclical self-care practices, which Alexandra talks a lot more in the conversation we're having today. So you can find out more about the course at red school.net forward slash cycle power. That's red school.net

forward slash cycle power. And there's a special early bird price that ends this Saturday, April the 4th. Again, that's red school.net forward slash cycle power. I'm just reflecting on how when we're practicing cycle awareness and our cycles are predictable and, uh, rhythmic that holds us in a certain way of being. And it's very easy to think that when our cycles become irregular, that we are no longer being held by our cycle. And the truth is, the irregularity and unpredictability of your cycle is, there's nothing wrong with it. It's very much how, how your cycle is now holding you. It's holding you to a different kind of rhythm or order or orchestration. It's leading you towards a time and a life phase where you will no longer have a cycle.

So it's holding you in a profound process. So rather than fighting that or judging yourself for your body for that to really deeply respect the irregularity and unpredictability of it because it's teaching you things, it's training you, it's skilling you up in all kinds of capacities that you will need when you go through the initiation of menopause and you will, by all accounts from Alexandria, you will really, really need in post-menopause life. So, yeah, so I think to really respect the irregularity of your cycle would just bring a very different energy to your cycle awareness practice. Beautiful. So if I can summarize what I think I'm hearing, it feels really beautiful and clear and precise, which is menstrual cycle awareness is a mindfulness practice in essence.

where we clock who we are and how we are on any given day and we ask ourselves what we need to meet how we are and then we see if we can find a way to give ourselves a little bit of that. I mean a lot of it if we can, but even if it's just 1%, that's our task, particularly in this life phase. Yes. And the other piece, which is really significant

in the autumn of your menstruating years. So we're mentioning needs and meeting those needs in some small way. Because the 40s are so much about this developmental leap that you go through, growing up and becoming more of yourself. The other piece which you're being invited to do, which is particularly challenging in certain places in the cycle and in certain life situations is to dare to bring more of who you are to the situation that you're in. So rather than try and change who you are to fit the situation, you're daring to bring how you are to the situation.

And that's, you know, in Alexandra said the 40s is about growing into your power and authority. that that's at the root of it. The act of doing things for yourself to care for the place you're in, what that demands of you is building muscle, actually, psychological muscle. One of the things I want to say about your 40s, it's a journey into growing self-responsibility. And when your cycles are lovely and regular and doing what they're supposed to be doing.

And your cycle holds you so beautifully. And each month you get to bleed and tank up again and set off out into the world. And when you go through the premenstruum and you have a difficult time and you know that menstruation is coming and you get to sort of receive a lovely affirmation at menstruation. When that's not happening in a neat and tidy way,

you start to get like where am I? But actually, now you're having to step up in a way that you haven't done before. It's demanding something more of you in terms of taking responsibility for yourself. Of holding yourself. Yes, of holding yourself. And there are very specific cyclical self-care practices that we teach on our cycle power course that are the bedrock for building this inner holding.

when our cycles aren't holding us anymore. Because we can kind of go to sleep a little bit when our cycles behave themselves perfectly. And then when they suddenly go off piece, it's like, oh, you know, the boat's being rocked. And now you've got to step, it brings more presence. You've got to step in more and claim more and root in more because the ground isn't solid anymore.

And that, to, you know, when Sharni, we were talking about the unknown earlier, actually the way to navigate the unknown is to come into more and more presence, to really slow down, pause, kind of meet oneself, recognize what one's feeling in the moment, that calling in a deeper presence. And that's what you're going to be doing more and more as you move through the 40s. And if your cycle is breaking up,

by the way, I've known people have regular cycles right to the end, literally to the end and then boom, last one, no more after that. Absolutely. I just want to acknowledge that. But it seems like most people have this sort of slow sort of breaking up that goes on. And yes, it's a journey into picking up the slack from, you know, what the cycle used to do for you. You now have to do for yourself because, you know, when you go through menopause, that's the work. That's the work of really claiming yourself.

You do the really deep work there. And the 40s are giving you a taste of that, giving you a taste of that, of more and more responsibility and learning to take your own side more deeply and root into yourself more deeply. I've got so many thoughts flying around in response to what you're saying, but one that feels important to name,

particularly right now in the world, is, you know, when you're talking about that self-responsibility and how the 40s are bringing us into our power and how the cyclical self-care practices help that, it's like when I look out of the world and I see the systems that are crumbling, well, fighting really hard as they crumble, you know, the structures that have held women in a lower place

that have held people of the global majority in a certain way and anyone who's marginalized and those systems are starting to break down, like our power is needed for this work, you know, and at being able to show up as we are, as who we are is needed for this work. So I feel a lot of fire in my heart for how this can be in service to the times that we're living in.

Yeah, wow, yes, Sophie. Yeah, that's really powerfully said, Sophie. And I was also thinking when you said, you know, when you don't know when your bleed is coming, because that's one of the major problems, isn't it? It's when you have in a regular cycle. It's like you just don't know. Like it could be next week.

It could be in three weeks. And that, the promise of the rest that can come with that. And it made me think of, okay, so how am I doing today? I'm tired. I'm on day 75. I'm not, I'm just pretending it. I'm on day 75. I don't know where my period's coming.

I'm really bloody tired. Well, I need to find a way to get my 1% of rest. Or is there a day in the coming days where I can take like, 20% more rest. Like that's the kind of, feels like the kind of work that we're talking about here inner work. Yeah. That's really well put actually. So yes, you know, day 75 and you're just absolutely exhausted. Look and you can I, yes, in the moment, can I, how can today give myself a bit more rest? But also just giving yourself a rest day as though you were bleeding. Yes. If that's what you're feeling you're needing. Yeah. Yeah. And not waiting, you know, you're,

menstruation to come to give it to you. Yeah. Shani, you may or may not be able to answer this right now in your voidy state, but I am curious to hear, you know, sparked by everything we've talked about, some of the ways that menstrual cycle awareness has been supporting you over these past your nine years into your 40s. Just off the back of this conversation about menstrual cycle awareness, I'm freshly appreciating how when we're practice cycle awareness in the way Alexandra is describing is that we're deepening our connection

to ourselves and our awareness of ourselves. And oftentimes what that means is we are more readily and more easily confronted by whatever is out of alignment or suppressed or, you know, whatever is kind of not okay in our being, symptoms come up, essentially, challenges. And I, because of what I know about the menstrual cycle and particularly the premenstrual and how there's a very similar process going on there where we're getting feedback about our overall health, about how on track we are with our life calling, you know, our life. lifestyle, all these things, we're getting feedback, we're getting a report card on how we're doing. That's happening big time in this decade.

And for me, holding that context has been really, really supportive to be like, okay, this is a message coming from menopause down the line, telling me what I need to care for and tend to and address in preparation for this extraordinary spiritual opening that is possible at menopause. So, yeah, cycle awareness has really given me that context. And rather than pathologizing the things that are coming up for me, I felt, it's all felt meaningful. And I have been through profound challenge over the last decade. It's been rigorous and, yeah, kind of shocking even at times. But having that context has really held me.

Yeah, I wouldn't want to live without that. The other way it's helping me is, in my practice of cycle awareness, I'm noticing so much more complexity in my experience. Very seldomly do I feel just one thing. I tend to feel polarities and complexities and depth. And it's that really challenges me to, well, stay present and to allow and to keep expanding to include more of myself and more of life and more of my experience. And things have become more nuanced, you know.

So with that, I've needed to find a way to, I guess, ground myself in that, resource myself in that. it's a, it's been a lot to hold. It's been a lot to hold myself in. And I've found myself having to come back to what I think of as the basics when it comes to cycle awareness. And this is, this is what we call the healing and wellness layer of our work, the really core practices of MCA and the skills that are required to practice cycle awareness at this level. And I really would not have, I mean, this sounds dramatic, but I don't think I would have survived these last nine years without that skill set, without that knowledge, which is what we teach on our cycle power course because of the extreme challenge that I've faced, but also the extreme awakening that I've

experienced. I mean, I've had some profoundly heart-opening, ecstatic-making experiences, and both have required this skill set, this foundational MCA practice. In fact, that's been one of my biggest learnings. It's just like, wow, love, holding love and holding joy and holding expansion, takes as much discipline and self-care as holding stress and trauma and, you know, etc. It's been, that's been quite an interesting observation. But yeah, so the further I've gone with my cycle awareness practice and the deeper I've gone into the autumn of, my menstruating years, the more important the basics and the foundations have become. Because as I described, I think really early on in this conversation,

this cyclical self-care has brought me out of my mind again and again and back into my body, into the place where the power really lies. And I've needed to anchor myself in that again, again, and again again and again and again. I was recently with this expression, I was thinking about how in any of life's initiations, and actually this is even true with the kind of global initiation we're in, or any extremely challenging times, any time that the shit hits the fan, what do I turn to? I return to the basics. I return to the, you know, the simplest things and yeah in menstrual cycle awareness that that has provided me with the ground that has really

held me yeah it's so good to hear you shardie and i'm wondering if there's any like a particular memory of a moment in the last few years that illustrates some of what you're describing there about the capacity to hold the nuance the discipline it takes to hold the love. Does an example come to mind to illustrate what you're sharing? I remember something, Sharnie. Actually, would you talk about it for me? Yeah. Yeah, is that I think that Alexandra answers the question. Great. I mean, you basically are like one unit. Gosh, yes, Shani. Well, it was that experience where you,

childhood trauma emerged and you began to you started to address it and you know you were getting very specific support and then suddenly something happened and you hit this place in yourself where you really fell into a place of the most profound vulnerability there was literally no ground and there was a kind of terror came over you and you literally just had to slow everything right down and I remember you basically you stepped away from work and you I think you basically went to bed and just you were deeply deeply with it

and it's almost like you forgot all your instructions about being in the void as well, everything went. Although I think something implicit stepped in that moment in you. It's like all the cycle awareness practice you had done and built some kind of muscle, psychological muscle memory or something because you were, you know, none of the tools you had in your, you know, your tricks bag. None of them, they were help, you were help, none of them worked.

Nothing did it. You, you were now just plunging. And you, you had the impulse to just shut up shop, literally, and not move. And, yes, I just remember holding presents at a distance for you because I knew what was happening. And basically, you just stayed with. the process. And I actually think you had some kind of muscle memory, psychological muscle memory, to just allow this, allow yourself to just be with it and allow something to move through you. Because, of course, you emerged. And it wasn't because of something you did, you know, clever.

It was actually just you pulling right in and totally meeting that moment. I mean, it was radical. You didn't run from it. And, oh, I'm feeling tears going up now. It was really profound, actually. And then you came out. And that, I think, was the most radical turning point that I saw in you in terms of yourself and who you are in the world.

Because, you know, you've had subsequent challenges. But that was that one thing. took you right to the call. But I could feel afterwards how, you know, because that was about two or three years ago now, I think, wasn't it? Weirdly, it was actually only a year ago. I know it feels like lifetimes, yeah, it feels like lifetimes of past. Because since then, there's a much bigger capacity in you. Now I'm going to reveal something about you, shall be. when she's feeling totally vulnerable already. Now you're feeling totally vulnerable.

Well, but it was an incredible increase in capacity of your, of self-responsibility because you have this glorious kind of shitty energy. I call it your Adina character that comes out in the pre-master. For people who don't know, what's the program called? Absolutely fabulous. People don't know absolutely fabulous. Then please just don't worry about it. But it's this character called Adina, who is a total narcissist.

I mean, Sharney's not like that ever, by the way, folks. But totally petulant, like a child. She's just dreadful. And she plays it to the full. And I go up, it looks like Adina's turned up. You know, she's like this there. And I mean, by the way, I have my Adina moments too. I just want to say, we should all have our Adina moments, frankly.

actually I think it's a necessity. But, you know, I just notice how you're just completely positioned differently now around how you handle, because it's power. It's just charge now. And the way you meet it and hold it. And then I want to add one other thing. You have substantively gone from hell into having incredibly heavenly experiences now. And what, I mean, you've been off the Richter scale, really.

And as you said, that's been a whole thing for you. What if your willingness to go to those depths is what's allowing you to experience this extraordinary, wonderful, ecstasy and goodness and so on. So I hope, Shania, I haven't ever stepped the mark. I have had tears streaming down my face. It's so moving to hear all that said back to me and to remind me. and to remind me, actually, of the place that I was in and what it took. And you are so right.

It's when we really hit these moments in our life, there is no tool, no, nothing that we can do to meet the enormity of that vulnerability. And it ultimately comes down to the presence that we've cultivated in ourselves, the embodied trust that we have. in ourselves and in life to dare to just meet it. And that it was, that was, you're right, one of the most extraordinary experiences I have ever had. I didn't know I was capable of. And yeah, and here I am, you know, a year later, experiencing love like I have never known. I mean, it's so beautiful what has unfolded in the wake of that. I mean, it's, yeah. So thank you for sharing that, reminding me of that,

especially today where I can't remember what I did yesterday or last week. It also speaks to me about the importance of community, always, but particularly in this time, because it's likely that everyone in these 40s years is going to have some version of that, like some need at some point to down tools and go and to have friends, family, community that can support you to do that for a day or two or what's needed. And ideally more policies in the workplace around mental health and around. care for ourselves, particularly around menopause and running up to menopause. But anyways, yeah, to create a world where when these things come up that we can go and follow the imperative of our, I might call it the imperative of our soul.

Sophie, I think that is so powerful what you've said there. I think that is everything. It's really serious. We should not be alone. And actually one of the thoughts that was coming to me when I was talking about menstrual cycle awareness and all the things it does and everything and what you've got to do, what it is, I realized that it's so important to have allies when you're doing menstrual cycle awareness because, you know, Shani and I do cycle chickens, you know, ourselves together each day. And it's always much more illuminating when you're doing it in relationship with somebody else to have some kind of listening partnership or buddy, you know, cycle check in buddy or something. Because that connection, it's connection. You need connection. And if Shani hadn't had connection, even as she had connection, even as she had connection to everything,

Everything had gone. Everything gone. I mean, there was connection around her. I mean, yeah, Emily, presence of me and so on. And also someone who understood what was happening. That's actually important. And so, yes, to have a community of allies with whom one is, you know, journeying through this journey.

to menopause and in menopause itself. Well, it's whatever, wherever you are in life, actually, it's just connection and community. It's just crucial. It is everything, actually, for everybody. Okay, we're at time. I could talk to you all day, as usual. But let's close with a couple of stories from the community that are so good.

Firstly, Nikki says, menstrual cycle awareness has literally given me the bone foundation for me to understand my feminine nature and to stand in authority as I move through the threshold of perimenopause. Yes. And there's a story from Jen who shares menstrual cycle awareness

is an essential practice for me in my 40s. The autumn of my menstruating life quickly showed me that I do not have the same capacity to manage my life in the manner I did in my spring and summer seasons. So she's talking about like 20s and 30s there. but I didn't know that at first, and so I pushed myself in the same manner that I used to. This resulted in too much stress that overloaded my system and caused severe health issues and concerns.

Mental cycle awareness connects me to myself in a day by day, moment by moment way. With each drop into myself, I'm able to get a grasp on my bandwidth, how much energy I have, and what mood I'm in, which helps guide my decisions in what I choose. to do with the energy I do have. It's taught me to honour myself that my needs and requirements are important and must take priority, even just 1% of the time. My health issues have resolved, and while my 40s are still stressful, I find that when I listen to my needs, I'm more capable to meet life's challenges, and it's become more enjoyable. It's become more enjoyable. That's the name of the game. If we can,

can't enjoy ourselves. We must keep questing for joy. We must keep questioning for joy. Yeah, thanks you too. What a beautiful conversation. Thanks for everything you shared, especially Shani and for generously sharing of your own experience. And yeah, it's been a joy to be with you. Thank you. Thank you, Sophie. Thank you, Sophie. Hey, thanks for tuning in today. If you know someone who you think, could benefit from this conversation, please forward it to them. And if you'd like to support the podcast, it really helps if you leave a review on Apple Podcasts. That's it for this week. I'll be with you again. Actually, next week, we have an episode coming up. So I'll be with you again next week.

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