The Menstruality Podcast - The Fierce Dance of Menopause (Susannah Darling Khan)

Episode Date: October 27, 2022

Today’s episode is about what it’s like when our experience is actually supported, honoured and dignified through menopause, and it’s also about relationship, and how to take care of ourselves through - and make sense of - times of great transformation. Alexandra is your host today, because this is a continuation of our Wise Power Retreat series, which was an incredible journey, over 3500 of us gathered to explore the power of menopause. She's talking with Susannah Darling Khan, a teacher, dancer, music maker, trainee pony whisperer, the co-director of The School of Movement Medicine, alongside her husband Ya'Acov Darling Khan. We explore:How Susannah’s sexual relationship expanded through menopause, and how, through him meeting her anger and fierceness (sometimes with actual boxing gloves!), they were able to maintain their sexual fire.How menopause was a fierce taskmaster, requiring her to slow down - very quickly! - commit to her own inner peace, and hone her embodied listening capacity, as well as embrace death as a reality and a teacher.The only two other mammals who go through menopause - and what evolutionary biology shows us about the vital role we play in our communities post-menopause, as wisdom-keepers for the next generations.You can now order our new book! Wise Power: Discover the Liberating Power of Menopause to Awaken Authority, Purpose and Belonging here: https://www.wisepowerbook.com---Registration is now open for our live menopause course - Menopause: The Great Awakener. You can take your seat here: https://www.redschoolmenopause.com---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.schoolSusannah Darling Khan: https://www.instagram.com/shamanyaacov/

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. Thank you so much for being here with me today. Today's episode is about what it's like when our experience of menopause is actually supported, honoured and dignified. And it's also about relationship,

intimate relationship in general, and how we can each take care of ourselves through and make sense of times of great transformation. So there's something in here for everyone. And this is fun for me today because Alexandra is your host. This is a continuation of our Wise Power Retreat series, which was an incredible journey we held in the middle of October. Over 3,500 people gathered to explore the power of menopause together. If you didn't tune in, you can find all of the conversations that were part of the wise power retreat at sorry about my dog barking in the background at wisepowerretreat.com and we're going to be continuing this series here on the podcast over the coming year so I'm going to hand you over now to our amazing Alexandra Pope for the fierce dance of Menopause with Susannah Darling-Khan.

Welcome to the Wise Power Retreat, where I'm having a series of intimate conversations with people about their menopause experience and what it revealed and liberated in them. This series of conversations is about the power, authority and purpose that menopause awakens in us and what's possible individually and collectively when this rite of passage is supported and dignified. And today I am delighted to be with Susannah Darling-Khan. She is the co-director of the School of Movement Medicine alongside her husband, Yakov Darling-Khan, and they are

co-authors of Movement Medicine, which is published by Hay House. And Susanna is a teacher, dancer and music maker and a trainee pony whisperer. There's no end to your talents, Susanna. And Susanna is passionate about sharing the simple and life transforming skills of embodied communication. As she says, deep listening is the new hug and of course Susanna Shani has a long connection with you and has trained as a movement medicine facilitator with you so we feel we have quite a connection with you one way or another over time and we had that wonderful interview three years ago, it was now, with you and Yakov together. And I would love to start with really where you position yourself with menopause now, because I think at that time you were in it, weren't you? Yes. First of all, I just want to say those words of your introduction

so it's such honey in my being yeah the talking about the rite of passage and the particular sentence that stays with me is the about the liberation of our of purpose and authority and something else you said maybe creativity but something like that but when menopause is supported and dignified yes and that really touches my heart and that's what i feel i am privileged to have had the experience of over the last years of my menopausal journey is to be really supported and to have this rite of passage acknowledged, honoured and dignified by my husband who's been alongside me and holding a space for me in a way that I recognize is a real privilege and unfortunately I think is quite unusual just to have that stability and capacity alongside one but yes in terms of your question three years ago it's interesting isn't it that was just before the pandemic wasn't it it was

it was that autumn wow yeah well yeah I would say at that point I was probably just going into the epicenter of it um and now I I'm on, I'm coming out. I'm still in it, but I'm still having hot moments, but there's been an appreciable shift, which I'm really happy to talk about. It's such an adventure. It's such an unknown journey for me, you know, whatever the maps are.

I really want to congratulate you on your book wise power and thank you I'm looking forward to to reading it and receiving from all the other people that have contributed to it yeah like what this is what this is and what this can bring in the way that you were talking about but yeah I call it my menopausal bend um and that went in the book Susanna okay do you want me to to describe that again for people that haven't read that yeah yeah so I'd love to hear that and and I also I just really want to before we move on to that I just want to I was so moved when you spoke about how your husband supported you, because in a way that it is such a privilege to have had that. And we want to so change the conversation that that is utterly respected, that everyone gets it and that people step up in whatever way,

shape or form their relationships are with us so we can have that spacious spacious holding and um that is the that creates the alchemical vessel in which the magic of menopause can get to work in the most kind of integrated way and in a way it sounds like you've had quite i want to say an integrated experience of menopause because of that support um but yes um tell us about the bend i so love the image that you used well it gives a very graphic way of answering your question about where I feel I am now. Yes. But, yeah, God, I just want to tell you that as how my body responded to your words about wanting to invite everyone to step up to support our menopausal women to have that. And then the word spaciousness as you said that my lower back kind of widened and I felt so much more ground and space in my energetic being

and I just really want to thank you and everybody else who is bringing menopause from the kind of cloaked place it's been in for whatever reasons we don't need to go into right now but to to bring it into a dignified place in in human society and our culture and do you know that there's only two other mammals that experience menopause i'm sure you do know this well no yes go on but and they're two kinds of whales. Yes. Yeah. And not even elephants because they thought elephants might, but they don't. And then the things that, I can't remember the names of those whales. Can you, do you know? No, I don't.

I can't. They're two quite unusual kinds of whales. And what those whales have that is in common with human society is that they have very elaborate or sophisticated and long-term culture family systems and real kind of tribal knowledge yes and that they think that the function of having females in one's tribe in one's society who are who go on living after we can be reproductive is that it's about passing on information knowledge and culture to the younger generations and that's what's functional evolutionary um about menopause and if that is so then we all and in all the terms that you've been talking about we all have so much to gain as a culture, as a society, as a world,

from giving menopause women that support and that spaciousness so that we can become the wisdom keepers or the... The evolutionaries. And the wise elders to support the youngest coming up to be the best they can be. Exactly. And all of our interests, therefore, to really find out what do menopausal women need and how do we give it to them. And then we're all going to flourish. That's what I was getting to.

Anyway, the menopausal bend, my menopausal bend. So this is an image that came to me as I was coming into this experience. It was as if I'd been driving a very good, fast sports car, and it's red for some reason, along an alpine road, and it's a good road, but it's on the flanks of steep mountains, and I'm going fast because the road is clear, it's a good road and it's a good car and I'm a good driver and I am going

and I'm enjoying the speed and the power of that. And then I realised that up ahead of me there is a hairpin bend and it is really precipitous and there's forests and trees and it's such a steep bend. I've got to slow down really really fast in order not to go off and kill myself but I've also got to slow down not too fast otherwise I'm going to

lose control and kill myself and those are that strong language but that's how it felt I've got to find I've got to slow down really really really quickly, but safely. And at that point, pre-pandemic, I was zooming around the world, offering movement medicine workshops. I was living so fast and it was so important and I loved it, but I knew I needed to slow down. And then the menopause was just like that. I've got to slow down. How do I slow down in a way that doesn't just dislodge everything that I've created here in terms of the strong and beautiful life and purpose that Yaakov and I built together

with the School of Movement Medicine? And then the pandemic came. So I was already slowing down down but the pandemic was like it was like a gift for me from from the gods and i know that so many people have suffered so intensely and it certainly for for me as well was not easy because our income stream just stopped boom finish we just had to reinvent our work online and simplify everything but nevertheless we were at home and there was this so it was like like in the apex of that end somehow there was a elision you know not not collision but an alignment of what was happening and what was needed and though we were working harder than we've ever worked in our lives the last three

years we've been at home and we've been on our land and i've been able to just go oh and through that process and who knows what would have happened if there hadn't been the pandemic. I'm sure I would have found another way. I would have needed to slow down and have more space. It's really the tempo. That's been the key thing for me. I've needed to slow everything down. I've become very interested in the vagus, the polyvagal nerve

and all the parasympathetic nervous system stuff and embodied listening. That really came out of the pandemic and the menopause, that thing together. I felt like the angels knocking on my head, my guides really. You have got to create something about embodied listening because it is so needed so needed particularly with zoom like how do we listen to each other with our full beings and our full bodies anyway so as you can tell uh my tempo has gone up again um i'm coming out of that corner i feel like i'm just revving up into the next part of my life and it's the vista is very different and i really don't want to lose what i've um what i've learned

yeah this vista that you speak of i'd love you to just, can you fill that image out for me more? What's the vista like? What do you know? Yes. Can you say more about the vista that you have now coming out of menopause? So interesting. So I haven't actually, this is the first time I've said that. So I haven't actually, this is the first time I've said that. So I'm, I'm investigating.

I've had that image of the bend and where I am relative to it kind of revving up again. It's, so I'm just seeing this. It's not that steep precipitous Alpine thing. The cars change color. It's now a deep green. It's a much softer landscape. It's like a wide valley. It's more like where we actually live. Rolling hills, more like English.

It's interesting, it's like coming home. Coming home to England, coming home to where where I live literally coming home to this land and um and I maybe I'm not even in the car like I'm walking or I'm walking with a horse or I'm walking or I'm driving slowly it's like that's this there's a lot of energy come and also sexual energy come back. That's a whole other story, but that's very exciting. I'll come to that. Yeah, I'll come to that. But it's the thing that I do not want to lose is the slowness.

And actually seeing that image is very corroborative of that for myself. Like, oh, yes, that that's it's like there is a lot of energy in in it and fertility oh yes yeah and creativity and but it's it's more a sense of of a meandering path rather than a gotta get there now sort of thing. You know, it's this curiosity. There's a sense of multiple ways, multiple paths, people wandering together, having these kind of conversations, sharing. And it's all about sharing what I've learned. I mean, it's like I feel this.

Oh, yes. This is connecting to a vision I had a few years ago like like yes I see the landscape and in the center of the landscape there's a river and there's lots of streams leading to that river and the river leads to the sea and the sea is my death that's when my river joins the great sea and in the time between now and dying that's something that's become so clear um as part of the menopause is really recognizing the teacher and the reality of death that is i'm praying and assuming and hoping uh and intending is not imminent but it's it's a there's a cognition of that on a different level. Partly, of course, because we have my father living with us,

who's 89 and almost certainly in his last years, if not months, and that's also bringing that very into focus. But so that in the time time in the vision between now and my river joining the sea i'm my purpose is to really to to share what i've learned to make sure that the new generations the next generations have it in a form that they can use and rather than a sense of fluorescence of the new and exquisitely sophisticated techniques of movement medicine and everything that we've um elaborated that's so such fine-tuned finesse of human consciousness and evolution wow now it's about unpacking that into simple um doable accessible steps for people rather than going on elaborating it's more about making it digestible

and sharing it yeah forwards and and wider that feels like the work and it's a very different focus from this creation to the more about the dissemination and the sharing yeah which fits with the whales it fits with the whales fits with the whales i'm just really taking in you in the sort of atmosphere of your speaking and sort of living into that atmosphere with you and how the tone and texture of your life, the whole quality of it has shifted. And I can feel something has, so there's something softer and something also more expanded, I feel. I can sort of feel a stillness in there, an incredible presence. And you speak of coming home to your literal land.

And, you know, we speak of menopause as just the heart of what menopause is about is about bringing us utterly utterly home to ourselves in a way that we can never abandon again and and then I know what it is I'm feeling a peacefulness in your image and i think of that home that we find in ourselves at menopause breeds peace in ourselves you know it there's something that can let go and relax and yeah this kind of peace in the system and i love what you were saying about the vegas nerve okay i always jokingly say i've said this before that my nervous system is god now that is completely bowed down to my nervous system and care for that because i hate feeling shit and i don't want to compromise myself and that's my absolute barometer now for goodness absolutely i love that that's so simple that's so accessible and that's so real and i'm sure everyone can relate to that

i don't want to feel like shit and i'm not willing to compromise and i that's it that's it yeah so um thank you thank you for that reflection and i think the word peace is is correct and it's it's like that that actually peace is not um there's nothing worth sacrificing that for no and that no wow wow no there's nothing worth sacrificing for that. That is just everything, isn't it? Yeah. And a lot of that is, I mean, I'm just obviously so aware as we're talking about peace, about the war in Ukraine and the horror of that.

And, yeah, we have some Ukrainians who've come to live with us in this time, and they're just actually yesterday they moved to their new where they're living to be closer to the work that they found but we've been so connected to that conflict through these these very this very very beautiful family that we were connected with and came to live with us and that you know just so you know real what does it mean to live in to live in peace in a world that is at war where there all the weather is such a level of war and conflict and horror going on not in denial but also not knowing that the peace that we can bring

is the peace that we can bring, and it comes from within. And I'm really feeling something shifting as we're saying this. Like this is a prayer, that actually that commitment to one's own inner peace and to whatever that takes, whether it's more exercise and less doing and more slowing down and more listening and whatever it is. It's that's one's elixir that one is then able to offer out in ways that ripple. And who knows what is a big ripple and what's a small ripple and what matters and what makes a difference but I know that everything makes a difference and that's the foundation really of my life everything matters everything makes a difference every drop

colors the ocean and here we are Everything we do makes a difference and this theme of peace, the discipline of... When you were speaking about that and I felt it very strongly what you were saying and it did feel like a prayer in the moment one of the images or words i use to speak about the power that we inhabit post-menopause and it it comes with time post-menopause but menopause sets us up for this which is us we speak of being a sentinel for the world keeping watch for the world and i think of us as world workers you know absolutely post-menopause your business is the world in the fullest sense on all levels and um who we are in the moment the responsibility of holding who we are in the moment and recognizing that that is a contribution to the world is the discipline well it's a discipline that I hold and I believe it's the discipline, it's what menopause can prepare us for,

holding that level of discipline of presence for the world, presence for the world. And it serves the world in the way you beautifully described when you spoke of peace. We've sort of stumbled onto this turf of, you know, I speak of menopause as sort of freedom country, but that freedom is, it's a responsibility. And I really hear, as you speak, your deep sense of care and presence to uh step up to serve life community the world um and that that really demands something requires something of us i know i think that's uh i'm aware of the danger of that um being

a kind of it would be might be easy to perceive that as a should that everyone should have that orientation i don't think everyone does and i think that's okay that's for some people or maybe they do but it's expressed in a very different way you know that some some people older women and men do an incredible job gardening and growing flowers on their front porch and and that's their con in effect that's their contribution in the world and and one cannot judge one is more or less important than the other um or you know looking after your grandchildren and or the child next door or there's so many ways i think the attunement that we each have is very very personal and as you say freedom is is a responsibility and the more responsible I am the more free I am

in a sense and there's also a sense of choiceless choice about it in in another sense the more aligned I am that the less choice there is because my inner voice is so clear about what I'm meant to be doing or not doing now. And it can be quite, as you said, it's a discipline. It can be quite like, oh, my God, do I really have to give up that? Do I really have to say no to that? Yes. Okay. And that process of embodied listening, ultimately meaning listening to oneself, first and foremost, which the menopause is a very fierce taskmaster well, I'll speak for myself, I certainly need, because my drive to be fast, vigorous, I have a natural speediness that is, you know, exciting.

And I loved adrenaline. You know, the buzz of jumping, not jumping out of airplanes, because I never did that, but the kind of, you know, those slides where, you know, children's kind of big adventure where you go, ooh, and you let go. I loved that. Screaming with the kind of fear, excitement, glee of, ah! And then getting into a place of needing something very different i needed quite a fierce from my body to to to really hear that's

not okay anymore and and menopause is it's fierce isn't it it's i don't think i've had anything like the fierce ride that some women have but it's been pretty intense in terms of waking up in the night with the heat. Oh, the heat. Relish, I never thought I'd relish cold like I have come to relish the cold. Like what? The proportion of women in any building that are all around the open window

taking their clothes off and oh god yes it's just a menopause at red school we want to create a world where the kind of time and space and dignity and respect that Susanna has been talking about is given to everyone going through menopause. That's why Alexandra and Shani have written their new book, Wise Power, to rewrite the story of menopause in our world. You can order your copy today at wisepowerbook.com and it's also why we gathered thousands of people together for our Wise Power Retreat conversation series which you can now access for free at wisepowerretreat.com and we're going to be continuing to expand upon the retreat over the coming year. So for the book wisepowerbook.com and for the retreat series wisepowerretreat.com. Okay, let's get back to Susanna and Alexandra. I want to just briefly acknowledge what you said just before

that. And then I want to get on to, you you know what menopause demanded of you in a sense to get to the kind of gold of where you are now but just to really reiterate this thing about um our lives post-menopause how singular you you the there are a gazillion million ways of serving the world from the infinitesimally invisible and small to the very grand big acts and no one act is grander or bigger than another in terms of impact everything everything everything is required and it is not even you know it's not even knowing quite what it is you're doing except you know you just have to do something or it's the energy it's the it's the feeling within you that um is is important there's a a kind of movement of within of that you feel you want to do something.

And that's, and it's this inner directedness. And I loved the way you spoke about the choiceless choice, because the more you came into yourself, the more it was sort of non-negotiable around what you had to do. And so how that happens for each person is so singular and so unique and then what then becomes the expression from that is so singular and so unique and the diversity of who we are is just everything it's just everything yeah it's everything so coming back to really the process of menopause itself and I suppose what it demanded of you what what you had to sort of face or

understand in yourself or see or yeah yeah I've got it. Yeah, so it comes back to this theme that we were with at the beginning of support, dignity, dignity and spaciousness, dignifying spaciousness. meant doing less work, which meant really surrendering and supporting my husband to do more work, for him to really come out with his books and for me to support him to come out with his brilliant books, Jagger in the Body, Butterfly in the Heart and Shaman in the World and really spearhead bringing our work to the next level and relax in being supported by his um to be really really you know kind of basic about it his financial power um and his strengths and what i had to face in myself with that was such a lot of absolute fear about that. I was so terrified of losing my significance

by through being supported by my man and becoming, I was kind of frightened that I would dwindle into some little nothing and lose my, it's not even status, though that is relevant. Significance is the right word, I think. Significance, yes. is the right word I think significance yes if I wasn't kind of keeping up if I wasn't like cutting it on the same level as he was in the world and so I had to face how my identity had got my self-value had really got wrapped up with success work making an overt offering which is why that the thing about peace and also you know whether you grow a flower or you you have a relationship with a wild pony who's that's compassionate and mutually honoring and respectful like who knows whether which thing that's going to change the world and everything changes the world

so because my what I grew up with as an as a known purpose for myself was to play my role in healing the world and healing the suffering that I witnessed in the world from being tiny. I had this compelling... That's why it's not just about status. Jacob and I have been talking about this and I've been trying to understand what is it, what does significance mean as opposed to status?

It's that sense of accomplishing my purpose. And I thought that meant or I assume that meant kind of heroic acts of transformative whatever um interesting you know I've got a red jacket that when I bought it um I I said to the person that I was buying it with, I'm going to wear this when I teach movement medicine in parliament. Because what kind of decisions might be and what kind of cooperation might be possible if we dance together, if they dance together before debating. And I was looking at it the other day and going, I'll never do that and maybe I will I don't know it's like but that was the kind of like okay I'm going to change the world and this is how I'm going to do it and and so I had to like let that go I'm still letting that go I can feel it the grief about that because I'd love to wave a magic wand I know and i i often feel like that when i'm talking with

people about menopause i wish i could bring a magic wand for you right now but this is the initiation at work what you're doing you know this is the initiation that awakens the power that's possible post-menopause yeah it's radical it's radical acceptance surrender honoring the breath of life you know the base the gentleness i mean that's the biggest thing that i've learned is the power the power of gentleness and the power of listening and the power of slowing conversations down i was mediating a conversation a couple of days ago between two people who are very very dear to me and and they're both skilled communicators but all that was needed to help them really break through to open-heartedness was to slow it down and to appreciate each step that

I had each one had made and support each person and then their hearts just went so beautiful and the medicine was so simple but it it's not easy it's simple but it's not easy. It's simple, but it's not easy to... It requires a huge discipline again. Yeah. It requires, you know, that slowing down is one of the most powerful things we can do at menopause, to be able to come through it in a way that is liberating for us. Slowing down is radical.

And the thing about slowing down, which you will really know, is that the moment you start slowing down, you start feeling more. And in a way, you become more vulnerable, actually, to the complexity and fullness of everything. And I think that harvest of the integration of that, and then through that attunement, being able to support other people to slow down. Yeah. In their interactions with each other yeah is that and then how how yeah how the hearts open this and the such an easy

like low-hanging fruit to be had there this is my hope actually for what i'm now feeling that is my most important offering in the world is the embodied listening work and it's because it's so radically simple and because the goodness that can start feeding back into one's own system and one's relationships so easily by making these simple changes that are simple but they're not easy as as you say, to remember, particularly when we're getting into conflict or getting excited, getting penalised. Exactly, exactly.

Yeah. Ah. Yeah. But the rewards are massive. The rewards are extraordinary. This thing of slowing down and coming into presence. Yes. And really being able to receive and hear what's happening

and how our hearts open in that act. I can really feel, Susanna, I can really feel how you're inhabiting this new space. I can feel the potency in what you're saying, just in the way that you're speaking. It's so alive and soft and loving and powerful that slowness is so powerful that's so beautiful for me to hear alexandra because because right now i don't feel particularly slow so it's really nice to hear them energy is being transmitted

and I can feel it I can feel it in my belly and in my yeah I can feel it yeah and I can feel I can feel the discipline in you, the commitment you have made to embodied listening, to presence, to being here. I can feel that commitment in you. And it's sort of entraining me, if you like, in the moment as well. Oh, bless you well i feel that very mutually actually i feel your your discipline and your your capacity to word these things is so beautiful i'm really cute thank you of honey and um thank you and i think that that that discipline is as you say it's a good word and I like reclaiming that word because it's got such a bad rap but actually it's the really key to so much and and how

menopause has has made that non-negotiable yeah yeah that that yeah like there isn't there is nothing yes it's menopause and at the same time twinned with movement medicine for me and twinned with and uh growing it's growing like every week a new discovery about this about the power of interception which means feeling the sensory feeling of our bodies from the inside yes and that awakeness to physical sensorial sensory presence and how that that informs our nervous system that's grounds our nervous system. That's. Grounds our nervous system. Yes. Yeah. And that and how healing it is in terms of one's own presence, one's own self-knowledge, self-acceptance and capacity to be with others and capacity, my capacity, yours to be in the world and so it's something I feel like there's been this for myself this magical coming together of what the pandemic has made me do stop traveling yeah and just before the pandemic I was having these messages like it's time to stay home and connect globally stay

not just stay local but stay home and connect globally and you know thank god for the internet and this magic that we can your home i'm home shiny home and we're connecting and this is going to go you know bless you wherever you are whoever you are he's listening to this and i hope you can feel your body now in this moment. And I just really want to acknowledge the importance of what you've spoken there, because you movement medicine has awakened this extraordinary aliveness to your beings. I understand that you use this word interior. I can't say it now. Yeah, interoception.

Interoception, yes. That's it, yeah. Yeah, the capacity to feel one's being from the inside, yes. And you have been, you know, you arrived in menopause with this kind of embodied intelligence really and so menopause had such good soil to land in with you because we talk about being prepared for menopause and of course we talk about menstrual cycle awareness prepares us it does it evolves us into it but any kind of inner work that you know anything that is

bringing you into yourself and making peace with yourself and getting to know yourself more and more um is uh can really set you up well to meet menopause i the word i want to add there is body body yes knowing yourself on the inside of your body your physical kinesthetic sensual and sensory experience of your body which is the common one of the common things between movement medicine and your menstrual cycle work is that they're both about the cycle of energy as experienced through our bodies that's right i and i and that's a radical act in our world that's so you know talk about body consciousness or body conscious but it's 99.9 of it is about how we it the body looks from the outside not from living from within it and letting that inform how we live and so yeah

thank you for that that clarity yes that's um that is so uh uh it's so core it's so foundational what you articulate there yes um i'm conscious of the time I am we're okay we're still doing good and in a way perhaps this is the moment to come to this but I think people would kill me if I did not follow up with you on what you mentioned at the beginning about your experience of sex your sexual energy and so I since we're talking about the body right body sensations I'd love to segue to that because this is such a big issue in menopause and um we spoke about this in our previous uh conversation with when yakov was there and it was wonderful that was so profound that honestly that conversation was so valuable i would just love to hear more about what you're experiencing now you're up for it.

Sure. You'll have to tell me. I suppose you can edit it out if it gets too graphic or whatever. Yes. I mean, yes. And at the same time, just aware of our own privacy. Of course, yes. But basically, yeah, coming out of that menopausal bend where i

experienced a real quietening of my own libido my own horniness and it was not that I was so much more it was such a it was a quieter quieter place sexually and we went on making love we went on um and it changed I Yakov held used to hold me um that became a ritual how do you want to be held today, darling? Before we entered more sexual place. And that was really important. And there was a lot of emotion often released in those holdings. And that was one side of it. And then there was the boxing and boxing and the like really being him being

able to meet not meet as in fight me but meet as in accept my anger my fierceness when when it needed to come through um we have our boxing gloves in our house which we still use sometimes but that's got less so i think that was very important in terms of maintaining the the fire of sexual like like the fire and the and how anger and fire are connected and if if anger is not um from the woman's point of view if if anger is not owned and accepted in the currency of the relationship, if she has to shut down that anger or thinks she has to shut it down and hold it down inside herself, then I think it must be very, very hard to maintain a sexual relationship during menopause and what we found was um that good lube was really helpful and really helpful like a game changer and not to be able to just kind of jump jump over foreplay that's not where it's at but but just physiologically the body could do with some help at that time and we actually experienced some a lot of of new vistas in our love making to do with

much longer much longer and that how i'd always been such a horny woman, such a fierce sexist, strong sexual energy, and so fast. And, you know, so fast to peak and suck. Like, just the mellowness and getting to know a completely different sine wave or sine waves of valleys and peaks and really, really enjoying much longer in the valleys and still quiet communicative play between us, play of the energy between us.

So it became more energetic meeting as well as the anatomical meeting and then now in the last few months I've been quite delighted to feel like like a kind of almost adolescent like ah coming back like like seeing my man walking around the corner and going yeah and how lovely that is and that the thing all that we learned and experienced in menopause is still there. And we've recently been on holiday, just caught back the day before yesterday. So we've had for the first time in three years, actual real break and just time with each other. other and and there's new things opening sexually which which are so like the honey of honeys i don't there's something that i don't think i can really talk about yet because i just don't know how to word it i've never heard and i don't think i've ever heard anyone talking about how it

can go on and on and on getting better that's not true i've ever heard anyone talking about how it can go on and on and on, getting better. That's not true. I've heard one couple talking about that. But it's very rare. And I feel like we're moving into ground where, where is this going to lead us? Because it's so golden and it's such like a deep listening and a deep in a knowing of each other and a deep communion where there really isn't isn't a separate there is a separation it's like this play of the the the union and and the two the one and the two the one and the two the one and the two and very very delightful

nourishing potent powerful empowering for both of us and yeah a long time ago i was on the amazon and I was praying in a ceremony with an ancient, beautiful Achua shaman. This is with the Pachamama Alliance, called Hin Pickett, who was like, I called him the Oxford Don of shamans. You could feel his lineage and this real scholastic in wisdom i mean just like god his frame of reference what that guy had in his consciousness was just extraordinary and how he transmitted it and i was asking what do i need what do i need to empower my service and offering in the world and the answer i got in that ceremony was really startling and it was the key thing for your uh to empower your offering in the world and your husbands and your the two of you together is to nourish and keep cleaning and nourishing the source the spring the fountain of energy between you wow yeah and um that was like it was such it was so

it turned everything on its head it's like you want to go out come in come into that keep and it was so specific clean and nourish the fountain of of your relationship of this i saw it like a fountain of light of water stroke light and that's the holy of holies that place and and i feel like we're we're beginning to i'm beginning to understand more of what that means in terms of the profound sexual, spiritual, physical and energetic communion of our beings. And I'm so privileged to be with that man and he's so privileged to be with me and there's something about how our souls are weaving together and the discipline that it has taken and is going on taking to be humble enough to learn our lessons with each other and we we still make such a mess so easily we still so easily fuck up excuse me and fall down and blame each other and go into, you know, talk about aggression or unconscious aggression, microaggression, you know, all that stuff.

It's like, God, I'm a master at it. I'm so good at it. I'm so bad at it. I'm so bad at being aware of what I'm doing and vice versa. It's like, oh, oh jeez we can make a world war and you know in 0.3 microseconds exactly and here we are talking about peace like oh jesus christ like please like really and at the same time we're getting better and better at undoing it and and realizing what the medicine is and it comes back guess what to interoception it's like drop the story what's going on in your body

drop the story exactly exactly oh my god i feel like you've just given us so much so powerful what you were saying you know funny enough this was before I knew I was doing the conversation with you this morning because we had a little kerfuffle about because we had messed up at our end if we have the conversation I found myself standing in the kitchen going, communion, union, communion, union. Yes, menopause, coming into union with oneself and communion with life. And then there you were using those words, union and communion with your beloved. Yeah.

Yeah. love it yeah yeah do you know i think this could be a great moment to bring our conversation to a close susannah note of union and communion your incredible um sharing thank you for being so generously, open-heartedly revealing of your sexual journey because there are so few stories like this. And I think it would be so powerful for people to hear the way you speak. And I want to acknowledge what it's taken for you to get to that place with Yakov and what it takes ongoingly, because guess what? It turns out you're human after all. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, we go on, you know, losing it and forgetting and then coming back. Absolutely.

And yesterday was our 33rd wedding anniversary. Wow. Yeah. Congratulations. That's fabulous. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, thank you.

So, Susanna, before we finish, where can people find, because they're going to want to find out more about you and your work what you're doing it's just incredible invaluable so where can people learn more about both well the movement medicine work but your embodied listening work yeah 21gratitudes.com thank you for that question 21 well maybe you can put this up. Yes. 21gratitudes.com and then go to courses and then there's the embodied listening course there, which I made following the prompt from those annoying angels.

I'm very glad I've made it and I'll be doing more stuff in that realm. And then the Movement Medicine Study Hub is the way that people worldwide, you can come and be part of this ongoing adventure. And that Movement Medicine Study Hub is part of 21 Gratitudes. They'll find it there. That's right. Yeah. Brilliant. Great. 21gratitudes.com.

Correct. And on there, they'll also find a link to the Movement Medicine Association, where all the incredible movement medicine teachers and facilitators we've trained are to be found. And they're worldwide. So you can hopefully there's somebody down the road from you. Go and dance with them in the room. Dance with us online. And we're bringing all this together into one website. So sorry, it's a bit confusing right now.

But 21gratitudes.com, movementmedicinassociation.org and schoolofmovementmedicine.com will cover it. Brilliant. There we go. Thank you so much, Susanna. And thank you so much for our incredible conversation today. Thank you. Thank you, Alexandra. much for our incredible conversation today thank you thank you alexandra it's been um i've discovered new things through your embodied listening and how you've reflected and

enjoyed this this and i've yeah thank you so much for your work and may it fly high thank you very much for your work and may it fly high. Thank you very much. It's my utter pleasure. Thanks for joining us today. Thank you for listening. Thank you for being part of the community of people gathered around this podcast if you have someone that you would love Alexandra to talk to as part of our wise power retreat ongoing series of conversations about menopause then please do email me at sophie at red school dot net so we can connect with them and I look forward to being with you again next week. We're going to have a menstrual cycle focused episode next week. So I look forward to being with you.

And until then, keep living life according to your own brilliant rhythm.