The Menstruality Podcast - 85. Why we Need Cycle Aware Friendship & Community (Sjanie & Ruby)

Episode Date: April 27, 2023

Today we’re welcoming back Ruby May to the podcast, who is the new community leader here at Red School. Ruby is the founder of the Know Your Flow cycle awareness course and community - she’s an earth-lover, a truth-seeker, an edge-dweller and a mischief-maker passionate about how we can each midwife a culture of deeper connection – to our bodies, each other and our planet through menstrual cycle awareness.I’ve been loving working with Ruby lately to co-create our new MLP grads community, The Hive, we’ve been riffing a lot about the power of cycle-aware friendship and community, and today Sjanie is joining us. So, if you ever feel lonely in your cycle awareness practice, or like you’re swimming upstream and would love some like-minded allies by your side, this one’s for you. I invite you to make a cup of something lovely and nestle into this conversation with us…We explore:How lonely it can feel to practise cycle awareness in a world that often demands productivity and a focus on what is visible, rather than what is slow and unseen. The harmony, creativity that love that emerges between people when we each authentically own the place they are truly in and can put the fullness of our humanity in the space - and how cycle awareness gives us access to that authentic expression. How the premenstruum schools us in how to meet conflict as a creative ally within our friendships and communities. ---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.schoolRuby May: @know.your.flow - https://www.instagram.com/know.your.flowSophie 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. Love, thank you for listening today. I've been hearing from some of you because

we've been asking for these wild power takeaways to celebrate this fifth birthday month of wild power and you've been adding in messages about the podcast which has been so wonderful to receive so thank you so much for those and today we're welcoming back the amazing Ruby May to the podcast who is the new community leader here at Red School. Exciting. Ruby is the founder of the Know Your Flow cycle awareness course and community and she describes herself as an earth lover, truth seeker, edge dweller and a mischief maker. Sorry for my tummy gurgling. And she's passionate about how we can each midwife a culture of deeper connection to our bodies, to each other and to our planet through menstrual cycle awareness. And I've had the blessing of working alongside Ruby

lately to co-create our new menstruality leadership program graduates community, which is called the Hive. I'm buzzing about it. Literally, I'm just so excited. It's going to be a really beautiful place. And we've been riffing a lot about the power of cycle aware friendship and community and today Sharni's joining us for the conversation so if you ever feel lonely in your cycle awareness practice this one's for you I invite you to make a cup of something lovely and nestle into this conversation with us. Hello, you two. It's really, really delightful to be in conversation with you two this morning.

I feel very lucky. I feel like we're all sitting around a kitchen table drinking tea, and I'm excited to see what emerges from this conversation. I'm lucky to get to spend lots of time with both of you at the moment especially you Ruby because we've been dreaming into and building this new community hive for our MLP graduates and yeah it's lovely to be with you. Let's start with a cycle check-in. Who feels going first I can go I'm day 23 and I feel a bit like I haven't really woken up today but like I never might the feeling I have is really reminding me of the experience of scuba diving which I really really love doing there's something about that moment of kind of crossing below the waterline and going underwater and like my normal senses getting shut down like

suddenly you can't hear and then also the physical senses have changed because now I'm like ensconced in water and there's this feeling of so it's a simultaneous sense of like kind of disconnect from my normal ways of feeling but with that comes this amazing sense of kind of quiet and then I I'm just recalling what it's like when I've been scuba diving they're like all I can hear is just the sound of the bubbles in my breath, you know, and visually like the colors just start to pop. You know, there's suddenly more liveness in what I can see because my other senses are a bit dulled. Yeah, I've got that going on, which is really nice, but probably a bit like scuba diving I mustn't think too much about the fact that I'm like 20 meters underwater and I don't know if I stop and think about it I might just freak out it's quite a lot like that how about you both where are you at well I relate

to what you're saying Shani about feeling like you haven't quite woken up and might not wake up yeah yeah day 33 or 32 I'm not quite sure and at this stage I kind of want to stop counting because it my cycle is very unpredictable in the last six six months yeah and I noticed that I can get a bit precious uh and obsessive about it and so I feel like my path is to yeah relax a little bit around it but I feel tired today I feel it's the first day I've woken up and feel really tired and it's interesting just giving myself permission to feel tired and it's funny I had to chuckle because this morning I was listening to you Shani and Alexandra on the menstruality leadership uh curriculum yes and after a while I was just like I just can't listen to you anymore you know that feeling uh I get when I'm about to bleed where it's like I have to

tune out the outside voices and information totally and just come into more of an emptiness with myself and so I really felt that kind of summoning yeah today and then just laying day dreams on the sofa yeah yeah today oh very nice I know that so well the thing of I suddenly start to feel saturated and first the words lose their meaning and then I realize they're just the sound is just irritating me but you had Sophie Jane well if you're scuba diving down under the water I'm the one on the boat sipping the cocktail in the full sun with my sunglasses on dancing the tunes are going it's day 16 life is good and I'm just feeling the difference in our energies right now and really enjoying how enriching cycle awareness is when it comes to hanging out with people you know we get to

be holding different ends of different spectrums and all be in our togetherness bringing the fullness of what we're experiencing you know if we're practicing cycle awareness we're in touch with what we're experiencing we can we can bring that as an offering to each other you know so I'm feeling your calm and there's a kind of seriousness to the premenstrual place that you're both in and at the same time I'm like enjoying my sunshine time yeah love it I think that's what makes our work meetings feel so nourishing to me as well it's not just that they feel purposeful it's because we always start with the cycle check-in and there was always this invitation just to be with what is and find a way to weave it in and it just ends up you feel nourished

yes and the thing I noticed um Ruby when you were sharing your acknowledgement of your own tiredness as you named it and you kind of took that big out breath I felt myself settle back more and it felt like the space between us suddenly was more open and alive and this is the really magical thing isn't it because I don't know if it's a kind of human condition that we all are just sort of entrained to want to be the same or feel that we kind of should be the same as each other and cycle awareness kind of gives us this discipline of teasing ourselves out from each other, from the kind of monotony of all needing to be the same

and really holds us to us, you know, individuality and the unique place we're in. And one might think, this is what I find so fascinating, one might think that that would create conflict, like the more different we are, the more kind of challenging that would be. But my experience is the more and more people really authentically and genuinely own and occupy the place they're in,

the more and more harmony and kind of creativity and love there is between us. It's so beautiful. Really beautiful. I really feel it. There's a lot of talk these days, I've noticed about creating safety at work and how can people feel safe in the workplace and I feel like what we're describing here is we feel safe when we can bring our whole humanity to whatever we're doing and what feels like what you're describing is being able to to put our humanity right at the center of what we're doing instead of all um co-hearing is that a word sounds good to me yeah having to separate you know shut ourselves down or sort of separate

ourselves from who we are or how we are in the moment yeah to cohere I like that I I think if we're used to like shutting ourselves down and used to other people doing that then it can feel quite scary and and we might be a bit polarized into thinking well then how am I going to even function properly or how are we going to get things done if everyone's just like embodying the state that they're in that day but uh yeah it's not like that is it it's like you find ways to to just channel whatever you're currently experiencing feeling into what needs to happen yeah that is such a good point I've heard so many people say that Ruby it's like if we're all just you know honoring our own needs or letting ourselves be in the place we're in, especially given that,

you know, as we know with the menstrual cycle, at least half the cycle is seemingly non-productive. I noticed this a lot kind of in our work environment or whenever I'm with groups of people. If it starts with me and I really let myself firstly acknowledge my needs and then let myself kind of rest in the place that I'm in it opens up a resource and a capacity that often surprises me so like out of tiredness comes like an ingenious idea you, or out of tiredness comes a real kind of compassion and heart opening. It really opens us to power. That's what it is, because we're really in the river of ourselves. Yeah. And then something kind of magic happens. And our topic today really is how we can be together in

this practice, how community can both support us to get closer to ourselves, to commit more deeply to our cycle awareness practice, but also how our cycle awareness practice is growing the muscles in us that we need to relate in a skillful loving authentic way when we are with others in community so we're going to look at the gold all and as well as the shadows so that we can name them and bring some air around them because you know community isn't necessarily an easy thing for everybody anybody and um yeah a place that feels good to start really is that is the big why of this conversation like why do we need to have a conversation about creating communities around cycle awareness what is the result of us being siloed away in our own little units practicing cycle awareness by ourselves and there's actually a funny story that I wanted to share around this because

Lucy Peach who's one of our MLP grads who we interviewed for the recent menstruality leadership leadership lab yeah she was talking about um the earlier days of her cycle awareness practice and one of her friends actually said to her I'm not going to do her awesome Australian accent because I can't do it said to her Lucy you really talk about your period a lot and she said well yeah it's really important to me and what would you rather I talk about my shit and he actually said yeah I think I would be more comfortable with that actually and it showed her the state of things when it comes to the menstrual cycle. And yeah, what's the result of people being on their own with this, being alone with this? I was thinking in the lead up to this conversation around that question, just the taboo around periods and how we you know speak transparently without being stigmatized or shamed or making other people uncomfortable but I think another big part is when you start

living attuned to your cycle it creates a whole shift in values and and shani you mentioned power like it it has a lot to do with power like what we it gives us an upgrade in a way like what power is and and can be and needs to be oh well said and it's so going against the grain that it can feel really lonely if you're living in a world that's so used to seeing yeah that that that the doing is more important than the being and that what's visible is more valuable than what's invisible yeah that's a that's a lonely place to be that's another reason I think that it's so necessary to have a language to describe these things and come into relation with one another about it. Lonely, yes. truly trust our experiences without, I don't know, being around others who are acknowledging it. It's one of the reasons I know that we as humans absolutely need each other

is because there's something about us being seen and acknowledged in our experience that makes it real, like next level real. And we really need each other as mirrors and as allies to really deepen and trust ever more into what we are discovering with our cycle. I mean, it's one of the things that I'm so grateful for and I don't take for granted, is in my relationship with Alexandra, you know, over many, many years of cycle awareness, having her to ongoingly acknowledge, affirm, and witness what I'm experiencing has given me so much it's given me so much it's given me so much that I never could have accessed on my own yeah which is also why we're so big on listening partnerships it's one of those you know at Red

School it's one of the ways where just one-to-one just even having someone witness what you're experiencing and just hold you in it without question it's like we're able to really digest our experience to the next you know, next level. So if we know it's good for us, community in general, and when it comes to cycle awareness practice, can we speak about why there can be a push pull in us when it comes to wanting to be in community? Ruby, in our last meeting, you were speaking about the ambivalence that people can feel in community. Ruby, in our last meeting, you were speaking about the ambivalence

that people can feel around community, like, yeah, I want community, but I also want time for me. And some of the dynamics that are going on there. Yeah, I don't know how it is for you both in your circles, but in my circles here in Berlin, where I'm based based, like there's so much speak of the longing for community, but not that much action around it actually happening. Yeah. And a really common thing that I hear again and again and again is, yeah, like an ambivalence, like, oh, I really long for more connection and more community.

And I'd love to, know live in community but I'd also really need my own space and you know as beautiful as community is oh it's hard work isn't it and and all the failed attempts at community as well no it's heartbreaking really like I know a lot of just very beautiful intentions to create community um being being short-lived so most people I think a lot of people are aware that there's something in the way that we're living in these little isolated units sometimes not even knowing the people who physically live so close to us our next door neighbors there's something off around that but also our our heritage I mean if you look at the bigger picture the way that we're living now is like a little eye blink in the history of being

humans and I think about all the hundreds of thousands of years that we lived in in tribes and saw the same people every day and knew everyone that we saw every day and really felt embedded in something really felt a sense of belonging so it makes sense that that feeling of something's not quite right and there's a longing that's not being met and yet because I think we're so conditioned to think of ourselves as little isolated units in competition with one another and also not developing the skills to to relate to one another and live together it's difficult if not impossible. I'd love you to share about the um what you've been learning in your community about how to work with conflict and some of the like triggers and relational wounds that can come up in community because you were sharing that someone is offering a conflict as

a generative force learning session which totally intrigues me yeah so perhaps just to introduce a community arose I don't even want to say I founded a community a community arose around the online course that I was offering around cycle awareness and it arose because there was there is a need to keep each other accountable and inspire each other and so we've been around for I think three years now and it's interesting because I and we've spoken about it as a community before a kind of impatience for when is the conflict going to begin because if things are too nice you know you know that you haven't reached a certain level of intimacy together because it's just inevitable isn't it that there will be friction and or conflict when you go beyond a

certain depth so yeah we're embarking on a series of learning sessions now uh around cultivating our relational skills and the one we had last week was by pauline druce who's a member and who works as a professional mediator around conflict as a generative force and what i love about that is this is this complete reframing going from seeing conflict as like oh something's gone wrong to conflict as a way of cultivating more intimacy between us you know shit's getting real we need to really meet what's there. We need to really start dissecting and coming into contact in a deeper way with ourselves and what is ours and looking at projections and triggers and finger-pointy bits of ourselves.

And, yeah, the sense that we are working the muscles which are required for being relational beings. So when everything is harmonious, it might feel nice, but we're not having to cultivate our resilience and our capacities. And so moments of friction and conflict, how amazing to think of it as like an opportunity to build up our strength that's so pre-menstrual that thinking isn't it I mean the pre-menstrual is the training ground for that you know in our menstruality leadership

program we teach the dark arts of menstruality which we talk about as being the leadership skills and these leadership skills are in fact I would say the skills required for uh for community you know we all need they they are relational skills both skills that help us build our relationship with ourselves um and then with each other and of course the pre-menstrual really gets us into this embodied practice of meeting conflict in ourselves and in the world as a creative ally just as you're describing and how the disturbance of that, the kind of interruption of conflict, you know, things are going smoothly in our menstrual cycle or in our relationship, in our community, everything's smooth. And because things are smooth, no one's paying

that much attention. And it's lovely, like you're freewheeling and then the the conflict hits the disturbance the objection the difference of opinion and that kind of interrupts something and that's such a wake-up moment that's calling us into presence with ourselves and then it's how we meet because then then we realize oh that hurts or I'm feeling angry about that. We start to notice the feelings that are inside that by the other that then creates this opening and I really marvel at that like in my experience of it in one-to-one relationships and family life and then business you know how I can't bypass the way that conflict affects me, you know. It's like I've got to really let myself feel the ouch of it, how it triggers me, the wound, the things that, you know,

the way it makes me kind of ugly, you know. It brings out my fucking worst side. And I have to squirm and kind of feel that and be with that and and but it doesn't end there that's what's so beautiful is it doesn't end there because then I'm inside myself and I'm connected to myself and there's this possibility of an opening between us yeah oh thank thank the lord for the premium stream the training ground it's also like those those crunchy ouchy moments that isn't it those sides of us come out are revealed there's the potential to give them some love and yeah potential for healing through

like meeting those parts and exposing them to other people yeah and vulnerable that is and then the possibility in relationship and community to have people see you see you and your worst bits yeah and still love you it's so good it's a bit like what we were saying right at the beginning of the conversation about um cycle awareness and the place you know and and how it's sort of hard to really trust our own experience without being seen and witnessed by others it's the same with our kind of shadows and our wounding you know we we can bring peace and love to those places and ourselves and but then the kind of cherry on the cake is when another meets you in that place and loves you anyway like that seals the deal

seals the deal that's the gift we can give each other in community yeah to really give each other the permission to be our full selves which is sounds like simple words but it's big big deep stuff if you're longing for more friendship and community to support your cycle awareness practice we invite you to register for our free love your cycle online course which will give you access to our red school circle community where you can reach out for your own listening partner which as sharni mentioned earlier is a simple and potent way to have community around your cycle awareness practice and if you're a graduate listening hi the hive is awaiting you it's going to be magical simple and potent way to have community around your cycle awareness practice. And if you're a graduate listening, hi, the hive is awaiting you. It's going to be magical and I can't wait to be with you in there. Okay, let's get back to the conversation with Ruby and

Sharni. I'm loving this. I feel like we're doing a good job of weaving in lots of different aspects of the gold that community brings into our lives so we've named the the belonging and the homecoming to ourselves that happens when we're with others who who get us and who respect us in our individuality and then join with us in community we've spoken about the wake-up call and this tenderizing of the conflicts and the triggers and what a powerful alchemical force they can be for our evolution and something that you've spoken a lot about with me ruby is the the paradigm shifting capacity of community as in it helps us to move from scarcity and competition me against you to an actual embodied experience of the reality of this whole game which is that we are completely interconnected whether we want to be or not

and I think it would be great to explore that because there's so much gold there in that paradigm shift. Yeah, I'm remembering when I had an experimental phase of living in a community or a kind of community in its pioneering phase of starting up and it was such an uncomfortable mirror for me and also to witness how common it was for people who are entering into a kind of community situation whether that's a physical space or an online thing or whatever and come with this attitude of like okay what can I get out of this like what's in it for me and of course that's how we're kind of programmed to think it's how yeah it's the narratives that we operate under this kind of individual it's me against the world and and the world is a scary place and I've got to sort of fight for what's mine and try and squeeze out

as much as I can get and and you know there's a little bit being in survival mode and I think the concept of community is actually coming out of putting myself first in a kind of autopilot way and coming into yes my needs are important um my personal thriving is important but like what's the point if I'm thriving and no one else is and I am there's an independent interdependence between myself and the world around me and how am I responsible for the world around me and um how can I be accountable and think think of yeah the well-being of all and my service to the well-being of all and so I think when whatever form of community that that is the invitation and I think it's really beautiful you know when I'm talking about that it's a kind of

concept that I'm talking about but I think what's really fascinating as well is the felt experience in our bodies like you know we carry that in our nervous systems the feeling of being alone and life being like a bit of a struggle and competition I notice it in my body as a kind of contraction and a feeling of being separate from the world around me and not feeling earth around us of feeling a sort of sense of, yeah, mutual exchange and holding and being part of that then impacts our psyche and the decisions we make and, and what place we're operating from. I love what you're saying about the, decisions we make and what place we're operating from.

I love what you're saying about the paradigm shift in a way that's required for us to really experience community and be in community. I don't know, I think paradigm shifts don't happen through intellectual understanding and information or knowledge. It's one thing knowing that. It's a whole other thing actually experiencing that paradigm shift. And I feel like each one of us, this is where the individual work comes in, that each one of us is able to experience this paradigm shift. And then, you know, somehow together we can all start to inhabit this kind of different consciousness so you know the question is how how do we how do we each individually start to have the experience this paradigm shift and now I'm just thinking about how the menstrual cycle in the first the first half of the cycle so from menstruation to ovulation, really embeds us in that individualism and competition and me for me and what can I get from this. And one of the shadow sides of that energy is the separateness we can feel and also the scarcity the lack of resource

you know we can feel quite unheld by life and and disconnected from you know our fellow humans but the second half of the cycle comes along and it really takes us into this other reality you know sometimes kicking and screaming or sometimes always kicking and screaming you know we hit the resistance in ourselves where we're too afraid to let go of our own you know needs and wants and kind of self but the second half of the cycle bit by bit it sort of sheds or helps us to disarm and dismantle some of that indoctrination and some of that narrative it really it's very confronting in that way because we start to feel the impact of not letting ourselves be part of something more and not holding a awareness of service and not being able to let go we start to feel it in our bodies like the impact of not

being able to let go and then of course menstruation comes along and plugs us into that knowing that we are really here to be of service we are really here to give our gifts and to contribute to yeah to life beyond us so yeah I'm just as you were speaking Ruby I was just really appreciating how cycle awareness is the means for creating this paradigm shift and how profoundly that will support communities, families, organizations, you know. sense of initiation from my understanding is going from this self-centered yeah existence to how can i be in service to the whole yeah yeah a sense of interdependence and it's so there's such a complexity there isn't there because most of us I think have struggled with feeling so disconnected from our own needs and also the socialization as women of putting others before us and then we discover cycle awareness and I think well I think yeah what you alluded to that one of the shadows can be like

everything now revolves around me and my needs yeah yeah and then the journey of yeah creating a foundation of self-connection and then being able to yeah and I think we're used to seeing it as a hierarchy like well do I put myself first or second or like you know but I think it's so beautiful to see nature as an example of how it could be and how my understanding is a tree doesn't have a hierarchy of putting itself first. It's constantly, it's in a dynamic play with the other plants and beings around it. And sometimes it will emphasize its own need for uptake of nutrients and sometimes it will yes yeah yes it's in it's in a dance with its with itself and with the environment and that you know makes me think of how every single place in

the menstrual cycle is needed and necessary and us occupying each day and each inner season is needed. We need to move through those different places. And then equally, if you zoom out, it's so valuable to have somebody else holding a different aspect of the cycle. And it's the interplay between those things and the necessity of these different roles and then our adaptability and flexibility of kind of moving between these states yes ruby it is that is so so beautiful what you've said about it not being a hierarchy but it being a dance and a constant interplay and it's really ultimately about flexibility isn't it and I love how psycho awareness so lends itself to community because when each of us is in a different state with different capacities and skills at the forefront

then it just sort of the the natural continuation of that is that whatever you're struggling with i will step in and exactly break yeah i think exactly yeah but then what makes me curious and i'd love to hear your take on this is is it you know if we if there is something within us that uh our menstrual cycles become aligned when we live in close proximity to us to each other like how does that work then um if you get the same time around a community it's an interesting yeah yeah well interesting again i think i would have to sort of zoom out and realize that we're part of a greater whole so although like our community might all be in one place there's a kind of bigger

a bigger play there's a bigger interplay going on and so we're all occupying this right now so our community is all you know in this place and the rest of the world or, you know, other aspects of life are holding different. I don't know. It's a good question. It'd be such a rest fest. I mean, I quite like the idea that, oh, that's the other thing. When many of us are in a similar place we can drop that much deeper together that's the other thing there's a different kind of power that comes through you know there's the power of like diversity but there's also the power of unity you know and imagine like all of us bleeding together like the power of that unity that's also something very very special and then

using that potency to really come into prayer and yeah and receiving guidance for the community for for life yeah yeah yeah i'm really appreciating all of the different threads that we're pulling together here around how cycle awareness skills us up to be in community. And I'm just really, I keep coming back to this image of one of my most potent moments of really being held and seen in community and it's when I was really in the depths of really wanting a child and not being able to have one and coming back to what you were speaking about earlier Shani when you're saying sometimes the conflict, especially in community, can bring out the ugliest parts of us. I was doing a major ugly cry.

The full-on, the snot, the pouring, the like, just completely... The initiatory process of the grief was just ripping me open in front of people. It did that quite a lot by myself and that was just on top of the pain and there was the loneliness but here I was in a circle of it was all women and I was just ugly crying and and their capacity to be to to be me and just to see me in all of that, in just the wide ripped open mess of it. It didn't make the pain better or easier, but I wasn't alone in it and in many ways there's the flavor of that every month when I feel the dissolution inside of the inner autumn and the pre-menstruum and then you know I

might be on whatsapp with Abby who's one of our mentors you kind of like laughing talking shit about the pre-menatch drum and I'm like oh she really sees me and you know suddenly the mess that I am is okay it makes sense because it's got a context or like I show up to a team meeting and I'm like you all just go oh yeah we see you and so I'm not really sure where I'm going here apart from to ask you, let's go deeper into how cycle awareness is working us here and schooling us here so that we can be honestly and authentically together. One thing that I was reflecting on as you were sharing, Sophie, was how cycle awareness in, for example, the pre-month term,al which I mean I think it's different for everyone isn't it like where you struggle with but so often it's it's our pre-menstrual time and it kind of forces us into confronting ourselves and working on our capacity yeah just me with myself and and sort of coming into belonging by by welcoming all

the different parts of me home the ugly parts the grieving parts the um and and that's the sort of foundation for then uh being welcomed by others and as we spoke about already this it can be the cherry on top and a profound healing experience to be accepted and given permission to be ourselves by others but if we don't go that first step of of welcoming ourselves um then i think we can well different things can happen we can be we can kind of have a bit of an entitlement and I've seen that within communities as well like the sense of like I want you to give me the sense of belonging that I've never had from the out from my family or myself um and then the tension and conflict that can arise when we don't get the thing that you

know we're attached to getting um or perhaps it's offered to us when we don't get the thing that, you know, we're attached to getting, or perhaps it's offered to us and we can't even receive it because we just haven't, we don't believe we're worthy of it. And we haven't cultivated that, that muscle. Yeah. So I think cycle awareness, lots of, in lots of ways, we are building the muscles that are required for community. Because we're building a belonging to ourselves, and it's that place of belonging to ourselves that can then facilitate

a belonging in a community. It feels like that's what you're naming. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Beautifully said. Yeah, I don't really feel to add anything just that I'm feeling very moved I mean particularly about your story Sophie because I've had experiences like that

in my life many I'm very very grateful like I've had many experiences of um being met in all sorts of places and what you said ruby is true it's it's my um those opportunities have come for me more and more because of the relationship i've built with myself and because of the safety i found in myself and because of the kindness I found with myself um yeah the more that I've uh I've met myself the more I've been able to be met and um there's a beautiful momentum to that. It's such a healing journey because it feeds, you know, the one thing feeds the other. It's like, it's almost like testing the soil, isn't it? Like somebody, you know, you kind of put yourself out there, you show something of yourself and then it's held and it's met

and it's witnessed and you're like, okay, all right. Okay, you can take that okay all right and then you like a little bit more out show a bit more and it's this kind of gradual exposing of oneself and um firstly to yourself and then to others and um yeah and bit by bit you kind of claim more and more of your ground, which again, I just, I feel, I feel like I've said this a few times, but how much we need each other, our healing journeys can only go so far on our own. You know, we need this interplay of us meeting ourselves and then us being met by others. It's so crucial to us individually,

but also as a species. Like we really are truly all healing together. There really is a kind of collective evolution, you know. Unless we're all shifting, you know, the shift is not happening. So it's like all for one, one for all. Yeah, it's like all for one wonderful all yeah it's real yeah I just want to second that like that sense of the change is not going to happen with a lot of isolated little units just doing that thing but like our sense of togetherness and and um

yeah this this sense of being greater than the sum of our parts that that there's something it's hard to even find the language for it isn't it because we don't have a culture around it but there's something that's so profound around what can happen in the space between us when we're in relation to one another there's a a, there's a power, there's, there's the phenomena of an emergence. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I'm thinking of this thing of like Alexandra and I often say menstrual cycle awareness builds in a kindness. And I realize, you know, my capacity to accept you, you know, or to allow for your shittiness, your bad behavior,

your unconsciousness, and so on and so forth, has everything to do with my capacity for kindness towards myself because, you know, I react to stuff in others. That's the stuff that I react to in myself. You know, the things about myself that I don't like, when they show up in others, really gets me going. So I've really noticed this thing how with cycle awareness I'm I'm building more and more compassion and kindness for those places in myself and then when I see them in

others I I feel a sense of kind of mercy you know more mercy and I'm not um and and because I've owned those places in myself I'm less likely to kind of judge others for them this the other thing that's so interesting you know the whole way we project our critic uh it's because that part of the critic that we haven't owned in ourselves you know we're the place where i really judge myself is where i really judge you that this whole thing of you know growing our awareness of inner critic of our inner critic and building our own kindness um just creates more and more capacity for us to ultimately tolerate each other you know which is so needed we really need a lot of intolerance when it comes to other humans. I mean, you know, humans can be shits.

And I love that quote. Sorry, Ruby, I love that quote. What was it like? Mindedness is the opposite of community. So, you know, to be able to tolerate each other's differences, you know, requires a lot of kindness, you know requires a lot of kindness you know a lot there's something about that finger pointy that that the place where it's i'm so guilty of that myself yeah we all are but i i just feel how it creates such a sense

of separation you know and your annoying habits and you're doing, this is unacceptable. And that like recognizing, Oh no, the reason it's bugging me so much is because I totally have something like that in me too. And it's like that sense of, Oh God, we're all in this together. And I think it's fascinating to see like where where else does that that sense of separation not being a global community that we're all in this together but like we are little isolated units in competition with each other for example i notice in myself to when when something uh feels off or uh i have a choice either i walk away and say oh that's

rubbish that's coming from a sense of separation most of the time or if we're all in this together and your learning is my learning and your evolution is my evolution then what would it be like to ask someone can I offer a reflection or feedback you know that's one thing we're also really experimenting with in the know your flow community that I imagine will also be part of the hive community is a culture of mirroring and reflections and feedbacks where we're just transparent with one another and come bringing things into contact rather than just walking away and going oh well that person's a bit rubbish um yeah there's one other thing that I really wanted to uh bring in though on this fascinating question which I only really like got my teeth into in preparation for the podcast around like how menstruality really

cultivates the strengths for community and there's a piece around how menstruality supports us to step into our own agency and our sort of unique flavor and gifts for the world. And how community is really coming out of an older paradigm of this very polarized dynamic between leaders that have all influence and power and us sort of passive consumers that just follow instructions and and feel disempowered and that the nature of community the the invitation, is that we come out of that and we start realizing our capacities and how much power we can have as global citizens or, you know, a small group. Yes. And there's something, there's a link between that and menstruality that I find really beautiful

there's a huge link Ruby because that's about us all valuing who we are and what we have to share and you know we all are challenged on on that level of knowing and feeling our own worth um and menstruation is really the place where we get to tap into that and feel that feeling of our own value and we all need that so much. You know, we need that so much. It's sort of that affirmation of, yes, you are unique and valuable. And there is no one else that is holding the perspective that you have, that has the power that you have, that has the unique combination of skills life experience you know each one of us is so um distinctly brilliant and then and but feeling that affirmation is the thing that really like emboldens us to be able to step forward with that which yeah shifts you're right it shifts the

dynamic from being a consumer to being a contributor and a voice and a kind of creative catalyst and nurturer in the community yeah yeah wow I feel like we've just begun this conversation there's so much to say here and we've touched on so many big and important themes and I'm just thinking now of anyone listening who is thinking yeah I really want more connection and friendship and community in my life and particularly around cycle awareness and I want to point to some resources so the first one being our free love your cycle course which gives you access to our online circle community and then next really is the menstruality leadership program because the community that is created on that you know standalone when the program is live is immense and then it's the gateway to the community that Ruby will be guiding that we're building together

now for the graduates I think there's about there's about 360 of us now and there'll be another cohort coming joining soon yeah to the hive our new community so the gateway to that is the MLP and yeah exciting I'm really looking forward especially off the back of this conversation to seeing how fruitful and generative and healing and nourishing that community space will be. Thank you, you two. It's been a joy. I knew it would be. Yeah, thank you both.

It has been delicious. Thanks for joining us today. If you're a graduate of the Menstruality Leadership Programme listening, I really warmly welcome you to join the Hive. The doors are going to be open until around the middle of May and it's going to be such a nourishing and supportive online space full of inspiration, full of learning and a really amazing practice ground for everything we've been speaking about today and if you've been thinking about joining the menstruality leadership program in the future know that this community awaits you. Sharni and Alexandra have always really wanted the MLP to be two or three or four years long because there's so much to explore and so much to embody when it

comes to menstruality and the hive is one of the new ways that will continue to deepen our cycle awareness practice and our embodiment of the dark arts of menstruality as we each deepen our leadership and step out in the world to lead in our own unique ways okay that's it for this week i've really enjoyed this one and I really look forward to being with you next time and until then keep living life according to your own brilliant rhythm