The Menstruality Podcast - 98. Navigating Menopause in a Lesbian Relationship (Sophia Style & Gemma Polo)

Episode Date: July 27, 2023

What happens when two people go through the spiritual initiation of menopause as a couple? Today we’re exploring the challenges and power of the menopause transition through the lens of intimate relationship, with our guests, anthropologist, facilitator, writer and mother Sophia Style and meditation teacher, pilgrim, and death doula Gemma Polo. This conversation is a precious gift - Gemma and Sophia are generous and courageous enough to invite us into some of their most intimate moments of challenge, conflict and connection from the past eight years, since they met, fell in love, and built a life together in Spain, co-parenting their children, and more recently have begun navigating the five phases of menopause alongside each other.We explore:The biggest challenges they’ve faced as they navigate being in a perpetual autumn in their menopause journeys (and how a chestnut has helped them get through it!)How they are managing to co-parent teenagers and make sense of the changes in their mothering roles in this phase of life. How menstrual cycle awareness has grounded them in a deeper level of understanding of each other’s shifting emotions, and creates a container of safety and depth through the rollercoaster---The doors are now open for our Your Creative Power course, starting in September. You can find out more and take your seat here: www.redschool.net/creativity---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 there, how's it going? Thank you so much for joining me today for the podcast. I loved this conversation. It was so moving, so profound. Gemma and Sophia were so generous. What we're exploring is what happens when two people go through the spiritual initiation of menopause as a couple. Anthropologist, facilitator, writer and

mother Sophia Stile and meditation teacher, pilgrim and death doula Gemma Polo invite us into some of their most intimate moments of challenge, conflict and connection from the past eight years since they met, fell in love, built a life together in Spain, co-parented their children and more recently have been navigating the five phases of menopause alongside each other. There's laughter, there's tears and I think what emerges most is some really beautiful guidance and advice for anyone who is navigating menopause through intimate relationship. so much for joining me on the podcast today. I have so many questions for you. I really appreciate you being here. And I wanted to start by asking you both where you feel you're at in your menopause process and how it's showing up for you at the moment. How are you feeling with it? How are you navigating it? Oh, thanks very much for the invitation Sophie

well I'm about to turn 49 and my cycles are very irregular I really don't know when my next bleed will be and yeah the last year has been especially intense, feeling really a lot of big, big changes. It feels like a huge kind of shake up time and really feeling that I'm starting to say goodbye to my cycle, which has been a big part of my identity and my work. And so, yeah, it's definitely right in the midst of perimenopause yeah thank you so i i feel like being stuck in the premenstrual uh part of the cycle but uh like ongoingly like non-stop just stuck there so the irritable irritable feeling and then observing the changes in the body like more and more like um yeah so i i feel here now just just seeing how the body changes

and realizing that this doesn't have a way back, that this is how it's going to be. It's going to go more in this direction. So that's, yeah, a shock and something to hold somehow constantly. Yes. Yeah. I've heard that so many times from people in the Red School community that they feel in perpetual autumn, inner autumn.

Hmm. Yeah. Which I imagine poses some interesting challenges. We're both in the depths of autumn. Yeah. I think it would be really great to hear some of your story of how you met and your love, just so we can have the context for the conversation. So would you mind sharing your love story?

We met when I was 40 and Gemma, you were 38, like about just over eight years ago, through a mutual friend. And you came to a workshop I was giving on the menstrual cycle and womb connection. And, yeah, there was just a very, very clear connection from that day and then gradually well you came on the yeah I had to register to to this course so that I could get closer to her so a whole year of commitment and you are now living together in Spain and you have created courses and trainings together with this organization that you've created, Mujer Cíclica. Yeah, what we've created together is really bringing together our two paths.

Mujer Cíclica or Cíclica Woman is the project that I've been working with here in Spain for over 10 years and then Gemma you've come from a whole meditation yeah like a big organization that I have created together with two friends called open dharma and then separating from that into my own little project called Gemma Polo Pujol were really like just about meditation and deep rest in nature so so this tool the cyclical woman and this meditation universe like just coming together into and we started creating, different things from this merging. Wow. What a potent combination. I've heard of open dharma.

Yeah. You ran retreats and there was lots of lying down meditation and rest. Oh, yeah. I heard about it. I thought, oh, that sounds like heaven. Right. Okay. I'm so coming to bid at you two.

Yeah. When my friend told me about this um lying down meditation before meeting Gemma I was like oh I need that so much so it's been very fertile at lots of levels meeting each other and and also we met, we both had small children and have brought them together. We shortly after meeting decided to live together and everyone said, no, don't move in with each other's kids. You're crazy. But it was just such a strong feeling that we wanted to live together and and yeah share at all levels yeah it was an intense passionate meeting wow I can feel it I've got shivers hearing about it because I can see there are so many levels here you know in terms of our conversation so many

different threads we can pull on because I'm really hearing that your callings came together and synergized in a really powerful way and then parenting together alongside that and now your kids are teenage right yes like teenagers alongside menopause yeah there we are yeah wow okay so in your work together in your relationship how did you experience cycle awareness together when you were experiencing more regular cycles how was that um beneficial or supportive for your relationship or how did that come into your relationship? Well, I think my experience of the menstrual cycle, and I think hence clearly my work in this direction, has always been very intense from teenage years. I felt so strongly the phases and the changes.

And so that's really characterized me. And so I brought that very much in to our relation and and it was interesting to me to meet Gemma who I feel you have had it yeah not this such an intense um changeable cycle Gemma it feels like you came from a different way of living yeah beyond the circle that day that one day before the period which was crazy uh other than that I never felt like particularly cyclical or moody or it didn't I didn't feel it affected me that much so for me to meet Sophia was to meet also a whole universe like where uh all the emotional state and everything all the moods and everything were like going around the the cycle So to be able to understand this or to support all those changes, even

without understanding, I could get the sense. I felt very much like a man, basically, observing that and having a sense of that, but not really fully living it in myself. So, yeah, it was, yeah, a whole experience of finding a way to communicate and to understand, okay, now she's here, she's there. So now I need space, now I need attention. Now, what is this? I think that it also helped me to that whole awareness of how to communicate where I am, what I need, and it felt that it was very easy. There was a deeper level of understanding and acceptance that I felt,

even though Gemma, you know, you didn't live your cycle in the same way as I did, but there was this sort of underlying sense of connection or understanding that I felt was really helpful and made me feel I could really um yeah trust at a deeper level open to what was happening to me in my um roller coasters yep yeah yeah what I'm hearing is that there's this really deep curiosity in you, Gemma, and a love in you that means that you're leaning into the changes as they go. And I imagine for you, Sophia, that creates a container for perhaps safety, perhaps depth, like that love and that holding and that witnessing. Yeah, it's very interesting because actually that dynamic or what brought up in our relationship

is the same as what we created together also like that sense of my whole work is to come from uh to look at the light in the center like the meditation is to for me is to really go into this light in the center this place that doesn't move that is there no matter what you, and all her work, all her journey is to really understand the going around like deeply, the depths of going around and honoring that. So in our meeting, it happened, that was exactly what helped. And I think you could give me, offer me in our living together that sense of the cyclicity, you know, going around and it's a lot for me, a lot of

tuning into humanness which I was very much in the spiritual world so for me like living with Sophia is a lot like a deep journey of becoming human like going and understanding what it is really in that sense of going around you know yeah I think um meeting with with Gemma and our

relationship and living day to day year to year it's like has helped me to cultivate more that that part in me that can observe in a loving way my own cycle and changes and and I feel like I've come to a deeper level of of acceptance and that has helped so much for moving into the menopause yeah having this basis of a much more loving acceptance of my cycle I mean that that was already there but I feel like meeting Gemma and what emerged through our relationship already took that to a deeper level and that has been so, I mean, but moving into menopause has actually brought all of that to another whole level of in terms of the places that it's taken us and the acceptance and what's come up. I mean, that has brought challenges we weren't expecting I would say I was so moved and touched when you were talking about your work has been looking at the kind of still point light in the center and Sophia's has been the cycling and feeling that union such a medicine in what you were sharing

what would you say has been the the core challenges that have come up or what has been stirred as as the cycles have started to change and as menopause takes you in the beginning it was a bit like being out of control like not knowing what will happen at least before it was like once a month was clear and okay I'm feeling all this because my period is coming so that's there is a reason and and this will pass right but then suddenly as I am stuck in this one premenstrual state that doesn't doesn't go away so one thing that is very difficult for me is the sense of yeah this being out of control or a sense of losing the the discipline capacity somehow as

if the hormones run over my uh my decisions made by the head you know or for example like uh i okay we make this great decision okay we will not eat this or we will not do that and of course we just we just you know like so many times but coming from the meditation world it's like i was used to okay i do i say this and i do this right and now it's like i i say this and i don't do it no and that is a is a uh is a difficult place to be this sense of being out of control yeah but the beautiful thing is that it feels that we are both in that so we can in a way laugh about it you know we there is this um complicity you say that this complicity this where we can and we enjoy that i think that's that's uh a beautiful treasure that we have you know that we we don't usually we don't judge when the other is jumping that which we said we will do but actually but often just joining in that and yeah that that helps

for me one of the really big changes of this transition into the perimenopause was um the first years of our relation um was this desire to just be together you know as much as possible and we really just threw ourselves into motherhood and working together and living together and not having a dog and a cat and it was just yeah very um fused yeah just a really beautiful years of sharing at lots of levels and then suddenly probably over the last two years but especially all of last year I felt this strong need to to be much more on my own some big changes happened with our with our children and in the household my son went to live most of the time with his father and then I was at home with Gemma's children and I could just feel this estrogen levels dropping and just having no desire to be looking after her children or, you know, washing their clothes. have time for myself even there was one point in I was taking part in the menopause course that Alexandra and Shani offered last autumn and they were spoke about the moment of wanting to

you know set the house on fire and just leave all your responsibilities you know and I really felt that suddenly this this burden of the house the routine the the kids even just our relationship suddenly it went to a different place and I think that was quite a surprise to you as well that I was suddenly wanting a lot or needing a lot more space. Yeah, it was shocking. It was both, the shock of suddenly she wanted always to be with me and suddenly you didn't want to. It's like, what is this?

And here I had to do the exercise of really understanding that this is not personal and I think that's a big part of it because if I would get into this is personal then would be like dramatic no this is like oh what I have done wrong or so in that sense it helped a lot to have this to be able to name it okay that must be what they talk about this must be like the entering of this stage of the perimenopause and this is what happened so naming it understanding it helped me to not take it personally and then I could from this place offer this space and it so happened that then by offering this space also I got more in touch with again with my essence you know which I never kind of um forgotten but you know to really

had the chance to go back more deeply into my essence yeah my yeah fascinating how was that to communicate that what helped in terms of communicating I need space right now and then managing the shock that came up because I know in my relationship it's it's just very hard to not take it personally because I'm the one that generally needs more space usually around day 21 day 22 day 23 and it's hard for aid to not take that personally so I know you said you naming it really helped Gemma but what helped in the communication there I think that's been one of the the main things we've realized over the last year or two is that yeah we've had to give more priority to to speaking to listening and creating a space to communicate and not let things build up

that is vital and in those times that sometimes we create between the two of us and we've also um decided to to go back to having a space with a therapist once once a month we have this space where there's a third person there listening kind of holding the space for us which has also been really helpful. So kind of actively creating times where we can go deeper and express those needs or that vulnerability or anger, all those things that are kind of bubbling under the surface. And I've especially had to, yeah, I think go through a very deep pattern has come up for me with the the menopause of when I'm having an intensely emotional experience or feeling unsettled or yeah some reaction is happening inside me, there's this old pattern of closing down and withdrawing when that's happening.

It was very powerful in one of the therapy sessions. I mean, Gemma really expressed how deeply painful that was for her when I withdraw and shut down. She doesn't know what's happening or you know where what's she done I realized I need to take a new step of really communicating when that's happening to me even if I don't in that moment really understand what I'm what's happening but to be able to tell Gemma I'm having a really strong emotional process and I need space and I think that's helped a lot it's been actually a big a big change yeah and we do have this trick like we call it the chestnut the chestnut moment because we we have a chestnut great one of our altars and that's you know when there is something that is cooking i mean we need

to talk about um we send ourselves to the chestnut uh place so yeah when you hold the chestnut you you have the rights to talk and the other cannot say anything and then okay so that's that's very helpful like having these basic clear rules where things can be said even if they are painful and then yeah sometimes by saying it, it gets solved or sometimes it doesn't, but at least we have to hear each other. And that in itself is healing. It's so helpful to have that physical object to hold, to anchor it all in a containment. Yeah, wow. Sophia, it sounds like menopause is taking you right into the center

of that pattern that shut down pattern I mean this is we're getting really personal here so you know just go with me or or you know say no let's pause if you want to, but I guess I'm curious about what you feel is being revealed to you there, you know, how, yeah, what are you seeing about that pattern, or what are you seeing that wants to be healed or explored, or sort of what's menopause showing you there? Yeah, I'm seeing, like, with such clarity and at another level this um yeah pattern that is very much in my family um of silencing things that um have upset me. I'm just pushing them down. And then there's the explosion. There's a kind of withdrawing.

But then at some point, yeah, there's a volcano. You know, if it really, if I let it build up a long time. And I mean, that's been with me, you know, through my life. But it's like now that also the levels of anger that I've connected to have been really very, very intense. feels like just seeing uh all these parts um patterns and and survival strategies and and very old wounds have have come up to a whole another level and i i really feel that it's an incredible opportunity to yeah to give all of that space it is for me totally like an an underworld journey I'm what's helping me so much is the the Inanna myth I'm really like going very deep with that is and I really feel like it's, for me, it's meeting that dark sister and all those parts of me that, you know, even though I've been working with my cycle for so many years, it just feels like a whole nother level of depth into the dark places that I I don't haven't wanted to really show and I can't hide them

anymore and it's just this feeling of masks dropping and drop like more and more like you know questioning I'm questioning like everything it feels like you know even my work is this really what I want to be doing my role as a mother is it feels a huge transition it's like really layers and layers and layers and for me that the the beauty of of sharing this journey with Gemma is the feeling that as a couple we've we got to some really painful difficult places there was one whole issue around our our shared economy and and that's had to change a lot with the changes with my son and in general it just felt like it was a time we had to really revise some areas about our you know economic agreements and it was amazing what that touched that uh you know in

both of us really deep deep um places and it's like we can't ignore you know it's it's this sense that now we have to look at this um and it's really can be so uncomfortable i mean we got to uh so you know the chestnut sometimes you know the one holds and the other listens sometimes you just want to throw the chestnut yeah and yeah there have been flying chestnut moments if you'd like to experience more holding and support through your menopause process alexandra and shawnee's book wise power would be a great companion for you and chapter 21 explores the new levels of depth that menopause can open up in intimate relationships. And if you, like Sophia and Gemma, are working on something meaningful at the moment and would appreciate some cycle-aware support for

your creative process, we invite you to join our Your Creative Power program in September. In many ways, this course is a kind of guidebook for post-menopause life, a way of holding you through all you're creating in your third act for yourself, your work, your family, your community, and everything you're caring for in the world. You can find out more about the course at redschool.net forward slash creativity. That's redschool.net forward slash creativity feeling your togetherness and especially the context within which you live spiritually it's like i can so tangibly feel menopause as a as an evolutionary force you

know the way you describe it or an evolutionary power that's taking you both into like back to the humanness that you were speaking about Gemma earlier it's like taking you right into that you know the very the most human place really of how do we survive together because I think that's what the money piece touches in us isn't it it's the survival piece and yeah um yeah how have the flying chestnut moments been for you Gemma well I'm I'm very very Spanish very Latin so also we are very different we have we come from different backgrounds, different cultures. So that her sense of holding things and keeping things is, I don't feel this way. I just, almost the opposite.

I would just say something and that's all. That's all. There's nothing behind. It's just like out. So very different way of dealing with it. So for me, yeah yeah it's just this this throwing the chestnut would be just throwing the chestnut that is not that's all you know so but yeah the irritability and the whole um for me it goes back to to the essence again and again.

This sense of, I'm not here to lose my time. That had been like an ongoing sentence or call for me all through my life. And it has to do with death my experience of death and yeah and how I live life has this touch of intensity in the sense that I do feel that everything has to make sense like constantly so in this is with the menopause, it comes for me like this sense of urgency again. And even though I never moved really out of that, it is coming back with more strength.

Also with the kids growing, there is more sense of like going back to to to my power and to what I really want to do in a more crazy way so uh yeah so we could say a bit of impatience so when those moments of going around with all these emotional states and there's something in me that gets impatient it's like come on like we are not here to do all this let's just go to

the essence and that's yeah that's tricky really like hold somehow hold back and understand we have different um speed or different ways of um yeah uh going through all these changes inside but yeah that came up strongly i think your i feel you have got also more reactive and yeah more like

um yeah not not willing I mean in in the sense that that's also been a strong invitation you know from that place and realizing how um you know what what's going on in me can be really affecting or or hurting Gemma it was like you really said that so clearly so it even though I mean I was feeling that that all the the everything coming up I I want it felt like a great opportunity to to go to a deeper level with those painful parts coming up that was like even more clear that that I needed to do that being in relationship and in the menopause it's like it's not just it's not just me and me dealing it's how how is it affecting our relation also with my son um with Gemma's children you know it's living with other people really means I feel a whole another level of of yeah embracing all of this because it you know it has an effect

on on the people we love and sometimes can be very destructive um yeah well there was a I felt an important moment as well one one evening I think because for Gemma's children it was like suddenly my son was hardly ever here and and I was I I felt they could clearly pick up that it was difficult for me I really couldn't find my place suddenly it was like my mother role was no longer here in our home in a clear way and Gemma was in her mother role and and this feeling of kind of not wanting to be me in you know with Gemma and her kids and and there was a point where I just needed to express that probably in a bit of a clumsy way. But I felt like I needed to say to Gemma's children, you know, I'm finding it really hard that Mark isn't, my son isn't here anymore.

And then somehow you remind me, you know, of the fact that he's not here anymore. So I think it was like a real relief for them to hear that. Yeah, it really is this, it combines with this, yeah, letting go of having, you know, that role of caring, all that that takes up, you know, having, yeah, your child every day. It's like that happened earlier than I was expecting as well, that my son went to live with, mostly with his dad. So, yeah, that's really moved a lot of things

because Gemma's in a different stage. Her daughter is 12 now and my son is nearly 17. And so, yeah, it feels like we're in different stages of motherhood as well. And, yeah. And then how this instinct, this animal within, this wolf within comes. That had been also very challenging. We both were able to feel this wolf inside, ready to protect our kids.

I would protect my kids, i will protect my kids it will protect your kid and then that that is a very challenging also to see like that there's all this love but also ultimately like we are wolves and we are going to fight for our kids. And that's there. That's also that humanness, just right there, like in a very strong way. Yeah. And I noticed that when all this emotionality or this, yeah, going around or this, yeah, when you get into, you know, this world and how it affects, exactly how it affects, I could handle it. I don't like it and it's painful, but I could handle it. But when I feel that this affects my kids, then what comes is this, the wolf, like the warrior,

like they don't deserve that and i i feel i have to protect them from from the this um um emotional kind of universe like yeah yeah yeah thank you so much for um inviting us this experience, because I know that people will are in the underworld with this right now and together you're in the underworld. And you know how Inanna, we actually did an episode about the Inanna myth recently with Carly Mountain. So for people who want to hear more about that,

they can go back and listen. But one of the parts of the myth, isn't it that Inanna needs to remove all of her identities that show up as sort of her sort of armor or the things that she's wearing and I'm hearing that that part of that motherhood identity being removed has been a big part of this this initiation and um yeah how does that land with you yeah I I'm still um finding my way with that and um yeah there are still times when I'm I feel like you know what's my place here you know in in our relation with Gemma's children in the stage that they are at and and I'm still touching these layers of of reef and realizing that you know

yeah a chapter is closing with my son although within all of this, one kind of change that we found could support is that sometimes I'm going to stay in a flat in the village where my son lives with his dad. And that's kind of jointly given our relationship some space and given me some more time just with my son and and it feels like our relation you know my relationship with with Mark is is also in in massive transformation and he just seeing him becoming independent and and yeah that's all going to a new level but underneath there really is this it just feels like it's a time that I need to give myself space to just wail and cry you know like you know like a risk of god does it's it's like and i can feel that they're um

yeah really parts of me that just need in fact i'm gonna create that that space i mean it's coming up but i also feel i need to just give myself space and i going to do that with my birthday coming up, a ritual. For me, I just need to give myself space to cry or scream or just name all those parts that I feel are dying at the moment. And, yeah, the mother role is definitely one of them and so is the the woman the the part of me that's pushed you know the the the the perfectionist the pushing the the needing to somehow prove something at some level through what I do and that's just really melting away.

But it's also so familiar. There is this part of like my body, that's another part of this change is how my body is speaking so's another part of this change is how we both, how my body is speaking so clearly about what I can or cannot sustain or, you know, how I can't carry on, you know, pushing through or, you know, hours on the computer. It's like a whole new voice coming through saying, no, stop, you cannot carry on this this

rhythm you know it's it's it's a different time now well that feels like a different level of that protective wolf that you were speaking about like the protective wolf of the body going no more of this yeah pushing that we we're just so inside of it's just the water we're swimming in so many ways in the culture isn't it yeah thank you Sophia I feel like so often we we're reporting back from the other side of the death and rebirth process you know so often we hear the oh that was really hard but now la la la and what we don't get anywhere near enough of is to to hear from people who are in the middle of it and this is kind of funny but not funny but as alexandra always says the death part of the death

and rebirth just feels like death it's like it it's not like oh i feel really shit but it's okay because I'll be reborn soon like you don't have that feeling right you're just in the middle of these things melting away burning away um so thank you for letting us be in in there with you and you've named some really powerful different structures and things that are helping you but I wonder if there's if you could share something of what's helping you to be in the death part of the death and rebirth process big question listeners she just looked at Gemma. Well, it was coming to me. One thing that is being very helpful, and it's very helpful right now, is having a vision together.

I think that helps us a lot. We have this little place in the mountains where we are envisioning just to live there one day or just prepare it for receiving some people. And it means it has to do with this change of life and it has to do with this listening to this need of our body right now to stop doing things a certain way. And it has to do also with this moment of starting to let go of our kids, you know, in different, they're in different ages, but also like I'm also starting to to let go of of the kids and that that helps us a lot i find like to to to have this vision together and to actively uh put energy into that yeah yeah it feels like that's there and it's like this uh seed or yeah something that I feel is is taking is yeah taking form and I really feel like everything's falling apart inside and it was there was one I remember we were sitting on our terrace and I was just

Gemma this is really really a horrible place to be in I feel just you know I don't know what is going on where I'm going and she's Gemma's like this is a this is so beautiful you like I don't know what you said but it's like this is real you're you're you're so real now now it's not a beautiful place I have no idea you know what the next steps are and I went on this course recently and at the end they gave all of us seeds to plant in a little pot and I was like, and I said, but, you know, everyone was connecting with the new and I'm like, I just don't know what the new is. And it was very symbolic because everyone on,

there's a WhatsApp group from this court and they're all sending photos of their seeds, which are just like blooming and really strong and my like lots of seeds and mine had a tiny little sprout and it's kind of being eaten by the snails and I think well maybe there isn't actually a sprout yet I think I feel a bit of shame I think I will send the photo to the group and say look well um I'm still in the deaf place my my seed I don't know it's it's there but it's underground and it's yeah it's not a comfortable place because I can see everything that I don't want to carry on, but it's not so obvious how to make the change. This is so strong.

I don't know. I don't remember if it was in, yeah, in Wise Power or something about this kind of juggernaut, this, you know, huge, like, force of energy that is familiar at the pace you know been going at a very fast pace and it's like yeah how to stop that and then what is the new vehicle I don't know yet yeah that really makes sense there's a yeah there's a juggernaut of what has been and you and your that's a huge momentum to be with and then there's what yeah not knowing what will come next and I love that plant and snail story thank you for that loads of things I want

to ask you but two sort of final pieces one I keep thinking about rest um because it's come up a lot in the conversation and obviously the open dharma work and your work jama is so grounded in rest as is cycle awareness and yeah I'm curious to hear what rest looks like for both of you or what you know what rest practices do you have and how are they helping well for me rest is something also that it it does happen um very. So for me, it is just these moments of placing my hands on my body and just fully giving myself to the light, just totally kind of moving out of the way

and just being here as I am fully. And that, even if it's like for a short moment, it's very, very restoring. Like it's really, it touches a place that is so alive that the cells vibrate somehow. And then from there, other things can happen. So so yeah this rest is very important but to me now because of how life is now it's not like what i had when i was living in india which was like days and days of lying down meditation day and night before being a mother before being a mother it's really like this is sometimes before going to bed or uh stealing a moment here and there to

just find this this resting moment in this energetic um place yeah very important very restoring yeah yeah sophia yeah i it's like um stronger and stronger yeah, needing to, I mean, it's something that is kind of, yeah, a necessity just to take time sometimes to just lie down in bed. Gemma sometimes comes in and says, are you lying down? Not very used to seeing me. Is everything okay and actually I've got a lot um more lower back pain and coccyx pain lately and it's like my

body just saying you know you you can't spend that amount of time sitting um so yeah at so many levels I feel that the kind of drive for rest and slowing down is is really strong and and also being in nature that's like wow really restorative and this little place that we have with a caravan um in a very wild place is is just being like um a balsam to to go there and simplify i'm also like going through all my possessions my books my clothes it's like this need to get rid of clutter again it's like the the premenstrual phase kind of multiplied by 100 so the the clearing out now it's like i want to go through everything in the house and just reduce reduce reduce and that's also with the vision of going to live in a small space

and that is really helpful as Gemma said before having this idea of of going to a place yeah in wild nature and um and yeah moving away from all the the online work that I've been doing and to come back to yeah face to face small it's like every I feel everything is taking me back to the the small is valuable small is beautiful I've kind of remembered that that pioneer book from the 70s that that title is just like oh yeah because my project has grown a lot, got very big and a team and the menopause has meant that I've had to reduce that. I just felt completely out of sync with my needs now to be having to deal with the whole team um yeah being out out there yeah promoting

push it's like no so my it feels like my whole work is in a time of massive metamorphosis yeah and also we've given each other a lot more space. Gemma and I for the last five years have been working a lot, creating. It's been amazing, fertile, creative time together. And then this year we've consciously decided not to be doing so much together and give each other more space and as you said at the beginning Gemma kind of each of us coming back to our essence that that feels like the menopause is bringing us that kind of coming back home into ourselves and who we really are now independent like separate you know it's yeah there's still a definitely a vision and a and a deep commitment and at the same time we're needing to find ourselves in a new way if people would like to connect with you and hear more about your work what would be a good way to do that or how how could people come and work with you well we have one online course that we've created together which is called medicine woman a journey to your center and it very much brings together what has come out in the conversation that the the awareness of the the four phases the four archetypes and we make a journey in a

spiral we actually start in the with the autumn, go down into the winter, and then out again the spring, and it ends in the summer or mother archetype. And then all the time there's this focus on the light in the center, and that being the archetype of the medicine woman as the part of us who can embrace all the different parts of ourselves as women and how that can be embraced by that medicine woman part inside of us and that starts the next uh the next edition will be on the 4th of september and that's on our website cyclicalwoman.com brilliant okay I'm going to drop a link to that in the show notes and I'm going to say right now that I'm going to be there because you two together are magic this honestly this combination

you have I've been so moved and touched so many times just being with you and it's you know I can feel a lot happening in my body sitting with you both so okay i'm in and everyone come and join me i yeah i really appreciate how deep you've been willing to go and i know i can feel the beneficial impact it will have for our listeners and i'm yeah I'm very very grateful for this time with you it's been very touching for me personally too so thank you yeah thank you for yeah giving us this opportunity to reflect and take a bit of a eagle view on what we've been living over the last eight years since we met and fell in love and yeah big adventure maybe maybe catch up in it in a year's time let's see this conversation has been supportive for you if you are currently inside the menopause process and inspiring for you if like me you're looking ahead

to what might be happening for you in your menopause process and I really want to thank Gemma and Sophia for being so honest and open and vulnerable with their sharing it was such a gift to us all thank you Sophia and Gemma so that's it for this week I'll be back with you again next week and until then keep living life according to your own brilliant rhythm