The Menstruality Podcast - How Cycle Awareness Cultivates Embodied Activism (Ruby May)

Episode Date: April 7, 2022

Ruby May, the founder of Know Your Flow is 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.She writes: "We’re tired of living in a culture in which our worth is measured around how productive we are and nothing ever feels like enough. Where stress, numbing ourselves and bypassing our body’s symptoms are so normalized, and creativity and play feel like elusive luxuries.  And where intelligence is seen as something abstract in our heads, removed from the deep feeling, sensitivity and wisdom of our hearts and bellies.We don’t want to be bystanders and continue the status quo.  And we’re ready to be part of the solution."In this conversation we explore:How cultivating an intimacy with the rhythm and change of your menstrual cycle allows you to be an embodied activist - a change-maker who is rooted in cyclical intelligence. How to work with your menstrual cycle as a tool for identifying internalised oppression and how Capitalism lives in your body, for example; by being addicted to endless productivity, feeling rushed all the time, and prioritising your head over your body wisdom.The connection between revolution - or evolution - and community. As Ruby 'the world would be a better place if we tapped into the wisdom of our menstrual cycle' - don't create change. Bringing them into connection does.”---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.flow

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. Hello there, welcome back. Thank you so much for tuning in today and thank you for being part of the community that is gathering around this podcast. I would love to know if there's anyone that you would really like us to interview or a topic or a conversation that you'd really like us to have and I would also love to ask a favor which is if you're loving the podcast could you pop over and

take a minute to leave a review on Apple Podcasts because it really helps other people to find this work and to spread the magic of menstruality and speaking of the magic of menstruality we are in conversation today with Ruby May who's who's a real leader in this world she's the founder of Know Your Flow she's an earth lover a truth seeker an edge dweller and a mischief maker she is and she's passionate about how we can each midwife a culture of deeper connection to our bodies to ourselves to each other and to our planet through menstrual cycle awareness so I'm going to share some of her words to introduce this conversation because they're so potent and so powerful I know they're going to resonate we're tired of living in a culture in which our worth is measured around how productive we are

and nothing ever feels like enough where stress and numbing ourselves and bypassing our body's symptoms are so normalized and creativity and play feel like elusive luxuries and where intelligence is seen as something abstract in our heads removed from the deep feeling sensitivity and wisdom of our hearts and bellies and she says we don't want to be bystanders and continue the status quo we're ready to be part of the solution yes so in this conversation today with ruby we look at how cultivating an intimacy with your cycle allows you to be an embodied activist, a change maker who has their roots in cyclical intelligence. We look at how you can work with your menstrual cycle as a tool for identifying internalized oppression and we explain that about how capitalism is actually living and alive in our bodies, for example, by our addiction to endless productivity.

I don't know if you experience that. I know that's alive and kicking in me. And we also look at the connection between revolution or evolution and community. And as Ruby says, ideas and concepts like the world would be a better place if we tapped into the wisdom of our menstrual cycle don't actually create change bringing them into connection together does so I hope this podcast is a living experience of that for you today that you have a sense of connection to this work to Ruby to, to the whole community who are leading and growing the menstruality movement. So Ruby, it's absolutely delightful to be here with you today, you on the

other side of the world in Mexico and me here in the UK. Let's start with our cycle check-in. So where are you at in your cycle and how is it influencing you today? Yeah so I'm on day 15 which is kind of nice that I'm doing this interview podcast chat with you during this time but I didn't calculate that in because my cycle has been a bit unpredictable of late so on day 15 I have this sense that I'm peaking in my ability to expend energy and kind of impact the world and be creative and there's quite a difference from yesterday where it was just feeling like yeah I can do this like that kind of Wonder Woman sense and today is like oh I'm really looking forward to the drop

being so grateful for that second half of the cycle and knowing if I were to keep on going like this I would feel quite untethered and out of balance so there's a sort of longing for slowing down present in me and needing to take a bit more time and spaciousness yeah well I can feel my heart pounding as we enter this conversation and I think it's got a lot to do with who you are and the conversation we're about to have which thrills me to my bones I think it's also got a lot to do with the fact that I'm on day five and I feel like a newly hatched chick and I'm really I've got that excitement in me that could become anxiety if I don't get close to it and be with it. So I'm breathing deep and letting this bubblingness be excitement rather than anxiety. I would love to start this conversation actually by reading some of your own words back to you, if that's okay.

Oh, wow. This is from your Know Your Flow collective page on your website. We're tired of living in a culture in which our worth is measured around how productive we are and nothing ever feels like enough. Where stress, numbing ourselves and bypassing our body's symptoms are so normalized and creativity and play feel like elusive luxuries and where intelligence is seen as something abstract in our heads removed from the deep feeling sensitivity and wisdom of our hearts and bellies we don't want to be bystanders and continue the status quo we're ready to be part of the solution so just yes from me to that and I would love to hear you know with those words where do those words come from like where does your passion for your revolutionary work come from.

Yeah, thank you. It's quite profound to have those words read back to me and just feel myself tingling with, yes, the rallying cry to round up the troops and be the change. I think it's difficult when we are immersed in something you know we're just immersed in the systems that we live in and the guiding narratives of those systems it's like we're swimming in a soup and it's it's all we know so it's so hard to take a step out and name things and and say look this is what we've. It doesn't have to be that way. And so there's something inside me that I think because of my own personal struggles and challenges around living cyclically, you know, it's such a lovely idea.

And I've devoted this chunk of my life to it, to living in integrity with my body and its cyclicality and yet it's so difficult um I find myself pushing myself and going against my flow um I have found myself yeah using my will in a kind of dominant way over my body. I mean, all those things I mentioned, feeling rushed, feeling like nothing I do is enough, feeling guilty for resting, feeling a kind of polarization between action and to-do lists and really going for it and then just kind of being exhausted and recovering so that I can then get on with it and do more stuff and these you know lovely back the spectrum of different states and ways of being in

the world that the cycle offers us so clearly you know like every day is different every day has a little different nuance a different quality a different way of engaging and being in the world. Some days are more playful, some days are more dreamy, some days are more reflective. And we miss out, I miss out, you know, on this on the spectrum. So through that personal challenge, and this inquisitive mind and visionary spirit um yeah I'm really excited to draw attention to this and and join forces to you know create something different on your website one of the things that you share is that you're passionate about midwifing a culture of deeper connection to our bodies each other and our planet and I'd like to look at this disconnect like let's start there why why do we feel so guilty

when we rest why do we swim upstream against ourselves and why do we find it so hard to live in sync with these bodies it's such a profound and potent question and I feel like there's so many different tangents and ways to answer that okay so I'll just take a couple of tangents. I think one is the role of trauma. You know, we each have perhaps... There's just such an interestingly placed siren there. That's when you said, you know, trauma. I was just wondering if you could hear that. Life has a sense of humour.

Perhaps we can all, some of us relate to personal traumas and things that have happened in our life and then there's the phenomena of collective trauma which we all participate in and it's kind of like the elephant in the room again one of these things that we are swimming around in and it's all we know and so it's it's hard to take a step out and name it. But I think that this creates a disconnect fundamentally within us where there's a disconnect from our bodies, a disconnect from being able to feel the spectrum of different things that there are to feel um and it's scary to to sort of drop into a stillness and and a rest and a connection because there might be certain memories or uh emotions that are hard to feel, that are challenging. And so we try and veer away from that, probably totally unconsciously.

And it keeps us in a state where we're in our heads and our whole sense of identity. I find this fascinating, Sophie, because again, it's like, it's for most of us all we know we don't even question it but you know for most people their sense of self is located in in your head and Philip Shepard who I adore who wrote a book called Radical Wholeness um he talks about how biased our language is as well that um you know when you talk about uh counting dead bodies you call it a body count but when people are alive you call it a head count or you know you would always talk about the

head of an organization so this kind of head and up is kind of valued over down and in and being in the body and yeah that's that's how we live so anyway isn't it because it's it's like there's a deeper intelligence in us that does really know that because when we're pointing to ourselves to say me we point usually point to the center of our chest yeah you know we don't point to our heads so we know or we you know we have a gut feeling you know there is there are also pointers towards how we instinctively know that yeah yeah so I said I would mention a couple of tangents and then there's another one which is, yeah, quite the rabbit hole. And I think it has to do ultimately with that we half of the cycle which is all about the spring summer like coming out into the world having agency and impact and rising up and out and that second half of the cycle where we understand that that just can't go on forever

otherwise it would everything would life couldn't exist as we know it right because everything is cyclical if you look at the world around you the life cycle of a plant for example it has a second phase where it begins to wither or offers its fruits or berries or whatever and then it sheds and dies to become compost for for the new and so there's this fear within us collectively of the second half of the cycle and ultimately of death and I think that's yeah massive and impacts us in ways that we can't really comprehend and I think that's my passion in particular is working with the second half of the cycle which is funny because my comfort zone is totally in my spring and summer

brave you I love the way that one of your tangents was trauma and the other one was essentially death I I'm going to enjoy this conversation with you but I'm so grateful to you for bringing both of those points because I've recognized that inside myself often and in others that there's something frightening that stops me from slowing down. I track it every single bleed. The part of me that goes, let's keep going, let's keep going, let's keep going.

And I have to enter into a negotiation, you know, and sometimes I can get messy and painful with myself, as I say, or we can slow down. And I think connecting that to trauma is very important because then for me that helps me focus on my nervous system and what simple things can I do to help myself to slow down this sort of more animal part of me that's that's frightened. Yeah yeah and I think it's so important to talk about that because you know we can learn about the archetypal cycle um and then we can hear about how amazing it can be when we come into this

really surrendered place during our bleed and we can have this experience of like recalibration or you know how alexandra speaks about these beautiful oxytocin states where you're kind of bathing in the energy of the great mother and you know it just sounds like wow i want to have that that sounds amazing but i think it's actually i imagine for most of us that is involves quite some mastery and and healing to be able to access those states because surrender is something that requires trust and a sense of safety and an ability to be really receptive and let life in. And if you have trauma, which most of us do, it's not so easy. And it can feel, you know, we can feel guilt or shame that, oh, I should be able to relax more. I should be able to slow down more.

And it's really okay if we struggle with that. You know, the systems that we live in are geared towards overconsumption, filling ourselves with information, going faster than our natural state is, ignoring our body, et cetera, et cetera. It's okay to find it hard. Thank you for normalizing that what what is it at the moment for you that supports you and helps you to slow down and to be with this surrender that's happening so that you can access the magic of the bleed yeah so I could mention a few things so I want to share about how for me community is so important again we live in a system that normalizes being a kind of solitary little unit or in a partnership or family but not this sense of like interconnection with the world around you.

And so, you know, we might struggle on our own with cycle awareness. And I so see the need for continuous support and inspiration through others on a similar path and who speak a similar language you know in particular I struggle with with sort of deep surrender um during my bleed because I mean there might be a few reasons but one of them is also I feel like when we when we drop into that space for me it's really important to feel like I've got a tribe that's going to welcome me back and just knowing that I have that community is really helpful for me like I know that there are people who are going to welcome me back into the world that's that's one aspect. And yeah, I think there's just nothing like nature, you know, to help with slowing down. It's so simple. I remember there was a time a few winters ago, I was in Berlin and I decided to do this yin yoga challenge every morning.

I would start the day with two hours of yin yoga. And I was like, great, this this is just gonna sort me out like I'm just sorted now and I was just really fascinated because at some point during those two weeks or 10 days whatever it was I remember I I sat down at the base of a tree and I just sat for 40 minutes and I experienced a dropping and the relaxing and a restoration that the yin yoga did not even come close to yeah so um I've also heard wonderful stories of like a woman just having a tent in her garden. So she she feels a little bit like cocooned and just lying belly down in the, you know, on the earth in her tent. But even, you know, just that half an hour or something, I think, makes such a difference. So simple and so powerful let's come back to the community thread because you are a real leader in that area so I really

want to come back but let's stay with the disconnect that we're living inside of now you've got some really cool language for this that I think highlights something that many of us aren't seeing. So you talk about menstrual cycle awareness as a tool for identifying internalized oppression. lives in our bodies but that language is is very clear and clean and fresh and it really cuts through could you say more about this how much your cycle awareness is a tool for identifying internalized oppression how capitalism lives within us yeah so again maybe i could just bring it back to myself and sort of experiences i had earlier on when I started psychotracking yeah I just noticed how I had a really top-down with its dominance over and so for example when I would feel an emotion that sort of autopilot version of me would you know is this desirable or you know appropriate and probably not so I you know, appropriate? And probably not. So I'm just

going to like, try and squash it down kind of thing. Is my tiredness or overwhelm or whatever? Do I want to feel this? No. Okay. I won't. Well, I'll try not to. Is getting this thing on my to-do list more important than actually asking my body what it needs yeah okay I'm just gonna you know exert my will over myself and again I think this is so common and I don't want to just say oh that's bad I think there's a reason that we have a will and there's a reason that we have this ability to assert our will and to shape our realities and to have influence and impact over our bodies. But I think it's just totally out of balancebeing of all but it's about privatization profits competition and extraction and control and of course that's just what we're surrounded by of course that is going

to impact how we relate to ourselves and each other in the world around us and it's not like you start cycle tracking and do that for a little bit and then you're cured I think it's a lifelong practice and there's something in me that really relaxes around that it's a lifelong practice but I feel a bit self-conscious Sophie sometimes because I feel like a menstrual missionary I do I do really feel cycle awareness is the sort of antidote to late stage capitalism I really feel like it's the medicine for our times yeah I'm right there with you and I'm also with how the systems that we live in they are systems of oppression within us and they what grows from them are systems of oppression within us. And they, what grows from them are systems

of outward oppression that leave many people marginalized, which makes it even harder for those people to be able to listen to their bodies, because they have so much to overcome, simply to get through a day and to take care of their families and themselves. So there is so much to overcome simply to get through a day and to take care of their families and themselves so there is so much to dismantle within us and then outside of us yeah and I mean I think it's also necessary to to to say that I'm speaking also from a very privileged place that I have my basic survival needs taken care of so that I'm able to like do this work and I think as you say it's like a there's a complexity and a multiplicity of different systems feeding into one another back and forth so the way we relate to ourselves influences how we relate to each other and then what we create and then what we create

impacts how we then relate to ourselves and back and forth and you know um does that make sense to me it totally makes sense yeah And I also recognize that we are, you know, necessarily because we're bringing fresh ideas into the world here, you know, with all of us who are working together for this to anchor menstrual cycle awareness in the world in a really meaningful way. Sometimes what we say might not make sense to a lot of people and that's necessary. I can really see how this has shown up in my life, particularly as I had a decade of chronic illness. I had a childhood where it was all about intellectual skill and it was all head decisions. I I was very privileged I had fantastic parents and no one ever asked me what was going on with my body ever so it just was very normal for me it was about academic achievement and ideas and thoughts and go go go and then I had this

immersion into a really toxic masculinity that was in a yoga cult which has now been you know necessarily broken down in my 20s and it seems like those two things together my body just simply said no more and I had a week where I couldn't move I'm not I still don't know what happened in that week and I and since then you know I had 10 years of chronic pain and all kinds of chronic health challenges and it was my my body showed me that this is not I could you cannot live this way I had to recreate my entire life I had to learn a new way of living. And I really feel that cycle awareness showed me how to do that. And it continues to show me how to do it because I still, because I was raised in this. And as you said, we live in these systems. It's my default and my

cycle keeps me honest and true to what I know I need to be doing and then there's the negotiation of meeting the realities of of what's needed in my life yeah beautiful and when I hear you I just feel again like I connect with my menstrual missionary inside and just feel like I'm so curious like what it just seems like such a good thing no this this invitation of our bodies to come into kindness and receptivity and balance and integration and I'm part of me is like but where's the catch where's the shadow it's like yeah I just um I so stand behind this and with you yeah yeah so then let's look at this if we if we practice menstrual cycle awareness if we cultivate this intimacy with our own cyclicity and that shows us the disconnect that we can feel the head over over body how does practicing cycle awareness help us to dismantle this these systems these oppressive

systems from the inside out like that i'd love to explore that now and again you have some gorgeous language around this whereas where you talk about the embodied activism of living cyclically yeah I think I used the phrase beforehand in relation with and when we start listening I mean already that no when we start listening again it's that second half of the cycle you can see the first half is more I call it the yang it's like the up and out and the second half is the more sort of yin um it's the listening it's the receptivity these are qualities and skills that aren't valued or taught so much in our culture um and that's what our bodies are and the planet no is crying out for just listen um be humble come into relationship with it's like requesting a an embodied reframing that we're not the center of the universe with dominion over the universe but we are part of a web an intricate web in relationship

with all these different elements and and beings that have an intelligence that are in dialogue with the world that make up the world and I think that is the ultimate medicine for the world is coming into this reciprocal relationship and humility and for me every you know people might have a different gateway to access that listening to nature plant medicine meditation you know etc etc but psycho awareness is one really powerful way i think to heal the way we relate yeah and i i love this phrase embodied activism because i feel like it's inviting a shift in perspective from a view that activism is kind of based on the concept that the more force you have the more powerful the change is um into something more more subtle um and personally empowering and and the sense that that we each have a role to play and that you know from the ground up from the fundamental

way we relate to our bodies and the cascade of choices that ripple out into the world from these little micro impulses that we create change. Yeah, I think that, you know, if a butterfly beats its wings on one end of the world, it will have an impact somehow, like somewhere entirely different, that change happens in such subtle mysterious ways and we each play a role if you're loving hearing from ruby and you want to know more about her work you can go to know-your-flow.com where you can find out about her know your flow online course community and journal the know your flow journal is beautiful it's a cycle tracking journal that takes you on a six month journey through your menstrual cycle supporting you to attune to your internal rhythms and guidance and if you have an inner knowing that there just must be another way beyond the linear

productivity and growth obsessed culture we live in, Know Your Flow will inspire you to stay connected to your body and be initiated through its magic and wisdom every cycle month. So you can go to know-your-flow.com forward slash cycle-journal to download a selection of pages and get your copy today. I'll drop that link in the show notes on our site. Okay, back to the conversation with Ruby. The idea of fighting against something, that definition of activism that we're fighting against something and with a fist that's very tight and there's an energy in that fist and the more energy we put behind that fist in that fight there's something about that tightness that can will then flow into the world that we're creating through our activism

where what you're it seems like what you're pointing to is there's a way of being an activist that comes from this um intimacy this gentleness with self this receptivity to life that will actually is more likely to create the results that we're looking for. Yeah, I mean, I can only speak from my limited life experience. And for someone else, I don't know, maybe there is a, an expression of activism with a fist that the world really needs. And I don't want to discredit that I guess what I feel passionate about is that there is an expression of activism which comes from how we relate to ourselves and the sense that we are the the change that we want to see and what what I find intriguing about psycho-awareness and activism is when you look historically I think at different movements and expressions of activism that you know it's so

often the case that the exact thing that you're fighting against and you end up embodying it you know in in your in your group in your movement and I and so life is is inviting us to really inquire within and do that shadow work and look at the ways in which we are embodying the very things that we are fighting against and I just love how when we take cycle awareness seriously and you really take the invitations in particular from the second half of your cycle your premenstrual phase where often it's associated with an invitation to really look within and and do your inner work and look at what's not an integrity in your being you know amazing know that we our bodies and energy systems are kind of designed to to to be a fully integrated human that there is a part of your cycle that kind of lends itself to to doing that inner work um I find that so fascinating and that's not to say that um you know everyone who practices cycle

awareness is perfect or that that you know that we can't bypass things or whatever I'm just saying that it's interesting that um it's a I think it's a powerful tool to look at our projections and triggers and and work on being an integrated human so that we we don't end up embodying the things that we are fighting against does that make sense it absolutely does and I love how it's reflected outside of us as well so our capacity to be more aware of our own blind spots triggers challenges means that we can also be more aware of as you say the cultural blind spots the collective blind spots which is key to being an activist that can create change because you being able to see what's what's that say what's wrong in the world but being able to see what is creating so much suffering in the world all of the things that you've been talking

about today that's the ground of being an activist isn't it yes I think key to this too is you talk about redefining intelligence so you talk about how to strengthen your intuition and experience being a body rather than having one so again it's this work of coming down from the head and recognizing that we have multiple forms of intelligence and I love the new science that is coming out all the head and recognizing that we have multiple forms of intelligence and I love the new science that is coming out all the time around our pelvic brain our gut brain our heart brain actually biologically we can see the neurotransmitters that are in different parts of our bodies um there is a real intelligence here at work, isn't there? Yeah. Yeah. I think that ultimately we're also realizing that it makes us miserable to be in our heads all the time. No, we feel

detached. And, you know, when we don't listen to our bodies and we just do things to sort of cover up the symptoms, it doesn't help. And, you know know I think we're sort of running towards the end of that trajectory of living that way and um and it's catching on uh more and more the need to redefine intelligence and experience it as something yeah in our hearts in our bellies in our in our bodies how would you define intelligence oh gosh I don't know how I would define intelligence but I can tell you what expression of intelligence I'm curious about and fascinated by and that is I like to sort of discern between my little self so little ruby is sort of my personality and my ego if you will my will it's that little individual unit that wants this and

that and has ideas and certain yeah patterns and tendencies and then there's my bigger self which is tapped into something bigger um tapped into a kind of a creative uh intelligence I use the word intelligence that permeates everything, nature, the world, life. And that my job is to listen and create the conditions for and offer myself as a vehicle for that intelligence to come through um i think that's what life is inviting us to uh experience because i think the stage we are in our planet with late stage capitalism the climate disaster and all of this is like our little selves will not be able to figure this out um i think we're doomed if we rely on our little selves but if we learn to listen and tap into uh that universal intelligence I think that there are possibilities I think that

there is potential for incredible movements towards healing and and balance and beauty yes in in your own relationship with your cycle currently what's helping you to create the conditions for this intelligence to come through you hmm what a great question. So what comes to me is anything I can do that supports me to be in my body and be present. And so I'm a big fan of sort of nonlinear movement and the explorations of pleasure in my body so that just means following my intuitive flow and through dance and movement just coming into my body and coming into presence it helps me feel safe and it helps me feel connected both to the earth underneath me and that sense of being connected to something uh greater than me so yeah body and movement and feeling safe in my body and for me like dance is a really powerful way to do that um and and just you know when we're in our bodies it's just easier to I think connect

with that sense of an impulse emerging rather than my mind coming up with strategies and plans so the opposite of letting that creative intelligence come through is speeding ahead, coming up with strategies and plans. So every time I find myself going into that, I will invite myself to slow down and do something that helps me come into my body and feel safe and open and relaxed. Yeah, that's so beautiful. That's such a discipline for me. My job, the main part of my job is as a marketing strategist so then that muscle is so strong in me and it needs to be and I'm proud of it and I love it and it's so it can just hijack my life there's such a force in it and I have to be so disciplined to keep it in its lane and keep that part of me in in its lane yeah because I mean it is a it's a gift isn't it like there's a reason

that we are able to strategize and create structures like we need that but I think the problem is is when it's coming from our little self and life is inviting us to really tap into um everyone will have a different way of describing this but I I connect with this sense of source no it's like my connection to source my connection to that creative intelligence my connection to my essence and then once I've tapped into that and there's that feeling of like creativity impulses like bubbling that just want to emerge then I use the strategy to just like harness that and like bring it out and make it impactful I would love to look ahead, bringing my strategist in, I would love to look ahead to what a cycle-aware future, what could the world be like if we really were living attuned to the

wisdom of these cycles within us? Yeah Sophie that's the question my heart beats for and I want to be really honest that my deepest longing is to come together with other women and beings with wombs and let the answers come through us collectively and research together it's just my heart's deepest longing to have peers around me to explore exactly that um it's just so present for me that I felt like I need to say that first before I give you my own kind of individual little answers but I feel like that is the magic question like what could a world look like in which this wisdom is really embodied into our culture and value system and the structures and everything? And I think because it impacts the very foundation from which everything arises it will impact everything and so there's so many different answers to that question as simple as when there is a pause in a conversation

that we feel really relaxed about that and we know that that's where magic and creativity arise from whereas in the sort of old older systems we feel uncomfortable right when there's silence we feel like we need to fill it um but the cycle teaches us that that's where creativity and that's where life emerges from so that's like a tiny you know everyday example but the deeper cultural implications of that I think are massive like what would happen if we built an economy based on the fact that there needs to be not just a perpetual fixation on growth. What happens when we create a life for ourselves that's not just based on work and then a little holiday twice a year? What happens when we see death not as something final but part of the way that life is constantly cycling

how would that impact the way that we see getting older and having elders and I'm really curious Sophie to hear from you now that we're here do you have a an inkling or something that your heart beats for and how that future world would look like one element I was very moved when you said when you made you drew that connection between an ability to be okay with a pause in a conversation and then expanded that all the way out to what does it look like in a world that isn't constantly obsessed with growth and I think my version of that currently for me is around belonging because for me at the heart of this intimacy that I'm cultivating we're cultivating with ourselves and our cycles is a coming home to ourselves and a feeling of safety and grounding and ease with ourselves as we are with all of our quirks and

foibles and maybe this is a midlife thing you know I've just turned 40 and I'm something's changing in me profoundly where I'm recognizing that okay I have I am this way and yes there are things I can work on and there are things to embrace so there's this deep homecoming and then what does that belonging look like on a cultural global scale where as a global community, everyone has a place and everyone has a seat at the table? And the implications for that are vast in terms of how we lead a culture that is led by everyone. Really thrills me where everyone has a place. Yeah. I'm so glad I asked you. And I'm, I also, it makes me so curious listening to you, like, what are all the ways in which we compensate and act out that are ultimately destructive because we don't have that sense of

belonging belonging and embeddedness within our bodies our connection to earth and um and life that intimacy with life yeah i think it's beyond comprehension like what it could be like if we were really at the end as you're describing in your beautiful vision yeah and this is why I'm so thrilled to be having this conversation about cycles and system systems change because it really does connect to all of the great challenges that we're facing so I think of something that I'm particularly working with at the moment as a white woman is how the lack of belonging I feel in myself and in the world because of the colonial legacy that I'm from how does how has that created unconscious bias in me that then means that I am unconsciously acting in racist ways and if we all if all white people looked at that and

looked at how the legacy of white supremacy how is it how is it changing our behavior and then work to dismantle that from within the amount of belonging that that can then happen for people that have been marginalized because of white supremacy and I can't disconnect that from my cycle awareness practice they they are they come together and actually we did a great episode for the podcast with Vianney Lee around cycle I was just thinking of them yeah amazing yeah the how to use our cycle awareness for social justice so yeah it's I'm thrilled that you know that you're here today helping us to put these weave these threads together yeah I'm like actually shaking a little bit right now I'm just so excited about it and there are many many other things I'd love to talk to you about but I especially want to come back to this theme of community because it's come

up so many times and it's so core for you and you actually put a lovely Instagram post out yesterday about the connection between revolution or evolution and community and you said ideas like the world would be a better place if we tapped into the wisdom of our menstrual cycle don't create change but bringing them into connection does. And you talked about how with the suffragette movement, it began when 1.2 million signatures were collected, but it didn't actually take off until people started talking about it together, connecting, gathering, and speaking about it.

And you say, this is my calling in life to bring revolutionary ideas into connection and community. So can you speak to how how you're doing this and your passion for it yeah certainly and I'd also like to credit that the inspiration for that writing came from a lovely podcast that I heard recently by Kristen Tippett on being she interviewed a journalist and author of a book called The Quiet Before called um Gal Beckerman and he's researched how ideas ripple out and create change in the world and I just became so fascinated in yeah as someone who identifies as an as an

activist and who's just intuitively not strategically intuitively drawn to community it just really helped me put them both together and be like of course we need to foster connection between us and have these ideas and visions and dreams really land in our bodies through each other yeah so my collective know your flow it just kind of came about I mean it was the beginning of the pandemic and with the online course that I offer we would have weekly calls um and I just continued doing them for everyone who'd already done the course because we just felt like gosh we kind of need each other right now right it was that the early days of the pandemic I remember it was that sense of like wow we need some extra support here and this is like full-on um and so uh the collective is

about 40 there's about 40 of us dotted around the world and and we just meet regularly online to share about life through the lens of cycle awareness we have outside facilitators who come in and do a session with us once a month so that we can continue kind of growing and being inspired in different topics related to female leadership and the body and health and well-being and we meet in person once a year um as well and the the most beautiful thing about it is to just witness people not just witness each other but witness each other grow like I've seen real change in in people over these years and that really excites me and there's people who are kind of making courageous decisions you know really taking a risk and taking a leap of faith quitting a job

or ending a relationship or making an investment in something worthwhile but that meets their financial edge or whatever but feeling like because I have people that have got my back I'm able to be that little bit extra courageous and and go there and yeah also when it just comes to the very humble nitty-gritty sort of daily awareness of having your relationship with your body just be a constant guide I think it's just been massively supportive to us I love the line you use to describe this the know your flow collective a sanctuary for womb-led rebels and revolutionaries and I just immediately thought I need to be part of that so at the moment the doors are open

for the collective yeah they're open until the 10th of April and they open like every three months um but they're not open all the time because it's you know we want to foster a bit of a sense of intimacy in a container brilliant thank you well ruby i'm so grateful for the fresh language and insight and the how you're cutting through the kind of fog most of us are living in most of the time in this culture that we've created and the yeah the sense of possibility and hope you you foster in me and in in the people that you're around for what's possible for a cycle aware future yeah I feel a lot of hope after this conversation I'm really appreciating you thank you thank you and I just want to uh share my appreciation for the just incredible well of wisdom that is the red school and it's just amazing knowing that all these people out

there who are doing who are kind of educators or leaders in the field of menstruality pretty much everyone you can trace back to the red school and uh i'm just yeah forever grateful for uh yeah that that wisdom so thank you ah what a deep river of a conversation I enjoyed that so much and myself as well as Alexandra and Shani we really warmly recommend Ruby's work she's been exploring her own cycle for a long time she's a graduate of our menstruality leadership program and her know your flow work is really revolutionary so her know your flow community is currently open and her know your flow cycle tracking journal which is so beautiful is available anytime I'll drop the link in the show notes for you to find that and you can actually also download a selection of pages so you can get a sense of it before you buy it's designed to help you to stay connected

to your body and be initiated through its magic and wisdom every cycle month okay thank you for listening to us today as always it really helps if you can leave a review on apple podcast for us that's amazing we'd really appreciate that and we really look forward to connecting with you next week and until then keep living life according to your own brilliant rhythm