The Menstruality Podcast - 72. Following Intuition, Taking Retreat and Finding Your Path in Menopause (Lara Owen)

Episode Date: January 30, 2023

This bonus episode is the next in our ‘Wise Power Retreat’ series where Alexandra is interviewing people about what menopause revealed and awakened in them. Alexandra and Lara have been working alongside each other in this field for over 30 years. Dr Lara Owen is an author, teacher, researcher, consultant, mentor and an expert on the culture, politics and organisation of the menstrual cycle and menopause. She wrote one of the first books to be published about the power of the menstrual cycle, Her Blood is Gold, and is one of the leading lights in the field of menstrual and menopause education, sharing from an incredible wealth of personal experience, as well as academic research. We explore:How Lara worked with her intuition in menopause (including following the impulse to move herself to the south of France for a three year menopause retreat!).How Lara moved with her menopausal grief at not having had children and how she made sense of her story, and embraced the gifts of her adventurous and creative life without children. How Lara’s radical educational and cultural work around the menstrual cycle and menopause evolved during her menopause transition, leading to her new masters-level course is designed to develop your understanding of menstruation today in the contexts of business, feminism, health, law, politics, popular culture, sustainability, spirituality, sport, technology, and wellbeing.You can now order our new book! Wise Power: Discover the Liberating Power of Menopause to Awaken Authority, Purpose and Belonging here: https://www.wisepowerbook.com---Registration is now open for our Menstruality Leadership Programme: 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.schoolLara Owen: www.laraowen.com

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, welcome back to the podcast. We've got a special bonus episode for you today. This is the next in our ongoing Wise Power Retreat series which began back late last year with our original Wise Power Retreat and it's continuing with Alexandra's

conversations where she's speaking with people about what their menopause process revealed and awakened in them. Our guest is Lara Owen. Alexandra and Lara have been working alongside each other in this field for over 30 years. Lara is an author, a teacher, a researcher, a consultant. She's a mentor and she's really an expert on the culture, politics and organisation of the menstrual cycle and menopause. Alexandra is going to introduce her fully at the start of the convo. In the episode, Lara speaks about how she worked with her intuitive nudges in menopause, including following the impulse to move herself to the south of France for a three-year menopause

retreat. Lara speaks about moving with her menopausal grief at not having children, and also how her radical educational and cultural work around the menstrual cycle and menopause evolved during her menopause transition which led to this new master's level course contemporary menstrual studies which she will be running again later in the year and you can hear more about that later okay over to Alexandra for following Intuition, Taking Retreat and Finding Your Path in Menopause with Lara Owen. Welcome to the Wise Power series where I'm having intimate conversations with people about their menopause experience and what it revealed and liberated in them.

This series of conversations is about the power, authority and purpose that menopause awakens in us and what's possible individually and collectively when this rite of passage is supported and dignified. And today I am delighted, I'm really happy to be talking with Dr. Lara Owen, who I have known for, well, we were working it out, Lara, since 1992, so 30 years. And Lara is an author, teacher, researcher, consultant, mentor, and an expert on the culture, politics, and organization of menstruation and menopause. So she consults with global and local organizations, and she teaches in academic and general contexts and she mentors individuals in the field and is regularly interviewed in the international media. Lara's first book, Her Blood is Gold, investigated the influence of culture on menstrual experience and explored ways to honor the menstrual cycle. And her forthcoming book to be published by Oxford

University Press in 2023, analyzes the impact of new methods of organizing menstruation on individuals and society. So welcome, Lara. And I just want to say before we dive in just how grateful I am for the incredible work that you are doing now on menstruation and menopause. It's just stunning. It's fantastic. And I believe really that all kicked off after menopause. So I'd like to begin with, I know you've been working with menstruation all your life, but the work that you're doing now is just so amazing. I'd like to begin with menopause and what you feel it gave you, what it perhaps woke up in you gifted you well there's so much to say about that isn't there where to start um i think i mean i made some um decisions about how to go through menopause based on what i'd learned from menstruating consciously so i had that advantage, if you like, as you did too, of having paid a lot of attention to my menstrual cycle anyway. So I knew when it

was starting to change, as more and more women do now, because we're all becoming more menstrually literate. So I could tell I was sort of heading in to menopause. And I realized that the lifestyle I had in my mid to late 40s just wasn't going to be helpful going through menopause. I was working in several different roles. I was just incredibly busy. I was living in California and I had a really exciting, interesting life, but it didn't look like a life that was going to be carry on being fun while I was going through menopause. So I took myself off to a little village in southwest France and really went into a pretty much a kind of retreat for three years and my timing was really good because I got there in well I got to France in August 2002 when I was 47 I must have been and I moved down to I found this village and moved down there in I think think it was the November, maybe October. And,

and then I had my last period in April the next year. So I was almost 48. So then I went through menopause officially at 49, because it's 12 months after your last period. So the timing was really great. So, and I of course had no idea because that's the thing about menopause, it's only diagnosed retrospectively. So you can't actually know when you're going to have your last period. But it was a good guess, because I was by then quite settled in a nice place to live. And my life was incredibly cheap, I didn't have to work very hard my rent was 225 euros a month um so I only had to work a few hours a week to be able to keep myself going I was doing um mostly uh counseling and consulting online still with clients in the states So I had an income and, um, and so I was really able to relax into, into my menopause.

Um, and so that was incredibly lucky really. And, and also smart actually in retrospect, but I was able to do that because I didn't have family ties. So I was able to take myself off and go and be a hermit. And I was in this really, really sweet village where a cousin of mine lived. So he introduced me to people. So I had friends instantly. There was a whole community of really, really nice people. Sorry about the beeping. I don't know if you can hear that. It'll stop in a minute. so it was looking back it was really an ideal place for me and I was able to write a lot um while I was there which was a great way also of um sort of wrapping up in a sense the previous um 40 years of menstruating almost or you know whatever it was 37 years of menstruating and um and it felt very much felt

like that for me I was really aware that I was coming to the end of a really significant period of my life you know the central third of my life is how I think about it and the longest third if that makes any sense um but nonetheless it was challenging you know it was it was really challenging um the main thing I had to contend with at the beginning was my grief about not having had children yeah um so I had wanted children um I had had miscarriages and relationship disasters and um I wasn't thinking about it actually because my own mother died recently I was thinking I was revisiting that issue of not having been a mother myself and you know either it was my fate or I just had terrifically bad luck you know I don't know but I had to I had to take it as well this is this is just my story and

not everybody gets what they want in life and that when you don't get what you want you can you do have the freedom to turn that into something else so I turned not having children into having an adventurous and creative life in which I had the freedom to do things that perhaps I might not have been able to do otherwise so and perhaps that suited me better in the long run. I'll never know. You know, we'll never know the answers to that. So that that was really dominant at the beginning of menopause. I remember because I thought I was quite resolved with it, but it turned out I actually wasn't. And I think and I've heard this from a lot of other people, too, that when you go through menopause, it's like the nooks and crannies of your psyche, you know, things that you buried, whether it's sadness about a lost love or having not had as many children as you want or having had to have an abortion or not, in my case, not having any

children. You know, these issues sort of come up for review, I think I didn't want children uh but but things came up for review is just a brilliant statement Lara and it's almost like no aspect no stone is left unturned I think no no exactly so listening to you your story just illuminates so clearly the power of um being connected to one's menstrual cycle and just somehow having a sense or knowing of something because of course as you say you don't know that the end is nigh but there was but there were changes in you you knew things were changing things were different you were making choices and um yeah you just had I guess the kind of intuition didn't you that you had to

do something different that took you off to France. Yes, and the way I work with intuition is if an idea comes to me that seems strong, I always sit a while and wait and see. And if it keeps coming back, then I obviously pay it more attention. But I also look for confirmation from outside. Is there something coming in in the external reality that world that reflects this and and and just the strangest thing started happened to me about France once I had the thought of I need to well the first thought was I need to go back to Europe I'm actually done with living in the States and I should go back to Europe so that was the first thought and um and

then I looked into taking my dog back. And first of all, I thought I'd go back to the UK because that's where my family and friends and where I'd lived, you know, growing up. And and I found that my dog would have to go into six months quarantine. So I thought, well, that's impossible. But then I found out that if I took him to France, he wouldn't have to go into quarantine. We just have to stay there for six months and then I could get him a pet passport and take him to the UK. So I thought, OK, I'll do that. Maybe I'll just sit and think about it because I actually loved living in California. I had a wonderful life there. So it wasn't like I desperately wanted to leave there. I just had the feeling that I actually need to be somewhere else. And then I had all these weird things like a friend offered me a cottage to live in in Brittany.

Now, the situation was not ideal. And so I decided not to do it. But I thought, that's very unusual that you get offered a cottage to live in in Brittany. What's going on? And then there were a couple of other things happened. And it was just like France was just sort of lit up I went okay I had lived in Paris before so I had some familiarity with it and I thought well I'll go to Paris I'm only going to be there six months that'd be really fun six months in Paris that's great so I found an apartment to rent um in Paris online which was not so easy back then and um but it was lovely and we got to Paris and you know that was great but my dog got depressed because he was used to running on the beach in California and Paris just could not offer anything similar for dogs so I went down to the southwest

to visit my cousin for a week and just thought oh this is a really good place I'm only going to be in France another few months I'll have a stint down here that's okay so we went down all lovely and then I just thought oh my god this is perfect I'm staying so I say I actually had a home there for another six years but I lived there full-time for three years and then once I was through menopause I knew I had to go back into the into the world but I kept it as a retreat space for as long as I could afford to um but yeah so so that's how I that's a sort of encapsulated version of how I work with an intuition when it comes in I I don't just sort of act immediately I I check it out it's a I had exactly the same kind of process, but my decision was to leave Australia.

I got the instructions, yeah, leave Australia, come back to the UK. And then I had bonkers synchronicity after synchronicity with the UK, just like you with France. Just totally random, outrageous sort of double takes on things yes yes exactly that that then became just the clear um breadcrumb trails i'd say that led me to to the choices the big choices that i made Menopause. Yes. And yeah. OK, so I'm just really taking in the your process of being able to be in a place of soothedness with yourself, basically, so that menopause could just get to work on you. And you could just meet with some grace the things that were coming up for you that needed to be cared for with some grace I said sometimes sometimes um not so graceful not so graceful I have to say let's not sugarcoat it I'm not saying you were but I'm just saying it was um the thing I think the thing with menopause is it is an incredible teacher, but it's also a trial.

It is like going through a trial. And during that trial, your character gets forged, I think, more clearly. and it gives you the opportunity to sort of come to understand your vulnerability and weakness perhaps as well as your strength and learn how to be an effective person even if you don't have the same kind of heart it's complicated because you don't have the same kind of reliable energy in terms of in the way that you have when you're younger but on the other hand you haven't got a monthly cycle to contend with so in some ways I think you become more reliable I felt I have felt more reliable since menopause and in that my energy doesn't go up and down as much as it did when I was menstruating do you know what

I mean there's something but I also when you talk about um that that challenge and I I had this I had this feeling of forging something I thought it forged something much stronger in myself and as you say the vulnerabilities and facing my shadow side it was very very humbling but in the fact of facing it something is forged so there was a kind of resilience that I came through a strength a strength of character that I have now that makes me more reliable I suppose or more here and um responsible it's like stepping up to another level of responsibility in within myself I experienced and not burdensome it's a choice yes yes a sense of duty I think gets stronger doesn't it and and the sense of I mean I always had a sense that because it's partly how I was raised um but also I had it sort of instinctively that I was here for the world, you know, that I was not here for me.

I was not here to indulge my own desires. You know, there's something kind of instinctively Buddhist about the way I've always felt about about my life but it's also christian i suppose too that that's the religion i was brought up in um but just this idea that service isn't the concept of service is not a drag or it's not something imposed on you or whatever it's it's um an instinctive way to engage with the world, that you are here as a being. That's an incredible gift. And you give somehow. It's beautiful. It's beautiful. Yes. And I think because your desire nature shifts at menopause, because it's not about finding a partner to have a child with. No. Which is such an incredible biological imperative. because it's not about finding a partner to have a child with,

which is such an incredible biological imperative when you're a young person, I think. So that doesn't mean you don't want partnership or companionship or sex or love or anything like that. It doesn't mean you don't want that, but the desire shifts into something that is, I think more, more independent somehow um and so that sense of of the word duty is so loaded um but that sense of being of service has a chance to be more um um more lived without being taken off course by, you know, this or that. Yes.

I think that's one way of putting it. Yeah. I'm interested then, Lara, really, in what, in a sense, opened up for you with menopause, like, you know, the work that you're doing now, how that unfolded, just anything around what? Well, I can't really separate that from the historical context. So, you know, what would it have been like if I had been in my 50s and menstruation was still incredibly stigmatized

and incredibly taboo and it wasn't starting to be broken down? I mean, obviously, it was partly starting to be broken down because of the work that we've been doing and other people have been doing the previous 20 years. But there's a whole combination of factors that came together between the years of 2009, 2012, 13, I think, that began this shift of menstruation becoming a topic you could talk about in public without people laughing at you um so that was you know that that was um a synergy if you like between the age that i was coming into in my mid late 50s sort of well after menopause was pretty much sort of done and dusted by that point i mean you have some things about your body that never go away, like my sleep's a bit fragile, you know.

I can't drink alcohol. That's all right. That's a good thing. But I was actually feeling really pretty strong and relatively symptom-free and that my body had got used to. It had made the adjustment really to having a different kind of estrogen um and not having a monthly cycle in the in the way that you do when you menstruate um so that was that was a great synergy that that was the point at which it

started to be possible to make a living in the field of menstruation, which was really almost impossible before, wasn't it? I mean, it was, it was very, very difficult. There just wasn't, wasn't the work. No one wanted to pay you for your wisdom on menstruation and all your information on it. I'd have the occasional bit of consulting or the occasional mentoring or, you know, bits and bobs. I did manage to get, you know, as you did, a book published on it and had some income from that. But really, you couldn't earn a living. So then everything then then things really started to change. And,

and again, I was following the breadcrumbs, you know, I did a sort of reverse thing to you where I went to Australia at that point. You left Australia and I went there. So I went to give, I was invited to give a workshop at an outdoor festival. That's what it was. That's what it was, yeah. Yeah, it was the first Seven Sisters Festival and someone told me about it and I just felt I'd been having these dreams about Australia. I hadn't been there since I'd been there in 92 when I met you.

But I'd always thought I would go there and live there at some point, but nothing ever happened. So I was like, okay, fine. And then all of a sudden I started to have dreams about it. So I thought, huh, Australia's woken up in my subconscious. And then I got invited to go and give this workshop. So I thought, okay, I'll go and do that because I was in um a sort of empty space in my life things I knew everything was going to change

because there was just nothing happening okay there's a there's a you know something's going on here so I went and um you know met people and um was asked to join a project. And by a year later, that became the offer of a full time job leading a research project for a charity in Melbourne, researching in the state of Victoria and menopause so I moved over properly and um and we we ran um about 30 big focus groups and just heard all these stories from women all over the state different types of of women and girls in high schools and it was the most incredible education for me to do that work. And then while I was doing that, I met, I was invited to the launch of an academic project on research on menopause. And then I later had a meeting with the two people doing it. And we just got on really, really well. really like adored them from the first minute and and and they and I said you know

I've always wanted to do a PhD and I've tried and I you know it's really been really difficult because no one wanted to do anything on menstruation they said we'd love to why don't you come and do it with us so I enrolled in a PhD when I was, oh, I was 61 when I started it. And it was fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. I totally loved it. And yeah, so that was in a way rooted in my menopause experience. I couldn't have done it before.

So it was a mixture of culturally things were open, you know, this was now 2016. So I was in a business school where business schools are more open to factoring someone's experience in rather than thinking you've got to have had a degree from, I mean, I had an undergraduate degree, but I didn't have a master's. And they said, oh, that's all right, because you've got all this experience thinking you've got to have had a degree from I mean I had an undergraduate degree but I didn't have a master's and they said oh that's all right because you've got all this experience and you've just done this big research project so we know you can do research because they'd read they'd read the paper I'd done on that which was 500 pages the report I mean so it was massive and they said that's okay that will stand instead of a master's and um and they understood

that it was you know what they called a trending topic and business schools are very interested in what's actually happening now you know so so that all just sort of not fell into place it is to make makes light of it too much there was a huge amount of work went into it but um I was very clear that I was on the right right path you know which always helps you doesn't it do a lot of work when you feel that you're now you know you're in the flow and you're doing what you need to be doing at this point I'm pausing this amazing conversation with Alexandra and Lara to share that in April this year, Red School is running a new upgraded version of our leadership training that Alexandra and Sharni started teaching 13 years ago, the menstruality leadership program. And many people have been asking us if this program is relevant for those in post-menopause life or during menopause. And our answer is yes.

We created a special menopause Q&A for you if you're intrigued by the program, but find yourself having questions like, I feel called to help other people through menopause. Will the leadership training set me up to do that? I don't know what my calling is, but I urgently want more purpose in my menopause or post-menopause life. How will the leadership program help me to find it? And also, I'm in menopause and feel overwhelmed and confused by everything in this phase of my life. Will the program work for me? So we answer all of these questions and more in this special menopause Q&A, which you can find at menstrualityleadership.com, as well as all the information about the course. And there are a couple of great stories from two of last year's graduates who are both post-menopause. So you can

find all of these things at menstrualityleadership.com the right path is very important because even though the times were changing around menstruation it it's still you know it's a radical thing to to commit to something very huge like that you did to actually really step up and commit to this work wholeheartedly it's still a huge ask of someone because even though the times are changing um i mean it almost feels like menstruation and menopause cannot keep out of the press these days but nonetheless you know we're still dealing with a massive shadow around these topics and discomfort and unease you know are talking about it

so yeah you have to you it's I mean I can hear from you it's not it's not like something that comes from your head but that you know australia calls you there's something happening here and then things unfold in australia it's almost like well i have this image of you you may not feel this of of almost being held by something that um that you're serving in the world you know and that the times are now ripe you know you have held this work for so long and worked so intimately and so deeply with your cycle in such a committed way I mean it's extraordinary really and now suddenly it's all it's all coming together yes I wish I could sort of it's hard to transmit this to younger people because you only find it out through the doing of it really but you know we think that life is short but life is also long and you can have an idea of something

in your early 20s which was when I started first my cycle and making charts and putting them on my bedroom wall in the student house I was living in because I was trying to understand why I felt like I felt when I felt it. And why coming off the pill made me feel so different. And, you know, all these experiences I had in my early 20s and um and then but if if something does is really important to you at that stage and it sort of grabs you it can take a whole lifetime for it actually to come to fruition that really satisfies you and i remember you saying when you read her blood is gold that or at some point you said something about me um um something i can't remember what it was, something about the intellectual aspect of Her Blood is Gold, that it wasn't only about my own experience. And I had had this sense of frustration that I knew it was in me to do something academic seriously academic and but I couldn't find a way to do that because no one was interested so I'm just so lucky that the culture changed and I was just like young enough to be able to take advantage of it because if it had been 10 years later it

would have been much harder for me because it takes a lot of stamina it takes huge amount of work and psychologically it's really challenging um so yes I that that was all very um you know I want to give a big shout out to Australia actually because there was something about Australia I had to go to Australia I know that if I had stayed in the UK the work that I've you know we've developed here now Red School would have been still born would have been still born it's curious isn't it it's really curious because Australia also has horrendous misogyny and high rates of domestic violence and some of the stories that women in rural areas told me about what about their periods and their childbirth experiences oh my god it was just oh but but and then the other i mean the really curious part of this is what happened to the indigenous people

there and how terrible that is and how hard it is to actually contact them and be involved with them and how incredibly denigrated and they've been for so long and how somehow how hidden that energy is it's not like in the states where you can i mean i i went to spend time with the navajo and talked to them about their canal de ceremony for menarche and i mean that again wasn't easy. I had to know people and I had to do this and do that and jump through hoops. But still, it was possible to spend time in a culture that was still matrilineal, that still had an understanding of the sacred nature of menstruation,

that still had the most incredible menarche ceremony. That, you know, at least half of the girls were still going through. This was in the 90s, but I know it's still going on now. But you go to Australia and, oh, my God, it's opaque. And yet it was a dream about an Australian Aboriginal woman that led me to Australia. Yeah, so I was, I've never talked about this, but I think it's okay um so in the dream I was

in a big ceremony a lot of people in in the outback and um it was it was a dark it was a starry night and you know how the stars especially if you're in the center of Australia is just something else so it was like that and she had a piece of kangaroo meat in her hand and she just popped it into my mouth. And I knew that this was very, you know, the whole thing was very much of a sacrament. And then she pulled me towards her in a hug and I just thought, okay, all right, I get it.

I get it. I'm going to Australia. Okay. I'm getting. And, and while I was there, I had some real, while I was living in Australia, I had some really difficult experiences, which I won't go into. I think you know a little bit about and, but somehow that was all part of maturing me enough to be able to do the PhD and, and then what came after it. So it was like a cooking pot, you know, to be able to do the PhD and and then what came after it so it was like a cooking pot you know to be there and Australia is not always an easy place for people from England because often you get can get teased or even you know in some cases is bullied I mean I know so many stories about that it it seems like it's a similar

culture to the uk but it isn't at all oh um i mean it's this isn't the place to enumerate the differences but it's um it's challenging people talk about oh i went to australia for a few years well that actually is not an easy thing to do it's easier to go to France quite honestly much easier to be in another European country than it is to go to Australia so and certainly easier to be in the States um I mean for a start there's a whole seasonal thing everything being upside down but deeper than that it's a it's a very interesting society that's born out of a very specific experience it It's not that long ago. So anyway, so yes, there is something about being, and this is also part of having an interesting life,

which is governed, as you say, by this thread that sort of pulls you along, is that you have to be prepared to be challenged and to go through trials and to grow because otherwise you'll just stay in your you know um comfort zone comfort zones are only good for um retreat and repair there's a lot of things that they don't really do anything for yeah yeah that i mean um oh god it's so interesting talking with you i'm loving this lara you look back on your you know if you were speaking to someone now coming into menopause, what would you want them to know? What would you want to gift them with, in a sense,

in the way of knowledge, information, wisdom? What would you speak? Well, it would depend who it was and what was important to them in their life. If they were interested in personal development, spiritual development, then I'd say to them, this is a fantastic opportunity to get to know yourself better, to heal the past and to get yourself into shape, physical, mental you might not be able to imagine right now.

I could not have imagined what's happened to me since menopause before it started. It's like you go into another dimension. Yeah. You don't need to get from that one dimension to the other dimension. You have to sit in a sort of holding pen, if you like, for a while. Yes. And, you know, lose the skin of being the fertile, cyclical woman. And that's a pretty strong skin, which has a lot of capital attached to it.

You know, so you have all kinds of capital as a as a pre-menopausal woman you can produce new human beings there's a lot of capital surrounding that um you have um a different kind of sexual attractiveness it's not that post-menopausal women aren't sexually attractive but it's different it's different um you have a different different biological imperatives working on you and and you're running a different kind of energy. So in order to go through that, you have to have a period of ideally you will find yourself a period of retreat. And if you have a job where there's a possibility of taking a sabbatical, grab it with both hands. If you don't have that, see what you can do to amend it. I think it's it can be really, really tough for people who've got partners and teenage children or young children.

And of course, now there are more and more people going through menopause with very young children, which must be really hard. And also they can at the same time have elderly parents. So I was quite fortunate in that because my parents had me young. So when I went through menopause, they were still very good at taking care of themselves, didn't need me. So I didn't have either of those. I didn't have the children or the elderly parents. So I was really able to, you know, sit in the retreat space without it being problematic. But that's something that needs navigating with your nearest and dearest.

And then, of course, that's not, some people will be, might watch this who also have the kind of job that doesn't allow you to take time off like I did. And. You know, that job is probably a very, very valuable one for society. So what I've done in those situations, really, which isn't always advisable and you have to really measure it through your own personality but if you um you know I would suggest really dropping out of your social life for a while definitely stopping drinking alcohol cut down caffeine a lot of those props that you can, depending on, you know, the type of body that you were born with and the way that you've lived your life, you can get away with before menopause. You can't get away with them after.

No. And you shouldn't be doing them during. No. You really need every bit of, you know, adrenal strength. And that's the secret. Clear liver. really need every bit of, you know, adrenal strength. And that's the secret. Clear liver, you know, you need all of that functioning well. For your body to process the big change it's going through of, you know, adapting to this new hormonal reality.

Lara, do share with our audience something about how they can get in touch with you and the kinds of things that you're offering. You've got this amazing program that you've developed. So do share a little about that and how people can get in touch with you. So you can get in touch with me through my website, laraowen.com, L-A-R-A-O-W-E-N.com. And what I'm doing now, and this is the main focus of my work, really, apart from writing and some consulting, is I'm teaching a year long program in what I'm calling contemporary menstrual studies, which is a look at the research that's being done and has been done on menstruation in different disciplines and I designed this really to help people who want to work in menstrual studies in some way or another in a professional capacity I think it's really important that we professionalize the field and in order to do that whether you're working for an NGO,

working as a menstrual educator, whether you're thinking of embarking on a master's or a PhD in a university, this program will really help you to A, understand what we already know, B, understand what we don't yet know, and and c understand some of the myths that persist and d gaining confidence so that you can communicate in the field with real knowledge behind you and i feel it's really important as well to link up the worlds of the spiritual and psychological dimension of menstruation with the academic and scientific worlds so that we're not operating in our different silos of interests but that we can really empower ourselves and each other through having a you know a real professional knowledge of the field without shutting anything out and acknowledging that, you know,

there's a growing body of knowledge on this topic. But it's a lot of work to figure it all out for yourself. And I had to do that several years ago for the research I was doing and then for my PhD. And I thought, well well nobody else has to reinvent that wheel you know all the time um so that's what I'm that's what I'm offering so the first year is just wrapping up now I've designed it like a university course there's a certificate at the end um and so the first year I had, I had people doing PhDs on menstruation, um, uh, people who are already menstrual educators, people who want to be menstrual educators, people working for NGOs.

Um, there were people from nine countries on the course, including Iran, Nepal, Pakistan, India, Mexico, as well as, um UK Australia European countries etc so the other thing I wanted to do was develop a real international cohort of people so that we can begin to understand what it's like in different countries and also look at what research is being done in different parts of the world and how the needs of different parts of the world um are different uh yeah so it's it's gone really really well i've been really happy with it um it's a fantastic cohort of people that for the first year so the next cohorts the the course will start on march 19th 2023 and registration is now open and it is already nearly half booked and I haven't done anything really to that so that's all word of mouth so so if you're interested do go and look

on the website for details about it thank you Lara thank you so much I could go on listening to you. I love the way you speak. And I love your clarity with language. And I am so grateful for the work that you're doing now, because you have a way of speaking that is kind of warm and human, but very smart on it and very compelling for the mainstream culture that you're talking to. And I think it's really radical that you're in the positions you're in now, speaking about menopause and menstruation and the way that you're doing at that level, it's really fantastic. And I really want to thank you for this work now. It's terrific.

And thank you so much for your conversation today, for sharing your story so intimately. It's been beautiful.imately it's been beautiful and it's been wonderful to connect with you i know we're too busy normally aren't we i know 30 years so thank you very much lar thank you Alex been a real pleasure thank you for joining us today with this epic conversation with Alexandra Pope and Lara Owen you can find out about Lara's course, Contemporary Menstrual Studies,

at laraowen.com. That's it for now. We'll be back on Thursday with our next episode. And until then, keep living life according to your own brilliant rhythm.