The Menstruality Podcast - 250. The Grit of Perimenopause, aka Getting Fit For Menopause (Sjane and Alexandra)

Episode Date: October 22, 2026

Today we’re talking about the reality of the grittiness of the forties; the physical health challenges, the emotional intensity, the responsibilities, the overwhelm, the stress. And we also explore how the forties are also a meaningful preparation for the great spiritual awakening and initiation of menopause. Sjanie and Sophie share their personal stories from this life phase, which we call the Quickening at Red School, and we explore how to practically navigate the challenges that come up including; how to manage our energy, find nervous system regulation inside the fullness of life, hold the tension with intense reactivity and grow the emotional muscles to be inside the many mini death-and-rebirth moments of perimenopause. We explore:How to work with the uncertainty that can come from shifting menstrual cycles in your forties, and what to do when you find yourself outside of the map of the inner seasons. Sophie’s story of working with perimenopause rage, and how we can all re-write the stories we’ve been telling ourselves about ourselves, and claim fuller responsibility for our lives. The importance of finding ways to slow everything down, even if it’s just inside yourself, when you’re navigating the edges of perimenopause. ---Receive our free video training: Love Your Cycle, Discover the Power of Menstrual Cycle Awareness to Revolutionise Your Life - www.redschool.net/love---The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email [e-mail]---Social media:Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.schoolSophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy

Welcome to the menstruality podcast where we share inspiring conversations about the power of menstrual cycle awareness and conscious menopause. This podcast is brought to you by Red School, where we're training the menstruality leaders of the future. I'm your host, Sophie Jane Hardy, and I'll be joined often by Red School's founders, Alexander and Sharnie, as well as an inspiring group of pioneers, activists, change makers and creatives to explore how you can, unashamedly claim the power of the menstrual cycle to activate your unique form of leadership for yourself, your community and the world. Hey, welcome to the menstruality podcast. We're going to share an extra episode with you this week because this morning, Alexandra, Sharney and I felt called to sit down and talk about the reality

of the grittiness of the 40s, the time when many are experiencing what many people call perimenopause, the physical health challenges, the emotional intensity, the responsibilities, the stress, the overwhelm, and also to explore the 40s, which is a life phase that Alexander and Sharnie also called the quickening as a meaningful preparation for the great spiritual awakening and initiation of menopause itself. So Shani and I share some personal stories from what we've been navigating in this life phase. And we look at how to practically navigate the challenges that come up. We talk about managing energy fluctuations, finding nervous system regulation inside the fullness of life in this era, holding the tension with intense reactivity, and just this process of

growing the emotional muscles to be inside the many mini death and rebirth moments that come with perimenopause, the quickening. And one of my favourite parts was when Alexandra talked about some ways to work with the uncertainty and the kind of inner chaos that can arise from shifting menstrual cycles in your 40s and what to do when you find yourself outside of the map of the inner seasons. So let's get started with the grit of perimenopause, aka how to get fit for menopause with Alexandra and Sharnie. Oh, good morning. Good morning.

Morning. I really need this conversation that we're going to have today. I really need it, which I'll share in my cycle check-in. But do one of you two want to go first? How are you doing today on your cycle day? Oh, you're nominating me, Shani, are you? Uh-huh. Yeah.

So I'm, you know, it's about day 12, I think, you know, so we're coming up, getting closer to full moon, roughly, but I am very much in the kind of summer season energy where it's like my mind is very strong and open and my energy is outwards. And because my mind is so kind of ambitious, it kind of drives me a little, and it's slightly ahead of what my physical or my nervous system likes. So I've had an interesting morning of just noticing that disjunct and having to rein myself in. Not overly, it's very subtle.

And I really got clear. I thought, oh my God, when I'm subtly out of sync like that, it's like being out of sync with myself. My mind's not with my being. I thought, oh, my batteries get drained. It actually drains me. Yeah, and my sort of physical batteries, but I also thought my sort of soul batteries,

if soul has a battery to it. I just felt like my spirit was being my kind of sweetness with myself. It's so interesting. It sort of didn'ts that disjunct. So that was kind of illuminating to me this morning. But I am essentially in good spirits. But then you had the most amazing breakfast, which you were describing to us in our sound check this morning.

Just tell us it again about that breakfast. It's very simple, but I am addicted. to shitake mushrooms, and I'm also addicted to seaweed. It's kind of like a Japanese breakfast, but I just made this soup with tons of shitake in and kombu seaweed, and then vegetables that had the hand, and I had pumpkin sweetens it, which is really nice. And then I had loads of grated ginger and freshly chopped shallots.

And normally I might have miso. Well, it's kind of like miso soup, you see, and I put miso in, but I didn't want to have miso. It was so delicious. And it was, it just felt so nourishing. I just, yeah, just like my being going, yes. And then I had a bit of a smoothie and so on. But that was the piesta resistance.

That's such a good breakfast for this time of year with all that ginger too for the heat. I know, exactly. It's really turned colder, hasn't it? Yeah. Anyway, Sharnie, thank you, Alexandra. Do you want to go, Sharnie, or shall I tell my story? I'll warm up the way for you, Sof. Thanks.

My day 14, which, you know, the inner summer of my cycle, I'm, I ovulated a couple of days ago. And I'm feeling a lot of that summer aliveness and energy. I feel very embodied, very connected to my semantic felt sense. And I'm in such a big. deep personal process. Now this is something I really noticed about my life stage, which is of course what we're talking about here, the autumn of our menstruating life. I'm in the last couple of months of my 40s. And I've been through waves of this over the last few years, but life has really catalyzed me in a way that I am seeing and not just seeing. I

I'm feeling some of the ways, like the really deep core ways that I abandon myself and kind of step out of lovingness with myself. And oh my God, it's painful. It is so painful. Because, you know, one of the, I guess, advantages, but also challenging. of the sensitivity I have now and the porousness I feel now is that I can't hide away from myself in the way that I used to. You know, I just can't pull the same bullshit on myself.

And I notice when I go into the armoring and the reaction and trying to kind of. myself from feeling. And this is a part of me that's like, no, no, we don't do that anymore. We've got to feel this. And so, yeah, I've just been in the waves and waves. And there comes in waves, waves and waves of just very intense pain and heart ache. And we'll talk about this more, but I'm so grateful that I have understanding I do about this life phase because it has a sort of breakdown quality to it, what I'm experiencing.

It really feels like a collapse of all that has held me, you know, upright in my life. All that's held me together feels, you know, yeah, like a collapse of something. And just knowing that this is necessary just helps me to let go into it a little bit more. and kind of sustain prisons with it a little bit more than I probably want to. Alexandra just sitting here laughing. I know. I'm so funny. I'll tell you what's funny.

It was our conversation earlier. We discovered a remedy for Shani's deep feelings, talking about clothes and shunning and what we want. Yes. So what we found on Vintage. Yeah. You know, like, you know, we just, we just, it just, you know, that put us right for the day. Just.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. We need, we need healthy distractions from our own, from our own suffering. Only so much one can take of encountering one's own pain, you know. Yeah, a little bit of good, you know. Shopping therapy. Love of clothes and all the good stuff. And getting together like we're going to in a couple of months, yeah, for your birthday.

Oh, I'm looking forward to that. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, thank you. I mean, yeah, they call it a midlife crisis for a reason, right? Totally. Yeah.

Yeah, it looks like a freaking crisis. Feels like a crisis. But guess what? It's not a crisis. It's the grit. Yeah. Yeah, it is the grit. Yeah, the necessary grit.

The grit in the oyster shell, which is what we'll get into. But I was laughing to myself on the way back from the school run this morning because I was thinking, this is a great story for my cycle check-in for the podcast because we have to be at school at about 825. We need to get there for 8.30. And so we're just a couple of years into school. so we're just getting used to this. But it was 8.20.

And could I find the car key? No, I could not find the car key. It's only a five-minute drive. And I could feel the stress and the pressure. And it's such a, because I'm 44, just about to be 45. What day of the cycle are you on? And yes, thank you. Importantly, I am on day 26.

And I reckon it's going to be a day 20. a 28-day cycle. So I'm, I'm right there in the, the tender void before the bleed. I'm right there in the middle of the 40s. I'm right there, like, mothering little kid whilst my career is really taking off, you know, and there's so much to do. And anyway, I was feeling the stress mounting in my body. And I did what you have taught me to do, which is I slowed the air. And I slowed the F down in my mind, which I think there should have been trumpet sounding. You know, whenever a woman in the middle of this situation is able to do something like this, and I said to aid, I took three deep breaths and I said to aid, I am so close to crying

right now, I am so stressed. And he just said, and he just said, I know. And then together, we looked for this key, but it was the slowing down of my mind that helped me remember that I wore my winter coat for the first time yesterday, and that's where the freaking khaki was in the pocket of that coat. So at 832, we got in the car. And the other piece here is, if I let my nervous system get jangled, Artie will then meltdown.

I was like, I've got to hold it together for me and him. We got in the car. There was a traffic jam. Of course. And I just, I was audibly breathing. loudly and he was like, it's okay, mummy, from the backseat. And we got to the school at 836 and he was the last kid in the class to arrive, but they hadn't started yet and everything

was okay. But even six months ago or a year ago when I was more in the nervous system dysregulation of early parenting, I would have been a mess on the floor at that point. But just practicing, moving more slowly, breathing, knowing the ability. of nervous system regulation. It wasn't the shit show. It could have been. And I think these are like you talk about in wise power that celebrating the small victories in the quickening in this perimenopause

quickening window. So I'm really going to, it's only a little moment. And, you know, all of us listening will have had our versions of that. It's not a big deal. But it is a big deal. It is a big deal. It is a big deal because I was able to hold it together. there's no such thing for me as a small moment of you know revelation and discipline or you know

just doing something differently it's it's extraordinary how that packs a punch yeah what you did just the whole course of the day because now I'm sitting here and I feel really tender so so cycle check in wise yeah I feel a permeable tender a bit of like a mouse that wants to curl up in a hole, you know, make a little nest and curl up in a hole. And that tenderness means I'm in touch with everything, you know, whereas if I'd, yeah, in the past, I would armour up, you know, to get through and push through. So, yeah, it's about, anyway, yeah, feeling that aliveness feels good in this moment, yeah. Yeah, I just listening to your story, Sophie, I can really hear how, how powerful,

it is to catch ourselves in those moments and to slow down. I mean, you completely rewired the situation and yourself. I mean, it's immense, really immense, and it's invisible to most of the world. That's why we don't think it's a big deal. But who knows the knock on from that? I mean, even just in terms of hearing now the kind of place you're resting in yourself with the tenderness and how you're able to be more rested in the power of the place you're in, rather having to override yourself, armorer. Who knows what's going to emerge from that power that you're now in touch with? You know, the knock-on effects of that, even just now through this conversation because of what you're in touch with. So, yeah, I'm really with Alexandria in the big,

of these small moments. And actually, I just want to celebrate you a little bit more here, because for anyone else who has done this or is doing this, when you're out on a limb, and by that I mean in a really edgy kind of vulnerable place in your cycle, and then under pressure or stress or challenge, and you can catch yourself in that moment, oh my God, that is extraordinary, just like, oh my God, that. is just, just that is so huge because your whole system just wants to survive. And for you to come back into connection and back into a place of actually thriving, ultimately, is such a power move.

And it's all about cycle awareness. The microcosm of this macrocosm that we're speaking about today of these autumn of the menstruating years, because in a way the 40s are like day 23, 24, 25, 26 of the menstrual cycle. Yeah. When we are most often most permeable and when we do feel like we're out on a limb and losing it. Yeah. Yeah, we're going to talk about how we can understand this, this window of time, this window of opportunity to get fit for menopause, to protect and get practical about how to hold ourselves in it. Yeah. So can we see? Can we speak about how the 40s, the autumn of the menstruating years, the quickening, as you

describe it in wise power, you know, what some people are calling perimenopause, how it's not menopause yet. Okay. I would like to, one of the things that I'm really holding with the work we do is holding the enormity of the sort of sacred spiritual enormity of the initiation that happens at menopause. So there is, it's menopause is an extraordinary, um, initiatory right of passage. It's a spiritual awakening. And I, I feel like a guardian of this. I feel like it's like I'm at the temple gate guarding it because I feel the, because that what's happening in our 40s is not that spiritual awakening. Because you have to prepare for it.

Now, I think it's really valuable, you know, that people are being met and understood when they're feeling all these changes happening in their 40s. And I really like the way Lara Bryden, writes about, you know, she writes about all the health stuff that's going on. She's really good. And she loves that term perimenopause, but she talks about the 40s as this, what was the word critical? Critical window. A critical window. And she's talking about physical health here. But I would say the 40s are, so I'll finish that thought about the critical window. So how you,

so she speaks very strongly about how you respond to yourself when these disturbances start to come up is, you can actually then adapt to the changes that are happening with your hormones. And in that adaption, you're actually really setting yourself up well for menopause itself on a health level. And I feel like the 40s are a sort of critical window for the spiritual initiation that's going to happen. In other words, to encounter what is happening in our 40s as this invitation into ourselves, into growing into ourselves. So, you know, if we talk about menopause as a spiritual awakening, you can't just turn up as your everyday self at that temple door. Yeah, I'm thinking of the conversation we had quite recently where we spoke about the sacred sites of menstrual. And menopause, of course, is a sacred sight.

And by that we mean that it is a sacred site in our bodies that awakens us to this new level of power and so on. And so, yes, you know, when Alexandra, when you say you kind of feel like you're a guardian at that doorway or at that gateway to that sacred site. and that there is a process or journey we need to go on in order to be readied to arrive at and ultimately to be able to enter and cross that threshold onto the sacred site. Yeah, it's very, very necessary and can't really, well, it can be avoided. Yeah. Yes, so what's happening in our 40s? I was, we were using this term the grit, you know, the grittiness.

You know, I keep thinking there's a kind of crumptiness that comes in in your 40s. You're not kind of just, you can't just take anything for granted anymore about, you know, on a physical level. You know, there's a real awareness of actually there's an awareness you're getting older. And that doesn't mean to mention. But there's an awareness you're getting older and you've got to do things differently to how you did things in your 20s. And so when you get these disturbances with your health and emotional stuff that comes up, these are like moments of grit, you know, in that oyster shell and engaging with that grit in whatever way that's necessary. And we can talk more about that.

is then growing your, you're growing in your preparation for being able to enter into the spiritual initiation of menopause. Yeah. So like in a way, growing emotional muscles. Yes. Would the handle the initiate, not handle, who can handle an initiation? Well, exactly. You can handle a death and a rebirth, but to be more prepared. Yes.

Yes. Yes. It's, I mean, just listening to the two of you doing your cycle check-in and how you were meeting yourself. I mean, just yours, Sophie. I mean, that's a wonderful example of not going into the old habit, you know, losing yourself. But actually, you were aware, consciously aware, and so you had an awareness and you made that conscious decision.

to come back to yourself and meet the moment. And then you actually shifted things. That's simple in inverted commas, that small shift. And we said, you know, there's nothing small about it and there's nothing simple about it. It was a huge act. But it looks inconsequential from the outside. Yeah.

But that is just this radical. It's just like you've laid down a little bit more muscle, Sophie, a little bit more muscle, because it is really a muscle of deepening presence with yourself that you are growing as you get closer to menopause. And also not feeling moving, how can I put it? It's addressing this thing of feeling a victim. It's really taking responsibility for yourself, rather than just dumping your activity.

Okay, I have to say something else now then. Yes, yes. Oh, you had a good dump as well, did you? A confession. Actually, no, that would have been what I would have done a year ago. And I really want to talk about rage, actually, but let's come back to that. But so another way that I've been more grown up in a way

and just more present with myself is I've been particularly aware of my pre-menstrual bitchy judge this over the past few days. But I've been letting her have voice quietly to myself. So, you know, I've been practicing my friend Christiana Mas. She teaches this wonderful work, you know, parts work around our inner village. So I've really been embracing my inner pre-menstrual bitch as part of my inner village. And just letting her say all the things that she wants to say about everyone. quietly to myself. And it's such a helpful practice because it titrates her so that she doesn't

build up in me as this overwhelm and resentment that then spill, like a pan boiling over on the stove, spills out as rage to everyone around me. And that's one of the ways I think that the grit of the 40s is working me. It's like I, and like you said, Sharnie at the beginning, I'm not accepting that I'm a rageful person anymore. I see why I have become a rageful person. A lot of people living in the, especially women living inside patriarchy, we're effing rageful for lots of good reasons,

but I'm not letting myself be a victim to that anymore. I'm taking it by the reins. That's the radical shift. Wow. Yes. And when I was talking about the victim stuff, actually I was also, because the thing is we will fall into that too. We will fall into it. But I mean, even I in the moment now can have my little moments of it.

But ultimately, I always have to say to myself, it's so unbecoming when I finally come out of it. Got a bit of humor back into the game. But it's incredibly really in the moment, the intensity of it. But it is how we care for it, how we respond to it. It's like instead of it having me, I was sort of really consciously letting myself feel the distress or whatever it was that was moving through me and the helplessness in the moment. And then just really staying with it and just sitting with it and letting it come, letting it play out in my own system without touching anybody else. You know, I'm on my own and just letting it unfold. And then just coming back and, in a sense, holding it, holding it,

but not perpetuating and going into the story of it. So we're just, it's really clear. I want everyone to know. It's not that you don't ever feel a victim again and you don't feel this utter helplessness. And my goodness, you may feel that through menopause. And it's about being very, very human. But it's about holding your tenderness with it.

yourself, your awareness with yourself. And yes, I mean, Sophie, that's another powerful act she did with the bitch. You really let her rip. Oh, it's so satisfying, isn't it? And because I used to just get completely taken over by, oh, you're such a rah, rah, and I hate you and rah. But now it's, I just let her narrate it and just rain and growl a bit. And it's not all of me. It's, it's a part. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's superb. Let me know how you're experiencing this, Sharnie, and Alexandra and both of you in the context of preparing for menopause. It feels to me that there are things that happen when we're coming into our menstruating years. And this is what we spoke about in the Sacred Sites episode.

And then there's a reckoning in the 40s where those things are being somehow, or we have an opportunity to somehow heal some of those wounds. Is this part of getting ready for menopause? Because this is what I'm feeling with the rage. It's like things happen to me in my teens. And now I am finally in a place where I can step out of a victim mentality with them and not be so flooded by the trauma of them. There's something shaping in me.

But I'm inside it, so it's hard. to describe. Yeah. Can you feel for what I'm asking? Yeah. Do you want to say anything? Well, I just want to say that that's a beautiful example, actually, of, yeah, what's happening in the 40s. But, Shania, I feel you should speak to this because this is where you've been rocking it. Or not. Where I've been rocked. Oh, yes, where you've been rocked. Could you just ask me the question again, Sophie? Just just. too, so I can really.

I'll try, but remember I'm on day 26, okay? Well, I can say something. It's, you know, rather than, you know, there's all the trauma that happened in Sophie's teens, instead of feeling sort of at the mercy of it through her 20s and 30s and suffering, now it's coming up for you now, Sophie, strongly, but you have a different relationship with it now.

And it's almost like you can really do the deeper healing now around that. And you're asking, is that part of the preparation for menopause? And abser freaking luteley it is. Yeah. Yeah, abser freaking luteley it is. When, Alexandra, when you were talking about preparing for the sacred site of menopause to enter, and I think you used the word presence, you're cultivating more presence. with yourself because that's what the initiation ultimately requires.

I think it would be fair to sum it up, Alexandra, as tell me if you agree with this, but that the initiation of menopause requires presence and self-holding. Like those are really what it comes down to. There's no amount of tool or skill or clever trick or, bypass or yeah there's nothing you can really do to get through menopause it is something to be present with and to hold yourself through yeah so so if so sort of in light of that I would say, you know, my 40s have been just wave after wave of revelation or clear a seeing of myself. So I think we've spoken about this in one of the previous podcasts, we spoke about passing through these veils.

and I have felt that it's I often think of my awareness of myself as being layered and that I can't see below the kind of current layer of awareness and then when that veil falls I suddenly have access to more awareness and a deeper seeing into an understanding of and that simultaneously I also have a capacity to have more presence with that place in myself. So I have just moved through these moments of kind of being brought to my knees in different ways and the veils parting and seeing where I have given away my power or minimized or hidden or been ashamed of or suppressed my power. And then had to feel the trauma around those events and experiences.

That has been the kind of gateway. Yeah. There's no amount of thinking that could, or analyzing. So actually, this is what I want to say about it. I was feeling this very strongly this morning. it's strangely very innocent in a work in the 40s. I think in your 20s and 30s you analyze and you think about, you try to make sense of stuff.

In my 40s, the moment my mind get involved, I get hooked back into the... You even said get involved then, so your mind didn't even say that sense. Oh, right. Exactly. The moment your mind gets involved, yeah. I've just caught back in the story or I'm tripping over my own feet or I'm not,

I've become disconnected to myself. So it's really innocent work. It's something about just very innocently moving from my mind into my heart, into my body, and daring to let myself feel my way into and feel my way through. And that's very vulnerable making. Oh my God. It is. Okay, I'm going to pause our chat for a moment

to share an invitation because it's a very exciting time of year at Red School. The Menopause, the Great Awakener course, is about to begin. It's an annual journey through the five phases of the spiritual initiation of menopause that happens online. And there's a big community that's gathered around this course now and many come back year after year. As we're going to chat about later in this conversation, Menopause, the Great Awakener, is for you.

If you're in these quickening years in your 40s and you want to prepare in the years running up to menopause, it's especially for you if you're looking for support, accompaniment, togetherness, guidance in the midst of the menopause initiation. And it's also for you if you're on the other side, if you're now post-menopause, and you want to integrate and explore the meaning inside your own. process. So you can find out all about the course at red school.net forward slash menopause. And it starts on October the 30th. Okay, let's get back to our chat. Yeah, I mean, in a way, the 40s are this journey of increasing permeability, aren't they? Both like your outer skin with the world, but all the inner skins, all the bales as you've spoken

about. It's this increasing permeability as, as happens in the autumn of your menstrual cycle. Yeah, this kind of slow dismantling. And we talk about the inner autumn of the menstrual cycle, that dismantling that goes on as the steady preparation to make you more available to the spiritual forces at menstruation. And that same process is mirrors. in the autumn of your menstruating years coming into menopause. Yeah, I want to just come back to your experience this morning, Sophie of slowing down. Now I'm starting to feel a lot.

And I'm just thinking about the people who are listening to this and so many women and people that I hear from who are feeling kind of retramatized in the way. this life phase and really out of control and freaked out and completely overwhelmed by what's coming up. And I don't want to sugarcoat it because this life phase is strong medicine. It is very confronting. And even more so if you're someone who's experienced a lot of trauma, you know, huge amounts of trauma in your life. And even more so if you're someone who is living in a life situation

where you're very stressed or stretched or unsupported, and even more so for those with marginalized identities, and even more so for those with critical health problems. So, you know, all of these things compound and add to an already very very, challenging process. Oh, and of course I should just mention, you know, and we're all sitting inside a culture that pathologizes what's going on in our 40s. I mean, so much of what people experience in their 40s is just being relegated as like normal perimenopause symptoms and just like an inevitability and just how it is.

And yeah, that pathologizing of it really like drives me mad because there is so much dignity in what's happening. But yet none of us have been taught what is happening and actually how to negotiate it. So coming back to your experience this morning, Sophie, of that kind of micro moment, it was such a perfect example of your situation stretching you, the outer pressure of time, you being in a vulnerable place in your menstrual cycle, being responsible for your child, your partner there with his stuff going on, you know, AIDS's own thing about it, lots of dynamics happening and you were aware of that and slowed down.

And mainly my inner good girl, being scared, being late for the teachers. Yeah, yeah, exactly, your young trauma being activated. Exactly, exactly, exactly, yeah. Well spotted. Yeah, and so we all know, like, if we look at that situation, the kind of fallout in that moment, how kind of catastrophic it could have been in terms of the knock on effect had you overridden yourself.

And, yeah, so that's the thing I really want to name here is with the bigness of what's coming up, up in your 40s. If we are not catching these moments and slowing down enough that we can bring presence to what's happening,

it slaps us in the face. I mean, it really sideswipes us and pulls the carpet from under our feet. And then our mind gets involved and we, and it just amplifies and accelerates a very, very negative spiral, you know. Yeah, because let's bring the inner critic word in

because then the critic gets hold of, well, you really lost it then, and you've really ruptured that relationship, and why can't you hold it together? And what is you happen with you? You know, yeah, we lose it, and then the critic gets down on us for losing it. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, totally. Oh, it's really good listening to the way you were speaking about it. Yeah. it is enormous dealing with menopause in these times actually. Yeah, with the levels of pressure. But I think what I'm hoping people are hearing as we're speaking is this real re-enointing of the 40s as a meaningful process

that's, you know, that's preparing you for a spiritual awakening. that there is something meaningful at work. And, you know, the pathologizing takes us away from that. And just dignifying and really giving the 40s their importance. And knowing that your 40, I always say menopause has a mission to deliver you home to yourselves. We might say your 40s, well, they have two missions, actually. We'll come to the other one. But we could say the 40s, the mission of your 40s is to get fit for metaphors.

It isn't only that, though. But it is that it is actually really preparing you. It's growing you up. It's growing you up to be able to feel a kind of, preparedness in your system for this dignifying right of passage in which you step into a bigger realm of presence and power in the world. Yeah. So I've got to ask, because I don't want to leave it there, what is the other mission of the

40s? Well, yes. I mean, we've been very much talking about the 40s as this preparation for the spiritual awakening of menopause. But I also, well, I always. have this phrase that I use because at the moment I feel our 40s are being cast as the waiting room for menopause. It's like you step into your 40s, you start feeling disturbance and you get, oh my God, this is, you know, I'm in perimenopause, aka I'm in menopause, you know, this is it.

I mean, an end game. I'm just, and now I'm just waiting it out to get out the other side. Yeah, and that kind of consciousness of inevitable decline. Yes, inevitable decline. So your 40s are their own magnificent cosmos, you know, because you are still young in inverted commerce. I don't know when people tell me I'm young. Yeah, yeah, you're still young in the sense that you actually do still have energy. I mean, my goodness, you two have energy, you know. You have energy like, I do not have energy now.

You have energy still. It's not the energy of your 20s, no, or your 30s. But you have still got capacity in the system. But what you have now, which you did not have in your 20s, is you've got a degree of maturity. And I hope life experience and skills you've developed and perhaps, you know, a life you have crafted as something that you are involved in and doing.

And, you know, it's a great combination that, you know, that capacity and you should have, and a degree of self-confidence, you know, you've earned something, you know, you've lived, You live for you. Yeah, you know, you know yourself in a way. Yeah. You do know yourself actually.

Yeah. And I actually kind of feel like we should be feeling like the bees knees now. Yeah. It's a funny phrase that, the piece. Why don't I even come from? I know, where does they come? Anyway, feeling just really good about yourself. I think it's just a good rhyme.

Yes, a piece of it. But, you know, when you've got energy, it's very good to feel good. It's very easy to feel good and to feel like you have capacity. I think your 40s are about strutting your stuff. It's about mastery. I mean, Sophie, you talked about your business really expanding and all, you know, the possibilities taking off. And I mean, what a delicious place to begin.

I mean, truly. It's harvest. It is harvest. Yeah. It's an fulfillment of something. Yeah. So now I'm just really, really loving that, Alexandra, because actually we do have an authority because of the edge that comes in in the autumn,

we are more unleashed, I would say, than we've ever been. And we have an authority and pack a punch. Like we couldn't when we were younger. So, yeah. I mean, just like we're not believing the stories that we've told ourselves about ourselves. Yeah. Like those are dismantling, which is vulnerable making.

Yeah. Because then what is holding us together. But we also don't believe the stories from the outside. anymore either. Yeah. I've been thinking a lot about what I learned growing up as a teenage girl in the 90s about how my body needed to be a certain shape to be appealing to the male gaze, which is, you know, it's part of patriarchy, but it was particularly loud in the 90s with this lad culture. And in my 40s, nothing in me believes that anymore. Yeah. Which is so freeing. And I can feel how that's preparation for menopause. I can't tell you how, but I can feel that it is.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you're speaking to this other piece that comes online in our 40s, which I think we all have access to in a much deeper way, is, I mean, intuition is the word, but a sense of knowing and knowing that comes from such a deep place in ourselves that is quite unquestionable. I mean, I feel that so strongly now that I'm in touch with life. in a way that I wasn't before, and I can really trust what I'm feeling and sensing. I mostly operate from that inner knowing now, even when the situation or other people think

X, Y or Z, I mostly go with my own knowing now. And that's an incredible creative force to be lined with. And I, yeah, I certainly did not have that. No, 20s and 30s. No. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, sorry, can I just say one other thing there, Alexandra, because I love what you've named here about the 40s being their own cosmos. And I'm just aware of how, you know, for those of you listening who have been practicing menstrual cycle awareness for some time and working with the inner seasons of your cycle, you'll recognize really how distinct each phase of your menstrual cycle experience. is and how over time you build a different relationship to these inner seasons in yourself. And I feel like there's a cultural healing that's wanting to happen in the world around the seasons of our menstruality.

Somehow the inner autumn of our menstruating years and the inner winter of our menstruating years, aka the menopause transition, have sort of all just been smushed into one thing. thing and in a way the ecology of our being has been slightly brought into a sort of chaos through that. I want to say, I feel like there's a lot of chaos in the collective around these two life stages, fear, confusion, chaos, because they're not appreciated and understood as being each thing, their own cosmos, and each thing necessary. and needed and distinct from one another.

So our inner ecology been kind of off balance. So part of the healing I'm really holding to for us collectively is that the inner ecology of our menstruating life can be restored and this life phase and life season of the inner autumn can really be given its due and be seen in light of the power that it has and actually the extraordinary developmental process that it is taking us through. Yeah, that's my hope.

Yes, yes, yes. I really like that description, Showney. It's very illuminating, yeah, where the ecology is all screwed and then we get more screwed up. Yeah, and this chaos, I'm really glad that you named that because I think part of the chaos that a lot of women and people experience is when the cycle starts to really shift, which doesn't happen for everyone, but it does happen for quite a lot of people. And they don't know where they are in the seasons anymore. You know, this is why I'm having conversations about this all the time. How can we hold ourselves and support ourselves when it's been three months since the last cycle?

and we don't know if we're in summer or winter or autumn or spring or what's up or down or left or right. You know, that kind of the uncertainty. There are multiple levels of uncertainty that come in the 40s, like the big one being mortality. Like you said, Alexandra, like we're, if we're lucky, we've reached the middle of our lives. And, you know, so, yeah, can we speak to this piece around when we don't have the, you know, the predictable certainty of the four inner seasons and the same way. I always say,

what's this is the thing that's come to mind in the moment now, is, you know, in your menstruating years, you're learning to ride a cycle. And that learning to ride your cycle is actually learning about yourself, growing into yourself. and then there's a moment of menopause where, of course, you no longer need the cycle because you know yourself now, you're ready to surrender it and really step into the great unknown.

Now, so the point I'm trying to make here is that there is... So the point I'm trying to make is that getting to know your cycle, is getting to know yourself. And actually you are getting tutored in uncertainty, but in very safe ways. Because, you know, there's that moment before you bleed where the gram goes and you just lost and you fall in a hole.

And then you are saved by, you know, you bleed and suddenly order is restored again. It's extraordinary. And you go, yeah, so your cycle is holding you. So now the cycle is breaking up. And we have to start holding. ourselves more now. This is the point. The cycle is going to leave you one day

and you're not going to be saved by it when you step into the unknown. And there are lots of unknowns. Post-menopause. I mean, there's menopause itself with a massive unknown, but life is this constant trust in the unknown. And so we spoke earlier about the journey through your 40s. is this journey of increasing presence with yourself and capacity to hold yourself. So now the ground is going.

You don't know. I mean, maybe it is menopause you're in. Nobody can name it as that. Only you can. Yeah, because some do enter menopause. Yeah, some people enter menopause at 45 or 48. So actually, the point is it is unknown. And this is actually part of,

the initiatory process. And yes, anxiety will come up and fear. And, well, there are two things. So I spoke about presence and holding yourself. And I think the third ingredient here is this real kindness with ourselves. So it's very important, of course, that you understand the nature of the journey you're going through and that you are going to step in,

and we talk about the menopause hinterland, you know, that's a really grey area. That's almost the hardest part, actually. Once you're in menopause, even though you are, you know, really in something deep, curiously, there's a kind of cocooning effect, a little bit like menstruation, where you're sort of held by menopause itself,

even as you are, you know, in a great unknown. So this nether region between, lovely sturdy cycle and then cycle breaking up and not knowing, you know, when's going to come. Is a real practice of presencing and holding yourself and trusting who you are? It is, in a sense, asking you, it's sort of activating you to step up to a deeper, step up to a deeper place. I'm so many. Step down, yeah, step up to a deeper place of responsibility with yourself.

And I actually think it's really important to have allies here to have people around you that, because this can be anxiety provoking, but just having it witnessed by another. is extraordinarily soothing, actually, or having places where people understand, you know, and you can just say, you know, give them a word or two and they'll so get it. I think allies are important, but also understanding this framework

because the framework, the way we're positioning the whole journey, not just menopause itself, is dignifying it, It's ennobling it. It's giving it meaning. And I think we need to marinate ourselves in this sort of sacred knowledge. We need to marinate ourselves in this. And then get the support we need, which might be, you know, getting therapeutic support. If you're being really encountering within this uncertainty,

real wobbliness about your life and what you're about and so on. to have some sort of therapeutic engagement. And when you say that, it makes me wish that there was therapeutic support just available for all, you know, because it's obviously not easy to access for many. And then if that therapeutic support was available, how it would relieve, how it can relieve the stress that builds up, Yeah. It ends up leaving us feeling afraid, which really contributes to the health challenges,

the insomnia, the headaches, the brain fog, you know, all the different things that come up. And I wanted to come back to this, Lara Bryden, her episode about her hormone repair manual book. And I can't remember the number of the episode now. But if you're in the thick of physical symptoms in the 40s, that episode is really, really helpful. We've had really good feedback about that one. Yeah. Yeah, she's really, really, her stuff is super, actually. Yeah.

But yeah, if that support was available, it could somehow just relieve the dress, yeah. I want to just really affirm the power of just having someone witness you. Yeah. And that, I mean, we talk about having listening partnerships, you know, just having buddies. I mean, just coming into. Red School and being in our free community hub or, you know, having some sense of community

around that, that may be more available for people. And on the Great Awakener, which is starting soon, the menopause course, would you, do listening partnerships happen as part of that? Oh, yes, they do. And can I tell you, a bit like on the menstruality leadership program, some of the listening partnerships that form there have become allies for life. I mean, it's extraordinary the kind of companionship and togetherness and support that has come out of that. Yeah.

So yes, absolutely, listening partnerships happen in a big way. And is that course, like for those listening who are in the thick of this 40s, perimenopause, autumn of the menstruating years, is the great awakening for them? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. There was someone I recently read who shared on our community hub, who's in her 30s and has listened to the first day of our free menopause event. And she said how incredibly helpful it was to understand this initiatory process of menopause just in terms of meeting the life initiations that she's ended.

And I think that's just so firstly on that level, you know, the information you learn, the knowledge you learn, the map, the skills, they are life skills for meeting life's initiations, whatever age you're at. And they're rooted in menstruality. So, you know, they really are a way of relating to these experiences that happen in our lives as a doorway into power, as a doorway into our leadership, into love, into our calling. And so yes, whatever age you are, that's going to be really useful and relevant. And of course, in your 40s, like in the quickening, you go through little cycles of initiation. You know, I spoke about these veils, the layers that I've moved through. each layer is a little mini initiation that I've been through, a little mini death and rebirth, which, and when I say mini, that makes it sound so cute and so nice.

They feel really big. They feel like it. It's amazing when you're in those moments of pain, they feel like death. And so, you know, in the quickening, you are going to be going through this death and rebirth process and everything you learn on the Great Awakener will equip you to navigate these little rounds of death and rebirth that you go through in the lead app, which are a profound training ground for the big one. So yes.

Anything else you want to say about that, Alexandra? No, I think you've said it really well, Sharney. And also, well, I will add, the people who have gone through menopause get a huge amount out of the period too. Because when it helps them, it brings sort of understanding and coherence to their experience, because often they're just operating blind in a sense. But also, it's knowledge, as Shani said, for life. I mean, this knowledge about navigating unknowns, which is basically what the five phases of metaphors are about,

is what I live by as I get older. It actually so interesting how that knowledge helps me to meet the process of getting older. And I mean, I realized, I've said this before, I think, when I came into my 70s, I rocked into my 70s feeling, yeah, you know, let's go for it. And then I realized it was now, 73, I'm looking back and I'm going, oh, that was like a mini menopause. I went through because I actually realized things had shifted in me. I wasn't, I didn't have the whatever it was I had in my 60s now. That kind of energy didn't work for my 70s. And I had to kind of renegotiate things with myself.

and I went through all the classic steps that, you know, we describe in wise power. Not in a big way, just, but they were there in me. And, yeah, they worked me. I was worked. I'd love to do a whole episode about that one day, Alexandra. Yeah, how cycle awareness prepares us for getting older. Yeah. Okay.

Thank you so much for this. The grit, the great grit of the autumn of our cycling years. I feel, I feel soothed. So thank you so much. Can I just add, Sophie? I know we're ending. But, you know, take this thing getting fit for menopause very seriously. Yes.

Basically, get fit. Physically. I leave you with that final message. Thank you. Thank you, loves. Thanks for being with us today. I hope you found something that can support you from this conversation. And if you know someone who would appreciate hearing us speak about the 40s,

perimenopause in this way, then please do forward this conversation to them. And again, an invitation to join Menopause, the Great Awakener, if you want to prepare for menopause, or if you're in the middle of the transition, or if you're on the other side. We start on October the 30th, and you can find out all about it at redschool.net forward slash menopause.

All right, that's it for this week. We'll be back as usual with the podcast next week. And until then, keep living life according to your own brilliant rhythm.