The Menstruality Podcast - 62. The Healing Power of Menopause (Clare Dubois)

Episode Date: November 10, 2022

Clare Dubois has given her life to reforesting the topics  as the founder of the not-for-profit, TreeSisters, but her menopause experience is demanding that she take a profound pause.In this conversation Clare breaks down her real-time death and rebirth initiatory process of menopause, from the place she is currently in - the deeply uncomfortable, uncompromisingly thorough, ‘ego-death’ part of the initiation. She likens it to being carried downstream very fast - you either struggle against the flow or you let go and trust that the river knows where it’s taking you. She’s choosing trust, and hard as it may be, she is loving the ride.Trigger warning: Clare talks in-depth about healing her childhood physical and sexual abuse.We explore:How menopause is supporting her to process early trauma and heal the patterns of dissociation that ensued, so she can land in her body and be herself. The deep gift of menopause - how it is uprooting the patriarchy within her, especially in own work addiction and over-responsibility.What to do when we can’t ‘let go’ in the way Clare has been able to in her menopause sabbatical, and how we can manage the often chaotic menopause process in a world that doesn’t honour our initiations. --- You can now pre-order our new book! Wise Power: Discover the Liberating Power of Menopause to Awaken Authority, Purpose and Belonging here: https://www.wisepowerbook.com---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.schoolClare Dubois: @clare_dubois_treesister - https://m.facebook.com/clare.dubois.333

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, Alexandra and Sharni, as well as an inspiring group of pioneers, activists, changemakers and creatives to explore how you can unashamedly claim the power of the menstrual cycle to activate your unique form of leadership for yourself, your community and the world. Hey, welcome back to the Menstruality podcast. Thank you for being here. The evenings are drawing in here in the UK. I've got my dog snoozing on my feet. You might be able to hear him snoring in the background. And yeah, it's a

precious moment of life feeling calm in the middle of, you know, on so many levels is a very tumultuous time in our world. And I'm really looking forward to sharing this conversation with you because it's a really personal one for me. Alexandra is going to be your host again because this is the next in our Wise Power Menopause series and it's with Claire Dubois who is the founder of Tree Sisters and I've got the honour of calling Claire a dear friend. We went through so much together, I was part of the founding team of Tree Sisters. By the time I left five, six years ago we'd planted a million trees and now it's 20 or 30 times that I think and I know Claire to be always profoundly honest and when we were walking along the river recently she said I need to talk to Alexandra about menopause and I'm so glad she

did because what a conversation it is I cried with her as she shared really generously about her own menopause death and rebirth process and she's in the middle of the death part of it right now. I want to offer a trigger warning because Claire talks in depth about healing her childhood physical and sexual abuse and how menopause is supporting her to process this early trauma, to heal the patterns of dissociation that followed. So if you know you need to take care of yourself around these topics then maybe this is one to prepare to listen to later. Okay it's my joy to hand you over to our amazing Alexandra Pope and the equally amazing Claire Dubois. Welcome to the Wise Power Retreat, where I'm having a series of intimate conversations with people about their menopause experience and what it's revealing and liberating in them. This series of conversations

is about the power, authority and purpose that menopause can awaken in us and what's possible individually and collectively when this rite of passage is supported and dignified. So today I have with me Claire Dubois. Claire is a visionary and a powerful speaker and leader. And she is the founder of Tree Sisters, a magnificent charity that has a mission to rapidly accelerate tropical reforestation by inspiring and channeling women's nature-based feminine leadership into global action. And she is currently on a long-term break from Tree Sisters that has turned essentially into a menopause sabbatical. So Claire, hello. It's lovely to see you and to have this conversation with you.

And I'd like to begin with, since you're at the beginning of your menopause journey, essentially, of this sort of, the sort of heart of it, because there's a sort of preamble to it, and then there's like the heart of the transition and it feels to me like you have stepped off the edge into the into the um well the heart of the menopause transition is the best way to put it and i'd love to hear what that journey has been just coming into this menopause sabbatical, what you are now calling your menopause sabbatical. Well, it's many things, isn't it? Because it's very physiological, it's very mental and it's very emotional. Yes. And they're all doing different things all at the same time and as usual I'm not somebody that reads books

I'm not somebody that like I I sort of fall into life experiences and and go through them from the inside out without getting the sort of wisdom I mean I'm going to read your book like it's it's sitting there by my bed but I just I'm not a reader it's like just it's so hard for me to read but I will um because they need to but but and I haven't so I've been like crashing into this experience and sort of it's like walking into a new world and going oh my god what's you know what's what's this so you know it starts with starts with irregularity on all fronts I think I I called it dysregulation yesterday to somebody like a profound sense of dysregulation. So, yes, bleeding becomes erratic. Emotions become erratic. Energy becomes erratic. Everything becomes erratic. I mean, everything could just happen at any time. But what I love about it love love love love like I am fascinated I am absolutely so fascinated by

this journey in a way that I never could quite climb into the menstrual like I loved the whole menstrual map and understood it and thought it was beautiful, but I, I'm one of those women that just couldn't really engage with my menstrual cycle in the way that I always wanted to. I really wanted to, and I just couldn't. And I, I think it's, you know, I think my own personal wounding is in there around being a woman. And I think all

that's going to come up through the menopause. But with menopause, it's got me, it's got my attention 100%. Like it, there is, it's completely unequivocal. I mean, the energy that it brings is completely unequivocal. It's like like it's like having tunnel vision everything around you narrow well this is for me everything around me is just narrowed down to this little point of light up ahead and if it had words it would say is that true for you yeah yeah and if it's not true for you sorry but it's going to be taken away and you don't get a choice and if you fight with that i don't even know what to call it internal impetus stroke demand stroke you'll hurt yourself because the energy is so strong and so unequivocal and so it's like being stared down literally it's like yourself is like staring you down and and you can try and look away and try and not try and ignore the fact that it's happening and it's going to get louder and louder and louder until your whole world is just your own eyes looking back at you going, really, really?

Is it true for you? And you're still trying to look away. And then it starts yelling. No. Is it true for you? Are you going to maintain any level of bullshit in your life? Are you going to keep compromising on any level are you going to live a lie claire okay it is just i honestly i'm just laughing in recognition of everything you're saying it is just amazing the way that you are languaging this and I just really want yes go on it's every it's everything that's the energy that I'm in and I love it because I'm all about truth and I'm all about is it true and am I in integrity with myself and am I compromising myself so I'm fully back. Menopause and I are like, we're like this. Well, I'm like, yeah, I'm in it. I'm in it. I've got you by both your hands. And I'm like, I'm right here.

And I'm not somebody that's ever found surrender easy. In fact, I would say surrender has been one of the hardest things in my life on on multiple fronts. And this journey is taking me to a place where when I meditate, the surrender is so complete. It's literally take it all, take it all away. Take my bones. Like I've had meditations where it's literally like you can have my bones. You can have my body. I don't matter anymore. I want to let go of everything it's like it's it's like

I am prepared to become nutritive soup and if my imaginal cells create a pair of wings fine if they don't fine it doesn't matter I don't matter nothing matters nothing matters apart from the experience of letting go so completely, if there is an authentic self in here, she's got all of me available to her to put herself back together again and emerge from the ashes. Like that is it.

You know, I can talk about hot flushes. I can talk about sleep deprivation. I can talk about having no functioning mind and no memory and the inability to multitask and all the and the weight gain and blah blah blah all the stuff that comes along with it but that's all the you know that's all the bits that come along with what i am experiencing personally as what i tried to get you to call your book, The Greatest Initiation. Yes, yes, The Greatest Initiation. I am in The Greatest Initiation and that is what this journey is like for me.

And it is total. I want to really capture some of the things that you've said. And the thing actually that particularly moved me was, it's like you said something like, you've got all of me available now to you speaking to your bigger, deeper self. I'm here. I'm here and I'm listening. the essence of menopause being pulled so profoundly into the core of oneself so that you can hear what you're truly, truly about. And I'm just loving some of the things you're saying here. You talked about the demand, the internal demand.

And I often speak of menopause demanding something of us because menopause has got this prize. It's got this prize of awakening, this prize of this expanded consciousness. But for you to receive that prize, there's a price. Menopause is going to demand something of you so that you may have that and what i'm hearing from you is how you have you're really hearing if you like you didn't use these words but the call of menopause i mean you have no choice is what i'm hearing it's

like it's like this suction into yourself right down right down into your core and you're and this sort of big self staring down at you um it's fabulous now but i want to just really name oh and you i mean you summarize at the end so powerfully about this this nothingness that you go to, nothing matters, you don't care about anything. That death, that, you know, what you're describing and being able to follow that demand really asks something of us. I mean, I'm interested in how you're, now I'm almost answering my own question here, but I'm going to finish asking it of you I'm imagining an answer okay so Claire I don't know if this is the right question but I'm going to try it because you see what you're describing is very very strong it's a death and I'm really interested in what is really allowing you to have that experience of the death and it not be annihilatory of you. It's interesting. Your ego is being kind of pummeled down.

But it isn't a literal death. It requires something to be able to go there. I mean, I guess I'm really just recognizing the enormous power that's in you that you're able to hear this call, that you're able to go with it, that you've chosen that. It's such a gift. I this i love this i'm an intensity junkie you know me i do know that of you yeah i'm also a consciousness junkie and i'm a what does it mean to be human junkie and And my whole life is an experiment junkie. So when I am, you know, apparently, choicelessly, it's like being flushed down the loo. You know, it's just like, there's no, you're just whirling around and then you're gone. Like, not a pleasant analogy, but it's actually a pretty good one.

You've gone down, I've gone down the tubes and I'm on I'm going somewhere else and there is absolutely no way to fight to go back up again I have no strength that's the other thing the energy that I always had that everyone depends on me for out front to be this like clarion call of a you know i can work 60 hour weeks and work and force through it all gone absolutely gone not available and i mean part of that is burnout which i i'll talk about if you want me to but when you are being carried downstream in a river that is running so fast you've got two choices only two choices you either try to struggle against everything that life is doing to you or you let go and you go with it and you trust that the river knows where it's taking you and it's not going to take you off a fucking great waterfall and if it does there's a big pool at the bottom and you're going to survive the fall as simple as that now my life right now doesn't feel like a very large I'm on my way down a very large waterfall

actually I have gone off an edge that edge is um I've stepped away from my work in the world and all the momentum that I have built up as a public figure and everything that I've done for the planet and for women and for everything I have let everything go I have had no choice but to let everything go that's what I hear that's what I hear. That's what I hear. My body completely bottomed out. I have a very big burnout story. And then menopause is like the final was the final gate slamming shut. And, you know, this this would be big enough on its own, but it's sitting on top of a hell of a lot of illness. So at the point when menopause really kicks kicks in if you're already on your hands and knees

which i was you're going to be uh digging a hole and climbing into it and not getting back out so you know i'm at the bottom of a well and i don't have the energy to climb out and i'm eight months into sabbatical and i still don't have the energy to climb out and that's humbling that's incredibly humbling and that's just reality I can't get out and in terms of menopause that's my physiological energy in terms of menopause she's not letting me get out and one of the things I could say about her these big that are my entire reality staring back at me. One of the things she's saying to me, you're not getting out because I don't trust you. Wow.

Because I don't trust you. I don't trust you with what? I don't trust that you won't go straight back to work addiction. Right. Over-responsibility, giving yourself away, driving yourself into the ground, trying to save the world, overriding yourself, trying to be the wise one, being the front runner because everybody expects that of you, trying to make it okay for everybody and completely not listening to the voice of your own soul so you are staying at the bottom of the well

and all you will have is this little glimpse of light at the top of you look up and apart from that you're on your own and you're in the dark and you're staying here until you have let go of the work addiction which is the what's not true it's not true it's just a it's just a manifestation of the insanity of an imbalanced world and a patriarchal system embedded in me which is incredibly well embedded so it's taken quite a lot of getting out and I want that I want that I want it that's why I'm not fighting I want to know who I am outside of the you know I want to be de-patriarchied or whatever the word is I want the insanity out I want the drive out I want the over-responsibility out that's been one of my deepest patterns uh survival mechanisms from

childhood um you know i want what i'm not to be dissolved that is profound i want that and so i am letting go of everything it's the i mean for me it's the ultimate sacrifice it's the sacrifice of everything I've been everything I've worked for everything I've known all the public momentum that I've got my what I'm known for in the world all of it I'm letting everything go it's total Total. And you're daring to trust that inner voice. Sometime soon, something will happen. And maybe it'll be the same call. Maybe it'll be the same work. Maybe it'll be no one's ever going to take away my love of this planet,

my love of the trees, my love of women. Everything that I've been in this last decade or more is not gone anywhere. It's just no longer important inside of my experience. So, you know, when I come out of this experience, whoever I am, it may still be there waiting for me and it may not. I'm going with the river and the river knows and I don't. I just don't i am going with the river and the river knows and daring to trust that there is no guarantee that's one of the things i often

say about menopause the whole an initiation has to include initiation it's not an initiation if you haven't tasted that death place and not been sure about whether you'll come back that is absolutely so you're as i listen to your story i really hear how you are right in the heart of the initiation of menopause and i often you know i joke people and say you know death is always followed by new life. But the trouble is when you're in death, it always feels like death. You're not thinking, oh, there's new life around the corner is coming.

Death always feels like death and there's no guarantee of something coming back. It's such a radical, radical, radical place you're in. And your story will speak volumes, Claire, to so many. I love it. That's so important, this, because what you're sharing about, you use the word gift.

It's just menopause is not going to let you go until you have patriarchified yourself, which is a brilliant phrase. It's not going to let you go until you have actually found yourself and said yes to yourself. And yes, you may come out doing similar things, whatever, blah, blah, blah, but you don't know that yet. You have no idea. You have to sit with the unknown space and trust. And I can't tell you the,

I won't, okay, I can't tell you the extraordinary radical power that can come out of daring to trust the death. But when you're in it, of course, talking about radical power, you know, blah, blah, blah. But I can tell you now that if you can weather this i'm talking to everyone who's listening that this this is this place that you are in claire is the heart of the journey it's amazing you know and i think the only reason it's amazing is because I've done so much work you know I've done so much work for so long on learning how to face my own shadow you know learning how to wade around in my own underworld at times in my life I've thought of myself as a shadow worker

and you know actually if I am a shadow worker I'm only down there because I'm trying to liberate what's unconscious and stuck so that it can come into the light it's like I'm I've spent my life searching for myself you know I makes me want to weep you You know, my beginning in this life was so incredibly brutal and so violent and so violatory and so abusive. I I pretty much left. You know, I don't know how I survived my childhood. And I did survive my childhood because I don't know how, actually. Frankly, I really don't know how I survived my childhood, but I did. So there's a, my soul very obviously wants to be alive. My soul wants this incarnation and my soul is a fighter.

You know, my mum used to say, I don't know where you came from. Like what you're made of, no one in the family is made of. Like, where did you come from? You know, part of my drive was, you know, dad literally stamped on me and crushed me as a baby, literally stamped on me. So I had the, I had the foot of the patriarchy literally crushing me when I came into this world. I shouldn't have survived that, but I did. And what it did was it set up this equal and opposite reaction of no against the foot. And that people will be horrified to hear me say I've turned his foot into a gift, but I have because you have to if you're going to transform victim consciousness. And my whole life has been about transforming victim consciousness because I was brought into this're going to transform victim consciousness. And my whole life has been about transforming victim consciousness

because I was brought into this world as an absolute victim. So when you've got the equal and opposite of everything that foot represents pushing you the other way, that has been the force. That's the force that everybody recognizes in me. That's the force that is actually desperately trying to find myself where am i who is claire who was i supposed to be if all of this hadn't happened who's inside here where am i what what am i you know i wasn't allowed to develop as a baby or a young woman you know i was taught to be a sex slave. You know, it was like, I was taught that

I belonged to men. I was taught that my body was not mine. I was taught that to be a woman was a death sentence. That's what I was taught. And so who am I and what am I? All menopause is, is who are you and what are you? So finally, I've got the whole hormonal journey on my side I've got the whole impetus of feminine internal spirituality on my side like oh yes I want that river more than anything I've ever experienced like you can't stop me like the whole world like stand back you know and now it's me that's that's what this is it's like literally everybody go away leave me alone like for me to be saying i'm sorry the planet's burning i'm dealing with myself that is sacrifice I've given my life to this planet I know to be to be at the point where it's literally like it can all burn I need me and then when I've got me I'll come back

you know it's it's so unbelievably personal. So personal in a way that it, and I want to scream it at the world. Like I want to scream it from the mountaintop. I will be incredibly verbal about this. And it's also done something that I never expected, which is it's made me prepared to talk about my upbringing. It's made me prepared to talk about my upbringing it's made me prepared to talk about abuse it's made me it's like it's it's also it's like ripping away all the hiding mechanisms and everything that is kept whatever it is that Claire Dubois is in an in a remotely tidy package it's

all being blown to smithereens there is no most people would look at me and say you're not a tidy package you know but what has been socially correct in as little as i've ever been socially correct is gone it's gone it's a raging river and and in there is a river of rage you know there is a river of rage and that's been part of what my my strength and passion in this world has been but it's been coming from a partially dissociated place because of the trauma and because of the dissociation I've been running that intensity of energy through my body without properly being in my body, which is a recipe for burnout, absolute burnout, because I'm not

in myself enough to be able to channel earth energy through me in a way that can, you know, I've been just burning through my own reserves and burning through my own reserves while sitting in a vacuum because of dissociation. And what menopause is doing is it's saying, no, you're going to deal with the trauma, you're going to undissociate, you're going to fully address this and come in and land in your body and be yourself. That's it. I'm pausing this conversation for a moment to share a couple of resources firstly if you'd like to hear more about how Claire is working with her menopause process to support the healing of this childhood sexual trauma I'm going to put a link in the show notes

to a beautiful Facebook post that she wrote recently that's had a very big impact where she goes into this in depth and if this conversation is inspiring you I invite you to come and register for our wise power retreat conversation series where you can access many more conversations about the power of menopause at wisepowerretreat.com they're available for free for you to access at wisepowerretreat.com that is actually a magnificent description of menopause and it is I loved where you alluded to the fact of this spiritual feminine spiritual practice that's inside us that's that's that you're tapping into now and feeling that this this is coming from within it's not

something from without and that you're responding to the call of your being it's it's magnificent Claire I just want to pause for a moment really because you're saying such powerful powerful stuff and in your story of abuse lie so many other stories you know that the other people will be hearing their own stories in your story and the revelation you're sharing the will be medicine for them to hear just bear with me it's. I just really want to acknowledge, Claire, the enormity of what you've gone through in your life from your childhood and then the way that you have fought for the planet. It's extraordinary. And now you come to menopause and you're coming into yourself like you have never done before and there is no choice but that is okay by you it's a gift. You know it. You can feel the power of, I need to be me.

I need to be me. Then I'm coming back, folks. And until I'm me, I'm not coming back. You are modeling something so powerful for others that are coming into menopause or in the place that you are in right now. You're dignifying something with your words, just in the place that you are in right now you're dignifying something with your words just in the speaking of that you're dignifying it for others i can't tell you how powerful that is claire and how how important that is so thank you for being so generous and revealing yourself like this I want to say something really practical for a minute which is I have no wage I'm not working I have no wage yeah and I can do this because my best friend is covering my living expenses oh my god and my best friend is a man wow so I am being held completely by the masculine and that is an outrageous privilege that's an

outrageous privilege and it's not even a privilege I really had to ask for. It was just given. Because that man who has known me throughout the entire Tree Sisters journey and before, you know, we've been best mates for 20 years. He said, you know, I have never seen anybody work so hard. Like, I didn't know it was possible to see anybody work so hard. And he knows where I come from. And he knows what I've gone through. And he knows what I'm going through now. And, you know, I just went back to England to visit the places that this happened to me. I went back home for the first time.

Did you? I'm very deeply in major tectonic everything and you know what I did with Tree Sisters like when you deal with this level of trauma it's moving all the time and so I was trying to marry impossible workload and trying to save the world and dealing with major trauma that is moving all the time and dealing with with burnout and significant illness simultaneously actually and i was doing the whole thing knowing it was completely impossible but when you're the person carrying multiple wages when you've set something up and you're responsible for everybody that responsibility means you don't you can't let go no you can't you can't let go and and that is what a lot of people

listening to this will be saying to themselves but i can't let go i can't let go i can't do that depth of a drop i can't you know and that's a reality i'm just i'm just really also acknowledging that's going to be a reality probably for the majority of people of women it is to a degree they're not going to be able to do what i'm doing and and i i'm so grateful like i recognize this privilege with every fiber of my being and i and i and i actually believe that the world is has conspired to allow this for me because a I've worked so hard b I think I do have a hell of a lot of work to do in this world and I've got to get to the other side to be able to do whatever that is and I'm being carried through so that I can bring whatever it is that I'm here to bring. And I want to sort of acknowledge and almost say I really deeply feel for those women who are in this level of chaos.

It's chaos. It's chaos, especially in a world that largely doesn't understand it and just thinks of it as a weakness and all the other things that you know are true about how the world has defeminized and does not honor our initiations it's a lot it's a lot and I and I really deeply feel for everybody that is feeling incredibly lost and unsupported and not able to take the time and not able to let go of the job that they hate or are alone. I am speaking from a position of absolute privilege. And I will also say that in my life, as the primary fundraiser for Tree Sisters, which has meant that I've been carrying up to 22 wages at any one time. And I'm literally going out and with a begging bowl and calling them in.

What I had to do in order to achieve that was become absolutely unequivocal. I had to demand from the universe that it would provide for my staff. You know, I remember, I remember one time when I literally didn't know how I was going to bring in next month's wages which years ago but no charity should be in that situation and that was literally where I was and and somebody was like well aren't you terrified I remember looking at her and going, the universe wouldn't dare. And she, I watched her physically jump. She was so shocked with the intensity with which I said that.

And then I kind of, through her reaction to me, I got to hear myself and went, wow, when did that happen yeah you know when when did i become her yeah i thought you know it's true there is no room left in my being for the money not to come i there is no room for fear that the money won't come i will not countenance it that's a really good menopause statement i will not countenance it therefore i demand that creation brings it to me and the next day i raised you know 50 000 and then the next day after that in came another hundred thousand and in the most extraordinary ways. And that's how I feel about this journey. That's how I feel about my health. And I had to be like smashed on the rocks and on the floor and unable to get up. Mark did the cooking and the washing up for seven months.

I was either on the floor or on my computer or in bed like I I was properly broken and I still was working 40 nowadays I was actually an insane person and that's why menopause has put me at the bottom of the well and it's not letting me out yeah and I get it it's like I'm I'm in. What do they call it? Rehab on one level. And, you know, I've been sent to my room for bad behavior. It's like, really, you you've been trying to teach about life balance and following your body and the feminine way and all of this for 10 years. Do you get what a raging fraud you are claire de bois a raging fraud and i'm not saying that to diminish myself because when you carry as much responsibility as i have i couldn't

get out i couldn't i tried i tried i tried so my so my body's taken me out menopause has taken me out it's just taken me out you know let us just really pause there for a moment and acknowledge what you said there around support, because it is absolutely crucial to name the fact that because menopause is not recognized for the powerful rite of passage it is, and because we're all enculturated in this do, do, do, work, work, work, keep going, keep going, keep going consciousness. People are arriving at menopause exhausted like you arrived. And there's no, yes, they've got families they're supporting probably, or they're on their own and they still have to go to work. Our lives, we still have to keep the stuff of our lives going, even as. And nobody, nobody is going, wow, you're going through an incredible, powerful initiation right now.

Respect. No one names that. In fact, it is trivialized. It's I mean, it's starting to change a bit now, but it's still seen as a problem. You know, menopause is a problem, not a natural rite of passage. And it's actually profoundly insulting to our beings that it's not recognized. So there is this sort of indignation of rage that can come up inside us that even that our minds don't really understand but the rage just because our being knows hang on hang on this is a powerful rite of passage and I can't be honored but all they're just feeling is just jacked off with the world and rage rage rage and having to keep going so it's i can't wisdom in a woman's body there can't be wisdom in a woman's body that mean that would mean that there's something actually of deep value beyond pumping out babies and satisfying

men sorry if i sound like you know but what would happen if the world recognized that there was like cosmic wisdom inside a woman's body and that your menstrual cycle years are growing you into this growing you into this growing in you into this yes yes no no it cannot be so it cannot be so no because if if we if there was any wisdom inside of a woman's body then we'd have to think that maybe there was wisdom inside our planetary body and then oh my god maybe there's consciousness in our planetary body and no we can't have that because then we can't stop raping her no do not talk to me about a conscious planet and do not talk to me about a conscious woman's body and do not talk to me about all the things

that i do not want to know so that i can perpetuate the desecration of the feminine the greatest initiation that means we'd have to acknowledge that women are swallowing the sky you know and that we've got that capacity and that we can bring through that quality of power we can't do that we can't do that oh my god at menopause women are passing through a gateway where suddenly they're seeing through the bullshit of everything. That means they're dangerous. We can't have that. They could bring the whole system down. Oh my God, no, shame it.

Push it down, push it away, make it a problem. That's what we've done with everything. Make the menstrual cycle a curse. Make menopause an embarrassment. Oh my God. All I want to do now is yell about menopause. i feel like the whole planet needs to be in menopause if we're going to get through what we get what's coming i think menopause are vital right now which is why your work is so incredibly important because we have to understand what this is so that we don't buy into the crap that's being poured at us around

the problem that we're going through you know it like whoa just so we are for what we're doing now with menopause is we are resetting the line we are resetting the line. We are resetting the line, woman by woman, person by person, each one of us who chooses to step up, however small the gesture, to dare to consecrate their menopause experience in the way that you are speaking about as this radical awakening to themselves and therefore what that could mean for the planet. You've just articulated that so to swear, we're just fucking going to declare it as so, that this revolution is beginning. Because I have to say, for myself, 15 years out from menopause now, I just feel so freaking fierce about, you know,

the work that I've been called to do. And we're all called to do different things but not just just that use that word unequivocal i talk about uncompromising i will not compromise myself i will not betray what i feel in my being and that post-menopause you you just can't compromise yourself it just won't work and can you imagine all of us coming out with men out of menopause with this kind of chi in our system and it's not physical chi it's this it's a god it's a chi that comes from being so aligned with yourself you just become this channel and in finding yourself you find yourself you become this channel for life you become this

channel for the world you you you can't not do whatever you're asked to do and some of us are asked to do quite big public things out in the world i just want to really acknowledge that there are others whose work is just very intimate and subtle and quiet and everything is required. I have to keep emphasising that, that when you find yourself, you find what it is that you're here to serve and your post-menopause years, you earn this authority to serve that, to really serve that, and to be able to stand for it.

You've got nothing to lose post-metapause. It's so freaking liberating. I know. It's so liberating. I mean, that's the thing. Apparently, to the world, I've got everything to lose. Everything. Yeah.

Everything. Well, I'm throwing it away anyway no because there's only one thing I want and it's and it's to know myself and if anybody turns around to me and says well that's it's very self-indulgent you know and how can you possibly do that um I I would have some interesting things to say to them. I think you might, actually. I was thinking something rather crude I was going to say there, but I won't say it. But you'll definitely have some interesting things to say, Claire. One of the things I would say is,

but you're completely missing the point of being a woman. And I'm sorry about that. You know, that's the polite version. But also, if I don't give this to myself then who am i then if i don't give this to myself then do i ever get to discover really what i am after all of this do i ever get to come to a place where I could give my fullest gift you know is that is that ever going to become available to me if I don't do this and do you not want me to have that do you not want me to know who and what I am do you not want me to bring like the best that's yet to come do you not

want that am I am I not allowed to stop carrying everybody for long enough to actually be able to stand back up on my own two feet again? Can I not let my body repair? Are you more important? And is everything more important than actually repairing my body? This fire and this clarity that's coming through me, some would say, well, it's always been there with me. I've always been a loud mouth and I've always been pretty been pretty forceful I didn't used to be at all actually I used to be completely timid I used to be absolutely terrified of everybody I couldn't public speak I couldn't even walk down a an aisle in a plane a train or a bus like I used to be you know terrified

of everybody and vomiting before getting up on stage to do speaking you know it's radical i've carved myself out you know i've carved myself out and i know that process of carving myself out and what it's liberated in me so this river and this canyon that it's creating lord only knows what's going to be able to come through me on the other side of that but and i've got a really damaged body that needs to be put back together again and there's only one person that can do that and that kind of that's going to take as long as it takes and exactly clear and what i find is i try to put my brain or my foot, like something happens in the world and the old gears start moving down in my rehab in the bottom of the well. And I start coming up with a solution. And then all of a sudden, all my battery pack gets removed. And those eyes go, no.

Yeah, that's menopause coming in, in clear and not letting you compromise your spirit absolutely not the energy just goes no it literally is no capacity i couldn't change this if i wanted to and that's what's what's scary for me for those out there that are going through this and haven't got support. Exactly. I really want to acknowledge that because I can't work. I might seem like, oh, but you're fine. No, I'm not. I do one thing too much and I'm on the floor again. My body gives out.

I really want to just declare that very powerful statement that has been running through our whole conversation, which is that I, it's really how menopause will not let you compromise yourself. what whatever anybody else thinks you have to find yourself and in fun and and who knows what whether you will or not or what that it's a massive unknown but the powerful statement you're making here is how menopause you're feeling like menopause is with you I want to say almost has your back. And I'm going to acknowledge the huge act of faith and courage that you hold, Claire, in daring to trust the call of menopause and i also just once again want to acknowledge your powerful powerful statement around um being resourced and not everyone has the privilege of that yeah and the crucialness now of us changing the conversation around menopause so that there can be more resources and more support

claire thank you so much for a mind-blowing being blowing conversation conversation. I am so grateful that you are doing your work. I'm going to cry again. I'm so grateful to be able to share this. I'm like, when I was walking along the river with Sophie, I'm like, but I want to talk to Alexandra. I want to talk.

I got to talk about this. I have to talk about this like let me talk about this please interview me like please like I've never asked I've never begged to be interviewed before like people come to me but this is the first time I've begged to do something like this because it matters so much and it matters so much I don't know I don't know where else I would be able to have this conversation no and so you've given me such a gift and I and I hope that through this this gifts a lot of other people and we can get it out because it really really matters it matters

to me at this moment it matters to me more than anything well claire your message is going out it's going out to thousands going through menopause and each one of them is going to feel catalyzed by your words into claiming their menopause, dignifying their menopause. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you. ah thank you so much for joining us today on the menstruality podcast thank you for your care and your passion for this work for being part of this menopause movement that we feel so passionate about at Red School. We want everyone to have a menopause process which is honoured, which is dignified, which is respected, where people have

the kind of support they need to undergo the massive initiation that they're experiencing. It's why Alexandra and Sharni have written their new book, Wise Power, Discover the Liberating Power of Menopause to Awaken Authority, Purpose and Belonging. And it's why we created our Wise Power Retreat initially, and why we're continuing our Wise Power Retreat series of conversations where Alexandra is speaking with people about what menopause awakened and revealed in them. So in the series so far, we've had some incredible voices, change makers, people who are breaking ground and creating new ways of living in our world. Lynn Twist, the founder of the Pachamama Alliance. Sharon Blackie, the author of the new book,

Haggitude, which is another great menopause book. Dr. Sonia Wright, who has so many brilliant things to say about sex in menopause and so many more. You can find all of those conversations. They're available to access for free at wisepowerretreat.com and the Pius Power book you can find at wisepowerbook.com. All right we'll be back next week with a menstrual cycle focused episode and I'll be with you then hopefully and until then keep living life according to your own

brilliant rhythm.