The Menstruality Podcast - 233. How Menstrual Cycle Awareness has Shaped my Creative Process (Chloé Zhao)

Episode Date: April 9, 2026

Today it’s our great pleasure to be joined by Chloé Zhao. Chloé is an academy award winning filmmaker, and amongst many accolades, Chloé is the first Woman of Colour to have won an academy award for best director for her film Nomadland.In this conversation, Chloé chats with Alexandra and Sjanie about how menstrual cycle awareness has shaped her creative process, including how she worked with the wisdom of her menstrual cycle to create and direct her most recent film, Hamnet, which received eight Oscar nominations.When Chloé turned thirty seven years old, she started to get menstrual cramps for the first time. Although it wasn’t comfortable, she felt something important was coming to life within her. This coincided with what she lovingly calls a ‘midlife crisis’ that ultimately led her to discover the practice of menstrual cycle awareness, which she says helped her to learn a language that her body had forgotten to speak. We explore:Intuition as our greatest currency, and how becoming more aware of our menstrual cycles prepares the body to be a vessel to receive deep intuitive knowing. The cyclical advice that Chloe has for all young filmmakers about the importance of wintering, and the power of seemingly non-productive work of rest, tending to your inner soil, and composting (even in the middle of a film set!).How the premenstrual and menstrual phases of the cycle have taught Chloe to embody creative death and rebirth, and how this played out in the creation of Hamnet. ---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.hardyChloé Zhao: @chloezhao - https://www.instagram.com/chloezhao

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 menstruality podcast. I am so excited to share this with you. Today it's our great pleasure to be joined by the brilliant Chloe Zhao. Chloe is an Academy Award-winning filmmaker and among many accolades, Chloe is the first woman of

color to have won an Oscar for Best Director for her film Nomadland. When Chloe turned 37, she started to get menstrual pain for the first time in her life. And although this was a challenging experience, she sensed that something important was coming to life within her. This coincided with what she lovingly calls a midlife crisis that ultimately led her to discover the practice of menstrual cycle awareness, which she says helped her to learn a language that her body had forgotten to speak. In this conversation, Chloe chats with Alexandra and Sharnie about how menstrual cycle awareness has shaped her creative process, including how she worked with the wisdom of her menstrual cycle to create and direct her most recent, critically acclaimed Oscar-nominated film Hamnet.

She explores how becoming more aware of our menstrual cycles prepares the body to be a vessel to receive deep intuitive knowing and the power of the seemingly non-productive work of rest, even in the middle of a film set. My favourite part was when Chloe explored what the pre-menstrual and menstrual phases of the cycle have taught her about how to embody creative death and rebirth and how this played out in the creation of her beautiful. film Hamnet. So let's get started with how menstrual cycle awareness has shaped my creative process with the amazing Chloe Zhao. So it's with great pleasure and joy. I want to welcome you to this conversation today. Chloe, welcome. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm really happy to be here. Yes, it's absolutely glorious to have this connection again with you, Chloe. And one of the things that we

just really loved when we met you the first time. I think it was a year and a half ago now. The thing that we just really enjoyed was when you, before you had barely sat down, the first thing you said was, can we do a cycle check-in? And because, of course, you've been listening to our podcast. Yes. You know, it's day rigor for our podcast that we begin with a cycle check-in. So naturally, we're all getting. to begin with a cycle check.

Yay. Yeah. Very exciting. Wonderful. Would you like to begin, Chloe, or would you like one of us to kick it off? I'm happy. I'm happy to jump in. I am day 13.

So towards the end of my follicular and I can feel the summer. I can feel avalanation. everything seems very hopeful and yeah and just I have more energy and I feel fertile

you know I feel creatively very fertile at the moment and that is partially because I had this particular cycle I paid great attention to the winter and the early spring And I think I can see the results, how that's benefiting the summer season now.

Yeah, you're reaping the harvest of that. It's so, so good to hear, Chloe. Wow, beautiful. So I am day eight. So I'm in the pre-ovulatory phase, what we refer to as the inner summer, I mean, in the spring. This morning when I was checking in with myself, I was very aware of the, kind of rising energy that often accompanies this point of the cycle. It's interesting you use that word hope. I felt this kind of renewed motivation, renewed enthusiasm, but also a kind of fizzing

in my system like the lid of a champagne bottle had just been popped. And probably a lot like you, rather than it feeling like a champagne bottle that's all been shook up and then the cork being popped, I feel, because I did have pockets of rest at menstruation, I feel like it's a gentle fizzing that's happening, not an explosive sort of ejaculation. Not a premature celebration. It feels really a nice kind of quiet fizzing that I feel very, very grounded in. Yeah, it's good. How about you, Alexandra?

It's nice listening to you too. Well, of course, I'm postmenopause, so I don't have a menstrual psyche anymore. But I really enjoy charting with the moon. It's very interesting. It sort of echoes my experience a little. It's subtle. Anyway, full moon was a couple of days ago. It was about day 17.

And I always find full moon a bit unnerving, like I'm a bit overexposed and I don't quite know how to handle the energies of it. And I'm always slightly relieved to get in. of the second half of the cycle. And it was the same with my menstrual cycle. So now I had this feeling much more now of, oh yeah, oh yeah, I'm in the groove. Now I can feel myself. I kind of lose myself a bit, but now I'm back.

And I'm in my groove and there's kind of muscle and there's energy still and a kind of willingness to get my teeth into things. Yeah, it's a good energy. I like this time. It's very sweet. It sounds like we're all in good places. But as I say that, I'm also thinking how what we often say is there's no such thing as a bad place to be in the style. Absolutely.

Absolutely. People who live in Scotland often say there's no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing. Same is true of the cycle. Very good. Well, right. So, Chloe, we want to start with how you discovered menstrual cycle awareness. And then what it has meant for you personally, perhaps what it has opened up for you. Yeah. When I was younger and even in most of my 20s and my early 30s, I've always been quite proud of that I don't have any. issues when it comes to my menstruation. It's just I don't feel any pain. I don't have any symptoms.

It comes the exact same time, you know, on time. I just like, yeah, I don't see what the problems are. But I heard others who struggle with it. And what I do have around it is a level of shame, even though I feel like I am not bogged down by it like some others are so I probably am very lucky and yes I wish it's not there but at least I'm not suffering from it so then come my mid-30s into my early 40s I started to have some achiness at the beginning of the cycle. And I thought, whoa, what is this? I'm getting cramps for the first time, probably 36, 37 years old.

And what he did was even kind of reminding me this is happening. And so I think for the first time I started to start. paying attention to it. It's now just like, you know, I put some pads on once a month and no problem. And I started to feel that it's like something is a coming to life for the first time. It doesn't mean it's comfortable. And I think it's coincided with my, my midlife crisis. as I lovingly call it

or the reckoning, I believe, the beginning of the reckoning. And it's really just meaning like things start to unravel. The foundation starts to crack. And then also coincided with me doing a lot of tantric somatic work of healing sexual trauma. And I think what has happened is that the more somatic healing I've done, the more I become aware of my office, of even just the lower body, which was very much disconnected from the trauma experienced.

And so then once I started notice is there, then the good and the bad and the ugly and everything in between started to show up. But so I was overwhelmed by it. And the sensitivity and the intuition is incredible, especially for a creative person. That is coming through and the energy. And to feel like I'm not creating, I started to create from a place that isn't just above my neck. Right. Or even just like from my heart is actually like there's some kind of wound wisdom that to come through. But along with it, also a lot of confusion and chaos. Because I have not paid

attention. I didn't even know that part of the body had an intelligence. And so I would say in 2023, I started to be really scared and nervous about my menstrual cycle. And that is coming from understanding more and more of this power and how little knowledge I have of it. And then I started as what do when one is confused in modern day. You Google. And then when I saw the word, the red school, something, the name. name itself, felt very attractive to me. And then I clicked on the podcast. So I saw some of the titles in your podcast. And then I thought, that sounds like something I've never heard before,

but intuitively feel like my body needed. And I started to listen to one. And then I binged everything. And then I read the book. And that has really, in that very difficult time in my life, very chaotic moment, it helped me to learn a language that my body had forgotten how to speak and therefore gave me a vital tool at that time of metamorphosis to allow me to stay steady. So thank you. I'm very happy to be able to do this. Oh, we are so happy to have you, Chloe. It is just so rich hearing your process with your cycle from a kind of unconsciousness with it to this awakening that happened.

As you were getting older and of course our energies change then. And so there is more sort of vulnerability in our system as we start to get at the. And what I loved in hearing you speak was how you were sensing that there was an intelligence at work in yourself. You didn't just package it or just name it as menstrual problems or menstrual symptoms, you know, that have to be fixed. But they could feel your body was stirring with something. and then you felt called to do all this extraordinary work with your body around trauma healing, tantric work, the somatic work, and really coming, really responding to that call. It was like a, I mean, I get so stirred up hearing this kind of thing that from your deep being,

something was starting to wake up and you responded. And you started to sense this disturbance. as power. That's what I was really taken by. You said, I didn't know that that part of my body had that intelligence that it had a kind of creative force in it and that you were getting nervous around it. And I almost want to feel that's like a healthy response to it, actually, because it's power, isn't it, Charlie? Yes. Well, when you get woken up in the minute and I by a

Kundalini search I don't know if you've experienced it before but you and you

sit up and you go oh my God what was that and so then you're very humble

but you know only when I think because my the old castle that I built out of

survival was so sturdy that only when life cracked it open to pieces and when you feel like everything's falling apart, I think could that contained energy started to rise? Because I was consciously, I have internalized a dictator to be, keep that energy away, right? Because I have internalized this voice that this is not safe, that this is too powerful, that this is going to put me in danger in the world

because I will no longer be able to follow the script that's written for me. And as women, we know what happens to us, what could happen to us. for tens of thousands of years if we don't follow the script or just all people when they listen to that feminine principle so I've internalized that voice at a very young age

so only when the castle of the king started to just crack on his own because eventually it can't sustain itself on false logic or false beliefs and did that energy start to rise It's not, it didn't come without a cause.

It was a very difficult transformation period, which is why I discovering this. Because when the old language started to die and you don't have a, not a new language, by new language, I mean a really old language, we've forgotten, right? Yeah. And without mentors, you know, without the wisdom, keepers in the tribe around. You're kind of like, wait, my old logic is going away, but I don't, the inner oracle, I can't hear her. I don't have the tools to access her.

And finding your podcast and books and was very vital at the time to help me. And of course, each person, as you teach as well, have their own relationship with their menstrual cycle. So once I entered the container, you guys created, I was able to then safely explore what is actually my own relationship with my cycle. And I'm still, I think it will be a lifelong exploration. But without the sort of the tent, right, or the containers we'd like to say on a film set, without that tent held by people who kept this with.

or work done of themselves. Like where do we turn to in society? It's kind of crazy. Wow. It's just very profound listening to you, Clay. I actually feel incredibly moved. And I'm just thinking of women and people who menstruate everywhere. Yeah.

Who experience strong stuff with their cycle. And there's some really extreme suffering that people experience. but also not just experiencing symptoms, but just experiencing charge in their body, and not having any way of naming or validating it. And then it being pathologized and we are dismissed. I mean, if we think of the different energies that are available in different parts of the cycle,

especially in the pre-menstrual phase and at menstruation, and when there's no recognition and no container, No languaging. There's no safety to meet that power. And then it just turns up as madness and suffering within us. Yeah, it's outrageous. You know, there are days where I just go, this is not okay. Yeah.

Yeah, this is so not okay. The amount of suffering going on and disorientation that people feel because they aren't connected to an understanding this incredible cycle that they're held in, and that's informing and shaping them day by day by day. It's really crazy making, actually. It's really crazy making. And I mean, that's why we feel so passionate about restoring this knowledge

and making it commonplace and part of kitchen table conversation. And in the way that you said when we met, you know, that all business meetings and all creative, projects and all encounters with friends start with where are you in your cycle today let's orientate ourselves yes let's see what resources and powers are available today to us yeah i i occasionally say this out loud you know in the middle of a meeting i'll say you know i'm ovulating so i'm this and that and that or i say you know i am right now in my autumn so I'm feeling extra discerning, and I'm saying these things to you doesn't mean we should take actions, which is something.

One of your episodes was great. I remember going on a hike while listening to this, and I forgot which one, but you were talking about how maybe it's best not to put it into action right away, everything you want to set boundaries and discern in your, you know, in your luteal face. you just like wait and bleed on it and then take actions right because I said so I said just so you guys know I might want to cancel like these five projects right now just just ask me to think again but do take me very seriously because clearly there's something I'm discerning here but maybe I don't need to cancel them all give me a week to bleed on it yeah yeah I'm saying it right now because I have to say out loud, but don't panic.

Brilliant. I love that that's part of your everyday conversation. It is. You know, there are some people that get it by now, because it's been two years of this and two, three years. There are others who are just looking at me over the war is she out about. But I think the more we normalize this, you know, and of course, also I've learned to be very graceful to people who nervously crack offensive joke in the moment and go, that's okay too, because they show me all colors of how you react to this

because everyone lives in this scripted matrix. Nobody is like, you know, bad. It's just we were all conditioned. Yeah, very much so. I mean, we often talk about menstrual cycle awareness and the practice of it as, being a means of shifting the collective consciousness, but that doesn't, you know, from a linear consciousness or a mind-driven consciousness into a cyclical consciousness or a body-based,

nature-based consciousness. But that kind of shift doesn't happen overnight. And yeah, it takes time and just this sort of normalizing, as you're saying. Also, we're not asking to be, to take over. We're asking for balance. Yes. Yes. Yeah, very much so. We're asking for this to be included. Yeah, we're not asking that much. Yeah, not that much. I mean, you know, it's just our birthright.

Yeah, exactly. We're just asking 50% of space in the room. Even 48, we'll take it, you know. It will be so scared. I love that. Chloe, I want to come back to something you said earlier, which was just around this reckoning that you've been through. in the second half of your menstruating life, let's call it,

which makes a lot of sense. Many people turn a corner and really confront things that they otherwise have maybe been unconscious of or not really had the capacity to meet or face or hold in themselves. It's very, very common. And you just said this thing of how menstrual cycle awareness and your practice of it and learning this language that your body,

you had forgotten how to speak has helped you to in a way stabilize in this this new you, this new consciousness, this new energy that you stepped into, which I can hear. Times was quite terrifying and really strong and overwhelming. So that's the practice of cycle awareness from what you're saying. It sounds like it gave you a holding. It gave you ground. It gave you a connection to yourself through that big. transition.

Yes. One of the things we often go on about is how cycle awareness keeps us connected to ourselves. And it's such a simple thing to say, but wow, when we're in times of great challenge or times of big initiation, that connection to ourselves is everything. It's a lifeline. I mean, it's the thing that matters, our capacity to stay present with ourselves. through that, in a way, what allows something to really unfold.

Yeah, I think it's very difficult in modern culture and the first half of our menstruating years to, it's very hard to surrender to the fact that we're nature-based beings. We try to separate ourselves from the one. the existence of the universe, nature, whatever you want to call it, God, you know, whatever word you want to call it, we try to separate in the first half of our lives, right?

And in modern society, we do it really extremely. And because we're afraid of exactly the overwhelming impermanence and chaos that contains. So we build this full safety through our identity, our jobs, our relationships. You know, you really build a life, a persona. And that is some people are so like rock solid, you know, platinum solid. And my world's very solid. Or what you think life is about, you know, your beliefs, your purpose, all of it.

And then, but nature will always balance itself out, right? So if the conjection is too much in the forest, the fire was started on its own. So inevitably around midlife, when your body starts to change, that thing starts to get shaky. And the chaos and the entropy and the, what it is is actually you're just draining. back to the natural world more, which means there are seasons that you can't control. Right? There are faces the moon, you can't control. But then once you slip into that, then you imagine you go from a very controlled modern calendar

to a pagan calendar of an ancient culture that no longer has. has its rituals left in the world. And suddenly you're disillusioned by this modern imposed calendar. And now you are being moved by this older calendar. And yet you don't have anyone around you to teach you these rituals as season changes, for example. There's a reason why we have rituals in these older calendars. every culture has their own version of it and their rituals to help transition

and how we deal with each season even the food we eat how we should move and how we should gather as a family or as a tribe in each season was different this is like written in all our ancestors all did that

and so again what this This was for me and all the guests you had on your podcast coming in and bringing their own manifested version of how they can turn these into rituals or tools or how they work through it. Start to give me things that I could try. You know, like how am I going to, as I go between seasons, what are some things I need to watch out for? for how I'm going to eat differently, how am I going to rest differently, how am I going to work differently, how I'm going to create differently.

Yeah, and just knowing what happens to the body is natural and to surrender to what is happening, is life changing. Yes. Very hard. It's the hardest thing ever, and that's why we need a menstrual cycle. I always think the menstrual cycle sort of holds a hand in inducting us into this deeper, embodied form of living. If you're listening to this and you'd like to learn more about the practice of menstrual cycle awareness for your own health and well-being and for your creative process, we invite you to visit redschool.com. dot net forward slash love to receive red schools free love your cycle course which includes guidance for how to

track your cycle a cycle tracking chart to help you get started and short simple videos to help you access the power of the four inner seasons that unfold throughout your menstrual cycle phases you can receive it all for free at red school dot net forward slash love and that's also where you can find red school's books wild power and wise power. Okay, let's get back to the conversation with Chloe. I'd love to segue here into your creative process because you spoke about this intelligence that was coming through you, this power that was coming through you. It sounds like you were tapping into an extraordinary creative stream within you because it's a creative force that's moving through us. We're really interested to hear how this, the menstrual cycle has

really supported you in your creative process, both as a writer and when you're directing. Sure. I think it's good that we separate the writing and that writing. I think that writing, acting, anything that is more relational and also be physically more present in a space is, is one way of how the menstrual awareness could come up and then writing and editing. Unfortunately, something you have to do like sitting in front of a computer and you are having a dialogue with your inner,

landscape, right? You're having a, with your psyche. You are trying to walk your inner landscape. And then you put them on the page. And the second half of that equation is then you find ways to external lies what you've documented of your inner landscape. The first thing to do is to even have access to that inner landscape. So often when we write in school and things like that,

we're taught a lot of the logic of a story. And how is the story, how is the film structured, character motivations, arcs, and you watch a lot of movies, you read about storytelling, mostly, unfortunately, from a, by linear tradition

and more platonian and so that's what we were taught in school and I intuitively felt this is from the beginning I have to say it's not just through the midlife crisis I always felt something

a missing half of the equation. The stories aren't linear. And I always felt that it is actually spiral. It's not even just circle. It's a spiral. And

if anything, I would say there are two energies moving in the story. One is linear and is this vertical straight line. And then the other one is the spiral. that is constantly spiraling down and up and down up around it. So you have the center axis and then you have to spiral. Or it could be a circle, however it works for me.

It's a spiral. But I was taught the middle axis line. I was not taught the spiral energy around it. But that's why in my early career, I was attracted to a very chaotic environment to film with non-professional actors and to bring a very linearly constructed film crew into environments we have no control of

and also film with natural light so we have no control of the weather and sunset and sunrise. So there's magic hour and you have no choice but to surrender. And so even earlier in my mind, career before I can put language to it, I was yearning to put a very linear energy into a spiral. And it is the combination.

It's when that linear energy penetrates the spiral and when the spiral is strong enough to hold the linear energy, that's when it becomes really juicy creatively. And it's very juicy. So when I started to work with my menstrual cycle, I see I see my not just my life

but my story you know I start to see it that other than the spine of what the intention is events and people's what happened to these characters

and it doesn't need to be as linear as the intention. It could move, right? And then it could then, it could then affect the central axis. So there's a way of writing, even just to plot it out.

You don't plot it out on a line. Which most of the time in school, that's what you do. You draw a line. You say, this is a hero's journey. And then, you know, here are the dots. You go from the beginning to the end. And then you can have that

But then if you draw a spiral around it So that means like take seven circles On the line And then you start putting your events there And what is amazing is that then you can see A certain point of the spiral Just on a different plane What are the events that are coinciding with each other?

And where is the energetically? Why are there? ending on the same moment on the spiral, but just on a different plane. These are extremely helpful and are extremely helpful of setting a container for your production that does not choke the mystery out of it.

Wow. Wow. You know, a lot of times when you go into filming, the mystery is already almost troked to death because your script is planned in a way that life cannot happen through it. Yes. It's missing the spiral energy. Yes.

That's why my experience of say Nomad Land and Hamnet was one of there being this aliveness to it that I couldn't put my finger on, but I felt changed. by it. I could feel there was something emergent that had happened, you know, that there was a bigger force at play is maybe the only way I can say it. So when I hear you describing what you're describing, that really speaks to that. And I wonder, Chloe, I'm just thinking of people listening who may not be so familiar with the menstrual cycle process as you now are. I just want to ground what

you're saying in a little bit of a story about the cycle, which connects what you began with, which was talking about the first half of life and the kind of castle that it's so easy to build for ourselves and the agency we have and the amount of control that we often feel and how the second half of life is often about the cracks coming through in those foundations. and discovering that there are seasons that we can't control and that profound invitation to surrender. So that story of the first and second half of life, if you will, really captures something about the archetypal cycle process

that we live through every month. From menstruation to ovulation is that power of agency and it's very much about command and control. And it has a linear energy. It thrives with structure and with goal and with outcome in mind, whereas the second half of the cycle from ovulation to menstruation is a deconstructive process. And it's much more about the power of encounter, which is this power of allowing space for life to speak,

for the mystery to come in and surrendering our agenda and our will and our outcome and some of the structures so that creative life can be breathed into what we're doing. And you spoke so beautifully about that. I love how you said so that the mystery doesn't get choked out of the creative. For the directors and the actors, you know, the people who work on set out there, our intuition is the greatest currency. and what is intuition you know is something

it's not just something given it's something you have to cultivate and the body is the vessel, the chalice to be able to receive that intuition right and so in a way like a shaman

I always tell my actors or my fellow storytellers or more modern day shamans and if you think about this meaning like we're channeling stories for the tribe that's the job it's not to create

entertainment to send an extent but we're meant to channel what the collective wants to say through us back to them so that they can heal so they can process and integrate something they can't do it on their own. They can be brought together through a story. That is why we do this. And in order to do that, it makes no difference to what a shaman needs to do before they start a

ceremony is that our bodies have to be taken care of. Like this vessel has to be prepared for the work and for the intuition. Because the shaman is, because the shalman is. intuition will tell them whether I need the energy of a crow or an energy of a doll. You know, what does the tribe need right now? So to me, this, to be aware for a woman to be aware of her menstrual cycle is a way to prepare her body for the greatest kind of intuition, which is the deep gift we're giving. by having a body that goes through these cycles monthly. And that intuition can only be at its peak when there's no congestion.

And the thing is when you only expand and you don't contract, when you only give, you don't take, when you only breathe in and breathe out, you don't breathe in, which is what we do in modern society. We don't think about that darker side of the cycle. what happens is you end up with like a conjection and then then there is no then I think then we have these symptoms potentially and and or the clotting you know that that clotting psychically is what kills intuition very much so yes you know we are often one of the reasons

we care so deeply about menstrual cycle awareness is we notice how when we're not living cyclically, we just build up these layers of armoring and we never go through that process of being disarmored or being resensitized or being broken open. And as you describe it, the cycle keeps us in this movement of give and take, activity and rest, build up and breakdown. And that keeps us porous and keeps us sensitive, which allows us then our body. to be a vehicle for something other to come through us, as you've described there. That is very beautiful. And the intuition being the most powerful currency in creative life, yes, because when we create,

it's not something we're doing in isolation. It's also not something that is not about speaking. Yes. Half the time, yes. but it's about listening listening to what's out there trying to speak through you

because I believe stories exist past present future outside of us and when the body become the psyche become the right conduit the story will come through and you can answer the call or not right

but then if the intuition is congested then we're not listening to the synchronicity to the sign that here is a story coming through you. Yes. You know, menstrual cycle awareness is this extraordinary vessel for building this, it's a process of building trust in ourselves,

of getting to know ourselves, building trust in ourselves. It's like other forms of intelligence or sensitivities that come on board that allow you then to sense and know beyond your normal rational mind. more than that, it is to actually learn to rest in this more intuitive sense of knowing, this more embodied sense of knowing. So it's a really, the cycle process grows you into something. You said the body has to be prepared. The menstrual cycle process is helping you to prepare that.

And it's building trust in yourself and trust in the energies that are moving through you. And it's developing these capacities to sort of sense and know and hear, like listen for what the unknown is wanting to speak to you. What is wanting to flirt or court with you? I mean, it blows my mind actually how alive things become. So the cycle brings you into more and more life within yourself. And the more alive you are in yourself, the more alive you are to. of the life of the world around you. I will even call it magic sometimes. Oh, absolutely.

You know, as a little girl, I always dreamt of one day being somehow admitted to a magical school or be able to open a book at a library and suddenly found the secret, you know, thing to some kind of magical world and magical ability. What it is now looking back at it is this yearning for enchantment, this yearning for a connection like you said to the unseen. And I think as a woman, I was to speak for myself as a woman, there is a deep knowing even at that young age, there's more than the eyes can see. And I have a body that has the capacity to access it. But why can I? and there's an almost painful yearning for it.

And it took about 40 years for me to go, oh, I understand, you know, what happened and why we lost that. And also many, many beautiful things, good things happened, right? We build a civilization. We build so much. There's so much to celebrate how our lives, how we're protected, how we're safe in many ways. and incredible things.

So I'm not saying to go back, but it's more about how do we now, you know, having felt the imbalance and that yearning and that spiritual hunger, like how can we

maintain our linear forward motion but at the same time be able to call back and remember this non-productive, which is the key word.

You know, like on a film said, God forbid, you stop for a moment and breathe together. It's like, but this is not productive. This, what appears non-productive work of rest, of getting in touch with oneself. And then of waiting and listening, of tending the sort of. soil composting, right? So the part of the menstrual cycle that we're most shamed for and trying to medically get rid of, which is the winter and the autumn, I would go as far as saying that the creative industry is currently deeply congested because it had not allowed things to die. The creative industry could do with the big bleed, hey?

Oh my goodness. Yeah. I mean, it is the bleed will happen regardless. You know, it's just happening in a very violent and terrible way. True, true. Nature will win. Nature will win. And this is why I would say, what advice do you have for young filmmakers?

I was like, just make sure you winter. Make sure you tend your creative soil. And they're not going to want you to do that because it's not, it doesn't look productive. They want to need to build a bunch of greenhouses that keep growing or keep growing on the soil that is desperate for rejuvenation. I always like to say there's nothing more unproductive than trying to be productive all the time. So true.

This thing you're pointing to around unproductive and what you've named there, Chloe, about how the second of the cycle is the part of the cycle that's least loved and most demonized, you know, the pre-menstruem and menstruation. And it is in part because it's unproductive. And we don't show the world, the face and the ways of being that are celebrated and valorized. The other thing is that our power is rooted in those phases of the cycle.

You know, when you were talking about writing and you said, first we've got to be able to connect our inner land. landscape and it's that deep docking into ourselves and opening to our inner landscape and also to life, you know, intuition as you've been saying, is the source of our power and the source of our creativity and all that non-productive, not good looking stuff is where the true power and potency lies. And I know that you are very turn. on by the power that's possible to tap into administration. You've mentioned that in our conversation previously. And I'm just thinking now about creativity and how, certainly for me,

one of the things that organizes creativity in my life is a deep sense of what I'm serving in the world. The thing I would love to hear from you is, you may or may not have words for it, Chloe, but what is it that you are serving through all your creative work? And then this is the question I really want you to answer. I mean, I want you to answer both. Has menstruation and your experience at menstruation opened you to a deeper sense of that or a clarity of that or a stronger felt knowing of that?

It definitely has. So I had about 10 years of filmmaking before I started to. really work with my menstrual cycle. But even looking at those 10 years of storytelling, including Nomadland, it was always about surrender. And surrender is a form of death. Because without death, there's no rebirth. And I don't mean always physically, physical death.

I mean everything, right? meaning the out breath and you without letting go and surrender you can't have you can't be reborn to the new reality that doesn't have the things

that you had to let go off so you become frozen and I explore that in Hamnet as well so then when I started working with my menstrual cycle whenever the first time

started to surrender to what the Luteo and the menstruation, the autumn and the winter actually feels like. And what does it actually mean physically, emotionally, spiritual, psychically? It said I died every month because I created something inside of me. And again, Hamnet is the external version of that, the loss of a child. Right.

But I created something inside of me and then I feel it dying inside of me and I let it go every month. Because then if you energetically tap into that, that is on the surface, not fun. It goes through. It's like you're going through a version of Hamnet every month. Yeah. So if you use hemnet as the container, and you're going through that every month, right? And because the version of you,

with that buildup instead of you that was growing, is no longer by the time you start bleeding. And there was a moment of letting go leading up to it. That's why it's unsettling the body. If your nervous system aren't trained for it and realizing how natural that is and the power in that, then if you fight against it,

it's quite painful, which is what was happening to Anius in Hamlet, right? She was frozen. And then you can look at Hamelin and go, then what the hell do we do to deal with it? It's actually creativity and imagination. and poetry and art that we turn to in those moments when we're in the chrysalis. When the tension of being grounded down is so extreme and we know we can't just reach for

distraction or get out of the chrysalis too quick, right? We know we have to sit in that discomfort and that tension so that the rebirth could happen. So we don't get frozen or congested or scaled, up, you know, like wars around us being built. And I find in those moments, and I try to speak that through Hamlet, is that the creative life, which is the birthright to every human being, is what we need, the creative rituals, whatever that creativity is for you, that is how you handle the tension of to be or not to be. That's how you handle the tension when you are starting to I go this version of you every month. And I try my best when it's always possible.

I tell my team, those five days I'm bleeding and potentially the day are two leading up to it. Try to let me be alone during that time because that's when I'm going to write. And that is when, because that is when, again, you see Hamlet, that is when I'm standing on the edge of the river. feeding such being pulled to opposite direction like Shakespeare was right

that you can't go back right the past is gone but you also can't move forward it's that moment before bleeding yes we can't hold down anymore it's gone it's dead but we can't

we also don't want to let we don't want to let go either because it's so scary to let go and that's what happened to him standing on the edge that's why he said to be or not to be that is the question. There's no answer. You've got to live the question. And it's too

painful to live the question. That's when we create. And that's when I can write. Things just come out of me out of survival. Wow. So just to say, to wrap it up by saying that I find that way of living the question and the fact that we

practice that every month, it means that our nervous systems are trained. to learn to like things die, to learn to like things go, that people who don't menstruate don't have that. They have other power, a very linear power that we don't have. Right. Like it's very different. I absolutely need the balance of that on my film set. And it doesn't necessarily mean men or women. It's just whoever had more of that energy inside of them. But what we have is the wisdom.

that is lacking in the world and it's very much what the culture needs. So working with the menstruary cycle and allow the second half to take you every month is actually as a creative is a duty to practice so that the work that's coming through you is what the culture need at the moment. That's magnificent, Chloe. I really believe that. Yeah, and we believe it too. we feel it and absolutely know it. Yeah. That we have to dare to deeply let go every month to die. To die.

To die. To die, I mean, the word, just to say out loud. I know. It's so radical, isn't it? Yeah. To die and, yeah, to go into something unknown. Yeah. Yeah.

The undiscovered countries. Yeah. The undiscovered countries. And yeah, for you, that is a profoundly creative time, a time when you write. Yeah. Chloe, we are coming up to time. And as you can probably imagine, Shani and I could keep going forever with you talking on. I feel like we are just getting going.

But we surrender to this. Yeah, we do. Exactly. And we know that this is a spiral that will continue. Absolutely. The conversation will continue. It will continue. Yeah.

Yeah, it's very powerful. What you said at the end there, Chloe, I want to capture because it was such a significant statement and it's very close to my heart. As creatives, practicing menstrual cycle awareness is our duty because it's a taps us into the power that the world needs now. Yeah. Yeah, that's a very fine line to end on and a very strong message to leave. Well, thank you for holding this container for so many people.

And I know that my best friend's daughter is so ashamed of her period. I'm so ashamed of it. And I have been showing her your podcast, your book. And it breaks my heart, you know, to see women feel that way. When this is exactly the medicine, the world needs. It is, it is the medicine the world needs. It's a medicine that we, as women and people who menstruate, profoundly need.

And in receiving that sucker of our own extraordinary inner way, spiritual creative way, we something can flower in the world that can't flower right now. Yeah. It's extraordinary. Chloe, thank you so much. Thank you for having me. It's been a wonderful, wonderful conversation. It has been so lovely to be able to explore this.

with you. We are holding all our fingers and toes for you for the ask us. We are. Yes. We feel very at peace with that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. I can imagine. Yes. Yes. We're also, you know,

even with that, beautifully at the end of a cycle. I have gone through the autumn with that and it's the big bleat. about to happen. Very excited for then the rebirth after that. Yeah. Yeah. You're going to get to let go, hopefully, beautifully.

Oh, I have time planned because it's not about the Oscars at all, but a journey, two-year journey, the group of people, you know, with the inner, inner group of people, an outer group of people, and the audiences around the world. And then I have two weeks. planned after that in my own cave and that's going to be my bleeding time I'm going to bleed down the whole psychic bleeding time I'm going to bleed down the whole whole experience and then that will allow my soil to fertilize as I move forward and you will have grief you know it will also have sadness it will have feel grateful it will have all kinds of

but giving space to that is vital and I I think practicing menstrual awareness and allowing my body to go through that allows me to then use this archetypal container in other big events in life. Yes. That is so extraordinarily courageous of you, Chloe. I am so delighted hearing that you're going to have your cave and you're going to get to drop your bundle. Oh, excited. It's so excited. I'm just as excited as my bleed every month.

People in my life know she's so excited about her period. That's so nice. You see, you are ending the stigma for all those young people and all those other people who are. I just say to them, what do you mean? It's the most exciting time. It's just so cool that you can do that. And then they're looking at me like, are you insane? I'm like, no, here's why.

Get your Spotify. out and listen to this podcast. Yeah. Go to the rest school. Thank you, Chloe. It's so good to hear. I hope to see you guys again soon. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Oh my goodness, what an honor to hear about how menstrual cycle awareness has shaped Chloe's creative process. If you know someone who would enjoy this episode, please do forward it to them. And if you'd like to learn more about menstrual cycle awareness and how you can practice it in your own life, then please visit redschool.net forward slash love to receive red school's free love your cycle course and cycle tracking chart. Okay, that's it for this week. We'll be with you again in a couple of weeks time. And until then, keep living life according to your own brilliant rhythm.