The Menstruality Podcast - How Menstrual Cycle Awareness Transforms Your Life (Alexandra and Sjanie)

Episode Date: January 6, 2022

At Red School our mission is to activate the vitality, creativity and leadership of a million people through the power of menstrual cycle awareness and consciousness menopause. And, this year we want to ignite you to make it your year of cycle awareness. To inspire and uplift and encourage you, today’s conversation is a deep dive into the many layers of this life affirming and life-altering practice. We explore:How to actually live your cycle awareness in a non-cyclical world: how to yield the cycle you have on any given month… how to find creative ways to be true to your experience, and to lead from the wisdom of your cycleA powerful example of this - how Sjanie learned to teach from the void of her cycle, and the powerful impact it had on her leadership.How a commitment to cycle awareness cultivates our capacity to drop our patterns of control and be in intimate relationship with life, so we can grow new muscles of relational, sustainable leadership.—If you feel excited about enhancing your vitality, activating your creativity and deepening your leadership through your menstrual cycle awareness this year, we invite you to join our Wild Power free online retreat Jan 11th - 25th. ---The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email [e-mail]---Social media:Red School: @red.school (https://www.instagram.com/red.school)

Welcome to the Menstruality Podcast, where we share inspiring conversations about the power of menstrual cycle awareness and conscious menopause. This podcast is brought to you by Red School, where we're training the menstruality leaders of the future. I'm your host, Sophie Jane Hardy, and I'll be joined often by Red School's founders, Alexandra and Sharni, as well as an inspiring group of pioneers, activists, changemakers and creatives to explore how you can unashamedly claim the power of the menstrual cycle to activate your unique form of leadership for yourself, your community and the world. Hey, welcome back to the Menstruality Podcast and welcome to 2022. This is the beginning of series two and we have some incredible guests lined up for this coming season. I'm so grateful to have you here with us for the journey. As you may know our mission at Red School is to activate

the vitality and creativity and leadership of a million people through the power of menstrual cycle awareness and conscious menopause and this year we want to invite you to make this your year of menstrual cycle awareness and to inspire and uplift and encourage you we're starting the year with our wild power free online retreat where we're sharing conversations about how to activate your vitality and enhance your creativity and deepen your leadership through menstrual cycle awareness so we invite you to save the date, it's from January the 11th to the 25th. I was a bit menstrual in this episode so I often say it starts on the 10th or the 11th but truly it starts on January the 11th and there's actually a link in the show notes if

you want to register and take your seat right now. And to start off this year of menstrual cycle awareness, today's conversation is with Red School founders, Alexandra and Sharni. It's a deep dive into the many layers of this life affirming and life altering practice. As I mentioned, I was menstrual, Sharni and I were both in our bleed very early after our cycles tricked us and started much earlier than we expected. So we're a little bit altered in this conversation, a little bit ecstatic. And Alexandra is at the end of a long year of writing. So bear with us. We explored how to actually live your cycle awareness in this

non-cyclical world, how to yield to the cycle you've got on any given month, how to find creative ways to be true to your experience and we give a powerful example of how Sharni learned to teach from the void in her cycle and the powerful impact it had on her leadership. We also explore how a commitment to cycle awareness cultivates this capacity to drop our patterns of management and control of life and instead be in an intimate relationship with life so it helps us to grow new muscles of relational sustainable leadership within us. I hope you enjoy the conversation and I hope you join us for this year of menstrual cycle cycle awareness. Right, good morning Alexandra and Sharni. Let's get right into this conversation about the power and magic of menstrual cycle awareness with a cycle check-in. And Sharni, do you want to kick us off? I will Sophie, Jane, thank you. You know, I don't take it for granted what a special thing it is to be

asked that question. And I really appreciate it. It's like I get to bring myself here. So I'm day three today. And I'm feeling, I'm feeling quiet. I'm also feeling expanded, sensitive, sensitized. My mind is a little bit offline, quite mushy. And my body is just kind of leaning in for comfort. I have myself wrapped in a blanket and my head is cradled in my hands and my eyes are being covered by my hands and I'm just so enjoying the experience of darkness. It is one of my favorite things when I'm bleeding is to be in the dark and in darkness. So I'm bleeding is to be in the dark and in darkness so I'm feeling that and um yeah I think just very I notice I feel very nourished when my focus is

inside myself ah you know I I notice how I am feeling stilled and soothed by your experience, Shani. It's almost like I'm getting some of the atmosphere of your day three, which is rather nice. And I'm actually leading up to full moon. I think it's about day 13, something like that. And normally I'm quite sort of charged and focused and on it and you know um and but i don't have that kind of drive at the moment just partly because i had a little bit of a cold and flu last week and i'm just for a day or so and and so I'm just my energy is just trying to come back again after that

but what I do have in me is a sort of easygoing kind of cruising sort of feeling which I'm really enjoying I'm enjoying not have the push actually that's been with me most of the year I think whether it's full moon or not um because of writing our book but um so yes I just there's a kind of nice sense of just being just in a pleasant flow in a way yeah that's me I love. I'm actually on day one here. I'm started bleeding in the night. So it's pretty much day one, day one, two. And I've had an experience today, which has really set me up for this conversation because I couldn't rest this morning in the way I longed to. I had a wonderful bouncy Labrador and a wonderful little one-year-old who needed me. And I could feel the stress and the tension rising in my system, holding the tension between these two things. And then something opened up in me when I,

I think I asked myself the question, what's menstruality trying to say? And I realized that the wisdom of my bleed was alive and present in this moment. And the wisdom of my bleed is full of surrender, full of space, full of possibility. And I felt immediately wrapped in, in this mother hug that you and Sharni often talk about, Alexandra, this mother hug that even Sharni often talk about Alexandra this mother hug of menstruation and since that moment my day has been full of ecstasy full of ecstasy even though we had all kinds of plans for this week you know as an organization we had I was going to capitalize on my uh the last creative surge of my inner autumn to line everything up ready for our wild power retreat in January and I don't know what's going to happen now I don't know how we're going to pull it off but what I do know is that if we're going to run a program about making making it your year

of menstrual cycle awareness the goodness is going to come from me surrendering to this moment right now to the menstrual medicine that's happening right now yes Sophie well you know it's funny isn't it because you and I were completely synced we it's been so good hasn't it working together and our cycles were we're on exactly the same day in fact we were checking in with each other you know almost comparing notes and um pacing ourselves but you know, we were like little comrades, weren't we? It was so nice. And we both expected our cycle to be longer than it has been. And I mean, I was completely taken by surprise. I mean, probably slightly less so than you were. But I had kept the end of this week free, thinking that would be when I would bleed. And then I started bleeding at the beginning of the week. And then two days later, you also started bleeding early.

So it's really early day 24. Exactly. Never happened in my life. So I just I think there's a trickster at work here in the cycle. Playing some tricks, playing some games with us right now. It is, it's completely messing with us. This is like menstruality's humor on high, because as you say, we had a week planned of, you know, getting things finished to deadline. And it was a really productive week that we had planned thinking we would get all this done before we bled. And lo and behold, ain't none of it going to happen. And this is, you know, this is real life cycle awareness at work right now, because, of course, we don't ultimately control our cycles and this is where um this is and it's in the fact that we don't control it that it is

such a potent and powerful evolver of who we are it is that we are in relationship with it and we're learning this dance aren't we of how to live in in relationship with life so our cycles are our training ground for learning to live with and engage and to let ourselves be touched by life rather than thinking that you can control it to the end degree and so I just love what has happened and I always think that our cycles have have one aspect I always think of it as one foot in our you know personal life and the other foot in the mystery and you know it's like a channel to the mystery and it's a channel into you know deeply into ourselves and it feels like the mystery worked you both this week very well as you say menstruality which is in a way that the mystery worked you both this week and i can't help feeling that

this is the perfect beginning for our um the perfect opening for this conversation that is going to start off our year of cycle awareness um yeah we're drawing in something other right now to be with us yeah and you've got yes have a hug going sophie yeah yes alexandra it is the perfect opening because on one hand this is really real this is what real life as a cycling person looks like yes exactly and this is also really the art of cycle awareness which is where you know i we as you say we get to be tutored and, um, counseled by this wisdom of our bodies. Yes. One of the most powerful things about the way you teach, I feel is the way that you open up the different levels of the magic and power of menstrual cycle awareness. So the mission of Red School is to activate the vitality, creativity and leadership

of a million people through the power of menstrual cycle awareness and conscious menopause. Can we talk a bit about these different levels of menstrual cycle awareness like how is it impacting our well-being how is it enhancing our creativity and what's it got to do with leadership well I think it's at this moment Shani we talk about the iceberg isn't it yeah so we think of so if we we think ofality, the bio menstruality is this iceberg in the ocean, great big, massive iceberg. And there's the tip that you can see. And then there are in your cycle and organizing your life around that. And this is where cycle awareness begins. This is the absolute foundation of menstrual cycle awareness is knowing about the pattern and rhythm of your own cycle

and then using it as a sort of framework for how you live your life for how you organize your days and and so on and this it's a very um very practical and useful tool that keeps you, it's the sort of first layer of what we call the, of well-being to your cycle managing your life through that you are pacing your nervous system you're pacing your actual energy and you're acknowledging and mindful of the different emotional states that you are going through and organizing your life as much as you can around that and that's um the absolute foundational practice and it gives you a grounding in just really good self-care but it is just the beginning of something isn't it shani it is just that tip of the iceberg that then once you've got that under your belt then it's possible then to feel in to allow

yourself to experience much deeper levels of power. And in the way that you've experienced today, actually, of what menstruality can actually offer you. I was just thinking that, Alexandra, I was thinking, okay, I was definitely practicing the tip of the iceberg with, I'm on day 23. I've got, you know, three, four days of really strong creativity. Now I'm going to do the work I need to do. Then, so organizing my life around my cycle and actually we'll get into this, but understanding how my creative process works in alignment with my cycle. And then bam, I stopped bleeding completely unexpectedly. And I, I'm not able to organize my, my life around that. And then my thank goodness for cycle awareness, because then I remembered that something is happening and that gateway to and really an altered state you know I'm I'm in an altered ecstatic state right now it's divine it's delicious

but that gateway opened up because I know it exists and I just wish everyone knew it existed yeah yeah and and it actually you instead of trying to control things which is the sort of tip of the iceberg you know way of working with the cycle that sort of managerial approach which is great is necessary you have to have that first what you then did is you took the next step with your cycle so initially you sort of probably cursed for a moment as we all do what no how could you do that yeah I always like to say there's nothing convenient about menstruation there's probably nothing convenient about having a cycle actually so you had to shift into another gear within yourself which is that you actually had to engage with the moment and actually let your cycle or your cycle day inform your experience so yes you had you know you had this sort of autumn energy you had all

lined up to do these jobs and now suddenly that's not there anymore. And the invitation here is to go instead of fighting the body or getting angry with it is to go, oh, OK, body. So something else is going to come in today. There's going to be a different kind of the enemy in that moment what you're doing is you're trusting the wisdom of what's being gifted you in that moment and what and and you have to change you had to sort of alter how you're thinking how you're relating to the day how you're relating to yourself and this is like a little mini initiatory kind of experience um it's sort of breaking the trance if you know because we're all in such a sort of via positiva as i like to say you know the via positiva trance of of you know planning organizing doing you know getting

on with things it's a fabulous energy i totally love it but at the same time we're all in a trance with it and that via positiva energy um ultimately is not relational it's not actually engaging with things it's managing things and it's necessary and good i'm not judging it anyway but it has its limit and you know in a sense you had reached the limits of your via positiva energy and a drive if you like and you were interrupted i love this a cycle interrupts us it interrupted you and then you dropped you had to now drop into a deeper layer within yourself so it's like you're dropping below the surface of the water, if we go with our iceberg image, and you're letting the cycle inform who you are in this moment,

in this, you're basically letting the powers of the cycle come through to inform the situation, powers that you thought, you know thought you weren't going to have that day. So instead of bringing your lovely managerial energies to the day, what you're bringing to the day is ecstasy, the mother hug. Surrender. Surrender. And actually it required trust, didn't it, Sophie? Yeah. Sharni, you must have had this experience two days ago as well because your cycle came early well how did it unfold for you in that moment of

oh there's blood now what? I'm loving this image of the iceberg because I have my eyes closed as Alexandra's describing it and it's really apparent to me that at this kind of what we call this level of practice, this tip of the iceberg, we call it the science, in inverted commas, of menstrual cycle awareness. It has a sort of outer focus to it and um and and then sort of below the surface when we turn our attention inward that's where we start to tap this tap into this kind of deep resource this kind of wellspring inside us so you know what my experience was or what I'll share is what I noticed really helps me is, firstly, so when I realize I'm bleeding and it's inconvenient and all the kind of usual questions of how I'm going to do the things I need to do given the place I'm in, pop up, I check in with myself and ask myself, the question that really does it for me is,

what am I most needing right now? What am I most needing? Not what does the world want of me? What do I think needing right now? What am I most needing? Not what does the world want of me? What do I think I should be doing? What has to be done? What's on the to-do list? What am I most needing right now? And I've noticed that even just in asking that question,

I'm brought into this whole other relationship with myself. And immediately, I'm having a different kind of experience, which is much more yoked to this power. Because the power that's coming through me in that moment is asking something of me. It's asking me to go with it, to take it by the hand and to let it lead me. So when I ask the question, what am I needing?

Suddenly I'm aware of what the powers are, what those energies are. And suddenly there's an opening to how I might be able to cooperate and in real life how that looked for me was I went into my bedroom I closed the door I went into my bathroom I closed the door so I had two doorways of protection between me and the world securely locked. I went and sat on the toilet with the lights off, and I just sat there, and I closed my eyes, and I hung my head, and I just sat there, and I breathed,

and then I felt into what I was needing. And then tears came, and I just felt myself soften and I just felt how my heart was wanting me to feel it to know it yeah and you know this didn't go on for very long but I was in a very different place when I walked out of that toilet sanctuary five minutes later. Yeah, and you brought that new place that you were in to whatever it was that you needed to attend to or do in that moment. And that is a gift i want to actually sort of emphasize that that is a gift you were giving you how can i put it

it was another kind of response to the situation because we get so caught up in I'm supposed to be in this mode today to do these jobs but what if I brought this other mode to the situation that I still have to attend to you know I'm thinking of I'm actually thinking of you and I Shani when we have to do when we were doing in-person workshops and um you would start bleeding right on the first day of the workshop or the first day of the training well for a while I was in the void at every single workshop yeah you were in the whole that's that's the toughest one of all that is that is the ultimate of yeah that is being in a being in a public facing position where you are required to actually speak sense and you're in the void i mean that is a complete phd in the art of

menstrual cycle awareness and i got to do that over and over and over and over again I got quite bloody good at it and we go through the same process every time where you'd be somewhat pissed off that you were in the place that you were in and I would say Shani remember this is another kind of resource that you bring to the situation. And, you know, there's the two of us. So, you know, I'm the front person here. I'm the front woman. And, you know, I would step up in that moment, knowing that Shani had stepped up a million times for me when I wasn't feeling so bright and breezy. And so she would have to let go of her need to organize and set things up and let herself just be in that bubble. I said, just go and trust the place you're in,

trust the place you're in. And I could just, I'm thinking of a workshop now, it was a menopause workshop, I think, which I would normally be sort of starting off anyway, because normally Shani would start off workshops. And I'm sort of behind her. I like her to begin. And I can just remember how I, Shani was sort of in silence, you know, no words, nothing. Frankly, she should have worn dark glasses if she could. And I remember just starting off and opening the space up. And then you woke up,

but what came through you was different from what you normally speak. And this would happen every time, actually, Shani. So you would bring through another kind of intelligence intelligence that would not be so easily available if you had been on day 25 or day 12 you know of your cycle and um and i i would smile i would well i think wow shani's on something she's channeling something right now and it was really lovely the the so that was the the energy you brought that day would be channeling that that sort of expansive place of menstruation it was like a form of channeling so something other would come through yeah yeah exactly what i discovered from those multiple workouts i had in that particular arena was that if I was able to drop the pressure and drop the effort and really let myself just sink back and rest in myself,

something very powerful opened up in me. I just felt like a river, you know, that something just came streaming through me from somewhere else. And, and it became my to appreciate it as a very fresh creative force that can come in there that can really evolve the conversation and take things to the next level. And the degree of discernment and refinement and subtlety that I could bring was quite exquisite. So I've come to appreciate that place really deeply now, but it does take having spaciousness and it does take being able to drop the pressure and let myself feel rested. And of course I had you there, which is where I think it's so important to have allies. It's very hard to practice this art of cycle awareness without involving other people in our lives somehow.

Somehow we do need that network of support so that we can really be in the place we're in, even if it's just in a very practical way. If you feel excited about enhancing your vitality, about activating your creativity and about deepening your leadership this year through your menstrual cycle awareness, we invite you to join our wild power free online retreat from January the 11th to the 25th. Guided by Alexandra and Sharni and a group of wise menstruality thought leaders, you'll learn how to read your body, to manage stress, to tailor your self-care so that you can thrive throughout your cycle month. You'll discover the creative powers of each inner season of your cycle and you'll cultivate a connection to your

calling to plug yourself into an endless source of meaning and soul nourishment and belonging this year the wild power retreat runs from january the 11th to the 25th you can click the link in the show notes or the link in our instagram bio to join us i I was thinking that too, as you were talking, Sharni, because one of the first things I did this morning when I knew I was bleeding and when this week wasn't going to go the way I thought it was, is I sent a message to Louise on our team and it was some kind of garbled menstrual fog that I was speaking in. It was four minutes long and I don't think I really said anything but the essence was we can't do what we were going to do so can you help and she's on and she had sent me a message actually saying so I hear you're bleeding how can I help you know

what can I take off your plate you stay 13 or 14 she's on the opposite side so we can pick up from each other and yeah having having community around us having people who can support in those really practical ways but also having a community of cycle aware people around who can help us to remember that this is real and we're not making it up and we're not mad. There is an intelligence in our cycles. As you say, in our power, it does have an agenda. It is trying to call us home to our power. And, you know, what you're describing about the PhD of being in the void and teaching is a really powerful example of that. You know, a really clear example of how your cycle is was schooling you and guiding you into a new

kind of leadership yeah and what's really important for me to add here is that there's no place in the cycle that is how can i bad wrong wrong exactly bad wrong that all aspects of the cycle hold power that we can draw on and the challenge we face is a culture that does not value or recognize it, because we're changing that now. So it's not seen as a resource. So what you are saying there, Alexandra, is, you know, if each of each one of us can give ourselves permission to trust the place we're in that immediately dignifies it and then what we were talking about just before this was if we can create cycle aware communities and that could even just be you and your friend or you and your family or you and the people you

know one person you work with or whoever, that can bring that next level of permission where there is somebody else who's an ally who is, you know, supporting us to be in the place we're in. And that's super special, isn't it? It's actually really crucial, I think, because just being on your own with this can be, is very challenging and requires, it requires an emotional discipline within yourself, actually, if you are sort of a bit isolated, because I was just thinking, what do you do if you have to, you know, you don't have someone like Shani, you had me at the workshop and so on, but you're on your own and you have, you've got to turn up for something and manage something and you're bleeding.

And I suppose I can only really draw on what happened for me. And one of the things I was eternally grateful for with my cycle was that it was actually very regular. And I mean, yes, occasionally I had like you to just had the curveball, but mostly I could rely on it. And so if I knew I had to do something and I was going to be menstruating and I hadn't been able to organize my life differently around that, I I became ruthless. I knew exactly what my needs were, you know, and boundaries. And I knew what my needs would be at that time and what I needed to feel OK. And the crucial thing was that I was not pressured, that I was not having to move faster than my body wanted to move. And my body wanted to always go much more slowly.

I was very dreamy coming in, slowed down and dreamy just before the bleed and then the bleed itself. And if I could move slowly and have minimal things to do, and food was also really important. My blood sugar levels were everything. And I would plan ahead with the food. So that was prepared and ready and I had something to take with me and I remember you know just moving in quite a sort of blissed state actually I actually had to go and do an interview on the radio station and I had changed it once because I knew I was going to be in the void when they originally said you know and I thought Jesus Christ I'm not talking on national radio

this was Australia one national broadcaster in the void so I just said no I'm busy that day and in my head I'm thinking thinking, yeah, busy doing nothing. And they said, well, what about blah, blah? And I said, yep, that'll do. And it was like a couple of days later. So I knew I'd be bleeding. So I knew I was on solid ground, whereas in the void, I was not on solid ground.

And I just remember getting the bus into town because I went into the studios and the ABC studios in Sydney and just feeling very held in this bliss bubble I felt incredibly present and in myself and authoritative I think you can get you reach such an authoritative voice when you're in that when you are menstruating. It's a very particular kind of still authority that comes through and a clarity. But to have that, I needed to be moving at the pace of my body. And of course, that was so slow. It was slow and I needed to just be leisurely you know I went I got there early and I just I sat you know in the sort of weighty area just in a little bliss bubble really

when you talk about pacing your the actual energy of your body and some of the other things you've been saying today about how cycle awareness makes us relational it makes us actually it guides us to be in relationship with what's actually happening it makes us responsive to the world in a new way it drops us out of controlling and into a more surrendered intimacy with life and with what's happening. And whenever you talk in this way, for me, I think of the kind of leadership we need in the world, that the leadership that we're seeing in most arenas in the world is power over, it's not about relationship, It's about dominance and control.

So in this way, menstrual cycle awareness is very actively training us as leaders and the kind of leaders that the world needs. I feel very, very, very, very strongly about this, Sophie. this Sophie that cycle awareness is really growing new muscles of leadership because we still need the other ways as well and we're needing to learn to work with the world rather than manage and control it and I mean if we keep with the old ways I mean the world will win because we're not winning we're not managing and we're not controlling things that's the point the earth is retaliating you know telling us in no uncertain terms that how we're living is not sustainable and so through cycle awareness we're really developing this muscle of sustainability, I suppose, is one way of saying it, of how to live sustainably,

how to get out of that egoic driven energy and actually choose to, not to abandon it, but to hold it within a context of relationality. You know, what is, so it isn't just about me. I'm learning in my leadership work that, you know, the cycle awareness has taken me from my own kind of ego encapsulated self. And through cycle awareness, through being sort of engaged with broken down, built up, if you like, through that cycle process, I have developed a muscle of being able to hear what the world is wanting, what is being asked of me. So I am in an evolutionary kind of leadership work now. So it's not just about me there's something bigger than me that is at work through me and we speak of calling of course which is you know

something that is we are called to something so that is and your calling is much bigger than your own egoic agendas for for life so through cycle awareness and then very powerfully of course through menopause as well itself um we are exercised um in uh being in relationship with things, aren't we, Shani? Because, I mean, I really see you really practicing that because I don't have my menstrual cycle anymore. Yes. It's hilarious. I love seeing that energy in you that is just so driven and on it.

And you could freaking conquer the world with that energy, that summer energy. And of course, we were joking about it with Louise yesterday. She was feeling so smug. She used that word smug and that she had lots of different heads that were on, you know, 20 different jobs at once. And she was feeling so pleased and smug with herself it was such a fabulous way of describing that day for energy you know may we all enjoy wonderful smugness on day day 12 of our cycles where we feel like we're managing everything and then there's a moment isn't there because of course you can't keep going with that forever and

that's always the illusion we want it we want to keep going with that and I see it with you each month how you get you go from that sort of superwoman territory and then you're interrupted yeah um it it's um it's profound to be humbled in this way every month, every month. And every month it's a new surprise. It's like, oh, yeah, every month I'm brought to my knees in one way or another. And I'm a bit surprised, a little bit more humbled and that's uh you know i'm i'm i'm just really aware for myself anyway how this tenderizing that happens for me and the sometimes excruciating vulnerability that i feel Oh, it just keeps me so sensitized to myself and therefore sensitized to everything. I can't escape caring.

You know, there's a part of me that would love to care less or numb out. And I just, it's the second half of my cycle that just brings me back right deep into the well of care, pain, pain and care and love that I feel. And I just, I can't help but think that this is what leaders need to be fueled by in order to really lead in a way that serves life. Yeah, so I'm very, very grateful for it, even as it's hard. Okay, so we've spoken about the beautiful tip of the menstrual cycle awareness iceberg, which is the tracking of our cycles and how that enables us to cultivate more wellness and well-being we've looked at the deep hidden agenda the deep the depths of the iceberg right down deep in the ocean the deep hidden agenda of the mental cycle to call us home to our power and awaken this this leadership this powerful new form of leadership, then in the middle of the iceberg, this isn't a perfect way of using your metaphor here, but there's the creative layer,

how we can work with our cycle as a creative ally. In towards the end of the Wild Power Retreat, which is starting on January the 10th, we will, I'm going to interview you about that I'm sorry about if you can hear the babies crying in the background that's my amazing child mind giving them lunch I love her so much um yeah that we're going to look at look at how our cycles can be our creative allies. But could you just walk us into it?

Give us a little introduction to how to work with our cycle on, how to work with menstrual cycle awareness on that level. Ah, yes creative expression. And the cycle kind of works in two ways here for me. So cycle awareness you are you are rooting into yourself so you need to be connected into yourself to really find your creative expression what you're you know what it is that you're you're calling if you like but you're creative genius or essence and so through cycle awareness you are sort of deepened into yourself and that creative force and you can start to wake up more and more, more and more clearly within you what it is. And then the cycle itself through each phase of the cycle offers sort of teaches you or tutors you,'t it Shani it sort of tutors you in the different elements that need

to happen for you to be able to manifest this idea that you have this thing that you want to create in the world so each phase of the cycle is a kind of vital element in the creative process. So it holds each stage of the cycle holds very particular powers that are required at certain stages in the creative process and we're going to speak to that aren't we shani and in the next call what those powers are little and how they can help us so the cycle both helps you find what it is that you want to express or share in the world and your cycle actively supports you to make that real thank you so we want to invite everyone listening we want to invite the whole world to make 2022 your year of menstrual cycle awareness and this begins with tracking the cycle and that's one of the main reasons why we've created the wild power retreat which is a free

online event that's going to unfold between january the 12th and the 5th and the 25th, which is designed to set everyone up to have a steady tracking practice. There's going to be loads of inspiration from you too. You're going to bookend this series of conversations that we're having with a group of special guests, some incredible guests about how practicing menstrual cycle awareness can enhance our vitality our well-being can help us to engage in new levels of creativity and support us to step into the kind of leadership that we've been talking about in whatever way that we're leading in our lives whether that's at work it may be in a leadership role in an organization or maybe in a different role maybe running your own business maybe as a mother or someone who's taking care of uh someone else in your family a role in your community this leadership is relevant on all levels but it's not an old model of leadership that we're talking about here

it's um it's everywhere and it's not an old model of leadership that we're talking about here it's um it's everywhere and it's relevant for everyone so how well how are you two feeling in the run-up to this retreat I'm I'm so excited about it and the ecstasy of my day one is really bubbling up in me like champagne when I think about it now because I just I'm so passionate about everybody having access to this magic how are you two feeling in the in the run-up to it well listening to you Sophie I um I feel I can feel some of your excitement and magic but i i'm i'm just thinking about the incredible power that can be unleashed if there are more and more of us really honoring cyclical consciousness it's this kind of hidden quiet revolution that's creeping up on everybody and uh you know it's affecting everybody whether you have a cycle or not but for those of us with

cycles we are um we're like these you know underground agents of change so i um i just feel very sort of a deep sort of, I feel excitement, but I feel my heart really open and warm, and it feels somehow very enriching. Something feels very enriching as I listen to you speak about it and I think about this year ahead. Yeah, it's exciting, Sophie. It's very exciting yes the thought of hundreds thousands of us all committing to this year of cycle awareness feels really radical and

powerful in a way I almost can't quite foresee yet. But I know for myself that this practice, and we've heard so many people say this, how this practice of cycle awareness has, this phrase, completely changed my life. People tell us that over and over and over. People say it's saved their life. It's changed their life. It's been the most powerful thing they've ever done. You know, those are the kinds of comments that people make. And I know

for myself that the practice of cycle awareness supports me at such a deep level. It's the thing that helps me always to feel right in myself. And it's my way of being here now and really showing up in the world in as real a way as I can, but also in a way that allows more than just who I am to come through me, that allows me to be a part of something much bigger. So, you know, I know what it means to me and in my life and in all the day-to-day moments where it has saved my bacon over and over again. So I'm just looking forward to how we as a community all committing to this together, how this is going to be, you know, the conversations that are going to come out of this, the learnings we're going to have, the revelations that are going to come, and how our nearest and dearest, our communities, our workplaces are all going to be profoundly affected by it. I mean, the ripple effects are just really exciting to think about. So I'm really looking forward to it.

You know, as you're speaking, Shani, I'm, you know, the thought that is with me is that there is so much goodness within the cycle that you can only access through this discipline of cycle awareness. You know, this commitment to trusting it, that there's so much gold to be had. It's this, you know, we talk about the cycle, you know, I talk about it as the cycle delivers us home to ourselves, this sense of home, of belonging, a sense of rightness with who we are. This, a sense that we have a place. This, I mean, this is just beautiful.

I want everybody who has a cycle to begin to taste this more and more and to commit like this, I think, can make that possible. So whether you're just starting out with cycle awareness, or if you're a practice cycle awareness, you know, you can never stop receiving goodness. I remember right up to the end, every time I bled, I go, oh, my God. Oh, my God. Like I was feeling it for the first time again.

Every time it felt like this gift this revelation you know I was being tapped more more and more by this goodness and uh how amazing to have that food that the cycle can feed us if we trust it there's also a really key community piece here we were talking earlier in this conversation about how if you're practicing cycle awareness by yourself it can feel confusing it can be easy to fall off the wagon because especially in the more challenging aspects of your cycle you can feel like you're going mad like this this isn't real and one of our other intentions behind the wild power retreat is that you will feel the support of a community of people who are practicing this and therefore they know it's real in their lives and they are feeling the magic

of it alongside you and then that if you choose that community experience can continue because the our year of cycle awareness will continue with our wild power immersion which we run every year it's a way to for those of you that have read the wild power book it's a way to, for those of you that have read the Wild Power book, it's a way to take what Alessandra and Sharni teach in the book and experience it in your own body, in your own being, and be initiated into the different powers and the sacred tasks that happen in each of your inner seasons of your cycle. And this year we're running it in a brand

new way for the first time which I'm so excited about yeah me too ah I'm really looking forward to it because we'll have more opportunities to engage with you uh you know your experiences the cycle what's coming out of it for you and more opportunities for people to share their experiences with others um so there's going to be a lot more kind of community and connection and engagement this year which is very exciting yeah we've sort of we've taken a key element from the menstruality leadership program which is what we call these these processing sessions these live sessions with you where people bring their cycle experience and then you support them to find the the magic and the power within whatever they're experiencing yes and it's the combination of that plus having

a listening partnership and a sharing circle that together creates a very powerful crucible and container and holding for people to experience what their relationship to their cycle is and how they can deepen that connection. And then so the wild power immersion begins on February the is either 8th, 9th or 10th, but my menstrual brain can't remember so at some point in that time in february even though we're talking about it yesterday and then our year of menstrual cycle awareness continues with our menstruality leadership program which begins in april depending on which pathway you choose the in-person or the online version april may which is our flagship program it's the world's only

leadership program anchored in the power of the menstrual cycle and uh it's it's an apprenticeship into the hidden depths of cycle awareness which prepares you to share it with your people in your life your community in whatever way you're calling tells you to and that's that's um runs over two modules uh the first one happens in April May and the second one towards September and there's beautiful activities happening in between and that is how our year of menstrual cycle awareness is going to unfold at Red School it's uh it would be our absolute joy and pleasure for you to join us and to invite your the people in your life that you want to invite into menstrual cycle awareness to the wild power retreat which starts on january the 10th okay let's see if we can distill a golden nugget from this conversation you know it's the word love i'm thinking of you sophie surrendering into menstruation

and feeling the mother hug which is really that but that's you know that oxytocin wash and that the feeling of your own goodness of love and i am as we've been talking about uh cycle awareness uh today in this conversation i have felt how my own being i know my my heart has been opening more. And then I talked about that phrase of the cycle delivering us home to ourselves. It is this place of love, of just deep love. And so that is the sort of take-home thing that I'm really holding here with cycle awareness, that it really awakens the forces of love both love for ourselves but also this care as shani said of the other of the world yeah it's this beautifully described alexandra

um and i've just been struck through the course of this conversation but also through my life that the what it takes to access that love is a special kind of daring. I mean, this is what I think the practice of menstrual cycle awareness is asking each one of us day by day, moment by moment, is to dare to trust, to dare to go with, to dare to follow our cyclical nature. And every time we do take that risk and go there, we get to taste some of this magic and this love that you have spoken, you've both spoken of. And that feels like our birthright is to know this place of love in ourselves

and this feeling of love for the world. Thank you for listening to the menstruality podcast from Red School today. Please subscribe and follow wherever you listen to podcasts and we would love you to join us for the Wild Power free online retreat from January the 11th to the 25th to make this your year of menstrual cycle awareness. To register you can click the link in our show notes or the link in our Instagram bio. Okay and after the retreat we're going to get back to our normal rhythm of Thursday menstruality podcast episodes. I can't wait to share this new series with you and until then keep living life according to your own brilliant rhythm.