The Menstruality Podcast - 63. How Your Menstrual Cycle Awakens Your Medicine (Asha Frost)

Episode Date: November 17, 2022

Asha Frost is an indigenous healer and author. She is an Anishinaabe, Ojibwe woman who was raised in a menstrually positive culture and in today’s episode we explore how her menstrual cycle inspires her work, her new book, ‘You are The Medicine: 13 Moons of Indigenous Wisdom, Ancestral Connection, and Animal Spirit Guidance’, and the connection she sees between cycle wisdom and the unique medicine we each hold.‘You are The Medicine’ explores a lunar year of the 13 moons of the Ojibwe people, each moon aligned to particular powers and animal wisdom, and each one has profound and practical keys about how we can reach work to access more of a medicine.We explore:How the animal medicine of Bear supports Asha to rest and integrate when she bleeds,  and the medicine of Dear supports her to bring gentleness to the premenstrual phase of her cycle. How to honour our sensitivity as a gift, as well as the wisdom of our bodies (particularly the fierce wisdom of the premenstruum!) in a patriarchal, capitalist, productivity-driven world.Why Asha’s letter, ‘Dear white woman who wants to be like me’ went viral in 2019, and why white listeners must acknowledge the incredible harm colonisation has created, and act in ways that respect Asha’s culture, and all indigenous cultures.The doors will open soon for our 2023 Menstruality Leadership Programme, you can find our more and register your interest here: www.menstrualityleadership.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.schoolAsha Frost: @asha.frost - https://www.instagram.com/asha.frost

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 there, how's it going with you today? I'm so glad to be back here with you on the podcast, thank you so much for joining us. Today's conversation was a real menstrual, mystical,

magical tour for me, a soft, gentle, profound conversation with Asha Frost, who's an indigenous healer and author. She's an Anishinaabe Ojibwe woman who was actually raised inside a deeply positive menstrual culture in her family. And in today's conversation, we explore how this has influenced her life and her work, including her new book, You Are the Medicine, 13 Moons of Indigenous Wisdom, Ancestral Connection and Animal Spirit Guidance. unique medicine we each hold which is obviously very close to the work we do at Red School around how the menstrual cycle supports us to awaken and live our calling, our genius. So Asha shared very beautifully and generously about her healing journey from lupus, about how we can each work to honour our sensitivity as a gift and also what happened when her letter Dear White Woman Who Wants To Be Like Me went viral in 2019. I'm so excited to share this with you. How your menstrual cycle awakens your medicine with Asha Frost.

So Asha it's such a delight to have you on the podcast. I feel like I've been hanging out with you all morning because I've been immersing myself in your beautiful book and some interviews with you and absorbing your teachings and the medicine that you bring to the world. So thank you so much for making the time to be with us here today on the podcast. Thank you for having me. It's so nice to meet you. We always start with a cycle check-in. So I'd love to hear where you're at in your cycle today and how that's influencing your feelings, your emotions, your state today. I love that question. Nobody's ever asked me that before. I am currently on day three of bleeding and I, therefore I'm feeling more energized today. So I feel like things are kind of coming back together.

I've noticed over the last couple months, I think I'm heading maybe into perimenopause. So I've noticed how fatigued I am as I move into that luteal phase before I bleed. So I'm really glad to kind of be out of that, that space because it often just feels really difficult to mother and difficult to be. I relate, I really relate to that. What are the signs that you're getting that perimenopause is, is courting you? I think, I mean, my cycles are still regular. It's more an intuitive sense, I think. And it's probably more that right before the bleed comes, I'm feeling more like the emotions are rising more deeply. Like I'm more connected to all that needs to sort of be looked at and acknowledged. So I think almost like a portal is opening up for, yeah, for just seeing all the emotions that are there.

It's almost just like things are deepening. That's what I feel like. Things are deepening and saying, hello, I'm here. You can't ignore me anymore. So that's what it feels like. But my cycles are still really regular and I can feel a little bit more irritable. I think that's a big sign. There's an irritability shift.

Yeah. Sounds like as everything's rising up or deepening, the world doesn't necessarily change to facilitate and allow that process, which is an important process going on. Alexandra and Shani, who founded MedSchool, they talk about perimenopause as the quickening, like everything starts to pick up a gear. Well, there you go. I feel like I'm right in alignment with that. That's exactly a beautiful word for it. That's exactly where I feel like I am. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm very excited to explore with you your connection to your menstrual cycle because you write about it in your book and the way you were raised to understand the power of your cycle is very beautiful and inspiring. So I want to get into all of that but I'd actually love to start by talking to you about your book You Are the Medicine

because I saw on your Instagram that a couple of weeks ago you wrote that it's only just now like seven months after this book has come out that you feel like you can really breathe and let in and there was some cool music in the background and you said something like that you can start a love affair with this creation that you've made and I just love to hear how you're feeling about the book and and the process right now. Yeah so I don't know if this is true for all folks who release a book into the world but it is it was a really vulnerable process for me I um I mean wrote it, I poured so much into it. And then when I let it out in the world, I mean, I was doing a lot of sort of somatic processing around

the whole visibility and letting it go. But it took a good seven months for me to feel back into my body around it or back into that place of, oh, it's safe to celebrate how it has done in the world and who it's touching. Because I think I was in a little bit of a free state of, oh, it's safe to celebrate how it has done in the world and who it's touching. Because I think I was in a little bit of a freeze state of, are people going to be angry at me? Are they going to come after me? There was just all of these, I think, really old ancestral wounds that were rising during that time. And I was very conscious of them.

And of course, they still rose. So I think I just noticed how I was in a bit of a freeze, you know, and just don't read the reviews. You know, every DM that I would receive, I would just kind of hold my breath, is this going to be a positive thing? Or is somebody going to be angry at me? So though all of that stuff, it just seems to have settled down a little bit. And now I can open my heart to receive the beauty that people are passing through their messages to me. And I feel like my whole heart's taking it in. Yeah, it's really touching people, isn't it? The book. It is. It is. It's every day I get a message about it. I didn't have any expectations for this book. I really just felt like the spirit of the book would do its things and it would have wings of its own. But I didn't I had no idea how it would touch people. And the messages that I get

right now, they make me cry every single one, because my intention was that it would just touch people's hearts or, or open them up and, or they'd have tears in their eyes. It was such a simple intention. And I feel like most people who are writing back, that's what they share with me. Wow. That's so good to hear. I think it's towards the beginning of the book, it might be in the introduction, you speak about lots of different things about the moons, because the book is based around the 13 Ojibwe moons. And you speak about how you were invited into a connection with your cycle from the very beginning as an Anishinaabe Ojibwe woman. Can we, can you tell us a story of how you learned about the menstrual cycle and how your mother guided you? Yes. So, I mean, I think there's different layers of, you know, there probably

were some rituals that my mother wasn't connected to due to colonization that, you know, there probably were some rituals that my mother wasn't connected to due to colonization that, you know, were maybe missing that would have been beautiful. However, she really always held this really safe space of this is happening. And this is like a powerful thing. So it was never a scary thing. It was never a bad thing. When it happened, she before, before I first menstruated, she just had bought me, I remember all, I was such a reader as a child and she just bought me all of these books. And I remember just soaking them up and reading them like ferociously, just like reading, reading, reading. And I'd read them over and over again, just getting ready for what it was going to look

like. And I felt so excited about it. Like it really felt like a transition. And when it finally happened, it just felt celebratory and, and like a space of, she did talk about how this was a really important part of our being and how it was a really important aspect of our power and how when women are menstruating, we are seen as holding that power in ceremony. So, you know, we can't touch sacred items. We shouldn't be doing ceremony. We need to be resting. And I think that just hearing that it just planted the seed that I carried throughout my life, which I feel so grateful for. And I don't know anything different. So I'm not sure how, how I know the, the sort of collective experience of how that really

wasn't how all women experience or young girls experience this. But my experience was very positive. And I think she just framed it as like power, this power, this is your power. So I always felt like it was a very powerful time. Do you remember what happened when you first saw your blood when you had your first period? Yes, I think I remember feeling excited. I think I remember being in the bathroom and oh my goodness, it's happened, right? Because I'd read Are You There, God Is Me, Margaret, probably like 50 times. I thought, oh my goodness, it's happened, right? I love Judy Blume so much. And I just thought that was just a really exciting thing. And I remember we had everything ready. So it was just like, oh, this is what I do. And this is, you know, this is how I take care of myself during this time. And

the part that, you know, always feels a little bit, I think the part that was maybe missing was, yes, it's a powerful time. But then of course, due to life, our lifestyle, we just had to keep going. So those teachings of it's actually a time for rest to an introspection. And I think that colonial patriarchal capitalistic energy was just so infused in our bones and our DNA. So I've been unwinding that ever since. I've got several questions that I want to ask you about that unwinding process that we'll get to later in a recent interview I was very moved to hear about your mum and it sounds like she didn't only show you the power of of menstruation in the cycle but also you talk you talked about how she really honored your

sensitive nature and she she would ask you what you dreamed about when you woke up and yeah what was it like to be to be held in that way by your mother it was so beautiful it it has helped me become the person I am today I think who honors who honors her sensitivity. I mean, of course, the world's always like, you're too sensitive. But there was this part of me that always could come back to myself knowing it was a gift. So I think I knew that my sensitivity also had that gift of being a seer, that gift of being something, somebody that just knew things about people and situations and that knew that dream time was a portal to understanding, a portal

to the spirit world. I think her holding my sensitive nature and not trying to make it wrong or ever shame it has just rooted something in me that you belong here as you are. You are enough and there's nothing you need to change. And I think, you know, society obviously gives you different messages, but her steady understanding of me, I think has created something that it just feels like such a blessing because I really do feel like I know who I am and I'm not letting go of those pieces and parts, no matter how much the world tells me they're wrong or how much they're trying, they try to take it away from me. That's so profound. There's a sentence in your book that I find so beautiful. You wrote, you're talking about the menstrual cycle and you wrote, you are earth. The rhythm of your ancestors moves through your sacred pulse and with every season and cycle connected to both soil and the

stars your wisdom is innate you spoke about the the power that your mother you know initiated you into in the way that she welcomed menstruation and you speak about the medicine but I'd love to hear how you see the connection between to hear how you see the connection between if and how you see the connection between your menstrual cycle and your medicine or how your medicine can express itself. Oh, goodness, that's so powerful. I feel like I've always been connected to the power of my womb space. I remember doing some work with some Peruvian medicine people who really did a lot of womb medicine work. And it wasn't something that was named for me necessarily until I did that work with them. And then I realized, oh my goodness,

yes, that part of me is very alive. That part of me feels very loved by me, or there was just a lot of energy that was there that I just felt like it was already there. It's not missing. So that felt really important to me. And I, yeah, I feel, how is it? I just feel very connected. I think I was in shock. I remember being in shock in my early twenties when my friends in university would say, I don't know why I ovulate. I have no idea of those signs. Or even when I'd get older and people would be like, we were to be trying to get pregnant and everybody'd be like, well, I have no idea when I could be pregnant. And that sort of shocked me because I thought, well, didn't you read those books when you were 11, you know, like I did. So I think that knowing of my body, it was such a gift because I could feel how the waters of my womb, the waters of my body were being pulled by the cycles of the moon.

And I was always in awe. It always just like this awe-inspiring, beautiful light in the sky that I would always look up to when I could feel it. I think everything is a very feeling experience for me where my body is always just being pulled by by nature pulled by the land it sort of just came in with me somehow I feel I love that pulled by the land I'm also really struck by how in the place of where there's often a lot of shame for people around monarchy around the first period you had celebration and you know I'm a total geek too I love reading like so you've got to fill yourself with this positive information guided by your mum that connection that we can have wasn't broken these days with the not mentally

positive culture that we tend to live in shame lands in there very quickly and it's tough to move that shame out of the way to access the gold and the power and the in shame lands in there very quickly and it's tough to move that shame out of the way to access the gold and the power and the medicine that's in there oh yes I think shame is so pervasive and I do see how how hard it is and even I even look around sort of to to people who have children the same age I have two boys boys, so it's going to be a little bit different. But we talk, we have this, every year I do this drive for period products for our Northern communities that don't have access that they often cost three to four times as much. So often people who menstruate go to school without any, any products. And often they don't go to school because they don't have access. So every year my boys are like, Oh, is it, is it time again for the tampons and pads to be in our,

in our front hall? And they'll like help me pack them and help me organize them. And we talk a lot about what this time, you know, my eldest is 10. So we talk about, you know, this could be happening to people in your class and, you know, this is just what to be aware of. And so I can see how it passes down through the generations too, right? Like when you, when you see this as a source of power, I think that if we can choose that and see how shame has infused into our, our knowing and start to unwind that, then you could start creating this new way for your children and their children. Even if you have boys, I think there's a beautiful opportunity there.

Absolutely. Yeah. Cause those boys are going to be around girls and other little ones who are menstruating. So yeah, my, so my boys too, and he, you know, you can't go to the toilet by yourself. Can you at this age? So I was there changing my pad the other day and and he saw this blood on my pad and I said to him yeah that's mummy's blood it's good it's healthy and he was like oh and so I could see how yeah for all children just being able to see and know and learn is is going to change things for the next generations I know I have hope it's it's so beautiful yeah I have hope too so you've pointed to how perhaps there were ceremonies missing due to colonization that your mum wasn't in touch with and wasn't able to share with you and in the book you to, and you mentioned earlier, the ancestral trauma that you could feel coming up in you as you're putting this beautiful book out in the world.

And I'd really love to take some time to talk about cultural appropriation and respect and how myself as a white woman and our listeners who are white can be respectful when it comes to this work so there's a section of your book dear white woman who wants to be like me that went viral in 2019 and I'm going to link to that in the show notes so that anyone who's listening who is white and wants to listen can can can read that and learn but I just love to ask how we as white people can be respectful when it comes to your teachings and your work. Yeah, so I put, I put that letter in there, almost as a boundary, like if you're going to, if you're going to sort of consume our teachings or be in relationship with our teachings, then you need to read this first. So that was really important to me. And who knows how many people read that and then put the, threw the book in the garbage or burned it or something. I don't know, but I just, it was like such an important thing for me to

write because it just felt like this is the reality as an Indigenous woman that I face and Indigenous people across, I'm in so-called Canada, across Turtle Island. So if you are going to use these teachings, and the hard part was, was I've had my business for almost 20 years. And it's been a very slow grow, which, you know, I'm grateful for. And I would see all these white women, like, using our teachings for, for profit. And I was thinking, how are they advancing so fast? And I'm still here, just, you know, sitting here doing my little turtley walk, you know, and, and there's value to that too. But I started to think, what is wrong? There's something out of balance here. And it would make me shake thinking, this isn't fair. Like you're literally stripping things from

our culture and you're using them for your own gain and your own profit, and you're not even acknowledging where you're taking them from. So I think that is the first thing is acknowledging where you're taking them from and then acknowledging the people. So it's not even saying this is my teacher. It's like, this is the people, and this is historically and currently what they are experiencing as a result of attempted genocide, colonization, harm, incredible harm that continues to this day, right? Because I think we can think of it in the past, like, oh, that all happened, get over it. The harm that happened in the past has filtered through our DNA and our families. And so, of course, there's so much disruption to our families.

And then, of course, there's so much disruption to our families. And, and then of course, there's so much more harm that continues the generations forward because of all of the harm from the past. So it's still happening. So if you can acknowledge the history, and you can't, you can't sit with the truth of that, then you shouldn't really be using sage to smudge, you know, and just because then you're just taking a piece and a part. And you're really harming people in that way. So I that's I'm speak for one indigenous voice. And I think if you can hold the history, and if you can come together and co creation with us in reciprocity with us and say, you know, this is speak up, this is what happens, this is who I'm standing for. Yes, I'm using this beautiful medicine, this plant medicine. I'm so grateful

for the land and the earth. And I'm also grateful for the people I'm holding the truth. Then I think that's an opening for you. And you actually understand that, that relationship with humanity and with creation. Thank you for sharing so generously on your social platform as well. You're doing a lot of really powerful educational work. Another thing that you, I heard you point towards in one of the interviews I listened to with you this morning was how each of us can get to know our land and our ancestors. And that's an important part of this, of this work too. Yes. And the resistance that I've seen, I mean, it's better now I'd say something opened since 2019 or 2020, I think when there was sort of this disruption, a much needed disruption that happened. So I do think there's an opening now, but for a long time, folks would say like,

I don't know who my ancestors are. I don't even like my ancestors. They're just like, they're mean or they're, and they just weren't as, they weren't as like, I don't know, seductive or something, right? Like I think people have this view of Indigenous people and they see people very, in this very romanticized view. So then that just looks like, oh, this is exciting. I'm going to just going to like take little bits of this. And what they don't understand or remember is I think if you're drawn to ceremony, ritual, connection to land, it's in your blood too, somewhere in your ancestry. It's just that Indigenous people have kept that connection

going despite all of the methods trying to take that away from us. We have been a resilient people, remaining connected to those teachings. So I think it's in a lot of white folks' blood. And I think that it just takes a bit of research, which people don't want to do. They want you to tell them, oh, this is your ancestor. This was the ritual. But it just takes a bit of research. And I think like connecting to your lands. And if you don't have access to that, that's why I'm, I'm always here to say like your spirit knows you can journey, you can dream, you can rest and sit with the land, all of these things that we've all been colonized out of, because that's not the valid way to gain information. Those things are

accessible to you. They're accessible to all of us. So how can you sit in quiet with the land and listen? How can you maybe listen to somebody facilitating a journey and see what rises for you? I think the memories, that's why I say you are the medicine, because you have those memories within your bones. And so that's why I think this is available to everyone. Even if you don't know even if you are

cut off from any storytelling anybody passing anything down to you it's within you and I think it's very important work that's so empowering is this part of the work you do in in your containers that you hold like I know you have a container called sacred is that part of the guidance you bring there yeah I don't have that any longer but I um I had a membership for almost three years and that was a lot of the work that we were doing reconnecting to um your remembering so it was whether it's your ancestry or it's the remembering of who you are and your creation story and why you're here you're becoming all of those things I think just to help us walk kind of present and walk rooted in our medicine I think if we all did that I think the world would be a different place today so that was a lot of the work that I was

doing there yeah you spoke in a very movingly then about the impact of colonization moving forward into the generations that are alive now and in the book you talk about how you know that your lupus diagnosis when you were 17 really is connected to moving your ancestors pain and trauma through your body so this is one way that we're seeing the impact now. How have you, how do you understand that part of your story as it relates to your medicine and how you're expressing and living your medicine? I think when I was diagnosed with lupus, it did crack something open. I was 17, you know, I was ending high school and there were, I was in a fairly abusive relationship at the time. So I was already pretty cracked open.

And I think that obviously activated all of that trauma that was kind of waiting to be kind of expressed. But I, it cracked me open and put me on this path. It was like this because I tried to go into the medical system and they gave me steroids and they gave me antimalarials and they made me so sick. So it was sort of like my body's like, no, this is not your way. Like my bones were screaming. No, this, this is not your way. Your ancestors had ways of healing from the earth and the land that can support you. But I didn't really know that because my grandparents were in residential schools because they were converted to Catholicism

because religion and the medical system were very important to them. And then of course that trickles down. So I didn't have a lot of access to that being at the forefront. But then when I got sick, I had to find a way. There had to be different ways. So then I went on my own excavation almost of like, how can I heal myself? And it just, it's continued ever since of just finding these different people who are these beautiful mirrors for me to activate what I've known inside or just the remembering that's meaning to come forward for my body, for my spirit. And it's been joyful. Like it's been hard to live in this physical body with all this pain, but the journey has been joyful and meaningful. And I wouldn't

change that because I've learned so much about myself. I think I've also come in as a human that really loves self-reflection and introspection. And so it seems to be part of my soul path too, to uncover this. And lupus was, I just see lupus as this like gateway to understanding myself more deeply and having a relationship with my body. Yeah. Wow. I had and still have chronic pain that was never diagnosed I don't know what it

what it was it flares up now when I'm not in connection with my body in the way that you're speaking about and it was it was a similar journey for me it's like my body was saying come here this is where this is where it's at, come to me. And I was looking out, looking out for the approval of the patriarchy for this certificate and that thing and that, you know, approval and my body's finally said, well, I'm going to make you come to me. And it was through pain. But similarly, that pain has, well, it brought me to my menstrual cycle because my flare-ups would come in the premenstruum in the luteal phase as you described at the beginning massive irritability to the point of rage and yeah it brought me to my menstrual cycle and I feel that it has been

calling me to myself and my medicine not that I would wish that pain on anybody but it is a powerful path that many especially sensitive people seem to seem to walk yes it really it really is and I think more and more we're being invited to to just listen like it just feels like a bit of a listening but you're right we've been so conditioned to nod. There's always those external voices pulling us from that. So every day I have to really sit with that, like that external validation, especially with the social media being here. Right. And just always like measuring ourselves against some invisible. I don't even know what that is metric. That's always like pulling us out of ourselves. So I think even even more than ever it can be a challenge to come back home if you are loving hearing from Asha and you're interested in getting her book you can find it at you are the medicine book.com and when you buy the book there from Ash's website you actually get a

free 13 moon ceremony guide so you can find that at youarethemedicinebook.com and I'll leave a link to that in the episode show notes as well and if this is stoking your desire to understand the connection between your menstrual cycle and your calling we want to invite you to explore our 2023 menstruality leadership program we're going to be opening the doors for registration soon and you can find out all about it at menstrualityleadership.com okay let's get back to this gorgeous conversation with Asha do you especially notice it in the premenstrual phase in that week before like do you notice that these things are all amplified and how do you tend to yourself with that yes I was saying this the other day like I cannot I don't know if it's my personality, but I cannot push past what my body is telling me like cycle wise. So when in my luteal phase or right, like right before I bleed, I'm always really anxious

and I'm always thinking I'm not doing enough. So what comes forward for me is that like capitalistic, you're not doing enough. My inner hustler is like, but I just, I can't push, just push past it. So I will probably take a week off of social media posting anything because I've got nothing I've got nothing to share it's like I just go into this place of like frozen like just nothing so there's still that voice that feels bad about it like I I still can notice that like well everybody else is able to post every day Asha why can't, everybody else seems to be consistent.

Why can't you, but I, I think listening to my cycles for so long, it's like, there's just nothing. The algorithm cannot pull me from my, from my inner cycle. Right. It's just, that's just the way it is. And, but I'm still making friends with that, or I'm still trying to be okay with that, especially in this world of the algorithm, I think, because there's still that part that I feel shame about. Well, why can't I and why does everybody else seem to be able to? Yeah. So I'm working on it.

Oh, me too. I'm working on it by your side. I host a program called your cyclical business so we have a community of people and together we're day by day just figuring out okay how do we live as cyclical beings in this linear world where we have businesses that do require tending but we have bodies also require tending and how do we hold that balance so I'm right there with you in that exploration that's so powerful I love that you do that it feels like such important medicine in the world thank you there was one more question I wanted to ask about this ancestral pain that's moving through if it's okay because I heard you

say that you decided to stop letting this move through your body something shifted in you and I just wanted to ask you I was curious about what the implications have been for that and how how your body is feeling since you made that decision yes so I remember um there's flashes of things I remember my grandfather who gifted me my spirit name he had really bad rheumatoid arthritis and that is how lupus has expressed itself in my body at times with just kind of bone achingly, like my bones have felt broken. I haven't been able to walk or put my socks on. And there's just been some flare ups that have been really painful, but there's one in particular, he was having a really bad flare up and I was having really bad shoulder pain and

elbow pain, which was new for me. And my mother told me a couple of days later, Oh my goodness, your grandfather cannot sleep. He's crying out in pain at night because his shoulder and his elbow are in so much pain. He can't even function. And I thought, why am I picking that up from him at night? Like, it just felt so like, Oh my goodness, there's something, there's like an opening there and a portal there that is coming through his ancestral pain is coming through me. And that happened a few times with other situations. And it started just, oh my goodness, you know, I'm moving some of this pain that they're not expressing through my physical body. Do I want to take that responsibility on? And there came to a point where I just, I just decided to set a boundary. He's passed since

past. So I felt like now that he's in the spirit world he can he can kind of cleanse and take some of that and move that in the spirit world and I don't have to carry that burden so I can say I have not had joint pain in years I think since I was pregnant with my second in that way I can say that I feel there's still a lot of fatigue that happens. But I think I just feel like some of that burden of the really intense moments have not happened in that way anymore. So the flare ups have shifted a little bit, but that part in particular, that broken pain, that's gone. I'm so, so happy to hear that for you that's wonderful so the word medicine is in your the title of your book the how we can each access our own medicine

and in this conversation you said the medic our medicines in our bones and through your book you guide through the 13 Ojibwe moons as a pathway to accessing this medicine could you share how these 13 moons are reflected in in the turtle shell because that was so magical to hear yeah so that is really where the teachings come from you know on the turtle shell there's 13 markings in the middle and on the outside, the days of the month are on the outside. So it's a calendar. It's actually a calendar that we would have used and maybe other traditions would have used or other societies would have used where you would count till the next moon cycle. And it was just like, say you put a rock and say, oh, there's like the next moon or the next Sunday. And then you'd, you'd move it around and then you go to the next month. So it is really a calendar. And the most beautiful thing I think is like imagining the

turtle on the earth with its shell kind of like facing the moon and the moonlight, like shining down upon the turtle, just saying like, we are interconnected. We are reflective of one another. That just shows that connectedness of all of creation to me so beautifully we cannot be individualistic like we we live in harmony and community and relationship with one another and I think the turtle and the moon just show us that with proof undeniable evidence that we are absolutely interconnected because this myth of separation that we are somehow little separate units that aren't completely dependent on everything around us it's amazing how we've had the wool pulled over our eyes how I I'll speak for myself how I've had the wool pulled over my eyes to even think that

could ever be there could ever be any reality in that there's no truth in that we're absolutely and the turtles the turtle shows us yes they do I love that so the book connects well there's a different animal connected to each of the moons and in the book you share the different powers or the invitations and the way that the animals can guide us and it's so practical this is one of the things I love about the book you know you really get practical with how the steps we can take to be able to access more of our medicine and express more of our medicine and there were two animals that really struck me because I feel quite a strong connection to the to the cycles with them and the first one is bear bear medicine which you described is that the medicine of rest and integration

could you share a little bit about about bear medicine first yeah so bear medicine as we know bear we know we ask ourselves when we're connecting to an animal spirit, what do we know about this animal? Oh, we know that bear hibernates. We know that bear rests for a season. And really that's inviting us into that rest. So bear medicine as a teacher asks us, can we really sink into that rest? It holds a direction on our medicine wheel in the winter.

And it asks us, you know, even can we set sacred boundaries? Can we connect to our sacred? No. Can we have this beautiful space where we're filled up with our, our energy and our fullness and not listening to that pull of colonialism or capitalism, you know, there's really like firm and saying, no, no, no, stand your ground. You deserve to rest. And it can be one of the hardest cycles, I think for us to listen to because our bodies are always speaking to us in this way. So Bayer invites us into that and rest is medicine. And it's something that we've not been taught. I don't think, at least I wasn't taught that. So it's really that we've not been taught I don't think um at

least I wasn't taught that so it's really one of those things to help with unwinding absolutely have you come across the work of Trisha at the nap ministry yes oh I just I've just in the last few months discovered this work around napping resting as an act against as a decolonizing act as an act of dismantling these systems of oppression and yeah her work really moves me I'd love to hear what it looks like for you on a day in kind of day-to-day way say you can feel that your bleed is coming and the world is asking everything it's asking of you you know your sons need this your family needs this your business is asking this how do you call on their medicine or work with their medicine to support you to get the sacred rest that you need

that menstruation I think that for me it's like bedtime. Like it's just like I like 830, my littlest goes to bed at 830. And it's just like, well, I'm going to climb into bed with you. And that's kind of a non-negotiable because sleep is so important for me. Also my dream time is so important to me. I just find that so much information comes during that time. So I feel delighted to go to sleep early. And especially during that time, I'll just notice, you know, I have fought naps for a long time only because I don't, I feel like I won't wake up. Like there's this, like, there was this wound that like, I might not wake up.

I'll just go to sleep forever. And then of course I have to get my kids from school. So that time of day is always hard for me. That's my like their medicine time. 2 PM is the time that just, I just feel like, oh my goodness, I could sleep for probably two hours, but life is really not, doesn't allow me to do that at this time. So I've been practicing taking a little, maybe 30 seconds to a minute. Like when I feel like I'm so tired, I just have to listen to my body and I'll just like, okay, body. And I'll just kind of flop down and just say, I'm hearing you. And I noticed

that so good for my adrenals because I can feel otherwise if I'm pushing through, um, that's just riling them up and it's not great for my balance. So I'll take a little mini lie downs when at that time and really asking for what I need. So I really needed somebody else to take care of my little one at two. He gets off school at two 30. And I thought I did this for like, since the pandemic, you know, I got him at two 30 and then I'm like, I can't do this anymore. I'm just too tired at the time. So now I put him in aftercare and it was like, I feel like my life has changed. So just little shifts of like, I need this, you know, I need this. And my nervous system is way too overwhelmed to have my boys like to argue and wrestle when they come home. It was just too much of my bare medicine time. My bare medicine time needed just like

calm. So, but it took me a while to be honest, to actually like voice that need. So I'm still practicing this every day, but during that time before I bleed, I definitely go to sleep as early as I can. That's such a good, such a good trick. Is there anything else that you tend to do when you bleed to hold yourself and hold that sacred time? I think that I'm just really mindful of how open I am. I realize how tender I feel during that time, how introspective I am. So I need to go for my daily walk. I mean, that's sort of a non-negotiable every day, but that's a really special time for me to just clear out all of the noise and really have that really, that tender time and just acknowledging, oh my goodness, I feel tender right now.

So if things are coming in, not to shame myself and say, why are you being overly sensitive about that? Or, you know, it's just a very cracked open wide time for me so I think that non-shaming piece is just everything it's it's my voice has my inner voice has changed around that time that's really beautiful I've been like ever since my son was born and I got my cycle back which is probably like 14 months after he was born I'm still in this negotiation of how do I do this? How do I find space and time to bleed? You know, I, I was trying to get pregnant for a long time for four years before he arrived. And I had lots of time to bleed. You know, I would have a whole day and I was grieving each bleed. So I really needed, I needed that space space and time I'd have a whole day off I'd just take

the day off like there's no taking the day off now for me blessedly yeah so what I'm learning to do is take micro moments of rest and thread them together throughout the day or throughout the first few days of my bleed so that there's this momentum of rest even if there aren't you know like you said the two-hour nap that would be really nice. I love what you said about leaning back. What did you say? You said like, you just take 30 seconds to lean back and say like, body, I'm with you. I can't quite remember what you said. Yeah. I mean, sometimes I'll just honestly like go on the couch, flop on the couch for a little bit and just be like, okay, I hear your desire for me to get down. Like really it's because that's what I feel. It's like this, it's like this, this, like the earth is calling me down

so that I have to actually get lower. It's like get lower. And that, that tends to just all of a sudden I'm not resisting it anymore. So it doesn't feel like that push, you know, it just feels like, oh, you're getting down. Okay. Thank you listening to me and then I can do what I need to do next yes oh that's gorgeous you mentioned your dreams do you notice a difference in your dreams when you're bleeding is there a different quality to them yeah they're wild I feel like they're wild when I'm bleeding um like the other night I had a dream of two mini crocodiles biting my fingers, but there was just like little, like, uh, they weren't painful. It was just, I just have these really wild, interesting dreams during my bleed, but I tend to dream five times a night. Like there's just,

it's always, I'm cycling. I don't know how much deep rest I get actually. Um, and I noticed I travel a lot. So I find it fascinating that a lot of people come into my spaces and say, I had a dream about you last night. And, or you gave me a remedy, you know, cause I'm a, I've been a homeopath for a long time, or I'll get information for people on what remedy they need during my dream time. So I do think that I travel around quite a bit too, during my, during my bleed um because that tends to be the time that people say oh my gosh you came to me in a dream last night so I think that's kind of fascinating interesting there's a lot there's a lot you're busy at night

would you be willing Asha to read the bear invocation? Love to. So this is the bear medicine invocation. Dearest bear, I invite you to help me fine tune my body's awareness when I need rest. Remind me that it's safe for me to do so. May I remember that miracles come from sinking into the void. I'm grateful for the bear grease you offer to lubricate my essence. When I need reminders, please surround me with your warm fur,

helping me to feel worthy of taking the time I need for myself. I commit to listening to my natural seasons and cycles and trust in my body's knowing and the great mystery. Thank you. That feels like a really powerful invocation for bleed time. Yeah, it does. And it's, that's the other part opening up. I think like I wrote this in my book about the great mystery, the great mystery can't touch us when we're just busy and hustling and just moving through the great mystery touches us through that rest time because it's there's an opening so I think it's so mindful to be just to be aware of the portal that opens up when we rest yes oh that's so true often when I'm trying to explain to people what I do they just have like

either blank faces or sometimes disgust because there is so much shame around the menstrual cycle and around menopause and and sometimes it gets me even questioning oh like why am I doing this there's plenty of people having menstrual cycles and they're not having these profound experiences of like living their calling through their cycle but then as you just said I remember our culture is keeping us moving so fast that we can't stop and let the mystery of the power of the cycle the mystery of life in so we so we don't know we don't know what we're missing we don't know so true I mean in my opinion your work is the most connected to miraculous mystery and miracles I don't just it just feels that feels so but that's just the realm I'm in but I just love it I understand that not everybody's there but I am just so lit up by that I think it's just fabulous medicine thank you and thank you bear and the the second medicine that struck me was the medicine of deer and particularly how you described how deer medicine or deer as a guide can help us to

meet our inner critic and there's some really good practical pieces in here in this chapter I think it's chapter four um so one of the things I know and that pretty much everyone in our community sees is that inner critic is very very loud in the premenstrual part of the cycle often it pops up in other phases too but there's a theme that it's and some people have a really beautiful inner autumn as we call it or premenstruum where they really feel like they're in themselves and they feel connected but um a lot of people experience the inner critic and in the dear medicine explanation you shared this one piece of guidance which really struck me which is when you hear the voice of your inner critic you can can ask yourself, whose voice is this? And you share this. Yeah,

please go. Well, that's just such a, it's a practice that I need to practice all the time. And you're right. I love that wisdom you share, because that's when my inner critic is the loudest for sure, when everything's just rising and I'm questioning and doubting myself. And oftentimes when I ask that question, it feels like, well, for a long time, it's felt like residential school trauma. So it's felt like a nun or a priest saying like, you're wrong, you're bad, like you're broken, all of these things. And then there's that sort of, I guess, voice of the collective or the patriarchy that that can also be speaking. Sometimes

family members too, but it's often not the pure connected voice of our soul or our spirit. That's not how we would talk to ourselves. Our higher selves wouldn't speak to ourselves that way. So it gives us some distance to be like, is this mine? Is this really? And if you can see the voice out here, you can be like oh right and then just flood yourself with compassion and maybe just cut a cord or just send it to the land or send it to the stars because it doesn't belong in your energy field you told a story of the teacher and the apple could you tell that story. I imagine everyone's got a version of this. Yeah. So I was in grade two and I was really, how old is grade two? So grade two would be

seven, seven. Yeah. So I was a very sensitive child and I always wanted to do right and behave and follow all instructions. And we had the supply teacher. So somebody was taking over for my teacher and it was a male teacher. He was very tall and he had a booming voice. And I ate my lunch and he had said like, put your hand up before you, before you walk or before you throw anything in the garbage. And I just forgot because we were allowed to just like take our apple core and put it in the garbage. That's what we did. So I just did what I was used to doing. And he yelled at me and he said, you need to sit down. You never asked for permission to stand up. And he just yelled at me and I felt so shaken. I got, I'm in trouble. I did something wrong.

I made a mistake. Like all of these things kind of came up in me and it was traumatizing. And that's why, you know, we talk about these traumas, like that has stayed with me ever since that voice, that intensity of the voice, the tone of voice, which I can be really sensitive to. So that has stayed with me ever since. And I can still feel a little bit of that. Like what happens if I'm around that type of energy now, my heart feels like I can feel my heart beating faster.

So I do think we all have, all have stories like this of something that happened as a child that we carry through. So he might be a voice, you know, like you made a mistake, you messed up, you got to be perfect. Make sure you don't wrestle anything or do something that do something wrong. These things can go so deep, which is why we need enormous amount of compassion and space for for self-love I feel like what you're pointing to there too is so helpful for anyone who is highly sensitive which I really experience myself that way and I know so many

people in our community too often people who are called to explore their cycles are very sensitive people because they're sent they can hear and feel the rhythms inside in a way that many others can't and I think it's just important to remember that traumatizing experiences can be seemingly small especially if you're a very sensitive person so just for anyone listening who has those voices inside that may have come from small, but still traumatizing moments in childhood and that little piece of exploration inside around whose voice is this that I'm hearing in my head, in my premenstruum feels like really important practice. Yeah, it really does. Yeah. And I think that sometimes we can

not validate ourselves. Like, I think it's so important to just be like that happened. And that was big. If I had somebody telling me, I probably didn't even tell my mom because I was so ashamed. But you know, if I had somebody holding space at the time to say, that's must have been really painful. I'm so sorry that happened. I can imagine the pain that caused. I think that that would have just helped to resolve a little bit of it. Yes. Yeah. That's what I'm trying to do with my little one now. When he's having his big emotions that she's really starting to have, it's like, yeah, you feel really upset right now. Just trying to affirm that back to him, which is hard. um I had a couple more questions around this yeah the gentleness of the dear medicine and I wanted to ask you since you have had to take care of your nervous system

so much because of the lupus and because of your sensitivity and because of the ancestral trauma what do you do to take care of your nervous system I'm thinking of especially maybe as you come out of your bleed which can be a particularly tender time when we can the energy can rise and we can sort of start to rush ahead of ourselves what practices do you do what supports your nervous system to stay regulated walking outside is so helpful for me I'm also like in human design I'm a projector so I'm really um really conscious of having alone time which is really hard with two young children um but I just know that's a really important uh salt bath it's really important every single day especially if I'm doing ceremony or speaking engagements, I just feel like I need to

have cleansing. I have smoke medicine, sage lit a lot. I listened to soft music, soft music and candles. Like it's so interesting because my boys will probably grow up and be like my mummy just, she even wipes so many candles in her home. But it's so important for me. And then I do do like nervous system practices of shaking and breathe like breath work things and just like small little things. I don't necessarily have like a 30 minute practice every day. It's just when I notice that I'm feeling flooded by something, then I will do a shaking for 30 seconds. I'll do a quick breathing exercise for a couple seconds. Just it's like little moments throughout the day and but you know what the first step has been noticing noticing instead of just pushing it down and saying that doesn't matter that you're overwhelmed that doesn't matter that that comment from social media felt like a knife in your heart like I used to just dismiss myself and shame myself and now I'm like no out like noticing that hurt what am I going to do with that now yes I'm nodding because I I really really relate and yeah the more I say so if you're overwhelmed right now and just take a breath

the more I notice my system settling but it I I just wonder if it's going to be a lifelong practice for me um you know yeah if I'm lucky I'm halfway through I'm I've just passed 40 and I just like wow I feel like I'm just at the beginning of learning how to soothe my nervous system. Would you be willing to read the Dear invocation to within. Help me to see that I am infinitely worthy of divine love and care. Remind me of my perfection when all I see are imperfections. Surround me with unconditional love. Help me to offer my physical body

gentleness and kindness when shame arises. Root me back into my worth when I feel doubt. I am grateful for your beauty, grace, and love. Asha, if people would like to connect with you, to work with you, what's the best way? Yeah. So my Instagram is usually where I put my offerings out. I don't have help from my website, so I don't often have things updated there, but Instagram is always the place I have things updated. And that's ashajotfrost.

And you can go over to my website to find my list over there and just different offerings that I have right now on the go. But I'd love to connect with you and community in some way. Thank you. Do you have anything coming up

that people could be looking to join? Right now I'm running a mentorship group that's currently halfway through. So I might be running another one in the spring. But my Oracle deck's coming out in February. So if you have loved my book and you love this interview, then it's called the Sacred Medicine Oracle. And it's going, it's so gorgeous. It's just the artwork is so gorgeous. So I hope that if my medicine speaks to you, that you pick up a deck because it's got all of it infused in every card. Wonderful.

I will link to all of those different pieces to the Instagram, to the book, to your website in the show notes if people want to access them. Amazing. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, it's been a delight. Is there a final word you'd like to say for anyone listening who is perhaps feeling more at home in themselves after hearing you speak and wants to be with the medicine that they are? I always get this in images. So I just feel like coming back home to yourself,

maybe place your hand on your heart and feel the bottoms of your feet connected, feel the land beneath you and feel the heartbeat of mother earth. That's always there settling you and nourishing you. And as you plant your roots down, just feel that unconditional love rising up to know that you're always held by her you're always held by her and you are the medicine you have this vital pulse that's within you always I see you and I offer you love oh i want to thank asha for that beautiful prayer at the end of our conversation there and i've really been left with the words from asha's book where she says you are earth the rhythm of your ancestors moves through your sacred pulse and with every season and cycle connected to both soil and the stars your wisdom is innate ah so if you loved hearing from Asha you can find her book

you are the medicine at you are the medicine book.com and as I mentioned in the middle of the conversation if this has intrigued you about how you could explore and live and express your calling your medicine through cycle awareness then come on over to menstrualityleadership.com and see if our menstruality leadership program could be a good next step for you all right right, that's it for today. Thank you for being with us. Thank you for being part of the community, listening to this podcast and leading the menstrual and menopause revolution. I look forward to being with you next time. And until then, keep living life according to your own brilliant rhythm.