The Menstruality Podcast - 71. How the Inner Winter - Menstruation - Awakens Feminine Leadership (Sjanie & Alexandra)

Episode Date: January 26, 2023

Sjanie’s period came very early last month. She suddenly found herself bleeding on day 12 and the experience was akin to a zen meditation master slapping their student on the back when they’ve momentarily gone unconscious.She was reminded that there is a wild intelligence within her that was outside of her control, and was invited to dance with the mystery and yield to something bigger.This is one way that the menstrual cycle offers us a way into a radical kind of leadership. The reality that we don’t control it reminds us that we belong to something greater. If we can receive this belonging, our bleed can fill us with goodness, love, and rightness - a source of great power. That’s why giving time to yourself at menstruation is positively dangerous! It will change your consciousness. It will awaken you to what life wants from you…In this episode, we explore:How we understand the term Feminine Leadership, and how the menstrual cycle leads us to it. The specific leadership powers that awaken at menstruation, including clarity about our purpose, an embodied experience of love and belonging, as well as expanded states of consciousness.A key next step for you, if you want to activate more of the power of menstruation in your life. Earlybird registration is now open for our 2023 Menstruality Leadership Programme - you can apply 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.school

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 podcast. Thank you so much for listening today. So Sharni's period came very early last month. She suddenly found herself bleeding on day 12 and she said the experience was

like a Zen meditation master slapping their student on the back when they've momentarily gone unconscious. She said she was reminded that there is this wild intelligence within her that's actually totally outside of her control and I share this story because this is one way that menstruation invites us into a radical kind of leadership. The reality that we don't control it reminds us that we're actually part of something that's much bigger than us. And in today's conversation with Alexander and Sharni, we look at how in a winter, menstruation can be a gateway to leadership why giving time to yourself at menstruation is positively dangerous because it has this capacity to change our consciousness and awaken us to what life wants from us if you've experienced or sensed the power of your bleed and you want to see how

you can more deeply activate it in your life and your world then we really warmly welcome you to explore our menstruality leadership program. Early bird registration is now open for this year and the special early bird price is available until January the 31st but I'll tell you more about it in the middle of the episode today and for now let's dive into Inner Winter with Sharni and Alexandra. Well, I must say I'm in a great place to have this conversation because I'm on day three and I'm so in what you always call the mother hug, Sharni. I'm really feeling the goodness of life.

I'm really feeling that there's lots of possibility because my life's been a bit of a shit show lately. And I'm loving this. I'm drinking it all up and I can't wait for this conversation. Sophie, I'm so glad you are where you are because it's an oasis, isn't it? Yeah. A well to drink from. And I just, I think of everything you do, how much you give, how passionate you are, how committed you are.

You are such a big hearted, generous human that's doing amazing things in the world and how I love knowing that you are getting filled up and that you are feeling the sort of echoes and reverberations of all that goodness in you I'm so so happy thank you you know I don't think my husband would they wouldn't wouldn't be the words that he would use to describe me lately but because of this oasis I've actually got a bit of love left for him as well so yeah so I'm um I'm in the upswing of the cycle day nine and I'm feeling if I had to pick one word I would just say body I'm feeling my body and it's so good like I have this lovely rich contact with my physicality you know my capacity for interoception is really good I can feel the muscles and sinews and bones there's this very sort of refined articulation that I'm inside of and um oh it's such a good feeling because along with that connection that I'm in with my body it

generates so much pleasure in my being and it's a different kind of oasis to the one you're in, but it is an oasis, Sophie. It feels like I'm being lavished in my own sensuality. It's so nice. Interoception, that's a great word. Interoception, yeah. It means that you can perceive the physical sensations of your body. And it's really interesting because there's been so much research done on this and how that capacity awakens you to greater empathy and connection with others and how it amplifies. And intuition.

Intuition. Yeah. So this very kind of embodied somatic awareness is hugely generative. How about you, Alexandra? Gosh, I feel in a very expansive place. So I'm slipping slowly towards the dark of the moon, which I'm guessing is Friday or Saturday or you know somewhere around there but we're in the last gasps and

I do tend to go into quite an expansive place at that time a bit like how it used to be when I bled and I'm feeling so I'm very much holding the big picture of what we're doing at Red School, the work, the work we're doing,

the impetus behind everything. I feel like I'm swimming in that space space that i want to use the word consciousness really that the consciousness that we're serving i suppose at red school and i feel like i'm inside that and sort of caring for that tending is probably the better word doesn't need caring for i'm sort of tending to it or sort of being present to it. Because if I don't, that's the other thing I notice, is if I don't, then I can get easily battered by all the kind of day-to-day shit, for want of a better word.

You know, the stuff. The stuff. The stuff. The stuff. The stuff, the stuff. The stuff. The stuff of running a business. And this, it's just so restorative. So it's a bit like you with menstruation. You're dropping down into that deep well where we're plugged

into something bigger, hey, and that's kind of restoring something so that we can go out and deal with the stuff of the world because there is a lot of stuff happening in the world and in our businesses that we have to tend to so um you know i'm just swimming in that i it's a very beautiful day today here it's very frosty and our fields have all been under mud water and just endless sea of mud and it's all dried up over the yesterday and today and it's all hard and frozen yeah and so i i've been sort of feeling very high from the pale blue sky and the frost and the ice and the yeah that the, yeah, that has nourished me. Nature has nourished me this morning and helped to put me in this place.

Alexandra, I love what you shared at the beginning of your check-in because it's another oasis, isn't it? Between the three of us, we've shared these different touch points, which are all sanctuaries that bring us into restoration and that refuel us and replenish us and connect us with love in different ways. And in a way, that's what we're going to be talking about today which I'm very excited to get into I'm excited to get into because I feel like I haven't really seen you too much lately because you've been away in your cave your creative cave working on the the deep

creative work for this year next year's menstruality leadership program sorry this year's I don't know what year it is day week I don't know yeah but for this year's 2023 menstruality leadership program and you're pretty turned on with it this is what sense I'm getting from you yeah it's been so pleasurable because we've we have been in a little bubble and as much as humanly possible ignoring life and all the other things and in this very deep creative stream because our menstruality leadership program has gone through an evolution. We're doing a slightly different format this year and it's created the space for us to really articulate and share and guide people in this work in a deeper and richer and bigger way than

we ever have before so it's opened up all this opportunity so we've been really dreaming into and writing about and having fun with how we're going to do that this year it's been really good hasn't it Alexandra in a way it is that that has really helped me to step into the sort of feelings that I am feeling today actually it is it's what we've opened up through those conversations that i'm now really inhabiting and i can sort of feel my mission now my mission for this training and for what we're really serving at red school you know on an ongoing basis so this training is is that's coming up is sort of the landing of something fresh. It's not new in the sense that our ideas, you know, all our ideas that we've been teaching since time began are all in there.

But it's the refinement and the clarity that we're getting now that's allowed us to kind of lift out, I want to say, an infrastructure that we hadn't quite seen before, hadn't quite seen so clearly. So it's like we can now really see and name what it is we have been doing all along. I mean, it's only taken, I don't know, 40 odd years, but I get there in the end as I, you know, the tortoise, the tortoise wins the race, plodding along. What I find so fun and pleasurable about one's calling. So, you know, we're talking about how our mission here has become more refined and clear. And what's so fun about it is things get revealed to us

on a need-to-know basis. But every step we take, Alexandra and I go, oh, wow, this is what it's about. We just see the next piece and have the next revelation and land a little bit deeper inside what it is we're serving. And that just keeps happening. I mean, I'm under no illusion that this is the last revelation we're gonna have you know but my word is it exciting and my word is it fulfilling and satisfying when those revelations come and the meaning that is at work in you know my life becomes ever clearer and I feel ever more inside it and ever more serious about it

and ever more committed. Like Alexandra and I were just saying to each other before this call, we're not messing around with this work. We're not playing at something. This is life-changing, world-changing work, and we are serious about it. And I can feel that authority and gravitas ever more because of what the clarity that's coming to us now yeah and there needs to be authority because what you're

saying is really big it's a really big claim to say the menstrual cycle is the path to feminine leadership you know that's a big bold move especially in a world that frankly has just big taboos around menstruation you know it's big and yeah you've created a whole leadership program and have been running it for 13 years yeah to teach this you are serious about it and today we're going to tease out a core piece of what you've always taught but it's now been revealed to you in fresh ways around inner winter menstruation and leadership which like you said Alexandra it's frosty here too and it just feels so perfect to be talking about this today from day three but before we start to unpack inner winter as a key to this leadership can we talk about what you mean by leadership and what you mean by feminine leadership?

So we think of feminine leadership as a way of being. And it's deeply rooted in who we are. So it's deeply rooted in our connection to ourselves. and it's deeply rooted in something bigger than us so for me the punchline of the leadership work that we're teaching is its leadership that sourced from a sense of connection to something bigger than us and And, you know, it's resort, these are big statements I'm making, actually, I'm just wanting to really acknowledge that it's leadership that's sourced from a sense of oneness or a sense that life is on our side. I mean, isn't that a radical thought? Because, okay, so leadership. Leadership is about stepping up to do something in the world.

You know, it is to stick your head above the parapet and go, I'm going to take charge of this and I'm going to make this happen and show the way for people. And feminine leadership, and I think most forms of leadership today what's happened what's sort of modeled as leadership in the world today you know there's some very i'm not wanting sort of to diminish anything here but i feel that that you're sort of normal, well, you know, what we're sort of currently seeing as leadership is really sourced from a place, this is quite strong what I'm going to say now, sourced from a place of sort of existential terror that, you know, we're in charge,

you know, we've got to control control things command and control leadership it's about management it's and and i'm not wanting to diminish this form of leadership whatsoever it's what you're saying alexandra because it is sourced from uh fear it's sourced from a place of lack or not enoughness and a sense of powerlessness yeah so and and this is what's so different about feminine leadership is that it's sourced from a fundamental trust in the goodness of life it's sourced from love and that comes from uh having experienced, and this is the key, having experienced a feeling of belonging and connection. Because without that experience, we do feel separate. We do feel alone, powerless.

It is bloody scary. So it comes from this experience of feeling loved, of feeling belonging. And then because we belong, because we are loved, we care and we tend and we serve and we are part of a reciprocal relationship with life. What's sort of forming for me here is that feminine leadership calls us to something. And we traditionally, I think, think of leaders as sort of special people and that I'm not a leader and that those that are are kind of special and I'm not it. And often we think of leaders as being people that other people have empowered to be leaders, you know, that someone else gets to decide

who the leaders are. That's also what we see. The world is in a very challenging place right now. There are some very bleak things going on and we can easily feel like it's hopeless and we are powerless. And what we're daring to say here is we can all make a difference.

And what we're calling feminine leadership is this sense that each of us has a vital part to play and we are called to something. And that we can have an effect. And it isn't about some savior coming you know i'm not saying anything original here this has been said by others it is us that is can awaken us to what our work with a capital W is in the world, what the meaning of our life is, what our contribution is to life. And everyone has a part to play that's what's so unbelievably thrilling and exciting and we're wanting to ignite that in people um through through menstruality because it's so amazing i want to add a little piece in here because I think this is one of the stumbling blocks or one of the things that keeps us locked out of this meaning

is that it's very easy to imagine that we need to be something other than ourselves. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. In order for us to step into our leadership. And we're all haunted by the ghost that says you've got to be perfect or, oh, I mean, you've got to be divine. You've got to be transcendent. You've got to be enlightened in order to be a leader. And feminine leadership is not that. Feminine leadership is really born out of our humanity. It's born out of our vulnerability and the complexity of who we are, the messiness of who we are, the messiness of who we are. It's the combination of forces that make up who we are that gives rise to our purpose,

that gives rise to our power. So that's really important. And in fact, we would take it a step further and say, unless you're in contact with your humanity, unless you've been touched by life, unless you've had your heart broken open, unless you've dared to really feel the fragility and vulnerability of being human, you can't taste that belonging and therefore you can't taste or feel that holding that trust that love that is always there for you wow so this is very very different to what we see in the world The thing I especially love about the way you two teach about leadership, because I've been in a inquiry and conversation about what feminine leadership is, I'd say for the last 10 years or so. And the thing that I love so much is this is so practical and real and grounded in something physical and undeniable

which is our cycles so we're talking about big ideas here and they're big and beautiful and what I really appreciate is how sometimes I can feel like I'm making things up around this, but with my own direct experience of belonging, which I'm inside of right freaking now on my day three, I'm not making this up. You know, this is, if I turn towards myself and do this interoception. Interoception interoception I I can feel this leadership that you're speaking about

I believe it yeah it's driven by something from within me not from outside me yes that's the key that is the key Sophie Jane and you know what has been getting us so excited over the last couple of weeks of diving deeply into this question of what feminine leadership is? And it's once again, we've gone, oh, my word. When it comes to the how, so it's great to hear, oh, this is what feminine leadership is. But then the question is like, well, how, if we're saying it's a way of being, how do we live this way of being? And can we have a drumroll, please? The answer is 100% fully and completely menstrual cycle awareness.

It is the activating agent it is the complete package and means and tutoring and skill building and experiential way to access and know this way of being. It is all there. And the second piece within that is honoring menstruation. It's those two things, honoring your impulses at menstruation and then practicing menstrual cycle awareness. The practice weaves you into your leadership. You know, I was reflecting on my own experience. So interesting. I had no idea what I, you know, I was doing stuff,

you know, I was a therapist, I was this, I was a teacher, I was a therapist, blah, blah, blah. You know, I had these outer kind of roles, if you like. But what was informing that? What was at work within that? Then life came in and gave me this outrageous menstrual pain. Would I have stopped at menstruation? Why would I? No one was doing it. I mean, I was reading about the menstrual cycle, actually, in my 20s. I was doing fertility awareness and everything, but actually what you know we teach now none of that and of course i was dragged there because of pain because and and where did this decision come from out of my being i am going to believe

in my body when this pain erupted and i started giving space to menstruation and the rest is history. But what, you know, I healed my menstrual pain, you know, over time, folks. But I was reflecting on how each month when I bled, I went into that zone that you're in now, Sophie, and I would feel just so right about, I would feel this love love i would feel this sense of meaning i can you know and i could feel myself filled with things ideas i mean i didn't get a job description as i like to say you know this is your job go out do it in the world that didn't happen but it was this being but each month getting this connection this sense that of something bigger at work helped me to trust the reality of what my life was at that time because i was actually suffering from quite extreme health problems which was stopping me from being able to work easily but i was wittingly or unwittingly because I had to pay attention

and then of course I continued paying attention to menstruation I was feeding this work but more than anything else I was feeding this sense of belonging of meaning that I could feel there was a grace at work that my life was meaningful wow you know thank you menstruation thank you naming dignifying and embodying this power of menstruation is a key piece of our annual menstruality leadership program where we're training the menstruality leaders of the future. As I mentioned earlier early bird registration is now open for this year's MLP and the special early bird price is available until January the 31st so you can get a discount of up to 400 pounds. The Menstruality Leadership Programme is the only

leadership training of its kind in the world. We're in our 14th year, we have 360 graduates from a wide range of professional backgrounds and 25 different countries and they've described the programme as nothing short of a miracle, one of the best decisions of my life and utterly transformative. We start in April. We would love to have you with us. You can apply at menstrualityleadership.com. That's menstrualityleadership.com. I really want us to unpack this Alexandra what you're saying is so beautiful and look at some of the different ways that this time menstruation is a gateway to this kind of feminine leadership that you've described I think you've really beautifully named the belonging, the oneness,

that the leadership that is sourced from the truth of our absolute interconnection with everything. How about if we look at the kinds of expanded states of consciousness that menstruation, I mean, I'm in one right now now that's why i'm struggling over my words the kind of yeah expanded states of consciousness that we can access and how they can you all this leadership how i can how they can support this leadership Menstruation is a moment in the cycle. It's more than a moment. It's a few days, as you can testify, where we actually step out of what I would call our normal everyday consciousness,

our sort of everyday egoic uh life management consciousness and we step off the edge into uh a more i was going to say we step off the edge into nothingness but because that's how it feels like to our egos to our everyday consciousness this feels like nothing the end of the world but actually it initially does until you kind of stabilize yourself and then which i think is where that well how can i stop and do nothing feeling comes from because there's yeah yeah we're at a kind of precipice and there's a free fall carry on carry on i know that that's that's it right that that that's that's it right that that that edge is so much of what we're having to negotiate because that edge is the

doorway into this opening and uh and we've spoken about this in our podcast to do with endings and um also when we've spoken about the premenstruum this place of the void is so tricky and requires a lot of practice to be able to just pass through this doorway so you know I'm glad you caught us there Sophie because that's a very significant piece of this process. Yes we you know I always think of the menstrual cycle it's like this lovely rhythm that holds us you know there's just just this thing we move through these different states and there's there's something that's happening there's a sort of holding there and then suddenly it stops and there is a sort of physiological event going on in our bodies, actually, just prior to the blood. There's this kind of shutdown of certain cells within the room, and then they come back to life again.

I can't remember what they're called now, but they're spiral things or something. And that then triggers the bleed. So there is a moment of sort of shutdown in the body and then a movement again, and the blood comes. But in our psychesches there's a similar process this we've just been saying where he was just um the holding isn't there anymore the holding isn't there and um so yes we are stepping into a sort of nothingness which is not great for our everyday consciousness. But actually, what we're stepping into is this expanded consciousness, this expanded space of awareness.

We're stepping out of normal time-space reality into cosmic consciousness. Let's not pull our punches here into spiritual consciousness. And so we're navigating a very different world now where our usual modes of operating no longer apply. But what's fascinating is that your menstrual cycle doesn't actually just pull the plug on you. It actually gives you clues that you're getting closer to this edge. It's actually preparing you. And if you follow your inner impulses, you're going to feel yourself, one, wanting to clean up and sort out and clear everything because of course you want to have space but you're going to feel yourself sort of going into a slight altered state i see it in shani every month before she actually bleeds you'll feel yourself wanting

to slow down you'll be starting to lose interest in the stuff around you and you'd rather the world would just stop and just stop asking you questions and piss off there's all sorts of subtle clues going on and if we could honor those instead of thinking what's wrong with me which is what we do we go oh right yeah i'm being organized now for something greater, something bigger. That interruption is so significant. It's the thing that's missing in our world. And it's the thing that's missing in our lives is interrupting the status quo, interrupting the habits, interrupting the old order, interrupting the kind of entrapment and entanglement that we've gotten ourselves in the knot that we're in and like interrupting it so that we can remember the way you're speaking reminds me of how it feels when say we suddenly receive shocking news about someone dying for

example yeah and suddenly we're taken into a completely different state of consciousness where suddenly we remember what we love we remember our love for that person or that creature and we're and what i'm hearing you say is we have this opportunity our cycling bodies are giving us this opportunity if we can as you were saying, Alexandra, follow these impulses and slow down and let ourselves lose interest in the mundane crap of life for a bit, then this divine disruption is waiting for us. Yes. The example of grief and loss of a loved one is so powerful, Sophie, because what you've pointed to there is the necessity of loss and letting go in order to feel this clear sight, in order to have this direct knowing and to experience the opening that's that can happen and that's so much of what menstruation is training us in is our capacity to let go to to drop our agenda and what we think is important that is such a tussle as a human being.

It's like, but, but, but, but, but just this, just this. And menstruation goes, nope, let it go. And it's that, it's that muscle that of let go and surrender and coming into rest that is what allows us to have a wholly new experience of ourselves and life and the reason I'm kind of grinning from ear to ear as I say that because isn't that so opposite to how power is shown in our world we don't get We don't really see how letting go and doing nothing and surrendering is the way we access the source of our power. Thinking of those people coming into menopause or in menopause or post-menopause listening to this. The menopause is the mother of all awakenings.

You think awakening happens at menstruation? Just wait till you get to the awakening of menopause. And this is what our book, Wise Power, is all about. It's about how menopause awakens you to your feminine leadership, to your leadership in the world. And so menopause is an extended inner winter, like menstruation, only you're not going to have another cycle at the end of it. So at menopause, you're actually, so you step into this expanded consciousness, more expanded consciousness as you do menstruation.

And guess what? You're staying there. You're staying there. That's the new ground of your being is this place of extraordinary permeability. And it's quite a responsibility to hold whilst actually being out there in the world with all the sort of mainstream stuff you have to deal with and so on, to dare to hold to this level of presence and permeability to these sort of spiritual forces. So I'm saying all this to those who are listening, who are, you know, in menopause right now and thinking, oh, you know, have I lost my moment? On the contrary, you are absolutely in the moment. This is such a profound awakening to your leadership in the world.

And if you are post-menopause and you are listening to this, and you may be thinking, I reckon you will have felt a lot of what I'm saying here, actually, but have not had words. This is what I get from a lot of post-menopause people, is that in reading our book or just hearing me speak about it, they go, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that was what was, yeah. And it's an affirmation of something.

And I hope that it will just really bolster you if you are post-menopause right now. I heard you say you need to dare to hold on to this consciousness. And sorry about the bin lorry in the background, talking about the mundane coming in, the things we have to negotiate then I'm also I'm hearing you on that daring to hold on to this expanded consciousness and I'm also thinking that it takes a real discipline and it takes community it takes other people recognizing what we're talking about here. I'm thinking about how with me over the last three days, I've been present to what's the invitation that menstruation has been giving me. And I've also been present to all the responsibilities of my life.

And I have to do things like have the discipline to get up a bit earlier in the morning so I can have quiet time with myself and a candle so that I can it's like I'm a radio and I'm tuning into the the frequency of of where menstruation is taking me and that takes discipline to do that because you know I'd rather be in bed or warm and cozy and it also makes me think of well why I'm so freaking grateful that I did the menstruality leadership program and why it's such a powerful resource that you're creating because the container of the course and the teachings help to create a rhythm of discipline when within each of us and I love um Shamily who

we interviewed for the wise power retreat who's been a teacher for me for a long time when she talks about discipline she talks about being a disciple to yourself or a disciple to to your deepest self that's the kind of discipline we're talking about yeah the community that happens on the menstruality leadership program is so vital because without other people who can say oh you're menstruating. How's it going? Have you had some space for you? How are you staying tuned into yourself? It's so easy to not do it. You know, even if we totally get this work. Yeah. So I'm, I'm present to,

yes, the teachings of the course are important, but the container that helps to create the discipline and the community that helps to, you know, give us the courage to dare to hold on to these states is what's so meaningful yeah i'm so glad you named those things because the discipline is um everything because this is of course a spiritual practice and as we know spiritual practice and the spiritual path requires profound commitment. It is searing, you know, deep, deep work. And the piece about community is so important because the one thing we didn't say, which is really good to name because I know we all feel this on some level is when we go into this expanded consciousness remember we've let go of so much armoring and um

yeah so much armoring that we're at our most vulnerable. Like this expanded state is a profoundly vulnerable state. And because of that, it makes such a difference if we feel that we are held in it. Having that energetic holding makes such a difference. I know when I've experienced that, having just somebody aware of me and holding me, it allows me to feel so much safer and therefore I'm able to really soften and receive what's happening much, much more deeply. community we need allies we need others who understand the enormity and power that we're negotiating at this time it makes such a difference makes such a difference yeah yeah i'm just coming in on the back of that and something you said sophie that it isn't just it's not i mean you'll get lots of information

on the training but it's actually about being held in a process so that you can lay down new pathways within your being that then can become a new habit if you like it's you get held for a period of time so you can really go into something very deeply um to to actually create these new it holds you in the discipline basically and that's and what shani's saying about crucialness of others is everything, because it brings safety. It brings acknowledgement. It reminds you that you're not going mad, that it's real.

And it supports you if you have difficult life circumstances where it's hard to be able to acknowledge this work, where people dismiss it or laugh at you or diminish it in some way and don't support you and yet you know you must do it and are compelled to do it to have these allies at your back is just so incredible as you find your voice within you know the context within which you live so that process of being held in something is actually everything so to summarize some of what we've been saying you've walked us through the way you understand feminine leadership and how inner winter and menstruation is a gateway or it plugs us into the kind of deep belonging and to the our humanity that is the the um the ground of the leadership that

you're talking about there's loads more to say and we will have further conversations about this and truthfully joining the menstruality leadershipme is a fantastic way to continue this conversation because it's a lived way to do it. I think one of the teachings from the MLP and one of the teachings that you speak about in Wild Power is good for us to speak about now, which is the big bleed because it's such a practical way of having a direct experience of the kind of leadership that's available to us through honoring our menstruation big bleed we have lots of bigs at red school i noticed leads-ups, big this, big that. The big red rule. The big red rule. That was the other one.

Yeah, we like our bigs. The reason bigs help is because we make something special. And, of course, we are menstruating every month, but to dedicate one of your bleeds as a big bleed and really give it the attention it deserves, the kind of attention that you can't give it in your everyday life, where you carve out a very dedicated sanctuary for yourself to go with this experience and allow yourself to really receive what's happening at menstruation because the truth is if we're having to deal with everyday stuff we are to some degree locked out of the power and possibility of what's available to us at menstruation so a big bleed lots of people in our community have done it we've heard some amazing stories and people do it in all kinds of imaginative creative ways and some that make me salivate like when i see pictures of what people have done i'm

like oh yeah that's what i want to do you know you could take yourself away for a few days. You organize childcare, take time off work. You take yourself somewhere beautiful, somewhere in nature where you can simply be and do nothing. You have no agenda. You have no to-do list. You have nothing to get. There's no goal. There's no outcome. You just give yourself time and space to rest.

So you could go away. You could do it at home where you close the door and you're unavailable for a day or a day and a night or two days or whatever's possible. A big bleed is just more than before because we're all in different places in our life. I remember when I had two little children, for me, a big bleed was like three hours, not disturbed, you know, and then, you know, it became three days or four days as time went on. So it's just more than before. But the main thing is it's where you don't have input you don't have any stimulation from the outside it's really about you being with you turning your attention inward and just being present i don't even want to say listening because listening creates expectation. Yes.

We don't want to have expectations. You kind of just want to be with you. And as you said, Sophie, that's like a, there's a very particular kind of signal that you are attuning to when you do that. And there's a very particular kind of access that opens and we didn't say this so I just have to drop this in because this is really significant about menstruation is when we come into that different consciousness and realm what happens is we get downloads and inspiration and vision for our life that is what's possible and that can be such a kind of guiding light or a compass it has been for me but what's really beautiful is this kind of big lead operates on so many levels it's not necessarily about having to

receive a vision about having to receive a vision about having to experience an altered state of consciousness because we all get what we need when we give ourselves that time and space and sometimes what we need is just rest sometimes the restoration and revelation that's happening is happening on a cellular level in our body and we're just recuperating and revitalizing and building up the kind of vitality we need to be able to hold more and feel more and see more so we just get what we need when we do this so this is why we love this practice of a big bleed and we highly highly encourage it and when you say it gives us this capacity to hold more and see more and feel more,

that's pointing to the kind of leadership that it's awakening because it's not, like you said, it's not about becoming someone different in order to lead. It's actually about being more of who we are and always have been and always will be but expanding the river that we are to be to allow more of that through more feeling more knowing more insight yeah letting life's goodness stream through through us it's kind of carving more space for that to come through yes very well said yeah can you say something about this happened to me a couple of times and I'm I imagine it's happening to people listening too so this bleed especially towards

the end of the day you know my my chances to to rest and be with myself alone you know because I was practicing turning towards myself through the day I'm really proud of how I did that this bleed but really I need some time by my bloody self to to do what we're talking about here like so so say it's like seven o'clock, AIDS doing bedtime. And within me, I know lighting a candle and sitting with myself would be a great way to tune into the leadership powers we're talking about. But Netflix is always there calling me, you know, you could just zone out and watch that show that you love. And there's a place for that too.

But can you just speak to that choice point of how do you choose to go that way compared to the zoning out really? Well, when I hear you kind of describe it's the end of a long day and um it's seven o'clock and Artie eight's putting Artie to bed and you could light a candle and kind of tune into leadership I think oh my god that sounds so tiring yeah exactly yeah I mean that sounds like hard work you know that's another job it's another bloody job is exactly what I think and when I hear you say that what I want to ask you is what is it you're really longing for in that moment and it's probably rest it's probably let go it's probably nothing it's nothingness it is to it is actually not to

have another job to do but to actually switch off and i think you know yes we watch netflix or whatever you know to switch off um it is to um just be still and drift. I mean, I'm only just dreaming into myself now and just dropping all the stimulation, you know, and it's not even I'm going to listen. Shani said something important earlier about, you know, not even listening to yourself when she was talking about sleep bleed. Don't even try and

listen to yourself no you actually you just want to just stop everything everything it's like and actually menstruation does tend to shut down everything i remember i just lie there sort of comatose you know no thought nothing you know just just couldn't move you know no content no reading of anything even listening to music funnily enough nothing nothing i just want silence and just being in a kind of reverie with myself yeah we have to be very careful because it's so ingrained in us yes it's kind of willful efforting yes and you know when in doubt when you're bleeding just drift like bumble around just do like just bumble around be useless just be useless that's really important just it's like oh i don't have to there's no i can just faff you know

maybe just you're pottering i don't know you're pottering around in the bedroom or something or just just coloring is good for me there are coloring crayons and coloring because it gives that part of me that finds it so hard to slow down something to do so 95% of me can do what you're saying yes but if I turn to the telly then that 95% that was available for menstruation isn't anymore yeah yeah you've suddenly got input and that's um it's distracting yeah so I another thing that I think is really helpful when we're bleeding is to think about pleasure, you know, doing what soothes us and what we enjoy. So that's because that helps our nervous system and helps us to come into that restedness.

You know, that's where people like taking a bath or massaging your feet. And as you said, coloring for you, those are all good ways in because they are following that natural impulse of our body which is actually to soften yeah i can get behind this model of leadership where bubble baths are a key leadership strategy i am down with this oh yes yeah yeah and doing and doing nothing is doing nothing the number one priority and skill set you know yeah yeah i can get behind it i just want to add here just one thing which is that you know that edge to stopping and sort of you know and just feeling the uh the discomfort of that and then boredom coming in it It's like not knowing what to do.

That actually is a state you have to move through. And in a way, you just have to almost just go and sit in a chair and just sit with it and watch your mind play things out. It's a transition state. It'll settle well speaking of transition states it's time for us to transition into the next adventure and wrap this up for now more about all of this in the next podcast because we're going to be talking about this whole thing of how you rest and how you let go so yeah it's a juicy and big convo that one yeah so what is one action that people can take

from this conversation oh I think everyone's gonna hate this plan a big bleed plan a menstrual holiday for yourself oh damn do you have to yes yes you have to can i just be the 14th fairy that comes in and offers something a little sort of more easy a little easier always which is um just make a choice to do one percent more than before just start to you have to make you have to make a deliberate choice so make a choice to give yourself a little more at your bleed thank you thank you you too see you next time bye bye thank you so much for tuning in for being part of the community gathering around this podcast and around this work if you're loving the podcast please like and subscribe and leave us a review on apple podcasts if you're intrigued about the Menstruality Leadership Program,

head over to menstrualityleadership.com and I will be with you next week. I'm looking forward to it. And until then, keep living life according to your own brilliant rhythm.