The Menstruality Podcast - 84. Five Things we Learned from Writing Wild Power (Alexandra & Sjanie)

Episode Date: April 20, 2023

Wild Power is five this month!We love watching this book work its magic, and hearing what it’s waking up in readers across the globe. (We’re thrilled that it’s now available in 8 languages—French, Italian, Spanish, German, Korean, Dutch, Czech, Russian—with a couple more in the pipeline). Thank you to everyone who has been writing in or tagging us with your greatest takeaway from the book.Here is one takeaway we adored:“My greatest learning from Wild Power has been that my intuition will always be by my side and guide me whenever I need her. She lies within and when listening, she gives me all the answers I could ever ask for. Through practising deep cycle awareness I have regained the connection with her and ability to be true to myself.”- LunaIn today’s episode Alexandra and Sjanie share five things they learned from writing Wild Power, including:How their personal relationship evolved through the writing process.What they learned about their creative processes—particularly what the book writing taught them about how to begin anything beautifully. That the world really is ready for menstruality—YES!---Receive our free video training: Love Your Cycle, Discover the Power of Menstrual Cycle Awareness to Revolutionise Your Life - www.redschool.net/love---The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email [e-mail]---Social media:Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.schoolSophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy

Welcome to the Menstruality Podcast, where we share inspiring conversations about the power of menstrual cycle awareness and conscious menopause. This podcast is brought to you by Red School, where we're training the menstruality leaders of the future. I'm your host, Sophie Jane Hardy, and I'll be joined often by Red School's founders, 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 for being here. I hope you're doing well today. It's a fun one today. This is a kind of behind the scenes episode. We're exploring five things

that Alexandra and Sharni learnt from writing their book Wild Power and that's because this month Wild Power is five and we're doing this giveaway where we're asking people to write in or tag us on Instagram with their takeaway, their greatest takeaway from the book and it's been so beautiful to receive your messages. We're going to weave several of them into the episode today. So some of the things that Alexandra and Sharni share, they talk about how their personal relationship evolved through the process of writing a book together. They speak about what the creative process of writing taught them about how they begin things very differently and together it helped them to form their way of beginning

everything they do in a really beautiful ritual that they go into in detail and they explore how amazing it is that the world is clearly so ready for these menstruality teachings so I hope you enjoy it and please do write to us with your takeaway about wild power. Good morning you two, let's do our cycle check-in. How about you, Alexandra? How are you doing? Well, I am... things calm a little now it's post-full moon. I sort of settle into a groove and I feel so today because I had a good night's sleep. Yes!

I feel this kind of sturdiness. I always used to feel in this phase of the cycle like I'd just dropped down a gear and had sort of really come into deeper business, like another deeper groove in myself. And it has a little bit of an echo of that but i am feeling um resourced and sort of ebullient lively but also there's this there's this nice steadiness in me thank you good night sleep yeah we really need to do sleep check-ins for you that's a huge factor for your wellness and creativity and everything isn't it everything everything yeah amazing I'm saying amazing because

I know what you two are doing behind the scenes at the moment because we've just started this right this year's menstruality leadership program and it's a big group and it's a huge endeavor to embark upon and you're you know doing that and you're showing up in all kinds of other ways in um red school and here we are having this chat about world power today and i'm just i'm really impressed by you both thank you where are you at shani i'm day 17 day 17 i keep thinking day 19 because it has a real like what I normally feel is a day 19 feeling um and it's because I ovulated around day 11 12 so my cycle's sort of a little bit earlier it's so interesting my dreams are more and more becoming these kind of weather forecast or fortune telling channel for where

I'm at in my cycle. And I probably had one of those dreams last night where I was in this kind of build up of hot emotion. And in the dream, I was just seething. I mean, yesterday, I was totally fine, I should say. So this all started in the dream, just seething and just feeling this incredible rage rising up in me, but it was all like held back, you know, and I woke up in that feeling with my skin crawling and this, you know, I'm sure lots of people relate to this proper irritability under my skin it's such a um sensorial experience I mean it's so bloody real it's like the conditions of my system are just different today and um it's funny because on the Menstruality Leadership Program at the moment, where we've really

dived into this week, a particular practice for how to meet ourselves in these kind of disturbing, challenging experiences in the cycle and alchemize them. So, of course, I've been having fun, in inverted commas, practicing this with myself and really kind of meeting myself in this place and um you know what we're what we're guiding people in is how to meet these places and ourselves that we can really root into the power the resource that's available here rather than just being in the reactivity of it and And I'm starting to feel that now. So having kind of woken up inside that profound irritability, what I'm feeling now is this fierceness about being at home in myself.

You know, there's this lovely sense of really backing up into my backbone and into my hips and just sort of claiming my stake in the ground you know which is good which is really really good so I love that that backing into your backbone and your hips I really feel that when you're saying it and as you're talking Shani I'm thinking of all of the different emails that I've received in this month so far because this is our month of celebrating wild power and we asked people to write in and share their takeaways and so many of the takeaways have been connected to this theme that you're talking about you know I didn't realize the power that there was especially in my inner autumn in my pre-monstrum

it's changed my life it's transformed everything it's transformed my relationships it's so it's so huge that one isn't it and I love that I'm gonna I'm gonna practice that one this month that backing backing down into my backbone and hips I really feel that nice I'm on the other end of the of the spectrum so I'm I think day 10 today and I was there was just a quiet moment this morning that I had that I'd like to share which was I was cooking up some breakfast before this and I heard my inner critic pop in saying something along the lines of god you've wasted a lot of time over the last couple of days and god you're just wasting a lot of time at the moment it was just like it was quiet but very mean and I caught it and I was like okay I'm in my inner spring I'm gonna take care of myself right now so no I'm not gonna go with that thought I'm going to celebrate the fact that I've just

spent the whole weekend helping my son learn how to use a potty and it's been really intensive and I'm and I'm pretty knackered and piss off in a critic uh and it was just it was you know it's those little quiet moments of mental cycle awareness that are everything isn't it and it just switched switched from me spiraling down into anxiety probably into taking the reins back sitting in my own corner and championing myself and then just carrying on with my day and it was a good it's a good spring moment for me fabulous beautiful sophie yeah wow deep deep bow to you as you say it's a quiet sort of seemingly small moment but you have just changed the kind of course of history really i mean that it's a big deal that's big deal. Because they all come together to create a new momentum and a whole new reality. Exactly. One percent at a time, you're changing your inner landscape and your relationship with yourself and your power.

One percent at a time. Wow. Beautiful. Speaking about changing the world, we today are going to look at these five things that you have learned, discovered from writing this amazing book, Wild Power. And the first one is very related to Changing the World because as we were brainstorming for this episode, the first one that came up was how much the vision to hold at the beginning of the book would really resonate with people and would really land with people so this is the section of the book which is yeah you share the vision that you've been holding the reason why you're writing this book and that's guiding everything behind this book and I could read the beginning of it for people who haven't heard it like yeah that'd be beautiful

imagine a society in which the cycles of life are revered and respected as quiet orchestrators of our lives, instilling a deep reverence for the planet and everything on it. Imagine that the menstrual cycle is understood as the heartbeat of that great orchestration and most crucially honored as the sacred source of life for us humans. Imagine that knowledge of the full spectrum and power of the menstrual cycle is commonplace and that we all feel the utter rightness of having this experience within us. Imagine a world in which the menstrual cycle is respected as a spiritual practice imagine a world in which the menstrual cycle is respected as a spiritual practice so yeah my question for you really is like what's it like to to quietly hold a vision like this together in the writing of this book and then to be joined by thousands of people tens of thousands of people in this vision?

I feel like I want to just say something about cycle awareness here because I remember when we made the decision to write this vision and it came out of this knowing that we both have of how well how creativity works which is that the vision like the vision is the beginning in the end you know and you can't miss that step really because it is it creates the vessel for the new to kind of manifest or land in the world. And by feeling into and dreaming and naming the vision, you open up a whole new field of possibility, which is essential for then going about doing the work and getting into actually creating that. So I am so glad that we wrote that vision, for one, because I feel like it was a wise thing to do to paint the picture

the why why we're writing this book why does this matter where is this leading you know to really give it ground but also because going back and looking at that vision when we wrote it it was so far-fetched Sophie it was such a pipe dream and now when you read it it's like oh yeah yeah yeah like I totally imagine menstrual cycle known and acknowledged as spiritual practice sure it's only in small spheres now but that is happening more and more so I can feel how this is coming to pass. And this vision is like a prayer. And we've said it so many times. We said at the end of our courses,

we read it almost every day as part of our preparation for the book writing. So it's become more and more real for us. And we've seen it become more and more realized in the world so it's kind of a way of um being able to appreciate how things have come to pass yeah it's so lovely hearing you say all that shani um the thing i sit with is how does anything ever ever change except that someone pipes up and goes what if imagine and I really love that spirit of just daring to declare because we look at this world the situation in the world and go you know it's impossible you know how can anything be any

different and then we start to feel hopeless and but actually things do change extraordinary things have happened and they happened out of someone you know thinking what if why not you know and daring to hold a possibility daring to hold a dream and I think that's I have I've always had that spirit in me and I think both Shadi and I have that spirit in us of well let's just have a go you know we've got nothing to lose let's just declare it I've got nothing up nothing better to do nothing better to do so let go you know we've got nothing to lose let's just declare it i've got nothing up nothing better to do nothing better to do so let's you know what if you know really and there is if i think of myself there is this part of me that is it's you know someone says oh no no no no no no that's impossible something it's like a red rag to a bull that you

know and really like well okay i'm going to declare something else now and it felt like that to me that just that let's just declare it as so and then you have to hold the line which is what shani and shani described you just keep holding the line, which is what Shani and I, Shani described. You just keep holding the line. You tell the new story. So that's what, that was the new story. And that was what we were doing with Wild Power, was writing ourselves into that new story.

And we've done the same with the menopause book as well. Yeah. And we've done the same with the menopause book as well. Yeah, that prayer that we set, that held us. We wrote to that prayer, didn't we, Shani? We wrote the sounds of that prayer through the whole book. Yeah, exactly. And the thing I want to kind of extract from this, which I hope is useful for everyone, is the power of naming and declaring what it is your heart is longing for or the potential and possibility you see the dream because people might not realize this, but when we were writing Wild Power, the phrase menstrual cycle awareness was not in the world yet. That came out with the book and the description of what menstrual cycle awareness is. But in the declaration of this, something was made real for people.

It's such a permission giving thing to do, to name and declare something. And I just love the magic of how people who have read this book and people who have studied with us have really stepped inside the vision themselves and made it their own. And the power and momentum of that, Sophie, is so exciting because we can't realize this vision on our own it's a collective vision so to feel so many people inside it and living it and speaking about it now I mean I could cry it's just so incredible it's so beautiful and what I'm really present to listening to you is I'm thinking about each person as they pick up the book and read the book and and then they each in their own lives get to do their own version of this having the vision and living it out because this isn't

mainstream yet you know we got an email the other day from someone saying you know someone at my workplace asked me to just stop talking about my menstrual cycle because I talk about it too much you know there's we hear all the time about people just feeling alone in this practice so I'm really moved to feel how each person who's got the book and is really getting behind this vision is carving their own path you know they're holding their own line and they're taking responsibility in this powerful way to believe in themselves to believe in what they're experiencing and to make that as real as what the culture you know the rest of the cultural story is. And that's a real act of courage. It's a huge act of courage, huge.

And actually what I'm thinking about, I just really want to acknowledge, you know, when Wild Power came out, you know, there's like, as Shani said, the zeitgeist really shifted. But there's so, when you're manifesting anything there's so much invisible work that goes on for years and years and years and years and years before because i think of well myself because i've been holding this work for well now going on 40 years but all the people that i know in the field, colleagues that I've worked with, you know, all over the world, who have held, who have persistently done this work in the dark.

You know, this is long before social media, apparently. And it's because, you know, of all that, those people who just dared to go. I mean, that was, and that was proper Dark Ages stuff. And now it's through all that collective energy of people who did it, you know, when it was really hidden still, but just still did it, still did it, still did it. And I think of all the little small workshops I ran,

you know, just one or two people. And then bingo, one day. And it's about persistence. It's daring to believe it can be different. Yeah. And starting to declare it. Yeah. And then it's this persistence with it.

And I think it was the time. I think timing. It was the time. There was something in the zeitgeist that had shifted. Because you were just telling me a story before we started recording this about how Hay House asked you to write this book and you didn't want to. And you said no. This just cracks me up.

When the calling comes, you know, I mean, we were both following our calling, but, you know, this is a new aspect of it. You know, you can always tell it's significant because the first response is no. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, that's not that. No, no, I'm going this way again. And then it was hilarious. Shadi, you tell the tale. It was very funny. this way again and then it was hilarious you shanee you tell the tale it's so funny it was

very funny we alexandra and i had been working together for about four or five years at that point and and we had established red school and we had just gotten stuck into creating our first online program which was very exciting and we were so absorbed in it and kind of determined with it and we were running a workshop together in London and Amy Kybird from Hay House happened to be there and approached us afterwards and said you know would you be interested in writing a book for Hay House and Alexandra said we were like no no, no, no. We've got this online course we're creating, we've just got so many other things, you know, no. And we said that in all earnest.

And then the funny bit is, so they go away and then they come back to us and say, okay, well, if you won't write it, we'll find someone else to write it. And you can imagine how clear and big our yes was then we're like no no no no we will be doing that yeah we we respond to competition oh competition we are obviously competitive i mean you know i've all you know you want to get us to do anything just bring out the competition. So that was funny. But it's very interesting in how that was such a turnkey moment

in the evolution of our calling and our work and our relationship with each other as well. It was a really profoundly shifted relationship with each other. I want to share this takeaway that Jenny wrote into us, back to the vision and the spiritual path, you know, menstrual cycle awareness as a spiritual path. It really has landed. So this is from Jenny. My greatest learning from reading Wild Power, just finished it in fact, was the revelation that menstrual cycle awareness was in itself a spiritual path a journey to wholeness and union with the divine feminine amazing

that's from jenny and there's also another one i love this so this is from julica who graduated from the mlp last year one day about, about five years ago, the title randomly popped up in my book search. I was drawn to click. I did. I ordered it. So if this was five years ago, this must be when it just came out. This was the beginning of an incredible journey into the depths of creation and my aliveness as a woman. I learned that my cycle was a true initiation into spirituality that up until that day was reserved only to the religion I was following that book opened me to a bone deep truth that I deepen every day through cycle awareness that my body is my true religion

wild power is the bible for cycle awareness I love Julika she is a force of wonder that is such a good quote that my body is my true religion yeah but yes tell me about the second thing here that the book writing taught you tell me about how it what it taught you about your relationship yeah it was interesting. We're just sort of thinking back now. And I was young. We were was like the second chair Alexandra had been holding and doing this work for years and years and years before we met and I had had my own journey with it and through my kind of mind-body work with fertility and that led me into my explorations of the menstrual cycle. But really, when I met Alexandra, I was in a very deep training with her. But we were working together. We were partners. We were running workshops together.

We were creating courses together. But there was a very different dynamic. And Alexandra had been holding the stream of writing a book since forever, really. And it was only really when we were approached by Hay House as a partnership to write the book that we got thrown into this, you know, creative baby of writing the book together. We had no plan to write a book together. So it was a very interesting thing to find ourselves in. And it was quite magical because we probably wouldn't have chosen. Life set us up. It was a blind date. We got thrown together and we hit it off. I mean, that was the miracle. The book writing experience was so good and satisfied. It just worked. But in the process of writing the book, we really shifted gears in our relationship. together as collaborators, as two kind of unique perspectives following the same river. We became

like two creative channels, the stereo, the left, the right. And there was a very different way of us engaging together and our contribution was very equal and very creative so you know by the time we so I grew up a lot during the writing of the book and our relationship really matured during the writing of the book so we came to the end of the writing of the book on in a very different kind of footing uh in a way there's been no looking back since then we really kind of stepped into our partnership as equals. Alexandra said to me this morning, yeah, it was your graduation moment. Graduated from apprentice to whatever, whatever I am now. Co-conspirator. Co-conspirator, yeah.

It really, yeah, after that it was, you know, it was us together. And I also felt that change i felt we were equals i could feel your equal authority yeah yeah we really wrote ourselves into something it's fascinating yeah what was I thinking about our relationship? Yeah, I agree with everything you've said, Shani. In truth, I didn't question it, really. You know, we just, I just kept following the thread of what was unfolding between us which actually goes right back i mean it was all destined but i go right back to that first meeting with you yeah vegan restaurant cafe in london and when i just arrived back in the, and we just did not stop talking.

It just was electrifying. It just, and the same, again, we met again later, and there was someone else there, but they kind of got edged out. We, again, took off. There was some sort of magic or electrical charge in the way that we engage with each other. And so then we just said, well, you know, it was actually you that said, well, why don't we just run a workshop together? Why don't we? You know, it was just like, why don't we? So it just unfolded quite sort of magically.

And so similarly, the book, there was no fight. There was no, I mean, we fight over ideas. Everything is hard won and everything we do and write, let me tell you. But there was no, but it was creative tension. But it was just accepted. It just felt, the connection felt right. So it was an extension of all that, really. I would even say there was a kind of there was and is a kind of innocence to it we both just innocently you know did what we were doing with that and then certainly really in retrospect we would kind of track

and recognize and appreciate actually what was unfolding between us and with the work and that that innocence is such a magic part of question I don't remember ever questioning the wisdom of writing a book with you or anything it just was the next step yeah and by the way can I say it would have been half the book if it had just been one of us I mean I could speak for myself there's no way I could have done that on my own this is what I'm aware of all the time with you two, because I get to be quite up close to your relationship and you complete each other in so many ways. Like from from the practical level of you actually complete each other's sentences all the time. So much so that you just weave in and out of each other but to that soul level

that you are soul friends you know you are there's a marriage going on between you you two it's so beautiful to witness I'm always fascinated by relationships and what makes relationships tick and stay together and be strong and yeah you two have got something good going on. Yeah, you should. It's working so far. So the third thing that writing the book revealed to you was it revealed a lot about the creative process. It sure did. And it revealed how we start a project is what it revealed. Sharni and I are different styles around starting a project. Through that creative tension, we found our way of how we now start projects that sort of honours both our kind of energies, really.

Yeah. Yeah, it was a funny story I'll tell I'll start it yeah you start it because I'll just say this is this is really it's such a beautiful illustration of creativity because Vera Alexandra is with her way of starting and there I am with my way of starting which is so opposite and different but it was through us meeting each other and the kind of creative tension of that that we discovered this whole very beautiful, what I would call sacred way of starting emerged. We really found something magical in that, that now, yeah, as Alexandra said,

it's become a sort of guiding light for us with all our creative projects beginnings are everything with a creative project you know how you start really is it's kind of you coming into alignment with it and um i'm yeah, I'll describe it in a funny way. So I like my sort of Aries rising. I'm full of, you know, my Aquarius Aries rising. I talk about full of hot air, which is very good, actually, for starting things. And you have to remember that, you know, the ideas are popping. You know, the ideas are popping.

And we'd signed the contract you know a few months before and it's now January and we have to start and I'm like a bull at a gate going let's just start let's just sit down and start you know writing well and we did have a plan we had a plan at this point and so I'm um I'm you know leap before you look kind of person. And Sharni is freaking well pissing around. I mean, I have to say, Sharni is the mother of a two and a half year old. Yeah, I know. This is pissing around in context.

Not sleeping. She's not sleeping. She's completely overwhelmed because she's completely sleep-deprived. I'm being very, very cheeky here, but this is how we operate. She's completely sleep-deprived. Yeah, yeah. I didn't know where that was coming or going. But Alexandra had come down to my house for a week for us to sort of start the book together.

Yeah. So she's there for that purpose. I was there for the purpose. And I was not having any of it and it's like and um i remember very clearly going let's go out for a walk so this is where we didn't have any plan about how we let's just go out for a walk and we walked down to the seafront at worthing and we just walked and walked and walked along the seafront. We walked and we basically walked our way into this work. We walked through all our fees. We just walked

through talking, talking, talking, talking. And then as we were talking, something started to happen. We were talking about how we were feeling about the new beginning, I should say. That's what we were. We're really talking ourselves into the place we both found ourselves and what we were both negotiating that was a big part of it and I will also just say this is something we learned from writing the book is that Alexandra and I now walk together a lot something we do together a lot it really really works for us it really does in fact we have to take the phone with us to you know right to sort of do the downloads this is really underestimated as a creative tool because there's something about the body moving and it does something different to the

brain doesn't it I do it all the time I take my phone out and I speak into my phone I write emails I write courses I write all kinds of things it's incredible absolutely and also when you're in a partnership there's something, I find this with my children, being side by side as opposed to front on really helps things to move. It's, you know, sitting side by side with my daughter in the car, we have the best conversations ever, you know. It's that kind of magic.

So, yes, we then, I mean, we were out. It felt like hours actually and then we came back and we thought okay all right let's let's really kind of sit down and name the spirit of this book you know what's what are our intentions because I think we were talking about intentions weren't we Shani yeah we actually started with deciding that we would open up sacred space and really, yeah, set the atmosphere and call in the spirit of the book to commune with it. That was, we did this whole ritual around my room. Do you remember, Alexandra? Calling in all kinds of things. Yeah, and calling in the spirit of the book almost, but also in a way calling in our spirits together.

Now, if I think about it, we were calling our individual spirits into the book and into our relationship with each other. And we spent, you know, this very precious time we had together, you know, with a deadline and, you know, all the stuff of our lives and everything looming. And when you've got a deadline, Jesus ups the ante. And we spent a long time writing out this whole prayer and sort of intention for the book and then a kind of prayer. It has two elements to it. A prayer for what we want this book to be able to serve in the world. And then it was from that place that we could finally start writing. And we do this now before any new creative endeavor.

It was an amazing way to really reinforce something very powerful. And we, part of, for example, one of the things we said in that set of affirmations is that when people hold the book, that they will feel the power and love, you know, within it. And we have had people write to us and say, I saw the book, I touched it. I just had this feeling so many people have spoken about the feeling they had when they got the book and that was part of our intention so I really feel that those intentions came to pass in such a strong way and part of what's you know I think really amazing about this book is the energetic of this book, not just the words, you know, the intention within it, you know. Yeah.

Listeners, you might be able to hear some scratching in the background. That's Shani literally just like almost hugging the book and stroking the book. Correcting it. It doesn't feel good. It feels so good. I'm going to feel mine right now if it's little stroke little stroke the cover it feels so good so good yeah yeah wow I mean and that's just the beginning aspect of the creative process and I'm gonna move us along um reluctantly but I just want to say that if you've

enjoyed listening to Alessandra and Sharni talk about just this one small aspect of the whole creative process then watch this space because we Alessandra and Sharni are putting together a course that you've been dreaming into for a really long time well yeah we live and breathe it we live and breathe we have you know we've learned so much about the creative process all the different um atmospheres you have to move through all the um there's demons you have to encounter there's angels that are you know carrying you and there's there's all sorts of swamps and etc and how to and how necessary every shade of that creative process how necessary it is and um you know i am so grateful for that understanding now because it just makes it so much easier to meet what's required and demanded in a creative process.

So, my God, yes, do we have something to share on what it takes to produce something in the world? Yeah, yeah. But both from us living and breathing it, but also because of how the menstrual cycle and menstrual cycle awareness teaches us about the creative process and skills us up and resources us for the creative process. So that combination of menstruality wisdom and our lived experience of creating is so rich and fun and practical and useful. Sophie, I can't wait to share this with everyone. Yeah, you know, it's almost because for me of menstruality that I can create yeah because I've been tutored in something and also having gone through menopause it's I feel so tutored and so held and grown up into something I can trust the creative process

because I have trusted the menstrual cycle. We've loved receiving your greatest takeaways about Wild Power and our Wild Power giveaway is happening for the whole of April. So if you've read Wild Power and you haven't yet emailed us or tagged us on Instagram sharing your greatest takeaway from the book please do it today you can email us you can email me at sophie at redschool.net or you can create a post on Instagram and tag us and if you do that we'll share it in our stories as well and yeah tell us your greatest takeaway and we'll add you to the draw to win one of five packs of our red power cards we would absolutely love to hear from you i want to share another takeaway which is from

cassidy and i think this speaks to one of the main things that my menstrual cycle has taught me about my creative process which is just to always remember impermanence you know my cycle has taught me that things will always change so if I've if I have writer's block I can lean back because I know it'll change you know if something goes really well I can stay humble because I know it's going to change and it's so what Cassidy said is um my takeaway is that everything has its season including strong emotions and experiences I was going through a really tough time in my life and somehow seeing the picture of the vias changed me forever it reminded me that whatever I was experiencing will change it has its moments and it will pass just like the seasons in our cycle. Love this book and love what you do with love, Cassidy.

Beautiful. Thank you, Cassidy. That's lovely hearing that. So the final two things that writing the book taught you, number four is that the world really is ready for this menstruality work and you shared some of this earlier you know that hashtag menstrual cycle awareness for example didn't didn't exist before you wrote the book and now it's been shared 50 000 times or something you know it's this is a thing now and so many other things have happened like like the menstrual cycle was on the cover of Newsweek. There's been this brilliant film that won an Oscar all about menstruation.

You know, these things that couldn't have happened 10 years ago are like popping up and becoming possible in the world now. And it really showed you that there was a readiness in the world for this work. It did. I mean mean that was that sort of zeitgeist thing you know something had shifted I like to feel that wild power has contributed it has to this shift and I feel it was the time it was the time and actually you know what we spoke of I spoke of before about all those people you know who worked uh in the battle including myself for years in the darkness with this um knowing in a way holding our nerve knowing that there would be a time there would be a time yeah and so world timing and yes, the arrival of wild power was a very seminal moment.

I am going to say that. I know it's part of your nature, Alexandra, to be able to be in the dark with something and stay true to it. So it's definitely part of who you are. But is there a practice that you know that you did or a way that you used to hold that to keep yourself going when no one else around you was talking about it or thinking about it? Oh, Shani, Sophie, I almost could weep when you asked the speaker that. It was menstruation. Every time I bled, I could weep now to think about it.

It was so moving. I felt so, you know, especially after I'd got through the worst of the pain. But I can remember before the pain struck, I was about 29, I'd written in my journal, the world is singing today. Last night I got my bleed i didn't know then about the enormity of what was available at menstruation and every time i bled i thought i can't abandon this was the feeling i can't abandon this it's real then i get to ovulation and go Jesus did I make that menstruation every time Shani is there anything you want to add about that now knowing the readiness in the world

just that it's a great source of comfort to me and I hope it is for everyone listening that our callings are connected to the world and the world's timing and I know how easy it is to kind of take on responsibility for the timing of kind of realizing our visions in the world and that's often what makes us feel anxious and you, we push ourselves and so on and so forth. But to know and remember that the world's timing is kind of in unison with us and the timing will be right at some point. So if you feel like you've been holding a vision for years or what you're dreaming hasn't yet come to pass pass it's really good just to remind yourself to trust that because there will be a ripeness that comes and boy when it comes is it abundant you know once the gates open it's fertile it's so fertile and that's what we've experienced you know like

for alexandria years and years of slog and for us both actually when we came together you know and formed our partnership people don't know this but we invested everything we earned no money we put all our resources into creating this we had to hold faith for years before there was any reciprocity and reward and, you know, feedback coming and acknowledgement. But boy, once the timing was right, we've been held in such a momentum and a flowering and I feel carried by life. You know really really do so yeah I hope that's comforting to people who are listening it's incredibly important to acknowledge that especially inside the cultural milieu that we're in around um particularly around stories around wealth and abundance actually that there are lots of

seemingly sort of overnight successes you know and we see people who are living a life of purpose and getting a great salary from it or you know receiving a lot of money for it and then people can criticize themselves for thinking for you know that they haven't got those two things lined up yet. But always what's happened before an overnight success is what you're talking about. Weeks, months, years and years of quietly behind the scenes doing everything that you're speaking about. And I just think it's really important for everyone to hear that. And for me, too, to hear it, that there is, there is a timing for everything. And if the world isn't responding yet,

that doesn't mean that what you're doing is not incredibly important and needed and necessary. Yeah. Yeah. One of the most overlooked powers you need with creative, when creating anything is resilience. And I want to add, this is something I've learned with hindsight because when the success came I sort of look back you know for instance you know the books the books that are you know I think to myself, holy shit, wow, I now get it. I now get why it took so long.

It's because I had to grow into the person who could take responsibility for these ideas in the world. Because, yeah, I mean, I've known this stuff for years, although it grew exponentially the moment I connected with Shani. I mean, it's massive what's evolved. It would never, you know, yeah, that's everything. But I remember, you know, years before, it was just me on my own, getting so angry with the universe, so angry.

And then it's like, oh, oh, universe. It turns out, after all, you did know what you were doing. You were right. You were right. I didn't go. I would have gone off half-cocked, basically. And, you know, I would have bluffed because, you know, I talk my way through wet cement.

I can, you know. But it wasn't, you know, i had so much more growing to do in terms of the ideas but it was my own psychological maturation that had to you know happen and actually it was menopause because it's really happened and sort of since menopause it's when I went through menopause and went you know bugger this for luck and gave up my day job of psychotherapy I thought I've got to go for it now that and then the kind of you know almost shocking learning curve I went through in terms of my learning about myself being confronted by myself and who you know yeah seeing one's shadow side basically and meeting that and yeah and then

I got it I thought yeah now I could feel this sort of sobriety in me. I could feel the discernment in me because this is radical work. It's very disturbing work. If you're doing something radical, if you're doing something that's going to disturb the zeitgeist, because God knows menstruation could disturb it like that story. Please stop talking about the menstrual cycle so much. You know, you're not going to get loved. I wasn't exactly loved for being public about this. You have to have muscle and you've got to hold yourself and actually I also I couldn't have done it on my own you see it's Shani and I together we're kind of buffer for each other so you you were you were basically

waiting for me to come out of nappies yeah yeah I was getting ready for Shani to get out of nappies. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was getting ready for Sharni to get out of nappies. Jesus, I had to do an awful lot of thumbs up. To wait like 20, 30 years for you to grow up. Because there's a 24-year difference between us. Yeah, 24 years difference, that's right. So I was waiting on Sharni to get her act together as well. The universe was playing a big game here, can I say? I mean, there was a... And then Sophie, you coming on board,

because you transformed everything for Red School. I mean, there were an awful lot of moving parts going on here. Yeah, turns out the universe does indeed know what it's doing. Yeah, it does. The final thing that we when we were riffing we discovered that you'd learn from writing this book is really comes back to the the big why of this book and all of this work which is the deep belonging that this book would awaken in people which was obviously core to your intention and your prayer and we hear about it all the time so there are a couple of takeaways

that people emailed in that I'd like to read and the first one is from Kinsey in the States so she says I want to let you all know that menstrual cycle awareness has been, even in a relatively short time, a transformational practice for me, life-changing and layered. Medicine permeating through all of my relationships, I'm recommending Wild Power to everyone I know. Ever since my period returned when my youngest child was a toddler, I've dealt with tremendously difficult, impossible feeling menstrual cycles. That was eight years ago. Fortunately, I have lots of physical support around me, but feeling misunderstood and unbelieved has been incredibly painful, confusing and isolating.

Finding red school and wild power has been like falling into an enormous velvety cushion where I feel held to rest as long as I need and bolstered to integrate this work that also feels like love so I think she's saying that the work also feels like love and wisdom into my life and she's the one she says I hope to register for the leadership course next year we would love to have you yes Kinsey we would love to have you yeah what I'm really with in what she writes is that feeling of being misunderstood and not believed can lead to a feeling of us not not feeling real that we don't exist in some way which is sort of excruciating for our our souls and our deep selves and then finding words or a book or a place where

we are seen in those places is so profoundly healing yeah wow thank you so the next one is from vanessa in finland for me the big revelation was that every single phase in the cycle contains some hidden wisdom and that by tapping into that we can find not only answers but also compassion for ourselves and respect and love for our cyclical nature for me realizing that the inner critic during the autumn week is a source of power instead of pms syndrome needing to be medicated was the biggest revelation as I think every woman on the planet should know

this that's Vanessa from Finland yes I am so loving hearing people's words around what they've taken from it and what it means to them I am so loving this Sophie can more people write to us are we are we still open for this kind of i i it means so much to me yeah for the whole of april this is our we're doing this giveaway where we people can either write they can either email me sophie at red school.net or share it on instagram and tag us on instagram and if they do that on instagram then we will share it in our stories as well yes and so and what we'd like people to do is to share their takeaway, their biggest takeaway, their biggest insight from reading the book. Yeah, I am loving this.

I would love to hear from more people. It's such, it's so nourishing and it really resources me, you know, because some days we have a hard, aren't they Alexandra? And it's words like, yeah, we have hard days and it's words like these and feedback like this that just gives me such fuel. So I really appreciate it. Thank you. I'm going to create like a little booklet of all this to like read to myself as a bedtime story. Yeah, I think we have about 20 or 30 that have come in already.

So nice. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Occasionally I would land up on Amazon when I'm looking for something and the wild card comes up and I look at some of people's responses about what they've how the book has touched them in the reviews on emerson and I just I love I love it I love it I love it yeah there's one more that's really beautiful from luna that I'd love us to share in closing which is my greatest learning from wild power has been that my intuition will always be by my side and guide me whenever i need her she lies within and when listening she gives me all the answers i could ever ask for through practicing deep cycle awareness i have regained the connection with her and the ability to be true to myself.

That's perfection. Yeah. Being true to yourself. Yeah. Cycle awareness helps you to know yourself and supports you to be true to that stuff. That you are i do often feel like that's uh so central to menstrual cycle awareness is this whole notion of you be you it really brings us back to you know you being you and uh that is as simple and profound as it gets, really.

Thanks, you two. It's been gorgeous and so fun to celebrate this amazing book. Thank you. So fun. Thank you, Sophie. Thanks, Alexandra. Thank you so much for being with us today. Please subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts.

Please leave us a review. It really helps to spread the word about this podcast. And if you haven't yet emailed your takeaway about wild power, please do that. You can email me at redschool at sophie. Sophie at redschool.net or create a post on Instagram, ideally with a photo of the book. We love seeing the book all over the world. And you can tag us. And then if you do that, we'll also share it in our stories. And then you could be in for a chance of winning one of our five packs of red power cards so we'd love to hear from you thank you for listening this week I'll be with you again next week and until then keep living life according to your own brilliant rhythm