The Menstruality Podcast - 248. Healing The Motherwound in Menopause (Bethany Webster)

Episode Date: October 8, 2026

It’s world menopause awareness month and today we’re sharing a conversation that Alexandra and Sjanie had with the brilliant writer, international speaker and transformational coach Bethany Webster a couple of Octobers ago for the Wise Power retreat, all about healing the ‘Motherwound’ in menopause. At Red School we’re busy preparing our Spiritual Power of Menopause conversation series which is starting next week, as well as Alexandra and Sjanie’s popular free three-day menopause event: How to Awaken The Power of Menopause, which will also serve as an introduction to the Menopause: The Great Awakener course. It all starts on October 12th and you can register for free at redschoolmenopause.com.Bethany sat down with me and very generously shared her story of perimenopause healing and transformation for the upcoming Spiritual Power of Menopause series, and her conversation is coming up on day five, called: Perimenopause - A Defiance in Service to Love… But for now, let’s hear from her about how her personal understanding of the Motherwound impacted her in the approach to menopause, how menopause can help us to make peace with our mothers, and how to cultivate a meaningful inner mothering practice.We explore:How Bethany's personal understanding of the Motherwound is impacting her in the approach to menopause, inspiring her to negotiate a new relationship with power and truth. How menopause can help us to make peace with our mothers and release the residues of the messages we unconsciously received from them.How to start the work of healing the Motherwound at menopause, and cultivate a meaningful inner mothering practice.---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.hardyBethany Webster: @themotherwound - https://www.instagram.com/themotherwound

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 to the podcast. So it's World Menopause Awareness Month, this month.

And today we're sharing a conversation that Alexander and Sharnie had with the brilliant writer, international speaker and transformational coach Bethany Webster that happened a couple of octobes ago for an event called the Wise Power Retreat. And their conversation with Bethany is all about healing the mother wound in menopause. At Red School, we're busy preparing our spiritual power of menopause conversation series, which is starting next week. You can register for free at Red Schoolmenopause.com. And Bethany actually sat down with me and very generously shared her story of perimenopause,

healing and transformation for the series. Her conversation is coming off on day five, and it's called perimenopause, a defiance in service to love. But for now, let's hear from Bethany in her conversation with Alexandra and Sharnie about how her personal understanding of the mother wound impacted her in the approach to menopause, how menopause can help us to make peace with our mothers, and how to cultivate a meaningful inner mothering practice. So welcome once again to the wise power menopause.

retreat. Today is our fantastic bonus session with Bethany Webster. So Bethany was the first to bring the term mother wound into the mainstream conversation back in 2014. She is a teacher, a mentor, and author of discovering the inner mother, a guide to healing the mother wound and claiming your personal power. Bethany is doing world. changing work that is central to women's power and leadership. And what she has to share is really crucial for our menopause transition. So we are delighted to have her here with us today. Oh gosh, we so are. I mean, in our book, Wise Power, we talk about menopause as an initiation into deep belonging with ourselves. It's really a profound.

healing journey that we undertake in which we're asked to reclaim all parts of ourselves, you know, the good, the bad and the ugly, and to learn new ways of relating and caring for ourselves. And in Bethany's words, discovering our inner mother. And as part of this, we speak of the importance in our book. We speak of the importance of making peace with our relationship with our mothers or caregiver. Now for us with the menopause work, our relationship with our mothers seems really key to the work of coming home to ourselves at menopause and to finding this deep belonging within ourselves. So Bethany, really warm welcome. Thank you so much for being here. We're so eager to dive in.

into this creative dialogue with you. And the place we would love to begin because we are aware that you haven't been through menopause and you and I are similar ages. We would love to hear, you know, where you feel you are in this journey to menopause. And what are some of the things that you are noticing for yourself? Yes. Well, I want to just start off by saying, thank you so much for having me. It's a real honor to be part of this launch of of this amazing book. As I was turning the pages, I was just, like, thrilled with everything.

I was learning because I'm right smack dab in the middle of this, and the timing could not be more perfect, because I've been yearning and hungry for this kind of information. Where I'm at right now is I had early types of symptoms. It was around 39 when I started to have symptoms, and I'm right in the middle of managing them now. They've gotten more and more intense. But it coincided with a powerful thing that I went through in my life where I put out a book,

a major piece of work. And after that was over, it was like my identity while I was having symptoms as well. I felt myself go through this real wobble like, wow, who am I? And seeing that a lot of the things that were true, driving me, which were wonderful and very useful and helpful. And in many ways, they also had a shadow side that was still residues of early internalizing of cultural and familial values that really weren't native to me. I just started to see like, wow, I don't have to carry this anymore.

I don't want to. So it's kind of like entering the void in the past year or so. It's been entering this void of living in the unknown. bit more in the present moment, not needing to really need a future so much and to be more self-attuned, like deeply in tune moment to moment with what my body's doing. So my body's been a huge teacher and also the psychospiritual process is really huge and I wasn't expecting it. One of the things about your book that was just so powerful was framing this process is such an awakening and a journey. And I think that's so powerful because for me, it all started with

symptoms and I thought there was something wrong with me. And everything was going wrong. And it's like, what's happening here? And then I realized, whoa, I'm actually really going through this deep life change. And this is a natural thing. This is not an illness. And it's touching every single level. So thank you for writing this book because I don't think there's much out there like this. Yeah. Wow. I'm just wanting to really take in what you see before we go any further here. I mean, it's just beautiful the way you're in touch with yourself, Bethany, and able to language so clearly.

And I would say a lot of people will be nodding along and really recognizing this. because the things you have described are the things that are going to come up at menopause. But we get sort of titrated along the way. So we get kind of mini doses, if you like, except they don't feel in the moment. They're big. But this is the work of preparing for menopause. So menopause proper, and we explain in our book, of course, you know, what we see is the actual sort of signs and inverted commas that we perceive as a signs where you really say,

you know what, I am in menopause. But it feels to me like you are deeply in the groove or have been in the groove of yourself and are able to now feel how you're being negotiated into other levels. And of course that negotiation always turns up as sort of disturbing. I was going to say trouble. Right. Yeah. It turns up as trouble as disturbance. And it's symptoms at first.

It's like, you know, your body that you could always trust. You can't trust anymore suddenly. But, and you say you talk about who I am and recognizing ideas that are not native to me anymore. It's so great that you're starting to winkle these kinds of things out. Because what you're then doing, coming into menopause, is I sincerely believe, as you kind of keep this self-attunement going, that when you get to menopause, you're going to feel it as really a dignifying moment. That you have been set up. You're being set up for menopause in the sense right now. Wow.

Yeah, it's just, I find it quite moving listening to speak like that about it. Thank you for sharing. Yeah, it's, I think like many women, it's like we enter it without knowing, we're entering this strange terrain. And it's so disorienting. And like some other things I experienced were like seeing my body change and realizing how much I had maybe leaned on the power of my looks without even realizing it, that that was a power that I used that I had. And I'm losing that power. And it's so interesting to watch that like, wow, I get, I can let that go and I have me. Like, it seems so obvious. But it's like I felt like I'm, I described it before as like molting like or like a snake with the, it's like layers and layers are just coming off and coming off. And I didn't for a while think it's menopausal. I thought I was just, oh, it's just my book came out and I'm this void of I don't know.

but it's definitely connected. It's such a, it's bodily and it's every level. It's all this unique, eloquent kind of process that we don't talk about in our culture. Yeah. Yes, Sean, you go ahead. Yes, I wanted, I wanted to add to that because what I'm so appreciating when I'm listening to you, Bethany, is all the work that you've done on the mother wound. and all the illumination that's happened for you personally around that has really set you up to be able to go,

hey, this experience I'm having that feels so wrong that looks so sort of diminishing and powerless and like I'm sort of falling off the map of visibility and all the things that are sort of shamed and devalued in our culture because of your awareness and all the, I imagine, personal healing you've done around the mother wound, I can just hear how you've been able to dignify that. And the thing I'm loving is that you recognize that there's this opportunity for this shedding that's going on and this kind of coming back to something more essential in you.

And so that's actually the piece I want to ask you about because, you've dived very deeply into this mother wound. And so perhaps you could actually just describe what you mean by that. Sure. And also say how your experience of the mother wound has impacted this process that you're in, this life stage that you're in. Yes, absolutely. So the mother wound, as I define it, is the ways that we were taught through our mothers,

just passed down through the generations, how we were taught to automatically self-limit or self-sabotage or see ourselves as less than as a means of securing approval and love in our families and in the wider culture. So another way of saying it is the mother wound is a way that patriarchy, those patriarchal values just get passed down from mother to daughter. And often this is not conscious at all. It's just part of, you know, many moms, of course, want their daughters to survive and protect them. And so we learn things like don't rock the boat. Don't be too big. Don't draw attention to yourself. You know, be pretty, but don't be too pretty. Or, you know, so there's a lot of messaging that we get that seems kind of benign or we just absorb it from our mothers, maybe witnessing how

our mothers lived her lives, you know, the ways our mothers make choices that she made. So we kind of have a template for womanhood, basically. And a lot of that shadow stuff might be family trauma also built, you know, in there. So I think menopause offers this amazing opportunity to see where are we still holding on to the residues of those negative messages. You know, where are, and even more juicy a question, I think, is how am I complicit in my own disempowerment as a a result of things I've learned from my mothers or my grandmother and my great-grandmother, you know, how am I still carrying on my own oppression? And how can I take more responsibility for that for myself and also for everyone around me, you know, because it does offer this,

and you talk about this in your book, this sovereignty opportunity to step into complete self-ownership. And this is one of the things that I teach in my work around the mother wound is that the mother isn't about blaming our moms. It's not about being ashamed of having the mother wound. We all really have it. It's more about, you know, how can I step into full self-ownership? And seeing that as an exciting thing rather than, oh, my gosh, I've got to look at my shadow and all these patterns that are problematic,

instead seeing as like an initiation as well. Yeah. Well, I notice when I speak, I have waves. of feeling coming through me, you know, just, I think I'm really resonating with this, the way you're languaging things here. It's menopause is exactly those things you've just said. Where am I still holding on to the mother wound? How am I complicit in my own oppression? And how can I step into self-ownership? And I actually want to ask you, I'm going to just say some stuff about how menopause is actually helping to answer those questions.

I'm really interested also to hear how aside from menopause, you know, steps that anyone listening, regardless of where they are in their journey, might start to address this now. But I think of menopause, if one can trust menopause, and this is a huge ask, and to be able to do that, you need to be resourced in some way. You've got to have some resources in your life. And if you don't, you cannot. It's very hard to trust menopause and to dare to trust the dissembling that goes on first off and the need to let yourself just pull back from the world for a while. If one can do that, there is actually a kind of you use the phrase an elegant process. There is this actually very precise process that's going on at

menopause where you are simply, you have sight. That's one of the first things that happens. You have sight. You suddenly see things and go, oh my God. So you have sight and you have this power of no to come in. So you see things and go, ah, it's put up with that, no. And it is just implicit at menopause that that is going to happen. And it's so charged and so strong that if you're not sort of ready for it, as in if you're not a little bit at home in yourself, you can become actually quite destructive or even self-destructive at this point. So there does need to be a sense of at some degree of connection to yourself and self-awareness and so on when you come into menopause. So menopause is complicit in wanting to free.

you from this oppression and really I always say menopause's mission is coded in you it's trying it's wanting to deliver you home to yourself to this self-ownership as you say it's that's the mission of menopause and really for me the great work and it's work that I continue with it sort of sets you up for this which is that you know, I'm tested, I'm 15 years out of menopause now, and I am tested often, you know, because of being very public in the world. And where my ideas are challenged and so on, I go, am I going to abandon myself or not, you know, am I going to, you know, the world may abandon me, but am I going to abandon myself?

And the answer is always, well, no, no, I mean, that is self-evident, that's not going to happen. And menopause has set me up to be able to not abandon myself anymore. It's an amazing thing. Wow, that's so beautiful. So I've heard you say, and it makes complete sense to me, Bethany, that this healing of the mother wound is an ongoing process. It's not something one can address. and move on because as I understand from your work it is so core to who we are as women

and affects us at all levels of our being in a way it's how we've internalized power and our relationship to power so it is really this kind of ongoing process that we're in with ourselves and I'm I'm curious if you would share something about so you know you're in this process too And I'm curious if you would share something about how your experience of the mother wound has shown up or shifted or altered as you felt yourself being changed by this life stage that you're in. Yeah. Well, my journey, I've been working on this. See, I've been in therapy, depth psychotherapy.

So I've been on a rare journey of about 24 years with the same depth psychotherapist. So this is a rare gift that's been in my life that I've had a strong, amazing, brilliant therapist. And that's how long-term depth therapy works, is that you stay in therapy for decades and you rework your attachment bond to a complete degree. So you have earned secure attachment. So through the years, it's just been, you know, week in week out. I kind of feel like I have been molting in a way maybe earlier than most.

So it's a constant burning away and shedding. Where I'm at now in my 40s with it is I'm more, I'm more at peace than ever with my family, with my history. I feel like I remember I had a powerful dream one night about a year ago where I was shown my family and they were having their interactions with each other. was it was not on my level, but it was love in their way. And like we were in, it's almost like two different languages, like oil and water. You know, that's, that's actually the phrase that was in the dream was oil and water. There's nothing wrong with oil. There's nothing wrong with water. They just have different properties. And their properties are to repel. And there's nothing, there's no power dynamic there. There's no blame. It's just the way it is. And when I woke up from that

dream, I felt the word that came to me was transfiguration. And I actually had a feeling in my belly like something was different. Now I'm thinking about it like maybe something shifted in my womb even. But there just seems to be now with perimenopause. The quickening for me is just real peace and love and just letting go of any residual will blame or worry or fear. It's like I don't, I'm someone who's no contact with my family, have been for about 10 years.

So it's a really freeing experience to realize that I don't desire them and I don't fear them and I can really bless them. And that's a huge accomplishment when, you know, through the mother wound, the person who gives you life actually wants to harm you. So it's, in my case. So it's a real, it is a transfiguration. It kind of feels like a cycle has been complete. And there's like a new opening, a new experience of the whole entire thing.

I don't know if that makes sense, but. Makes complete sense. And I feel tears coming as you describe that. And I'm imagining anyone listening would feel so inspired by your story, Beth. because these things are so deep in us and to hear how you've healed and how you have transformed that is just exquisite. It's really beautiful. Wow.

Thank you. Thank you. I feel grateful for the situation now because I feel like through menopause and through whatever level I'm at now, I can graduate to a new level of service because I'm not holding any. like a lot of this stuff that came up in my early perimenopause or early quickening was those patterns that I had to have in place to survive a dysfunctional family. They needed to be in place. And then I realized that's not actually me.

I don't need those patterns anymore. So I'm starting to live without them, which is a little scary because the things that are uncomfortable are still familiar. And but now it's kind of like, okay, who am I? without needing an identity of the achiever or the go-getter or the author or whatever. Like, what's it like to live so intimate with life that I don't need that scaffolding necessarily to tell me who I am, that I can trust life enough to guide me moment to moment? So that's kind of where I'm living.

And I know you mentioned the word snudging. And I laughed because I've been doing that for like a year and a half now. And I'm like, that's what's helped me is. And like you said, Alexandra, the pause on the non-essential things, very few people in my inner circle, a lot of spaciousness, a lot of time. And to listen to what life wants, how is life moving me now? What does life want now? And that surrender, it feels so sublime. It feels so.

it's like it's difficult to describe but it requires the dropping of everything and to be really in the moment and this would have been terrifying to me 10 years ago five years ago but I think through the menopause quickening it's helping me to let go at such a really accelerated rate that I can start to trust that wow I exist in a more powerful way without without needing identity, without a story, without a narrative, that I can just be connected with my beloved through life, moment to moment. Everything is the beloved. Everyone is the beloved. Everything is sacred. And to really live that way, it's like I could die tomorrow and I would be happy, honestly. That's how I feel. And it's been the most grueling, harrowing,

excruciating journey to get here. But it's been worth it. I just want to let your words land. Yeah. Everything is the beloved. Everything is sacred. And to get to that place, one has to dare to live beyond the identities we have been habituated to or in to help us survive whatever challenge, you know, whatever's the traumas we've had. And so you have put in years of extraordinary work on yourself to be able to come to this place

where you can say what you've just said and to live beyond those patterns. and there's a phrase we use in our book around this and I think of it as my spiritual practice post-menopause some days I'm better out of the nuns we talk about daring to live the undefended life because it is the undefended life that is for me the goal of the post-menopause life That's where the power lies, this extraordinary power,

where we are connected to something far greater than our sort of small self, where we are truly in service of life and what life is asking of us. And being able to dare to let oneself have moments of undefendedness can start to allow this some of what you have been describing there can start to sneak in the sense of the beloved of being beloved of everything being beloved and sacred yes yeah yeah thank you so much for that and i i want to underscore that you know getting support is the only way um i could not do and be what I am now without all that support. And I tell women in my community all the time, get lots of support, not just a little, not just enough. Get more than enough. And keep challenging

yourself to invest in support or reach out, whatever way you can because that is, that is buttressing you so that you can in a way have that dismantling, right? We can't go beyond. the personal self, like we need a robust self to let go of the self. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes, yes, yes. I'm going to pause this gorgeous conversation for a moment. As I mentioned at the beginning, I sat down with Bethany recently to hear how her perimenopause journey has been progressing. And she told the story of how she navigated her symptoms and the big life shift she's made inspired by perimenopause, which she calls a defiance in service to life.

It was revelatory. I can't wait for you to hear it. I've also been lucky to sit with a group of five other wise teachers and guides, asking them about their personal stories of the spiritual insights that happened for them in menopause, what menopause awakened in them. And I also sat down with Alexander and Sharnie. I've got to hear their stories too. And we're going to be sharing all of these conversations from October,

12th to the 18th next week and you can register for free at red school menopause.com. I'm thinking of people who are listening now to this, Bethany. And I'm wondering if, you know, and who are perhaps sort of a feeling becoming just more conscious now, wow, of what we're talking about here, of this mother wound, of, I'm wondering how we've spoken now just very strongly about get help get get resources whatever way you can are there some other things that you can say or suggest as simple steps that we can start to do for ourselves in the moment you know just anything that really comes to mind I'm just thinking yeah have a huge amount of

resources either and perhaps have had a very difficult childhood, difficult relationship with the mother trauma and so on. Totally. Yeah, I'd be happy to. There's lots of ways to get started. One of the things that it's more of an intellectual exercise, but it can spark a lot of insights. And that is to think about, reflect on, you know, what were some of the beliefs that your mother had about things like, for example, about her own body. What did you witness your mom's feelings or choices or her words about her body? How did she speak about it, talk about it, treat it? Even things like money or status. How did your mom relate to that? How did your mom relate to the opposite sex? Or what was her view of what an ideal woman was? The point of kind of looking at all of that

is to see, oh, you know, you might be taking on things without realizing, you know, you might be kind of taking on some of your mom's beliefs. And that's a nice inquiry into, okay, well, what do I believe, really? I mean, what is my authentic belief around these issues? And how can I start embodying that more? What would that look like? So that's something I like to always start people with. It's not about like blaming your mind. mother like criticizing her, making her wrong. It's just about, you know, this was your raw material. It's like this was the clay that you were given for a self. This is what you witnessed and absorbed. And so it's, it can inspire some motivation to like, or just ideas of how can I be more

individuated, right? How can I be more of my individual self? Another thing I want to suggest is to start an inner mothering practice, which is, you know, basically it's about self-compassion. So how can I show up for myself on two levels? One is your adult self, like your adult, who you are now as the woman of today, and then also the child in you. So we could think about what did I need for my mother when I was little girls? It was there something you longed for, something you yearned for that you didn't get. Maybe it was more physical affection. Maybe it was to be listened to.

Maybe it was, you know, more interest in your own interests, like more enthusiasm about you. Those are magical things because if you can start to offer that to the child inside, it has a kind of power to heal the wound. So the very places that you felt unmothered or neglect. you want to find out what those are. So that's another line of inquiry is, you know, where do I feel unmothered? Where do I look for mother?

Is it in a boss or, you know, my husband or my kids or even in my career? What does mother mean to me now as an adult, mature woman? And how can I bring whatever I'm looking for inside? How can I cultivate that? One of the things that's happened for me recently, in addition to, to the quickening and those symptoms is I had a medical thing. I had a surgery and a complication from the surgery. And I had to literally monitor myself, you know, like, how am I feeling moment to moment?

I started doing a daily diary hour by hour. What am I doing? What am I feeling? What am I eating? And at first I was like really overwhelmed, like, but I knew I had to do this. But then as I got into it, I was like, I love this exercise because I, get to like totally block out the non-essential, you know, and focus on listening to my body, what am I feeling, and then like give to myself, almost like taking care of a baby bird or something.

But it was so joyful to, and then I could feel myself get better and feel stronger. And it was like, I was like, wow, I'm so grateful that I kind of got sick this way because now I get to, it's even more intimate. And in the beginning, usually people are like, inner mothering, it's like one more thing I have to do. One more person I have to take care of. And that's always an obstacle. It's like, oh, no, it's not a burden. It's not meant to be a burden. But I always, my aim is to help people get over that little hump of like, this is more work into a place of feeling, wow, this actually gives me more energy.

This actually lightens my load. I actually feel more bright and alive. And it can take a while to get there. But I'd say, you know, yeah, think about what do you need? Where do you feel most unmothered? And then what are some inspiring ways you can show up for the inner child? Sometimes a quick and easy way, which is really fun if you feel like the inner child concept feels a little hokey or something, is to go on Pinterest and make a Pinterest board of all the things.

you loved as a little girl. So like toys and music or, I don't know, whatever stuff, products, and it can really spark a kind of joy of the child inside. So the inner child, and you might even want to touch with your inner teen, for me, menopause has been all about connecting with my inner teenager, who, which I think is interesting, right? Because teenager is menstruation and in my 40s I'm now a perimenopause. So the inner teen is all about power and truth. A lot of similar themes, right? So when we were teenagers, we had to absorb a lot of this patriarchal messaging to belong. We had to conform. And now as a, you know, perimenopausal woman, it's like, I'm now rejecting the very things I had to absorb. So there's a part

There's a love. There's, I think, a special bond between a menopausal woman and an inner teenager. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. We often speak about that because, and the way you've described it is really beautiful, because the sort of menarche process, which is like the menopause process, but it's coming into our identity and into our sense of self is a very porous. time and as you've said we land up taking on so much of what the world expects of us and our work really through our kind of cycling years is spit by bit coming to know our own nature and tend our own needs and all the things you've been speaking about there you know learn to kind of identify what our needs are and how we can care for them the practice of cycle awareness really does that and then menopause is this amplification of discernment where we really strip back all the vestiges of what we've taken on that isn't us.

It's this purification opportunity, just as you've described. And you're right, there is a mirroring there, and often people feel that they need to go back to tend to that teenage monocle self in order to really arrive in their menopausal experience with more ground in themselves, more of a sense of cells. of self. So thank you, Bethleh. Yeah, the things you've described there are really practical and feel like they're a way in for people. And I'm, you know, I'm curious because Alexandra speaks very powerfully about her experience of going through menopause and how that, um, how that actually led to her forgiveness of her mother. She described. it very beautifully in the book. It's a very beautiful story. And I'm curious, Bethany,

like, what would you say to that? Because this piece of actually forgiving our mother feels really important in the healing of the mother wound. What are your thoughts about that? I'd also like to just add here, making peace with my mother. Yeah, making peace with, yes. Making peace with my relationship is probably the way. I would describe it. Yeah, absolutely. Making peace with our relationship with our mothers is so important. And for many women, it takes a long time.

And when I work with women, I always encourage them to take every moment that you need. It's not a rush. It's not something, I think, unfortunately, in the popular personal growth, self-help world, it's like, forgive and forget. And there's still really a pressure on women because, of course, it's convenient for the status quo, you know, just get over it. And so I think for me, and I like how you said, make peace with it, rather than forgiveness. In my mind, forgiveness is the kind of end result of a long, kind of authentic process of engaging with the feelings and working through them. And in my work, I kind of provide

like a roadmap of like, what are the milestones you need to go through? And one of those big milestones, and I think this comes up for a lot of women around menopause is giving up the impossible dream that things could be different with one's mother. Very often we have this dream of like one day, and this is often something we feel as kids, like to get through difficulties with our mothers like, one day she's going to see me, or one day I'm going to prove to her that I'm worthy, or one day she'll give me the approval I need. Or, you know, and in some ways as young women, we may put ourselves on holdings,

unhold a bit, like, you know, if our mothers can't give us the love or the approval or if, you know, we start to hinge our worth upon our mother's behavior in some way, which, of course, is natural. You can't really avoid it. It's just part of it. But at menopause, it's like, if we haven't done this already, there's a pressure to really give up any false illusions about the relationship and start to kind of accept that these are the limitations that she, has and they're not personal. You know, you know, that's the most powerful thing I think of all. It's so radical. Oh, yes. Sorry, I had to say. Yeah, it is radical, right? Because as little girls, it's personal. It's absolutely personal. It's 100% personal. But as adult, mature women,

really stepping into sovereignty, it's, I think the ultimate, one of the ultimate liberators is to realize that all your mother's behavior towards you, the negative, stuff, not seeing you. It really was her stuff. It really had nothing to do with you. And to see that with clarity opens up such a spaciousness because all that life force energy that was tangled up in that relationship. And for many women, it is. It's a tense, complicated, complex relationship. But once you kind of let that go and step into more acceptance, it's like you can do that not only with your mother, but with everyone else, you can start to realize my well-being is not dependent on anyone else. One of my most favorite things I'm thinking about right now is no one can make me

feel anything in particular. Only I can make myself feel things, right? So it's realizing when we are triggered by people, which is natural part of being human, but that I am, that person is cataly, realizing something in me, some belief in me that that's ready for healing. So that's my intimate work with myself. It's really not about the other person. So I think that that's, wow, radical ownership of the inner work. But realizing that that's where the power lies, isn't that ownership, not in blame or self-shaming even, right? So starting to see oneself as good, lovable and whole natively innocent, like embracing your innate innocence and then not needing to project that or idealize that on other people. Like no one's your savior and no one's your

demon. It's like you get to just be your mature, amazing self with all your power, all your resources, all your wisdom. And no one can take that from you either. That is yours. You know, you earned that that lives in you it can never be stolen it can never be taken um so it's it's wow i just went off on a tangent but yeah um ownership letting go of blame stepping into your power it feels terrifying in moments um and it takes decades in my case it's taken me decades um but it's so worth it every moment of crying feeling grief feeling rage hours of journaling, the money you invest in yourself. It's all worth it. Worth it. Yeah. So you're describing, and it's beautiful, because you're really talking about it as a

process to come into this place of acceptance with our mother, you know, the milestones that we need to navigate. And you also spoke very beautifully there about the freedom and the sovereignty that comes from disentangling our worth, actually, our sense of well-being, was your word, from something outer. That's so, so beautiful, Bethany, and that's exactly what the work of menopause is about. It's all about claiming this sovereignty and claiming oneself.

So, these pieces are so, intimately linked and this is why we feel that this work of tending the mother wound is very core in the menopause transition and indeed throughout our lives but there's something it kind comes to a head isn't there alexandra at menopause with with regards this in a way you can't you can't pass through menopause without this yeah yeah yeah yeah you can't you can't this is one you can't sidestep that this is part of the you confront yeah yeah It's high noon with the mother wound, you know, you can't. High noon with the mother wound.

There's a, there's a quote. I have this sort of monopoly game, something, you know, you can't, you know, do not pass go until you. Yeah, yeah, until you turn the mother wound. And, you know, what I'm really taking away from this conversation is because this isn't a one-time thing, it really serves us. You know, if we're in the approach to menopause or even, you know, younger, it really serves us to meet these places in ourselves bit by bit and follow your suggestions of inquiry and building awareness around this because otherwise it is the mother load that we're faced with. And that can be so overwhelming at menopause because of how porous we can feel. menopause. It's so it really, you know, what you're suggesting, Bethany, I personally am taking it on. I'm like, yes, yes for me. And I hope everyone's listening is thinking,

oh, this, this, this could be, this could be something to look at. Yeah, it's great. Yeah. I'd really love just to, this is just caught me this thing of, you know when you give up the impossible dream of yeah and then the the sort of freedom the power that is released from that because you're doing it for yourself instead of waiting for another to do it for you your mother you're now doing it for yourself and and yes I experienced I experienced that but the thing that I also experienced was I mean was this I mean I'd always loved my mother I didn't always like her. It was a difficult woman. Bless my mother. She had a sense of humour, though,

that saved the day for us. But what happened was that I just came into this, and I didn't experience trauma. I mean, I experienced, not trauma at the hands of my parents, but trauma because of the field of trauma that my parents were in. Right. That there wasn't safety. So I just want to acknowledge that, that I wasn't, you know, experiencing direct abuse or anything like that,

on the contrary. But the thing that has, when you talk about this, you know, the power that sort of gets released, the, for me, that power is this exquisite recognition, and I'll probably cry as I talk about this, the exquisite recognition. of my mother, of who she was,

and just really seeing her as a human being, not as... And just such appreciation of what she had to carry and do, just her role as a mother, an extraordinary appreciation of what that demanded of her. And there's a... it's just real appreciation of her intelligence, her sort of knowing of things and her actual knowing of me. I really, I'd look back and I go, Jesus, you did get things about me, didn't you,

mum? Wow. Wow. Yeah. You were cool. And so it's then I'm sort of, that's kind of a blessing that has come from that for me. Yeah, I love that. I've experienced that too. It's like we have to work through whatever

difficulties are there and then we can come out the other side to appreciation and gratitude. And that's such a sweet place to land. And even, you know, our mothers, our grandmothers and, you know, we can feel for women globally, women throughout time as well, like what we have gone through as women, and walking this planet for eons and like connect ourselves. This is one of the most beautiful things about the mother wound work is as we get to this kind of place you're describing Alexandra, we start to really feel like, wait a second, I am alive right now.

And these are the line of women that go back behind me for centuries and eons and like, I'm here now. It's kind of this recognition of like the opportunity that we have to be alive as well. women and with all the resources and wisdom that is inside of us, you know, even with the pain, there's a lot of resources and insight inside of us of women of the past. What a time to go through menopause on the planet right now. Really, it feels that it feels like menopause has gone up a notch or two because of the

urgency of the situation on the planet. and menopause, you know, we write about this in our book that menopause is preparing us for serving something much bigger in the world. And we are, in a sense, not to hide our life anymore, but to get on with the business of serving the world, because we're all needed in our diversity, you know, whatever we're called to, however great or grand or very intimate and, apparently small. There is no small piece of work, by the way, but it may look, you know, not so significant as somebody on the grand stage. But we are called. Menopause is waking us up to what is required for these times. And it's really serious business. And we feel fierce about it, don't we, Shani, around changing this conversation of menopause, because there's so much juicy

power, insight, wisdom, and sheer kind of I want to say baldiness, but there's got a word O vivarianness except. Yes, O'Bavarian. I like it. In us

that because we do step out of a lot of cultural expectations. You know, the culture ditches us basically. It says you're not so powerful and there's a negative side to that but there's a positive side to that. But there's a positive side to that as well. It's like, yeah, we're loose cannons. Let's use these cannons for something.

And, you know, so I really feel menopause is, in these times, menopause is really asking us in a very profound and deep way to get our act together for the sake of the world. I love that. Thank you so much. I just want to thank both of you for your wisdom and it's just, I'm just feeling so nourished by this conversation and grateful that it's happening when I'm where I'm at on my journey and I just know this is going to be helpful for so many other women and I'm really excited about sharing it with my community as well. Yeah, and we are very excited to share you with our community. So could you tell us, Bethany, where people can go to sort of find you and your work and if they want to dive deeper in, it would

be good to point people to you. Yeah, the easiest thing to do is just go to my website. It's bethany webster.com. And there's a free e-book that you can get. There's dozens of articles that you can read. And then you can find out more about my book if you'd like to buy the book. And there's also an online course. And I do mentoring as well. So there's a lot of lots of free stuff you can play with and check out. And then if you want to go deeper, there's opportunities there too. Yeah. Your website is such a rich resource. We will put links to that for everyone so people can find it easily. And your writing is so beautiful. So I really encourage anyone to go and have a read and receive some of what you share because even a little goes a long way. It's very rich. Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you so much, Bethany. It's been an absolute pleasure. Absolutely pleasure. Thank you. I feel so blessed in this moment by this conversation with you, really. Yeah, I just want to drink that in for a moment. Thank you. You're doing fantastic work in the world. Wow. Thank you.

As are you. I feel so deeply blessed to be connected to you all. And I can't wait to recommend this book to everyone and get the word out. And yeah. So thank you. This is incredible. This has been a wonderful conversation. Thanks so much for being with us today. If you know someone who is navigating mother wound challenges in menopause,

then please do forward this conversation to them. And please come and join us for the spiritual power of menopause series that's starting next week on October the 12th. You can register for it at red schoolmenopause.com. All right. be with you again next week and until then keep living life according to your own brilliant rhythm