The Menstruality Podcast - 244: Matrifocal Leadership and Sustainable, Cyclical Productivity (Lella Sá)

Episode Date: September 3, 2026

When Lella Sá was seven years old, she learned to meditate with her grandmother, which was the beginning of a spiritual journey that has guided her through multiple expressions of her calling; from modeling, to event management, to biographical counselling, to motherhood, to running a Waldorf school. She now serves  as a culture change and productivity consultant focused on what she calls Matrifocial Leadership. Today we explore how Lella’s in-depth practice of menstrual cycle awareness influences and inspires her work supporting women to lead through Maitrifocal practices that honour life. We chat about what could become possible if we all embodied this life-affirming form of leadership, personally and collectively, as well as some of the obstacles that get in the way. We explore:How to work in sync with our biology, our biography and our responsibility as humans living in this epoch, by embodying the wisdom of ‘life before performance’. How cycle awareness and aligning with natural rhythms helps us to cultivate a new, healthy relationship with time, by using our bodies as leadership infrastructure. How indigenous cyclical wisdom can teach us about the practice of sufficiency, which is vital to putting life at the centre of our work, and to work through stewardship and collaboration instead of domination and competition. ---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.hardyLella Sà: @lellasa - https://www.instagram.com/lellasa

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, thanks for joining us today. So when my guest today, whose name is Lela Sarr was seven years old, she learned to meditate

with her grandmother, which was the beginning of a spiritual journey that has guided her through multiple expressions of her calling, from modelling to event management, to buy, biographical counselling to motherhood, to running a Waldorf school. And now she serves as a culture change and productivity consultant focused on what she calls matrifocal leadership. And in our chat today, we're exploring how Lela's in-depth practice of menstrual cycle awareness influences and inspires her work supporting women to lead through matrifocal practices that honor life that put life at the center of work. We chat about what could become possible if we all embody this life-affirming form of leadership personally and collectively, as well as some of the obstacles that get in the way.

We look at how to work in sync with our biology, how cycle awareness helps us to cultivate a new relationship to time and how in a patriarchal culture we can actually move from domination and competition towards stewardship and collaboration. Lella, thank you for being with me today. I'd love to hear where you're at in your cycle. Great. Thanks for the invitation. It's an honor. So I'm on day 18 and I was at the gym this morning and I found myself on a crossover day, suddenly having tears in my eyes.

So that's where I'm at, slowing down after summer, and starting to knit my cocoon and feeling in myself, in my body, and slowing down, feeling down, feeling good. Is it often a bumpy transition from you from like the ovulatory inner summer into the second half of the cycle into the inner autumn? Yeah, there's always a moment where I get teary and I feel a shift in my sensations. Suddenly I don't want to be around too many people and I want to just find myself a space to, cuddle and get cozy. So, but I still feel that I have a lot of energy and I'm able to finally make things happen in my cycle. So I'm, I love this season. It's my favorite one. So it's like, yay, I'm finally here. I feel at home again. Yeah, yeah. I know a lot of people don't. And a lot of people listening probably don't like this, but I feel the same too. And it took me like my whole

all like 20s and 30s to really befriend my inner autumn, but boy, do I love landing in here now. I'm just like, ah, and I'm on day 22, like a few days ahead. Although life is feeling very autumnal because I've been working for a long time without a proper break and I'm about to go on holiday. So I'm just in that like, you know, just before you bleed, yeah, like the nesting energy. So I'm just running with that at the moment. But this is my favorite thing to do. So I've got loads of energy for this.

I mean. Yeah, I wanted us to start this conversation with your story. There's this question that Renee Brown asks at the start of all of her podcasts, and she's a bit like my podcast guru. I just want to be Renee Brown. She asked the question that I think is quite, I sense it's quite matrifocal in nature, because she just says, tell us your story.

It's so beautifully like embraces the full humanity of the person and gives them full agency to share what they want to share. So for me, it feels like it's in line with our topic today. So, yeah, Leila, would you tell us your story? Yeah, and it's also a great question for me because one of the things that are part of my story is that I'm a biographical counselor. So I listened to stories and I really studied mine.

So it's an honor to share. So I'm half Thai, half Brazilian, and I grew up in both Bangkok and San Paulo, so big cities. And I really didn't feel from any of those places completely. So I grew up as a third cultural kid. And at seven years old, I learned to meditate with my Thai grandma. and that's when my spiritual journey started, I would say. I found out there was another world other than that one that, this one that we see. Yeah.

That's so young to have that realization that's wonderful. Yeah. Yeah. So it was really important for me to understand there was something in my life other than what I saw. And at 16, I became a top model, a celebrity in Thailand. And very early in my life, I knew what status, fame, glamour, money, and power were. And I think that's really important to say because that's really a changing point in my life. So very young, I understood.

what it was to be rich and famous. Yeah. How old did you say 16? 16, yeah. That's super young for that kind of experience. Wow, it was such a formative time. Wow. Yeah.

And at 18 and a half, I knew I didn't want to be a living hangar anymore. And I mean, yeah, I think there's great models out there that know how to use their influence. in a positive way. But I couldn't find my voice. And I ended my career as a top model back then. And that's when I started to really just want to promote experiences for people to feel transformed. So I studied event management because that was what I knew I could do back then.

And I became responsible for 28 people that were traveling during four months in a bus all over Brazil, promoting cultural initiatives and debates and universities. And it was amazing, but I was just eating books about leadership because I was 19 and the average age of the group was 28. And I said, how am I going to actually lead these people if I don't know what it is to be a leader? So that's when I started feeling very interested in learning more about the topic. And after that, I started listening a lot to these people that were living on a bus for four months. and that's when I understood there was a lot of conflict. And I said, wow, that's more fun than planning events. I want to help these people.

And so that's when I started wanting to work with human development. And I started asking people what that was and how I could learn more about that. So that's when I knew I wanted to talk to people about the meaning of work, but I still was really young. And I remember one day telling my mom's friend, I want to be a coach or a mentor. And I was just 21. And she just laughed at me and said, okay, but you're a little young. And I said, okay, so, you know, I'm just going to wait a few. You're like a little young in human years, but in experience, like you'd experience so many things that someone of that age had never experienced, right?

Like it makes sense now because whenever we've connected, you always feel like you're like an old soul to me. It's like, ah, because from 16, you were in like big places doing big things. Very interesting. Yeah, yeah, carry on. Yeah, exactly. I knew I had a lot of experience. I, you know, left my parents' house at 16. I, you know, really was out there. So at 25, I decided to do a specialization on biographical counseling, which basically is to understand the existential life crisis we all go through as human beings.

But everyone goes through it in a singular way. And that's, that was a life-changing experience for me. It's based on Rudolf Steiner's work, and it's called Anthroposophy for those that are hearing this for the first time. It's basically the spiritual science of the knowledge of being a human being. So I studied that, and I realized that I, in my own life, I did jump a few stages. I was very young when I started this. And I was then invited to work to give consultancies for big companies to create cultural shifts in big groups. And I was really interested about that because I saw that, you know, just working to be famous and rich definitely wasn't something that motivated me anymore because I did that. And I got there and I felt empty.

So I wanted to change things. So I did that. I understood how to change culture and it was great, but it was still empty of meaning. Why do you think it was empty of meaning? The culture changed in big companies weren't really structural changes. Yes. So that's when I said, okay, I'm going to find another way to help people.

and I then shifted to co-found a school of entrepreneurship through self-awareness called Liberty Shipyard. And I offered mentoring sessions to find purpose, and it was really fun. But it was only after my first son was born when I was 28 that my life turned upside down and I understood what it meant to actually serve life. So by then, I was a workaholic, and I led a sedentary lifestyle, and I was exhausted. And I cried like a baby when I noticed that I needed to stop working as much. to be present for my baby boy and find ways to create a rounder human being in a squared, rigid world.

Yes. So I cried in the kitchen feeling really sad that I couldn't work as much because I was doing something I loved. But not being around him was something that would also create scars that I didn't want. I didn't want that to happen. And I knew I had the privilege to actually be with him. So I'm so glad you're speaking to this because I had exactly the same experience. And I haven't heard many women, mamas say this. Like, I found it unbearable to be away from my calling in my work.

But I also found it unbearable to be away from my calling as a mother. And just caught between those two. It was like I found myself one. wanting to be in the other place all the time and just going, your life is rushing past you and you're not present to it. Sof, come on. Back to the existential crisis, the existential life crisis. It was a big moment for me. Thank you for naming that. That's really helpful. Yeah, I grieved a lot. Yes. It was really hard for me to become a mother. And I said, okay, so I'm going to have to really design my lifestyle. Because as a businesswoman and a mother, I really didn't want a nanny,

and I decided to then create a co-working space for moms with child care based on Steiner's Waldorf pedagogy and Emmy Pickler. And I did it out of love, and I didn't earn a penny on it, but I helped 36 families to have the same opportunity. And we had five educators and we had a great space to do events, to work, to see our kids behind the curtains while they were playing. And we had time for us to work. So that's when I started to see how I could actually still work with what. what I loved. And by that time, I was helping women transition careers and lifestyles. But my pen would

always fall when my son needed me. And that's when I understood literally about serving life. I love this because lots of moms fantasize about this and you just did it. You like went out. Like, okay, I want this. I'm going to make this happen. And you made it happen for other women as well. like talking about matri-focal leadership. Yeah. Okay. Keep going. Yeah.

So, and right next to this house, there was a big piece of land that was abandoned. And I said, okay, so if I'm going to be with the kids, what can I do? And I'm a really big doer. And that was a really difficult aspect that I had to learn how to deal with after in life. but since I was a big doer, I said, okay, so let's get this piece of land and regenerate it. And with the kids, I started really just cleaning that property and making a door in the wall. It was my family's piece of land, so I didn't invade or anything. But we got the piece of land and made a big garden.

And that fed 12 families. It was an organic garden. We had 17 chickens. So this group of 36 families really had the opportunity to live a rural life in a big city. So it was really special. Great for the kids too. Yeah. So they really grew up really around nature.

And at that moment, when everything was happening, I got a phone call from a woman called Maria Baghetu saying she really wanted to have a meeting with me because she saw some similarities in our work and she said, yeah, I want to talk to you because I work with blood. And I was really impressed when she said that. at that moment, I wasn't yet familiarized with the menstrual cycle. And that really just opened a universe for me of wisdom. And the rest is history.

So that was eight or ten years ago. And since then, I've been helping women or females to, be able to understand how they can or we can work in a way that honors our life and other lives. Which brings us to matri focal leadership. And I'm so glad I asked you about your story because it's like through hearing your story, we get to learn so much about what matri focal leadership means rather than just being taught, this is the five-step plan to matri-focal leadership. It's an embodiment of what it is that you're sharing and teaching this,

like centering the land, centering the children, serving life, the blood, being with our cycles, being with our bodies and our biology. Woo, it's all there. But tell me how, like, how did you come to this term matri-focal leadership? What does it mean to you? How do you define it? Well, since I had that wake-up call early in life about what work and life we're all about, I saw things in perspective and I said, well, is this supposed to be what being an adult is? And I realize that, you know, we can do much more than seeking to grow, to be rich, to be famous, and to have things.

And so basically for me, matrophocal leadership is to work serving life, caring for life, and to generate life in its core design. So the way we work has to take care of life or should. The way we live should also take care of life. So a matriphocal leader works understanding our biology, the way we work and how that is in sync with our biology, our biography, and the epoch we are in. how to be responsible and aware of our duty as human beings in the now. So we don't ignore the fact that we care about children. It's part of our lives.

And we don't make up excuses when we want to put time with our family in the middle of the week. It's something we say. And that means we work in a way that suits the female body. And it's it's also putting our needs of our different moments in life on the table. Yes. And I noticed that it was part of this movement when I would tell my clients, oh, I can't have a meeting with you because I am going to be with my kids.

Yeah. And they were really happy when I would say that. Like, wow, you can make that happen. So that means I can do that too. The permission that we give each other when we embrace this way of being. So that's when I started understanding that there wasn't another way to lead. And that's how I started understanding more about being a woman and leading as a woman. I did a post-graduation about leadership.

And none of it was about women, about people that had kids. And I understood then that one of the foundational principles of matrim focal leadership is life before performance. Yes. So it's the lifestyle first, then designing work and the amount of time available. And of course, I'm talking to who has the privilege to do this. And if we do, we should take advantage of that because it's a right.

And we can then influence other decisions. I mean, we shouldn't squeeze life in between work. Yes, yes, we shouldn't squeeze life in between work. And can we also just franchise this co-working families with organic gardens next to it, model, and just have it everywhere on the planet for everyone? Oh, my goodness, yes. So if you flesh out this vision of matri focal leadership, what do you see in the world to come? Like obviously we're living in a time of immensely challenging and very quick change.

Like every day there's new news to face and digest, okay, what does this mean for the future? And my sense is that's only going to speed up. I'm only going to need each other more and more and more. So what role do you see matri focal leadership playing in this coming decade? So time isn't an enemy. It's actually the only true scarce resource we have. So instead of valuing permanent urgency, speed as virtue and, you know, endless availability, it's embracing natural rhythms, cycles, pauses, recovery in a way that we start to understand

how to put life and ecology in the center of the system. Yes. And I know it's hard in the times that we live in and the system we live in. And money is still something that needs to flow. and I would say flow more than accumulate. And we can't just not, we can't just ignore it. But it's also finding ways to put natural rhythms in the center.

So using our bodies as leadership infrastructure. Yes. So first it's me. and then the rest, you know, based on my rhythm. If I have the power of choice, if I'm leading a team or a company, what can I put in favor of my cycle? Yeah. And let's get to that. So you met Marcella? Sorry, I missed the name. Maria. Maria. Maria. And she said I work with blood. And then that sounds like that kicked off your journey with your cycle. What has your connection to your menstrual cycle taught you about this matri-focal leadership?

Or like, how is it enhanced that? Or are they just totally interwoven at this point? So basically it became a language of the I, of how I could access myself or my wiser self in a way that my spirit would be connected to my. body, my physical body. So I started to use the menstrual cycle as framework for me to understand myself throughout the cycle. I would, and I still do for almost a decade, write in my diary, what did I think today? How did I feel? What did I do? What insights did I have? And then I started

to understand the process of creation, at creativity, and what I was trying to tell myself through the cycle and my four different aspects. So it really became a place for me to find myself and understand my needs, my desires, and my next steps. Can we do a little like whistle stop tour through the menstrual cycle with this matri focal leadership lens because I'm curious because we're both deep in this study for a long time now, how you understand the different powers of the different phases of the cycle in relationship to matri focal leadership. If we started in spring, how can our inner spring the pre-ovulation phase support us or anchor us or inform us as matri-focal leaders?

Well, I see the inner spring the moment we just finish menstruating as a moment of being more social and creative, a moment where we're more open to receive others and to play. So it's a moment where I usually when I go to companies and give a talk around feminine performance, I bring in the inner spring as the social and creative intelligence. That's when you should activate the moments where you can have meetings and networking and going out and meeting new people. and it's also a moment where I explore more. And then when I go into summer, inner summer, the ovulatory phase, it's where I connect things. So when it comes to creating, it's the moment where I see the synapses happening, the moment of, oh, this is what I'm conceiving now. So I've heard you say about the big bleed and the big ovulation.

So the big ovulation is this moment where I'm like, okay, what did I bleed on? And what am I going to conceive around? So it's the moment of the connection. And that's when I feel more persuasive and more executive and really just, putting myself out there in connection to whatever I'm creating. Just for those listening who are like, what's the big bleed and what's the big ovulation just in case? So the big bleed, Alexander and Charlie from med school,

describe how you can take a big menstrual retreat, ideally over like a day or two days or three days to really drop into your inner winter and receive the wisdom that's there for you. And then I think the big ovulation idea came from my listening. listening partner. Sissell, hi Sistle, if you're listening. I love you. And we've been, we've had a listening partnership for years. And she was saying how she felt like a similar thing going on around ovulation where she was getting really big downloads or having really

big experiences, but it wasn't like an inner internal receiving, but more like an kind of more explosive outward, not an explosive isn't like word, but an outward, yeah, connection with what it is that we want to bring and manifest or conceive as your naming it. That's beautiful. Lilla, yeah. Yeah, I think that's really important. The same way we have the portals, the chambers into menstruation,

which Alexandra and Shawnee bring in, I see there is something in summer, and I'm still investigating what they are, but I know I feel, you know, connected, okay, there is going to be a moment here where I'm going to get this aha insight, and I'm going to work on that. So I bring that thread into autumn, and then I decide, okay, so this is what I'm going to do and work on and activate my assertiveness and my decision-making processes in this mode

and actually do deep work in autumn, and that's where I'm at now, so I love it. Yeah, yeah. You said earlier, like, and now this is where I can get my teeth. I think that I heard, like, sink my teeth, and I don't think that's what you said, but like, this is the phased cycle.

Right, let's go. Let's go. Yeah. I was waiting. So, and it's a moment I love to just, you know, really dive into whatever I'm into so that I can, actually rest and get into a sensitive and more strategic, intuitive intelligence back into winter.

I'm going to pause my chat with Leila just for a moment to share an invitation to Red School's leadership training. It's the first of its kind. It's rooted in the wisdom of the menstrual cycle. And if you'd like support, inspiration, tools to step into a new level of leadership in your life, whether that's at work, in your work in the home, with your community, with creative projects, in your spiritual work or in your relationships, then the menstruality leadership program can help you to find your own unique way of expressing your cyclical wisdom and intelligence. and you can find out all about the training at menstrualityleadership.com. Leila is a graduate of the program and I asked her a few questions about her experience of it, as well as the menstruality leadership program graduates' retreat that she attended last year.

And after that, we'll get back into our exploration of matrifocal leadership through the different phases of the menstrual cycle. I really loved the MLP. because it brought me into a connection with my spiritual side of the cycle. It brought me to understand more of the connections of what my body was feeling and what my mind was saying, my intuition was telling me, and bringing it in connected to the wisdom of the cycles, the seasons, It brought me a connection to life in a way that I hadn't connected before in other processes

where I learn about the menstrual cycle because it brings in more of this connection with the whole. And the earth, the ecology, and the way we can connect also with men and understand about the seasons of the year. And in terms of the leadership skills, like the menstruality leadership skills, were there particular ones that you connected with or that you draw on now in your work? So the dark arts really helped me.

And I remember that during the program, my main skill that I was practicing was restraint. and it was so important. I think that is really important for leaders that are doers. Like I am, I really recommend restraint to actually understand and give shape to our doingness, our power of making things happen because then we can actually direct it to what really is important after a while instead of just being on this autopilot. So I learned a lot about the capacities to be a leader as a menstrual leader.

And it brings me a deep knowledge of this wisdom of the subtleness of being a female and the possibility of using all this to connect. I'm always saying this to connect with life because it's just about that. And I think the capacities are really important for us to embrace and develop. Yes, yes. How would you describe Alexander and Shawnee as teachers? I really love how they're light. They laugh a lot and I love that because it's just so much knowledge,

wisdom and experience that they bring in, but with playfulness and in a very particular way. So I really liked the live sessions we had and also listening to them over and over in the recorded classes. And they brought in a lot of different aspects. So they really complement each other. It brings a lot of different aspects of what is important to be a leader in our times. Yes. How did it influence this matri-focal leadership work?

So the matri-focal leadership, the term, it was coined during the MLP process. So I was really connected and really practicing. I remember I took time off from work and I didn't do anything during the period that I was doing the MLP. And I was really living the whole process. And when I was really connected to my body, this term came. So I really am very thankful. I found my tribe in Red School. I even, I participated in the retreat last year and in about a month time, I will be there again.

So I'm just really happy to be able to be surrounded by people that value the same thing as me. Yeah, I feel like there's a bit of a key there because for those of us that experience a really strong inner critic in the inner autumn and particularly in that quite fragile window that can happen just before we bleed, if we've really gone for it in summer and autumn, like ovulation and the pre-menstruing, there's less for the critic to criticize because you're like, hey, I showed up. Maybe it didn't work, but I showed up. Yeah. And the menstrual cycle really helped me learn to pause,

to slow down, to stop, to say no, set boundaries. and that's something I understood one day when Maria, she said, you know, you can just stop when you're bleeding and it can help. And then I had like a three-hour nap. And I remember saying, wow, that was really regenerating. I didn't even know I needed it. And yeah, so that's when I started understanding how our body is a compass and that we can, actually perform with well-being and putting life in the center of work.

Yes, because the menstrual cycle is the life-bringing cycle, like it's the core life-bringing cycle, as in we were all born from a menstrual cycle. So, yeah, it makes so much sense that that's the compass that we're using to recreate a world where life is at the center, because this is a, this is timeless wisdom. Like indigenous folks still know and have long known that life is at the center of life. It's just we put money in power and other things at the center. Yeah. And what we can learn a lot with indigenous people is about sufficiency instead of scarcity.

So we live in a society that really puts the capital in the center of the system. And when we look at putting the life, our lives in the center, we really change our point of view and understanding about what really is important. And then sufficiency comes in as one of the main things so that we can actually be a matrophocal leader. It's understanding what it's all about and what we actually value. and then understand more about stewardship instead of domination. It's not competition, it's collaboration. You know, future generations care.

And when we create wealth without exhaustion and extraction, and we produce while we're still preserving, it brings a lot for others in ourselves. As I'm listening, because I didn't realize you were half Thai. So you have this Thai lineage and I was really, really lucky to live in Thailand for a year in my 20s. I'm just curious how you feel that your Thai lineage as it has influenced your perspective here because something I noticed in Thailand was a very natural collaborative spirit. I got to live with many different families in the countryside.

I was doing working on organic farms and it was just so natural for everyone. And this matrifocal way that you're describing felt like it was the way. Like how do you think your Thai lineage has infused this for you? I mean, so much I can't even tell you. It's really special for me. And just the philosophy of the country. is really incredible about how, you know, there's this term, which is my pen right, which basically it means it's okay, you know, it's nothing's going to, nothing's bad

is going to happen, just it's fine. You know, it brings in this lightness to life and also sabai, sabai, which is take it easy, you know, take it easy. Yes. I remember there was this story my dad used to tell me because he used to work at a building. And in front, there was this lady that would sell really good food. And she had her little stool stand. And there was always a big line. So he had to go really early and stay in line to get his food.

And then one day he asked her, he said, why don't you make more food? There's more people that want to buy your food. And then she said, because I want to go home and relax. And he did not understand that. My dad's Brazilian, right? Okay. And then he would get home and he told this story to my mom. And she said, well, what would she do with the money?

She was already doing something she wanted to do. And so this notion of a sufficiency, the Thai people really have. And it's really beautiful to see how they're collectively, culturally connected. They really help each other. So much. I got to work in a guest house. And one of the women that worked there, she became like my mama, my Thai mama. And she'd be like, Sophie, sit down.

And she would just start massaging my legs. She was like, stop running around and she'd make me sit down. And she had a beautiful Thai massage. It was so good. Yeah. I miss her, Lynn. And there's also Sanuk, right? Sanuk.

Sanuk. Sanuk. Yeah. So it's like, you know, let's have fun. Yeah. And my great grandmother, she was a midwife. So she really helped a lot of women during that period. And it was really important for me to understand her story because,

she was a midwife, but she also opened an abortion clinic back during the Vietnam War to help abused women to have a life. So it was really important for me to understand, wow, okay, so we're connected in another sense of a matrophocal leader. So my great-grandmother is someone that I even have a picture of her here next to my desk because she just brings in a lot of this energy of life. And she then, with the money she got, she bought a lot of land and founded a village, made a clinic, a health clinic, donated land to build a school, temple. So she's very, very collaborative and she brought up my mother taking her to many places to help others.

So this collective vitality as the measure of success is something that I learned a lot with her story and my grandmother's story and my mother's. So my mother lineage, my red thread is really strong into women being leaders. That's really strong much more than the men in this side of the family. Wow. Thank you so much for bringing those women in. Yeah, it's beautiful to feel them. Can we speak about what matri focal leadership can look like practically? Yeah. So it's, bringing the role of a leader that can create the conditions for people and systems to flourish and sustain healthy environments instead of looking at goals. And it's understanding what people

need and then what the results will emerge. So it's preserving the collective energy, promoting autonomy, and caring for quality time. with other people. It's creating space. But for that, we also have to have space, empty space, to be able to read the environment, read the room and understand what people need. And having time to slow down is really important. So that's when productivity really really just becomes the consequence of living. And having a healthy system becomes much more important as a primary objective. So basically the four core capacities I named as Rise, R-I-S-E.

So the first one is R-I-S-E. So it's understanding more about your nervous system, being self-regulated, and developing a healthy relationship with time based on biology. And understanding how life and work can create a rhythm in a cycle pattern that works, substituting force and generating consistent and sustainable results. Like the waves of the sea, they're there for millions of years, and they're always happening. And it's not all at once all the time. So if we understand the rhythm of life, we can be more consistent and sustainable.

I always say that there is no high positive impact in a long term if there's no well-being in the process. Because we burn out. We have to understand that we're running a marathon. We're not sprinting all the time. So that's the first one. And then the I stands for integrated. It's understanding that we carry different archetypes in our leadership roles throughout our lives and through our menstrual cycle. So it brings in our maiden, mother, maga, crone, or queen depends on whoever is teaching you.

but it has different aspects in our leadership, in the now, depending on the context you're at. Can I ask you a question about that? Sure. I'm just curious if there's an archetype that you've been relating to more recently or discovering in yourself or maybe doing some shadow work around in you. So I'm getting to a point and I'm really studying this because I'm looking at the, the biographical archetype that I learned through the anthroposophy lens, which is not gendered-based. And then what I've seen is that there are initiatory paths or portals that we go through. So I am starting to understand that there is an archetype that is earned.

which is the queen. It's not something we pass by just because we got older, but it's something that we conquer. If we go through the initiatory path, we can be a queen. And it's not just part of our biography. So I'm really understanding, okay, what is, what does it mean to be a queen?

and what does a queen do and what does a queen, you know, diminish or doesn't value? And how do I put myself in a position to be a queen? Because I can't be a queen. I can't be a wise woman if I don't go through this phase. I can be old, but I can't maybe I can't be wise. So I'm learning how to be a queen. I see the queen in you. I see the queen of you.

She's coming through strong to me. Great, great. Okay, so we have rhythm, integrated. And then systemic. So it's understanding the forces that form the whole, understanding the role as a responsible leader in the 21st century serving life. It's not only about our lives,

but where we live, the people we want to serve, the country we live in, the world, the planet. So it's understanding all that in a systemic view. And then the last one is E for embodied. So it's understanding how we connect what we think, what we feel, what we have a will for. and what we do with that. And I connect that very much with the menstrual cycle. Yes, very much. Yeah, this is so exciting.

I'd love to speak about like this obviously, because of the world we live in, which is largely patriarchal, almost all patriarchal, really. There are obstacles to this kind of leadership. And you created, you've been creating something which I want to ask you about. and there was a call where you gathered a group of women together and you shared as part of this call

some of the obstacles that you see your experience and they were competition between women, violence against women and degradation of women, which we're all too aware of all of them. But I wonder if you feel right now like picking one and speaking to how you've seen that show up and one of the ways that, you know, this matri-focal leadership,

how you can bring that lens to it. Oh, challenging, I would say. There's a lot that I've done around matri-focal leadership in my own choices in life. And I'm at a moment that I want to just bring more women together to connect and to collaborate and support each other, to be able to really serve, of each other. And when it comes to that, I really have a hard time understanding how to get

women to collaborate in a world full of busyness and noise and time-consuming things, which puts people feeling exhausted, burnt out, and not prioritizing collaboration. because everyone has to deal with their own individual lives, which is hard enough in the world that we live in. So there is the collaboration that is really important. But when we come to feminine rivalry, which is really something cultural in a patriarchal world where it's putting us against each other

and that's really something that I was taught as a kid, really just, oh, how to look better or put myself in a spotlight. And that brought a lot of competition in. So I'm breaking a lot of that in my world and really vulnerable, and making myself vulnerable so that I can also have other people to feel the same and feel secure to do that. So that's why I created this movement to put us in contact and get us to collaborate and to step up because it also means putting yourself in and pouring your wisdom in it. So I've had a great

past cohort, which really was amazing to learn about how to get people to collaborate. And when it comes to violence, that's also another point that really is challenging. I myself had nine situations of sexual harassment in my life in the workplace. And maybe that's one of the reasons why I decided to work with women. And I saw that there is a lot that we don't notice and we're being violated. I had other people having to nominate it to me because I didn't see that that was violence. It was just part of how it worked. Yeah.

Like one of the things you named is just being consistently interrupted in meetings. Or when you're giving a presentation, that people are paying attention and they're not listening and it's a form of violence. Yeah. And having to raise our voice and then being called hysteric is not cool. It's not something that we should, it can't be something normal. It isn't, although it's common. Yes, yes.

And the other one that you... Well, the degradation of women. Yeah, so it just puts us in a place where we can do less and we have to be more like men. I was listening to a CEO talk and she said, it's been, I don't know how many months that I've been working like a man, but I'm a woman. and she was just telling everyone how there was this whole care system support that was enabling her to be able to be there. And men don't have that need. It's just there because there is some other women that are doing the care work that can be invisible. and I really think that's the center of life.

Yes, yeah, it's like all this invisible labor that isn't being acknowledged, unpaid, invisible labor, yeah. Can you tell us a bit more about your community and the work that you're doing and how women can connect with you? Yeah, I have a club called Evaya, which is basically Eve, and Aya, which is a stick, a walking stick.

So that's how you write it, E-V-A-Y-A. So it's a club for leaders to connect and become friends and help each other. So that's one of the ways that women can connect. And you can find me on Evaya.com. and I also promote trainings and talks in the corporate world in a language that the corporate needs, but basically it's creating conditions to create an environment that serves life. Yes, boy, is that needed in the corporate world more than ever right now? Thank you.

Thank you. It's been so good to be with you. appreciated everything that you shared. And I feel, like, I feel warm in my heart. I feel a sense of hope and possibility because of just, yeah, the grounded way that you share, like, how we can be together. Thank you. I would just say that there's a chance to go one percent slower or more collaborative like I learned with my great teachers, Alexandra and Shawnee. 1% slower is maybe enough. So if we all do that,

then we can maybe change a little bit of our lives and consequently the collective. Thank you so much for listening and being with us today. If you'd like to connect with Lella around her trainings and programs in the corporate world, the website for that is eviah.com. So I'll spell that. and for her club for women leaders wanting to collaborate and explore matri-focal leadership. The website is eva.club, e-v-a-y-a-d-club.

If you know someone who would enjoy Lella's ideas around matri-focal leadership or exploring how the menstrual cycle can guide us as leaders, please, please forward this conversation to them. And we'd also really appreciate it if you're loving the podcast, if you could share a five-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, because it's the best way to help. More people find the podcast. So thank you so much for that. That's it for this week.

I'll be with you again in two weeks' time. And until then, keep living life according to your own brilliant rhythm.