The Menstruality Podcast - Six Steps to Survive Menopause *Wise Power Series* (Alexandra & Sjanie)

Episode Date: July 7, 2022

When you find yourself in the thick of the menopause transition, there’s no maintaining life as normal. How can we support ourselves to manage the day to day realities of life amidst the huge initiation of menopause? In this episode we explore the six steps of our ‘menopause triage’ and how they help you to dignify and honour what you’re experiencing. We explore:The power of accepting the fact that you’re in menopause, and that you have a ‘new normal’. The art of ‘snudging’ and why it’s the a key skill to cultivate in menopause. The menopause superpowers that can help you to put these triage steps into preactice, including the power of No. Pre-order your copy of Wise Power: Discover the Liberating Power of Menopause to Awaken Authority, Purpose and Belonging here: https://www.redschool.net/pre-order-wise-power---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.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 there, how's it going with you today? I'm so glad that you're back. Welcome back to the Menstruality Podcast and it's a beauty today. I'm with Alexandra and Sharni again. This is the

second part of our Wise Power Menopause series that we're sharing over the summer in the run-up to the launch of Wise Power, Discover the Liberating Power of Menopause series that we're sharing over the summer in the run-up to the launch of Wise Power Discover the Liberating Power of Menopause to Awaken Authority, Purpose and Belonging. In our first part of the series we looked at the four cultural stories that we've been telling ourselves about menopause and the new stories that dignify and honour this experience. And today we're looking at Alexandra and Sharni's six-step menopause triage process which can support you to put ground under yourself and hold yourself as you undergo the challenges and the ups and downs and insides outs, inside outs of the menopause

process. So I'm really excited to share this one with you, the six-step menopause triage with Alexandra and Sharni. Hey, good morning you two. How are you both feeling today as we begin this conversation. I am feeling, there's a kind of quiet, inner bouncing joy in me, that all is well. And, you know, I am tired overall because it's been a haul

these last, I don't know how many years years um no these last 18 months of writing the book and all that and you know all that we've just been doing but um i there's a there's this quiet sort of bouncing joy and um being in the flow of something yeah and it's just after full moon and I feel, you know, the intensity of this moon. I could not wait for it to peak. I couldn't cope. Honestly, I really felt this pressure in my body. And it feels like that's eased.

And I'm like, oh, it's okay. Things are all right I'm I'm in a nice place yeah and the sun is shining and it's summer and honestly it's yeah yeah the sun is so gorgeous yeah I'm I'm feeling um beautifully uplifted by the sun and also the day after the full moon um I'm feeling some of that bigness in my system which I'm really enjoying um although it's slightly dangerous because I'm day 20 and the dominating quality that I feel is discernment which can go terribly wrong although I have to say mostly I feel a bit like you know give me a pile of rubble and i i feel this sort of drive in my system to sift

through it and dig through it and find the treasure come hell or high water there's this like determination in me um to get to something good which um it's a strong energy. Yeah, it's a strong energy, especially. I've noticed it, Shani. Have you noticed it? Me too. When we were talking in preparation for this conversation, I was watching you and you were being so eloquent and so clear and you were getting right to it and right to your points.

And I was thinking, I wonder what day she's on. And from my day three place day two I feel very wordless very spacious I feel calm but I was watching all of these words pour out of your face we are really opposite places in the cycle but you're in the right place for this conversation because it's a biggie so this is the second part of our summer menopause series in the first part we explored why we need to change the cultural conversation about menopause the old stories of menopause and the new stories of menopause. And in this conversation, we're going to look at the power of menopause in that it is an initiation and how we can support ourselves

through this almighty initiation. But to start us off, could you walk us into this liberating power of menopause. Can you give us an overview? Oh, I'd love to, Sophie. I've been really feeling into it this morning and with fresh words for myself. And it is, to put it very simply, it is to put it very simply it is your psyche your soul going through this expansion you are being expanded beyond your normal boundaries of awareness and consciousness and I was really in particular thinking about the ego. And actually, you know, our ego is, I think of it as, you know, my sense of identity, this kind of clarity of who I am. And, yeah, this is me. And I have agency in the world that all that fabulous energy and and power that goes with that. And it's as though that gets broken up or punctured and

there's something more wanting to emerge now beyond it and it's like a larger experience of oneself beyond that I I suppose, that ego encapsulated self. And, you know, we use this grander word, awakening. Menopause is an awakening. And it is a waking up to something much bigger than this self here. And it's that expansion. It doesn doesn't happen overnight it is a process and and it's destabilizing that's the nature of any change isn't it good or bad there's destabilization when we're stepping into something really exciting and new something you've always wanted, there's a destabilization that happens with the place you have been in, which has been familiar.

And you're going into something unknown, which you're learning to inhabit and discover and inhabit. And that's quite a journey. And what we're calling menopause the menopause process is we're coming to terms really with that expansion because i think of my post-menopause years because i'm about 15 years out of my menopause now i think of those 15 years as really familiarizing myself now within this expansion so it isn't a kind of done deal when you come out of menopause but you do all the kind of dirty work of that you know all the way you're dealing with you're in the hot spot of the turbulence you know that's metaphors uh dealing with that expansion and then post-menopause it's like oh i've got this i'm in this new country wow yeah yeah oh this is me now

kind of feeling it's really interesting looking back at it now actually and that's what i was doing this morning and feeling yeah i think I'm I think I'm cool now with this I'm comfortable with this new space it's I'm digging it it's it's so interesting to hear you say that and it's reminding me of the conversation I had with Lara Bryden about perimenopause and she was saying a really similar thing about her life now on the other side and how comfortable she felt in herself and how she knew herself. And yeah, the way you both talk about it is so beautiful. Great. So thank you for reminding us of the big picture here. And what we're going to talk about today is.

What do you actually do when you find yourself in the middle of this in the thick of this when you're inside this initiation this awakening this transformation and you were talking about this beautifully this morning Shani when you're inside this there's no maintaining life as normal but life is going to be going on around you as normal you're still going to have the responsibilities you're still going to have the things that you need to be doing how can people going through menopause support themselves with this paradox of the immense transformation and the day-to-day realities of life. Yeah, as Alexandra was describing this,

I was actually thinking about motherhood and how there's this hotspot with pregnancy, birth, and the early natal years. And I believe it's very much the same in menopause it's almost like you step out of ordinary life in order to undergo this deep transformation and I have to, it's almost like you step out of normal life, because of course, you don't step out of normal life. But the what we're having to negotiate on the inside, demands almost all of our energy and attention,

because it is so enormous. It's so consuming. And yeah, and I just, my heart goes out to people, to mothers, to people going through menopause, because the tension, you know, what it takes to really go with this deep internal transformation whilst putting food on the table, caring for your children, going up for your job, it shouldn't be asked of anyone. There's something about it that's just so wrong. And yet, it is actually the reality of our lives. And there is also a very sweet rightness in it. If we can find ways to tweak and adapt our lives to create conditions that are more friendly for for for this transformation so you know i think so much of uh the disruption that happens for us is because we're trying to

maintain life as normal so it would be good if uh i feel like we we are dying to share with you like what some of the tweaks are that you can make to just create a little bit more space for what's happening and a little bit more honoring for what's happening. So that was your question. And we, we came up with this idea of like a menopause triage, which is your, your toolkit really for um for creating conditions that are going to allow you to feel held in a process and to go with what you're experiencing just a little bit more and

in so doing unlock unleash some of the potential and possibility of it so Alexandra would you like to share what our first menopause triage tool tip is yes it's very simple it is to actually name and claim in a way declare to yourself that I'm in menopause. In other words, you're saying actually life has changed. And it is this acceptance piece. It is acceptance, that's the word, accepting that you're in menopause. And that really just shifts the the angle if you like the line within yourself and actually i'm thinking of one woman on one of our workshops um it's really hilarious she said and we quote her in the book she says you know i'm going to win this menopause game i'm going to keep all the plates spinning words to that effect and she was laughing at herself because she knew i'm going to do it i'm going to beat this thing and then we

were all cracking up laughing and and and when i wrote to her to ask if i could use her wonderful words in the book i said how is menopause for you and she said that i'm really enjoying it now it's because she wasn't quite in it at the workshop she was sort of you know just coming in she could feel the initial disturbance and she said i'm actually really liking it it's good and and i said well what's what's the secret ingredient that's sort of shifted that she said it's accepting it i've accepted it and i'm kind of there was this whole feeling of relax and she's accepting that she's, she's accepting sort of being less perfect. She says, I'm enjoying my silliness, I think she said, which I loved.

And I think she, you know, she was less demanding of herself in terms of standards. And of course, that's the one thing that has to change. Your standards are going to change. They are still going to be plenty good enough let me tell you because we always have such high standards but I love that she says I'm

accepting it yeah it's so beautiful because there's something about um naming for yourself that you're in menopause that really declares for yourself that uh you know things aren't going to be like they used to be I'm not going to be able to handle things like I used to, move at the pace I used to, have the standards I used to have, as you said, Alexandra. So in a way, you're declaring like a new normal in that naming of it. And that creates a lovely container for us, that declaration. It's like, like right i'm in this experience this is a new this is a new um this is a new normal and um and then you can hold yourself in that in a new way you know there's another important element which is that you're declaring it to those people around you yes and you're effectively saying i am not going to be there for you in the way I used to be

and I'm now another fabulous story which again we go to the book which I always love it was an Italian woman and she um you know she was a mother and a husband you know partner and two children and they were teenagers her daughters and she was going back to work again and her job required traveling to another city and um so she had time in the car on her own oh my god oh my god that's a solution to all menopause problems having time on your own she had this magic space on her own and so she started feeling and thinking well you know just she was feeling herself and she came home one day and she called a family meeting around the you know kitchen table whatever and she said to them he said basically she said to them

i am not going to be there for you in the way I used to be. And, of course, her two girls were squirming because she's an Italian mama. She does everything for everybody, you know. And they knew, you know, life was going to change. And they said to their dad, can you put something in her tea? And her dad actually happened to be a doctor. Make her the same as she used to be. And I just think that is the most exquisite, marvellous image of someone dignifying themselves,

having declared to themselves things are different, things are going to be different. And I have heard that. I've heard others say these, use those same words to partners, things are going to be different now. That's what comes out of declaring menopause official. Yeah. Brilliant. So that's step one of the six step menopause triage. I accept that you're in menopause. Step two is to take time and space for yourself. Oh my god if I could wave a magic wand that would be the top remedy I would give. It's dangerous having time and space for yourself. You start to have ideas.

You start to have agency coming back, autonomy, you know, like. You both know that, you know, you don't have to be in menopause to know that. And I was just thinking that I literally thought as I was walking the dog this morning after like changing several nappies and making breakfast and sorting other people's clothes out and sorting the washing out and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I thought I just need some space. And so I guess this is one of the ways that the menstrual cycle is preparing us for this, that every month we get a little mini dose of, of how life rubs up against us when we, what we really need is space away from life and away from everything and now it's really serious it's really really serious now that if you don't get time and space for yourself um and uh in a way that leads on to our third point which i'll hand to you shani but i'll just say that if we don't claim some time and space for ourselves it's actually I want

to say it's and now I feel tears arising in me I actually want to say it's dangerous not having it it's dangerous to us if we don't have it we are we become dangerous in a good sense I love saying that when we have time and space because we suddenly feel more of who we are and want to take up more space which means we're going to affect people around us and of course the thing that's hardest to get is time and space for ourselves so how do we do that yeah before we go on to point number three i just want to add, because I've heard you say this so often, Alexandra, you know, this piece is non-negotiable. You are.

Yeah, that you are tending to your inner life. Now, just as you've described with menstruation, Sophie, it's because there is such a deep need in us at this time to be with ourselves um that you know this time this this rest time is um what we are so deeply longing for this time with ourselves is what we're so deeply longing for so that we can um step out of the pressures and the pace of our lives and the responsibility of our lives long enough to be able to feel ourselves that's really what it is and in a way you can't really land in your menopause pause um process unless you have that time and space because it's about you being connected to yourself and the thing that does that is having time and space for yourself so yeah the little pockets of this is what we're suggesting here rather than the ideal year out from the world. It's just moments of downtime, moments of time without responsibility,

moments of just letting your mind drift and having no agenda and not having to be driven. Yes, I just want to really name that. Thank you for bringing that in, Shani, all that peace. No agenda, no responsibility. This is responsibility free time it's an absolute psychic necessity yeah yeah yeah you may have to take it in secret yeah you may have to go to the toilet in your lunch break or whatever however you get it you have got to take it somehow yeah I'd love to read a bit from page 102 of the book this is in chapter 13

where we walk through the six six step menopause triage and you say giving yourself this pressure free time will ease those burn-the-house feelings. And eventually it will allow you to evaluate what really does need to be burnt in your life and what needs keeping. But before even that is possible, you need space to not think. You're giving everything a rest, including your brain. Time and space for yourself is your version of the cocoon in which the menopause alchemy can get to work those are good words which moves us on to step three where you've invented a new word it looks like to me

i actually know it's an old word that we have recovered from the old world. Oh, yes, this word. This word is an old word. Rob Brasney, the astrologer. I got it from him. He shared it. I'm on his email list, and he sent this. He sends these great astrological readings, and he introduced this word of snudging, and it just captivated my attention.

Alexandra and I run with it ever since so what snudging is yeah so step three practice the art of snudging tell us it's doing as little as possible like whatever you can get away with, you know, doing whatever the bare minimum is that you can get away with. So, you know, on the surface, you look like you're doing all the usual stuff. You look impeccable. You appear to be delivering what you're supposed to be delivering like no no one could call you out but actually you're you're doing absolute minimum whatever you can get away with so I um I often think staring out the window like you're deep in thought is a great way of snatching no no one no one knows that you're not thinking you look purposeful i recommend i recommend a finger on the chin just for added effect yeah a little stroke of the chin

to make it seem really fruitful. You actually just do the absolute essential. You just cut away all the fat and just what has to be done. You really are lowering your standards, and standards are still just fine. More than anything else you know you're doing that but you're just holding yourself i shouldn't use that word impeccable there's a sense of yes i have done the job you asked of me you know smile yes it's done it's complete and inside yourself yeah toss that one off really fast another great story in the book on that one but it's like you don't you just you've lowered your

standards and what how you've delivered it but you know it's you know you've done the job you've done the job it's really interesting it's just letting yourself off the perfection hook yeah exactly yeah exactly because like you said and you have a sentence here in the book we imagine that you've already built up a very healthy bank account of going the extra mile for everybody now it's payback time yes real it's payback time yeah yeah you're not you're not going the extra mile anymore. No, no, it's boundaries, actually. Sludging requires you to have some boundaries and you'll just be saying, no, sorry, no, I'm afraid I'm not available for that. No, no, I can't do that job. Sorry, I'm already busy that day. Sorry. And to give a practical example of snodgingging there's this story from Catherine in the book

where she says I found myself having to prepare for attend a minute a highly detailed all-day meeting and in the same week manage the final stages of a conference I was shattered I came home afterwards and just dropped everything ah the, the sweet relief. The minutes were hammered out the next day. Just bullet points. I'm managing to skive off without it looking too obvious. Brilliant example. Brilliant example. Okay, step four of the triage,

once you've mastered the art of snudging, is rest. Well, along with time and space for yourself, responsibility, agenda, free time. I mean, it is a version of that in a way. It is this, it's just, jeez. I'm feeling it now in me. Just resting. Without this eternal push.

I mean, it is about literal resting. It's about really hanging out, sitting around, going to bed. It's getting some sleep. And I know sleep gets disturbed at menopause, but having a really good health you know sleep routine but it's having restfulness in your days and I think restfulness comes from not having agendas just I love the word pottering you're just pottering around in your own little world you know yeah this and that yes shani go on just a lot of people arrive in menopause feeling exhausted and tired and oftentimes we hear people judging themselves for that like what's wrong with me i'm just so tired all the time just exhausted

and there is nothing wrong with you there is just a deep need in you to rest a deep need to recover from the life you've lived thus far to um take a pit stop after all these years of living and no doubt all these years of giving and doing so really when we suggest this as part of your triage we really are just suggesting that you trust that knowing in your body that you trust that tiredness and that you give yourself what it is you're really needing and know that it's okay it's more than okay it's it's necessary it's part of part of what is going to be the medicine in your menopause transition yeah there's no substitute for it yeah and that's what's going to allow this recalibration. Alexandra spoke about this whole reordering of your being that happens in menopause.

That recalibration happens when we rest, just like it does at night. But this is happening on a much bigger, deeper level, that recalibration. It requires physical rest as well as, as Alexandra said, dropping the agenda. I'm just going to pause the conversation briefly and jump in here and say that Wise Power is now available for pre-order, which is so exciting. You can order your copy today at wisepowerbook.com the book's coming out on September the 20th we've got a range of really exciting book launch events coming up you can find out all about it when you pre-order the book

at wisepowerbook.com. Okay, back to our conversation. Hearing you both speak about it, I'm just imagining that what menopause can be like is like you're running a marathon psychologically and emotionally all the time inside yourself and you also have to manage day-to-day life like doesn't that need some rest the fact that all of that is going on inside of course you're exhausted of course you need rest yes okay so rest and I think it's always important to bring in the 1% rule when it comes to talking about rest. As Shani was speaking, I was really thinking, you know,

the whole thing of time and space for yourself and rest, you know, those are our top of our list of medicines, absolute medicines. But how the fuck do we get it? You know, because as we said at the beginning you you you have a job you've got to go you've got children perhaps you know food you've got to put on the table and so on and also the other thing is that we are coming into our prime now you know you've got huge accumulated skills and strength and intelligence at this age

and you've probably got ambitions for yourself and and you there's probably you know you've got responsibilities at work but also that you're perhaps possibly wanting to do although i have to say going through menopause everything you'll probably feel like for a while you don't want to do it anymore but um i i there is you know there's there's ambitions in us that are wanting to be fulfilled and metaphors can sort of really feel like an interruption of that and um and also but that we have to go to work because you know we need to earn the money um so how do we how do we get the rest how do we get the rest? How do we get the time? Yeah, what you're saying, sorry, Alexandra,

it's so helpful because you're talking about the momentum of our lives. And at this point when we hit menopause, you know, our life has a lot of momentum and with that a lot of creative charge, a lot of responsibility, and then menopause comes along and interrupts that. And how do we slow that juggernaut down yeah that's that really is the key which is is as you say where this one percent uh rule comes in as a way to just gradually systematically slowly gently reorientate our lives and find a new pace and a new way of being we can't actually do this all at once um yeah and but what's interesting is the moment you accept menopause you change

the conditions of your psyche and suddenly your priorities change and with that whole thing of snudging as well you see you're lowering your standards you see you're getting smart you're starting you're getting smart and you get or rather you get smart about how you use your time and there is a boldness and we'll probably be coming to this later that arises at menopause where you go, hell no, I'm not doing that. It's boundaries. Menopause will deliver you to your boundaries like nothing else. And those boundaries will actually help you to start to carve out more moments for yourself.

And the more that you do it, the smarter you get. And those 1% are something. They have an effect on us. 1% is better than nothing at all. Let me tell you. 1% is better than nothing at all. It is so non-negotiable. These things, you know, time and space, rest, are non-negotiables and so the one percent the psyche can feel it it sort of soothes the psyche if you're doing something and this is going to sound really big and grandiose what i'm about to say right now but it's really true that with every one percent that each person going through menopause does, it creates a ripple that's changing the cultural momentum of insanity that's telling us we have to do, do, do, do all the time and be the same

all the time and be productive all the time, which is not what's happening in the 99.9% of life all around us in the natural world. The rest of life is cyclical we are cyclical this is a big cycle it's a part of the cycle that needs follow time and rest and with every one percent that we do we're contributing to that sanity in our world i honestly felt my system relief a release when you said that sophie i felt, is my response to you. I think it's been really helpful for me recently to remember that we're only 0.01% of life on our earth, humans. We haven't really got it down.

There's a lot of wisdom around us that we could pay attention to. So step five of the menopause triage is to soothe your nervous system. Yes. And, and really time and space for yourself and rest, all those even snudging, they're actually all acts of soothing ultimately, but actually, but also having very real deliberate practices that you use that just really help your being to slow down. I mean, I do them every day at the end of the day because there's huge momentum in my day all the time, you know, things that we're doing, this, that, one to this, other.

You know, I say jokingly to you the other day i said now which hat am i wearing now yeah it's taken off your teaching hallison and now you're putting your business you had to coach me through my hats that i was wearing it was so hilarious that was such an intense day i think we had four meetings and so at the end of the day i i have to i have to be very deliberate now because i'm post-menopause it's still essential the soothing but in menopause it's crucial and you know there are lots of you know my soothing practices are um well actually i have to get on the earth touch the earth and of course now it's summer it's impossible to just go and i just go lie flat out actually with my face on the ground i say take it earth take it all please from me

all the time and that soothes breathing and then i'm just still and quiet and i can feel my breathing slow down so that's grounding touching the earth for me. But breathing exercises, I have little breathing exercises before eating because I'll be rushing and making my meal because I've got to get back. And then I pause and I just do a couple of rounds of very particular breath to still my nervous system. And so breathing, there's various other things I do, but things like tapping, the tapping thing is really great I will do that but I'm particularly fond of breathing exercises I do alternate nostril breathing that's my one remedy it's brilliant from for hot flushes that was the

one thing that helped when I did eventually get them actually at the end of menopause not at the beginning it was when I was tired I got the hot flashes alternate nostril breathing a day at before bed and the thing I'd like to bring in here with regards to soothing practices is hobbies. You know, just things you love doing. When we do things we love, they soothe us. And, you know, I'm thinking of hobbies like, you know, it might be gardening or creating or making things or, you know, painting or whatever it is, but just really noticing how certain things that you do, the effect that it has on your body and doing more of those things that bring you into that soothed, soft, receptive state.

I'm thinking of when I was preparing for IVF and my sole focus in life for a few weeks was soothing my nervous system. And this is a little 1% trick. I used to have an orange on my desk. And if I ever felt like the rise of the adrenaline and that, I've become very attuneduned to it that feeling of being jazzed in my nervous system I'll just scratch at the orange and take a big sniff of the citrus and there's something about those intense sense moments sensual moments whether it's touch or smell or you know looking at something fresh that can really do something to to break the pattern and allow the nervous system to settle that's wonderful and that's immediate yeah and then we're coming to our step six so the final step of the menopause triage which is to trust oh now the interesting thing about menopause is you know if

you can take time and space for yourself you're going to just start to feel and see things things are just and even when you don't have time and space actually frankly it's just going to pop into your head ideas promptings sort of red thoughts often quite radical thoughts too and the thing I like to say to people is about menopause is that menopause has your back menopause is actually guiding you so menopause has your back so what I'm meaning there is learning to trust and lean into this change that is happening in your being. There is an order to it and there is a meaning to it. So that's just kind of a bigger picture thing of just trusting the process of, you know,

this feeling of breaking down, this feeling of just not wanting to move of losing all interest in life and all you want to do is um as one woman said i just want to she had this image of these glowing pods under the earth of women just being in these glowing pods under the earth and she was you know she just wanted to go back to nature to earth to earth to earth wow that's such a powerful image isn't it a beautiful image we actually use it in the book it's a gorgeous image it's just so encapsulated all need to be still and and to feel n held, you see, and nature soothing you. And if you're having these kinds of feelings of I just do not want to do anything, I am over everything. I'm not interested in my job, this thing I've invested my whole frickin life in and blah, blah, blah.

And I couldn't give a rat's ass about it i just frankly would like to get up now and walk out the door and abandon all you see now i want to say this is all part of the process of menopause and to dare to start trust now you may not be able to just walk out the door because actually you do need the work, you need the money, but just acknowledging all that. So there's that level of trust in the process. And then there's this other element, which is that things, you are going to get thoughts,

you are going to get ideas coming to you, you're going to have often quite wild ideas. Wow, I want to go and blah, blah, blah blah blah you know something completely random outside you know i remember getting my prompt i'd been living in australia for at that point for 19 years or more so i had a whole life there and i was self-employed and everything i was a psych therapist and one day this thought snuck in and the thought was it's over i don't want to be a therapist anymore this is all i've done for years you know that and i was unemployable i couldn't you know there wasn't like another job waiting for me let me tell you and then the other

thought was i want to go back to england so not only was I doing myself out of a job, I was going into a completely new place. I had no contacts there, nothing. I'd built up a whole life in Australia. Well, I just knew the rightness of that voice. I trusted it. So I trusted the prompting. I didn't go, that it all right stopping therapy now I took me seven years negotiating that before seven years to get to the point where I was packing where I had closed my practice I was packing up flat and I was taking that plane and my feet landed on the soil of UK again, seven years. Isn't that what Odysseus did seven years out in whatever it was? It's a long time to trust.

Wandering in the wilderness. Yes, it's a long time to trust. And we are, that's the point. Actually, if you can trust menopause you'll trust you're trusting the guidance that's coming through and the guidance can be very extreme which is why you have to really and if you're not soothed you could do quite dangerous that you could do quite radical stuff you know go I'm out of here now i'm not doing this anymore i'm quitting the

job now and actually i almost have to say that is going to have some of that is going to happen it's always inevitable you just you know yeah i just i could have frankly got gotten rid of all my stuff and left myself with nothing nothing. What I love about that story, Alexandra, is whilst it was a whole seven-year-long prompting that, you know, it took seven years to realize that prompting, you were being prompted day by day by day with all the micro moves, the adjustments, the, you know, that was, you know, that was the beginning and the end of the process. But all the way through, there was this knowing in you that you were tracking and every decision you made and every choice you made and how you cared for yourself is what gave you safe passage during that time. And, you know know when we talk about trust we're talking about actually that level of

awareness where you follow moment by moment the snowing as well you know that you dare to moment by moment. I'm so lovely you feeding that back to me, Sharni, because there was synchronicity after synchronicity that was positively mind-blowing synchronicity. I just, honestly, that's a podcast in itself. There's no synchronicities. And that was, it felt like felt like oh it makes me so I feel moved by this I was so sweet lovely I felt like the universe was with

me because it was such a radical decision and I thought oh no it's okay these signs are so radical yeah I can trust this you know it was very beautiful I want to guide us on to talking about these two menopause superpowers which are these as you say in the book they are two very strong inner forces at work that will help you to put the triage into place but just before we do I wonder if you'd say a word or two to someone who might be struggling to trust because of a feeling that their body is somehow letting them down or that the symptoms that they might be experiencing are creating a fracture in their capacity to trust and I'm just I'm speaking from experience here is having 10 years of chronic illness it's it's a

specific kind of trust muscle to work when your body it doesn't feel like it's working as it used to to keep trusting through that that's a very very powerful question you ask there sophie and i feel i can speak to that having gone through years and years and years myself of not being able to trust my body through illness like you and it's a very bold move to dare to turn to continue to trust in that so but where sometimes it can feel impossible because it does feel like our bodies betray us feels there is you know we call the first phase of menopause betrayal you know that's really you're being utterly tested on the trust muscle and there will be moments where you you it's all shit it's all gone to hell in a handbasket and trust is a million miles away and that's where it can you come back to the early stages the other

stages of the menopause triage you just come back to uh taking that one percent of finding small ways to care for yourself the time and space for yourself um finding moments of rest uh snudging the soothing just and and and and letting go of trying to work anything out. You actually need quite a long period, really, where you have no answers for anything. I mean, I was very blessed at the beginning by that guidance, but I, about, you know, the end of my therapy practice and so on. But there were periods of, you know, because I didn't, it's a long story, I won't go there.

But you are tested in that trust. And actually, your brain needs a rest, your psyche, everything just needs to not actually have to think about anything. And it's really how to shore up some circumstances, a job that you can just turn up to that's just ticking over that doesn't take too much from you, conditions in your home life where you can just put some boundaries in place. And that's where these superpowers come in to help you. And getting help, getting help, reaching out to a health practitioner, to your doctor or whatever, because actually just having another person who is hearing you and listening to you and taking you seriously, all these are little pieces, elements. So if you've lost trust and you can't

imagine how you're ever going to get back to it. Don't worry about that right now. Really pay attention to these other elements. Thank you for speaking to that. Okay, let's talk about these menopause superpowers that can help us to put the triage into place. The first one is the power of no. No. Shani, do you want to take it away? I know you aren't in menopause yet, but I can feel how you are.

Well, I can feel two things in you, Auntie. I can feel the boundary of this. Well, that's where you are in your cycle right now. And, yeah, I think why don't you kick it off? This power of no is amplified in the premenstruum. You get to practice it in the premenstruum, and then it's amplified in menopause. And this is the thing I love about nature and human design and just this whole experience of living, which is, sure, we're dropped into this enormous initiation, you know, where the ground falls from under our feet and so on and so forth. But life doesn't just drop us there without

a lifeboat. Part of what happens in menopause is that we're given these allies, these new skill sets or powers that come online so that we can negotiate what we're experiencing. And that's what these, what we're calling superpowers are. What's amplified in our being is this discernment, this boundaryness, this, I guess what happens with this power of no is you suddenly care less about pleasing other people. people and you fiercely feel so much more on your own side because your needs are strong now you know you have this inner life that has woken up big time in menopause and you are needing time and space rest etc etc and because of that um this uh ferocity comes in, this protective quality. It's a beautiful thing, isn't it? That this feeling of wanting to take care of ourselves rises to the surface. But often it shows up as reactivity if we aren't recognizing what's happening. Often it just shows up as destruction and reactivity and pushback in a not good way.

But if we can get on side with this power, and if we can recognize what it's serving, which is our nothing less than the transformation of our soul, our awakening, you know, our realization, then suddenly the no has an integrity to it. And we can use this power of no to create boundaries, to turn down things that don't feel right, to, as that Italian woman did, you know, saying to her children, I'm not going to be there for you like I used to. That's the power of no suddenly coming online. It's like actually no more. Not like that. It's really, you know, the effect of estrogen dropping. You know, estrogen makes us nice.

And then estrogen falls away at red of paws. And, yeah, now it's so much easier to just go, no, and, you know, disappoint people. Because the other thing that's happening and this leads on to our next superpower is that you see very clearly what's not right for you and what's not working and there's just so much less tolerance in your system and so that really helps you to yeah feel less inclined to please and more inclined to honor yourself. And it is so extraordinary.

You see, literally see everything that is not you anymore. Everything that is not what you want. And the no is very fierce. It's an extraordinary fierce power that comes out so you can't not say no it's not like it's a negotiation with yourself that's it that's a note you know and and this is any relationships will feel it and also you know people around us but particularly our you know our partners um and we will come across as negative because we're saying no to everything because there's no yes at this point we don't know what the yes is and the yes arises out of the know because the know creates space yeah that's it is creating space

in our lives literal psychic space and literal space I mean I think I cleared I wanted to just clear all my books you know in wardrobe you'll just go look at your wardrobe go share I don't want any of this shit now you just empty it I'm just thinking about one woman actually actually, who did that. She just looked at all her clothes. This is Marilla. She said I could use the story. She just looked at all her clothes, and she didn't want them.

She just cleared a whole wardrobe out and got a whole tube. Yeah. It's that thing of, oh, this isn't me anymore. I'm not that person so you're really wanting to let go of that identity and all the ways it's represented in your life yeah and and then that brings us on to that second superpower sophie which is sight you could just call it sight you see things you've never seen before and i mean you look at your relationships and you

and you just really see what's really working and not working in your relationship so relationships go through an overhaul and some don't survive yeah you have you have a site for that sort of stuff and you also have a site because your sight is expanding with menopause. But you're also kind of seeing the future, really. But it's not literal. It's sight, but it's coming in all sorts of interesting ways to you through intuition, feeling, just a knowing and so on. You just have these knowings in you.

Yeah, you're seeing into things you're seeing through things and and the things and certain things will just be intolerable that you always put up with and you can't you get a taste'm nodding ferociously oh yes yeah and and i and i always think of it in the pre-menstruum as like course correction you know and what you're saying here alexandra is this unveiling that happens at menopause where you can see, as you described, that can be a very painful, very uncomfortable thing. It can make you feel so negative and so with the wrongness of everything. And that's hard energy to occupy. And it's hard to be around people who are in that place. It is actually. Yeah. So I just want to give it context, which is like the premenstrual reordered into this new iteration.

And so this is part of that whole ending and letting go and relinquishing of what's no longer you and no longer right. So, yeah, it's on your your side this seeing of the shadow yeah it's the shadow you get you see the shadow sorry sophie you were gonna say oh it's okay this really points to why we need a different holding of this process culturally you know why we need to have a different cultural story. Because if we recognize this as a period of, of undoing to be remade, and then we would all collectively be able to hold the tension around the women and people going through menopause in our workplaces, or in our families, or our partners, recognizing that that there's a there's a process that's happening yes there might be a lot of

negativity there's more conflict there's all the repercussions because something is changing and that change is beautiful and important and messy and difficult but to honor it and to to name it and hold it in that way and see that something is coming from it it's fruitful it would make such a profound difference such a profound difference yeah it would just be radical i i think it would i mean it would take the edge off it too in a good sense it would just be it would it's dignifying it so instead of feeling like you're wrong you would feel kind of in maybe ennobling is too strong a word but it feels sort of right i mean i ha you know i because i've done all this cycle, you know, done all my work with the menstrual cycle over

all these years, I didn't experience menopause as traumatic. On the contrary, I felt evolved into it and through it. And at all moments, it felt right, even as there were moments of challenge in that I really saw the shadow side of life and of myself you know I had sight into myself that's actually another thing to really emphasize and that wasn't pretty at times but there was this um preparation you know I was prepared it was so there's a kind of dignified process at work yeah and so that it's not traumatic then it's just it's just an evolution at work and we understand if culturally we could understand the language of evolution it would be radically different. Thank you for tuning in today. Thank you for listening to this, our second in our Wise Power Menopause series. If you haven't listened to the first part of the series, that's where we explore

these four old cultural narratives that we've been telling ourselves about menopause and the four new stories that this book Wise Power explores. Today it's been the big picture of how to create some ground underneath you as you undergo this transformation and in our next part in the series which is in two weeks time part three we're going to look at how you actually do this how to navigate menopause as an awakening process the skills and the kind of alchemical capacities that you need to be able to undergo this initiation so I really look forward to sharing that with you and until then keep living life according to your own brilliant rhythm