The Menstruality Podcast - The Power of Cycle Awareness for Menstrual Health Challenges (Alexandra Pope)

Episode Date: July 14, 2022

Do you suffer from menstrual pain, or other cycle challenges such as PMS, PMDD or managing irregular cycles? In this episode we explore how the practice of menstrual cycle awareness creates a ground for healing, helps us to take stand for what we need, and supports us to create a new relationship with the challenges we face, and to trust that something meaningful is at work. Alexandra shares her personal story with a decade of menstrual pain, and what supported her to heal and eventually become pain-free. Sophie describes what supported her to transform chronic pain and pre-menstrual rage into a new relationship with her power.We explore:- The connection between our personal suffering and what’s happening in the collective and on our planet.- How cycle awareness helps us to manage chronic stress, which can be the foundation of so many health challenges, and awakens our faculties of knowing; our gut intelligence, our heart knowing, and our ‘pelvic brain’.- How your cycle is - as Lisa Hendrickson Jack says - your ‘fifth vital sign’, giving you important information about your overall health and stress levels, and how to approach healing if you feel you’re in perimenopause. ---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, how's it going with you today? Great to have you back here listening to the Menstruality Podcast and this one is an episode for you if you suffer from menstrual pain or other cycle

challenges like PMS or PMDD or managing irregular cycles, or if you work with people who are managing these challenges, we're looking at how the practice of menstrual cycle awareness creates this amazing ground for healing, how it helps us to take a stand for what we need, it supports us to create a new relationship with challenges that we face. It helps us to trust that something meaningful is at work even in some of the most challenging times. And in the episode, this is personal for us, Alexandra shares her personal story with a decade of menstrual pain and what supported her to heal and I talk about what had helped me to transform both chronic pain and pre-menstrual rage and make sense of infertility and grow into a new

relationship with my power. So we loved this conversation, we really hope it's supportive for you. Let's get started with cycle awareness for menstrual health challenges. Good morning, Alexandra. It's just you and me today. Sharni is at a wedding. Where is she? Yeah, she went to a wedding in Devon and she is back home now. But she's sort of, you know, when you're traveling, you have to turn around. So it's just you and me. Yeah. And this is kind of our, this is personal for us, this podcast, isn't it? For both of us in the way it isn't for Shani. I mean. Yes. Yeah. My health just generally over the last 15 years, my health challenges have been big initiatory territory for me, big time. Yeah, on loads of levels. So yeah, there's loads that we can speak to today. But let's start with our cycle check in. Where are we at with the moon? I'm so tuned into the sun right now. It's like coming up to 30 degrees. What's the moon doing?

The moon is coming up to full moon, Sophie. I think it's about a couple of days off. Yeah, and how are you feeling with it? Well, the combination of the heat and the rising moon is close to the full moon is an interesting combination for me. It really disturbs my sleep. It's a total bugger. But it really charges me. And I am someone who is quite, I can take off with things very quickly, you know, and forge ahead.

And when the moon is coming at full, it can unbalance me. It can overcharge me basically because I don't have enough chi in the system to ground it so it's a discipline it's a discipline yeah yeah I'm on day 27 so I'm and I'm pretty much expecting to bleed tomorrow but since having a child my cycles are still a little bit unpredictable but I think they're getting into a rhythm so I'm in I'm in a really good place actually because I've been through a couple of days of just not knowing what's going on which is a real characteristic autumn experience for me of it it really used to push me over the edge,

this feeling of there's too many things happening. I don't know what's going on. I'm not in control, missing things, you know, making scheduling errors. And but this month, I did a really good job of just, again, of just breathing through it, knowing that I'm not in control and just letting myself free fall and nothing too bad happens you know no one dies I know that's what I remind myself of no one dies we all survive it yeah on the other side of it I always land in a good place of yeah just kindness with myself which is what we're going to be talking about today of how this the cycle works us and creates this kindness muscle. So we're going to look at lots of different things.

We're going to look at menstrual pain, heavy periods, irregular cycles, PMS, PMDD, premenstrual dysphoric disorder, anxiety and depression in the premenstruum. We'll actually touch on perimenopause as well. You know, we're going to see if we can cover quite a lot today. But we wanted to start off by saying that we're not health practitioners. So do you want to say a word to this? I do, very clearly. I'm not a professional health practitioner and nor are you and it's crucial to state that we you know we can't give you advice we are going to share all our thoughts and ideas

about healing and self-care and um and because we have been there and struggled you know we we kind of have a feel of the inside story we don't have the inside story of your story if you're really struggling right now but we hope that our story will help illuminate things for you and also everything that we've learned about teaching on cycle awareness and how that shifted people's experience of their cycles so we want to share that kind of information. So that's really important to name that it's, it's very crucial that you seek out professional advice or is professional holistic advice. And the second thing I want to really emphasise here is that any health problem is multifactorial. And so we don't want to come we're not going to come with kind of simplistic

solutions and and at the same time uh there are certain things that can have an enormous impact that we are going to share today or have some impact that are going to shift things a little and so i feel excited about unpacking this actually with you Sophie me too and we will put some links to health practitioners who work in the menstrual health field that who we recommend you know who we've actually interviewed already on the podcast and I'm sure we'll have other conversations with so we will list some resources for people who are struggling right now and need support right now. So we'll include those resources.

Yeah. So I feel that a good way into this is to talk about your personal story with menstrual pain, Alexandra, so that we can, yeah, this isn going to be a this isn't a theoretical conversation this is coming from your own lived experience of intense menstrual pain yes Sophie it was my personal experience of shocking menstrual pain that awoke all this work that we now teach at Red School. So it was just before my 31st birthday, I got the menstrual pain from hell.

And up until that point, I had regular cycles without any symptoms, but I did have other health problems. I had fatigue growing, you know, that autoimmune stuff was starting to grow, allergies from a child. But no, I had fatigue growing. You know, that autoimmune stuff was starting to grow. Allergies from a child. But no, I had no pain. And then overnight, this insane pain erupted.

And this pain lasted for up to three, sometimes four days. And it was shocking beyond measure, the pain. Just unbelievable. Normal life could not continue. Painkillers barely touched the sides of it, you know. It was insane. So what was I going to do? And the pain just really brought me up short. And I thought, I'm going to follow my body. I said, my body is talking to me and I'm going to follow it. Well, you know, it took time following my body. Quite a few years, Sophie.

We're talking 10 years, really. Oh, because my goal was to be pain-free. Did I get there? Yes. So what did it mean to follow my body it meant giving space for menstruation basically and i was not in a position you know i i wasn't sort of moneyed up or anything like that on the contrary i was in quite a precarious situation financially um at that point in my life and i didn't have anyone else. You know, I wasn't in a

relationship where they could look after me or anything. So it was just little old me. And I don't, you know, I just said that that's what I'm going to do. And sometimes I did have to work because I needed income. But if the pain was so insane, initially i did start taking painkillers and then i rapidly realized that painkillers was making it worse for me so i i would take days off i was actually slowly in in the years that followed i was starting up a psychotherapy practice. And the one good thing about my cycle was that it was regular. So I knew when I would bleed. So I would just say to my clients, I will be menstruating next week. So I don't want to take painkillers. And so we won't have a session. Did you have to work through any of your own shame about that to be able to say it or were you

always as shameless as you are right now well you know funny enough Sophie it's a good question actually because I carried and still can get triggered by shame I mean shame was huge for me but not around well some aspects of my health but never about my menstrual health I was I for some reason you know I'm actually quite a private person and I don't share everything with everybody you know not even with Shani with whom I share most things um but around the menstrual cycle and menstruation, I was completely shameless. I was so, I didn't care. I loved talking about it, blah, blah, blah, you know?

And then coming to the menstrual pain itself, this is interesting. I did not treat it as all personal. I knew, I don't, you know, I'm grateful for my sort of therapeutic kind of background, but I always had a kind of soulful connection to myself anyway, long before I studied psychotherapy. And I really had this feeling of, this is bigger than me. This is, oh gosh, it moves me thinking about this.

This is not, you know, I'm suffering because this is denied in the world. And my body is being used as a channel, you know, to change something. I remember one herbalist, actually, a Chinese medicine herbalist, basically said to me, it's because I suppress the feminine in me. And I wanted to punch his lights out. I wanted to say, the whole fucking planet suppresses the feminine. And you're asking me, you know, stand for it, just a little old me. No wonder I've suppressed my feminine. You know, what else would you do, you know, if you want to survive in this world? I mean, I was enraged.

I can still remember that. It got me so much. No one was ever going to say that to me on a planet where everyone was denying this. So I felt that all the things I needed to heal were, in a sense, what the planet needed to heal. The way we lived was so insane. This lack of cyclicity, you know, this push, push, push, the crisis of exhaustion. And I mean, you know, now it's even more bonkers.

And this was in 1984. And, you know, talking about the menstrual cycle, well, that was the dark ages then. At least we can sort of talk about it a bit more freely now. But all the other issues, the environmental issues, you see, because I was very strongly already into that kind of consciousness from my 20s. I was very much into natural therapies and the planet

and, you know, environmentalism and so on that was those were my themes that I was really being governed by and I saw it as world work I saw healing my body as world work. I've lost count of the amount of times I've shared this quote from you in conversation on this podcast all over the place you said people especially women with health challenges are the canaries in the coal mine we're the ones showing up something for the collective we're showing that we're out of balance and something needs to change and that I think the reason why I share it so much is because when I heard those words, it dignified what I was going through. It wasn't that I was a failure

at being a human in a human body. It was that our world was upside down and that was showing up in my body. And there's something so honoring about that so important so thank you for those words no you're welcome sophie and i think that's really important that honoring process it's the sensitives that often you know pick up the disturbance in the field i often think that now with it seems like with menopause, there's, you know, the level of suffering in people. I know it's more out there now. So people are freer to speak. But I do feel the ante has gone up. I feel something has really, you know, that it seems like people are suffering even more. Yeah. And I think it's, you know,

look what's happening in the world. I think something happened throughout the pandemic too of everything having to stop and people, I mean, people just facing humongous challenges just to get through the day. But it sort of brought up, it allowed things to rise to the surface that weren't able to rise before. And what we're seeing around mental health crises for teenagers for example yes there's so much coming to the surface now i do believe this this could be such a throwaway sentence but it does feel like it's in service to

our collective evolution i i feel it sophie i feel it very very very, very, very strongly. Yeah, I want anyone who is suffering right now to know that they are holding something of what's needed in the world today. And you have to stay close to yourself. That's what I had to do to heal. You know, when I said I followed my body, this was the beginning of a sort of a prototype cycle awareness i mean i was doing um fertility awareness which is so amazing to do i want to

recommend it to everybody should be just 101 for everybody and we've got a great episode podcast episode with just freak core all about that oh you must reference that in the show notes sophie that one i will because honestly it's a game changer practicing fertility awareness so i had that in the bag because that was my form of contraception and i i had to clock when my cycle was due you see so i was charting my cycle for fertility reasons. And then I knew when I would menstruate. And then I would give space for menstruation. Of course, I was an innocent to the full powers of the cycle

and what we teach today. I was aware of some things because I had been reading about it in my 20s. That magnificent book, The Wise Wound, had, you know, kicked something off. I was in touch with something. So I was, yeah, i was being organized by something and then i so i was motivated to heal because i didn't i didn't want to take drugs or have surgery and i didn't want to suffer so what was i going to do you know

i was giving space to menstruation so i could really travel with the pain and really go into it. And that's a radical thing to do. I mean, you know, if you could do it, God, the pain was bonkers. And I would scream and shout. And I had a boyfriend at that time. Well, not immediately, but later on, I had a boyfriend who would, God, he was good. He would just hold me and I'd be cursing the patriarchy. I just, I mean, that's what I was doing.

And he would just rock me. He would hold me from behind and just let me scream and scream. And it was like, it was so liberating to do that. You kind of peel away things. It was so, I can, the pain was freeing something up in me and it was incredible to be held like that with it and rocked with it and utterly supported to follow it was almost like it was shamanic it was like I was going on a shamanic journey with the pain into it into the kind of viscerality of myself

into a kind of deep embodiment of myself, into a kind of deep embodiment of myself, because I'd be rolling around and, you know, doing sort of yoga moves to sort of open myself up and release the chi and the charge, because I could feel this charge through my body. It was like trying to give birth, especially the third day pain. The third day pain was different to the other two days and the worst and would reach this pinnacle of insanity and it was honestly i would do these birthing movements birthing and it was all this releasing going on releasing of my bowels too just this huge releasing releasing and then it would peak and then this exquisite moment when it peaked i could feel the moment where it turned. And then the bliss would come in.

The endorphins, of course, all kick in. But I mean, the thing was, I just went into the epicenter of it and something, it was like the veils fell from my eyes. The veils kept falling from my eyes. And eventually eventually because I was doing all this it was dietary stuff was crucial diet and stomach massages actually those two I mean I was having acupuncture too eventually but that didn't really touch the pain but it nourished Chi in my body and so on but

it was diet and these stomach massages and but diet diet diet was radical for me so I but I've had my own journey with menstrual challenges but it was through the pre-menstruum in the form of rage and grief and just huge emotional turmoil in my pre-Munster. And when you were talking about the birthing movements and being held to rant at the patriarchy, I think that's exactly what was key to healing for me as well. I'm thinking especially of a year-long program I did with Jules Wingfield, who we're going to have on the podcast soon, where I was with a circle of women and we did a lot of practice around

uncovering the patriarchy within us and, and having space to roar and scream and literally just run around naked in the, on the land and be wild, be be wild be wild yes and that was very key to transmuting this rage that was so destructive into now I think rage that is constructive do you sense that this is very key for healing? Well, I'm going to say yes, profoundly. And I'm going to start with that phrase, inner work. Because we talked earlier about being a channel for the world, you know, that you're expressing something for the world

and healing for the world. And there is a very personal component. The suffering brought me right into myself, to face myself. So I did a fierce amount of inner work over the time. I didn't think in the moment right at the beginning, oh, I have to do inner work on myself. No, no. No, no, no, no, no, no, not at all.

I did not think that. i was just freaking pissed off and enraged and the patriarchy was going to cop it at this point but there is an inner work journey and and the fact that i chose to stay with the pain yes sophie it unleashed it unleashes something you know it it's you can't be polite anymore and unleash is the word because it's like we have a leash around our throats keeping us quiet yeah wow yes this this wow and this yeah there's something i'm just courting here, which is that to heal, I had to take my own side. I had to fiercely believe in who I was and who I was in that moment wasn't looking terribly pretty, you know. Right. But I still had to believe in the integrity of my life.

You know, the other option was to be a victim of it. And God knows, I felt that at times. I felt that powerlessness and then the impotence and then the rage comes. But I would say healing is that discipline of moving from being a victim of it to really meeting it and daring to believe that this is constituting something really important about who I am, that this is bringing me into something. And do you know the edge with that one is spiritual bypass, isn't it? Yeah. It's like, how do we take our own side trust our bodies trust that there is some

meaning here there is something at work without slipping into it's all fine it's all part of a bigger picture you know that which takes us up above the surface rather than taking us deeper down. Well, my symptoms stopped then. Yes, there's no spiritual bypassing. No, no, not possible, not possible. Not possible, Sophie. Yeah, the symptoms kept me close to myself, basically, Sophie. God, it's so true. Mine did too.

Yeah, that rage kept me close to myself and then the ongoing chronic digestive pain kept me close to myself and then I'd even say the infertility which it's not really a menstrual health challenge although I don't know if it was endometriosis that was causing it because I was having pain around my guts and it's never been diagnosed. And, you know, I know lots of people listening will relate because it's hard to diagnose these things. But yeah, even that, that infertility, it brought, it forced me to be with myself in a way that I wouldn't have been otherwise. And I'm a different mother now for it. And I don't say that lightly no no we're talking about keeping close to ourselves and this is a magnificent segue into the power of menstrual

cycle awareness yeah as this foundational remedy for healing so really it's really important when you have extreme symptoms or symptoms any kind of symptoms that are really troubling you to get professional support it's really important that to just get things checked and whatever you get support with you know from whatever practitioner you go to everything rests on your capacity to practice some kind of self-care. This is the soil upon which those other remedies are going to really take root. The foundational thing of self-care is menstrual cycle awareness. And menstrual cycle awareness does all these magic things which if in and of itself may heal that's the radical thing it's the foundation for all the other layers to kind of

you know alchemize something magical for you but in and of itself it can actually also bring relief. So should we just unpack that a little? You know, what happens with menstrual cycle awareness, Sophie? Yes, that would be great. As you were talking, I was feeling into how it's the riverbanks for everything else that's happening, for the river of healing. This continual coming back to ourself. it's this mindfulness practice that you and Shani always speak about it's like okay I'm on day one I'm on day two I'm on day three how am I I'm on day four how am I it's that working that muscle of turning the um the lens on yourself yes and yourself and your needs and how that shifts through a menstrual

month so you are not the same all the time you have different kinds of constitutions psychological constitutions physical constitutions at different phases of the cycle and you should not expect yourself to be the same all the time and these different phases of the cycle and you should not expect yourself to be the same all the time and these different phases of the cycle are different resources that when consummated is my word sort of fulfilled and when we're able to kind of fulfill the the the the spirit of each phase of the cycle it's medicinal it gives us something it gives us something psychologically but it also gives us something physically so but when you think that if you try to operate in one gear only which is basically top gear, everything gets fucked up.

Yeah, and it damages this wonderful life-giving system in you. And, of course, that's what we're doing to the planet. Push, push, push, you know, produce, produce, produce, more chemicals, more fertilizers, whack the soil, whack the soil with more, whack the soil with more whack the soil with more and the soil is dying you know our physical literal soil but our inner soil you know if we just keep on with that it is so soul destroying and soil destroying this so menstrual cycle awareness is this act of pacing who you are in the moment and not seeing that as wrong, you know, when you're not feeling quite as bright and like to be very soothed and quiet to see the rightness in that the integrity in that the necessity of that to see each state of being that you move through those very four clear phases but even within each phase there are these

different tones that you move through you know and of course there's this basic expansion on the first half of the cycle and contracting in on the second half of the cycle. And the more you can cooperate with that expansion and rising energy, and then that pulling in and slightly lowering of energy, physical chi and becoming more sensitive as you get to menstruation all these changes are meaningful and necessary they're not weaknesses there's no one part of the cycle that is a weakness please hear that everybody there is no one part of the cycle that is a weakness each part of the cycle is necessary and holds gold but you have to respond you can't come at it with the same gear and if you pace yourself as best you can within this demanding 24-7 top gear world you are pacing your nature and your nervous system and in the act of doing that, you are reducing stress in your system. And if there is one culprit, if we could just name one culprit at the base of all illness,

it's stress. It's too much stress. You need some stress to kick start you. It's chronic stress. It's chronic stress. That's the word. It's chronic stress is the culprit. And that alone can actually ease menstrual pain. I'm not talking about endo and things like that. But if you have what I call the common or garden menstrual pain, it's happened quite a few times. you know since starting practicing cycle awareness my period pain has gone or they've written and said yes I still have some pain but my relationship has changed with it and I sort of don't mind it now I'm just in a new groove with it it's shifted they don't feel powerless and it's extraordinary how that shift that reduction in stress in that getting closer to ourselves that happens through menstrual cycle awareness we're actually understanding what we need exactly and then as the cycle works us we get better and better at finding ways to get what we need claiming what we need and working the 1% changes to get what we need. And I know for me, with my health challenges,

I've had to get very ruthless. I know you are too. And you're one of my mentors in this, very ruthless about what I need, the amount of space I need, the regular three meals a day of quite time consuming, very vegetable heavy diet that I need to have, you know, the amount of sleep I need to have the amount of outdoors time I need to have. And, you know, you could call me a diva, really, or like a high maintenance person, I could be, you know, labeled as that. But actually, I'm a woman who through years and years of pain knows what I need to be healthy, and knows how to get it and I have huge privilege too which enables me to get the healthcare support and the time and space that I

need to heal yeah but what I want to point to is that it's showing us what we need and then skilling us up to find ways to get what we need this is absolutely crucial this is the point yeah that cycle awareness helps us to take our own side and stand for what we need it naturally builds self-esteem to me it's i see it over and over again people say it you know they're able to make choices in the way they couldn't before for themselves and it just happens. Certain things start to become non-negotiable and around this thing of, you know, being able to meet one's needs and this whole thing of being resourced, actually don't underestimate the small acts that you can make. There is an awful lot at your fingertips that you can do and small things because also

healing requires time. And you may be looking after children, having to go to work and there's just no give in the system. And I just want to say very fiercely to you to start to find the one percents. There's this magic in those one percents. And the one percent in your healing could be doing menstrual cycle awareness and starting to make decisions within the context of the life you have of just small shifts you could make that would ease the stress in those moments and you would naturally have more oomph in your system to go no sorry I can't do that today and to take your own side. So I think that's really important to emphasize the 1% changes that can contribute to something. Yeah.

Otherwise this can feel very far away, floofy. Very far away. Just impossible. Exactly. And it's the 1% that makes this accessible and real. Yeah. And even it's almost the only place to start sometimes because symptoms can feel overwhelming. Yeah.

And it can feel like, you know, Jesus. I mean, my pain was bonkers. And three days of it, more sometimes. But it's just making a move. And one move leads to another move leads to another move leads to another and then one day it's different i always held to the fact that i could heal somehow and and i was able to with my period pain and i you know i still have interesting health glitches today and i am fierce that that I am going to nail these.

That doesn't stop me. I mean, my health today is so radically different. I mean, what I do, I mean, it's incredible. It's incredible. And my self-care, of course, is just non-negotiable. It's fierce because I am so ambitious and there's things I want to achieve and do. And, yeah, I still hold out that I will one day

have perfect digestion, Sophie. Perfect. I'm holding that vision for you. Yeah, maybe on my deathbed I'll go, Sophie, I nailed it! Totally holding that vision. If you'd like to learn more about the power of menstrual cycle awareness to support you with healing, with healing health challenges,

but also with creativity, with your spiritual path with your leadership and your full expression of yourself in the world we invite you to explore alexandra and shani's book wild power discover the magic of the menstrual cycle and awaken the feminine path to power. You can find out more and buy the book at wildpowerbook.com. You've hinted at this a few times throughout the conversation today, but the other magical part of menstrual cycle awareness when it comes to healing is how it allows us to come into a different relationship with the symptoms that we're experiencing rather than being at the mercy of them do you know actually it was through our i was reminded of that this morning through our

whatsapp messages for this call today and actually you reminded me of this i think you should speak to this sophie because it was you know this well i'll bring it in and i'd love for you to share because you it was very powerful cycle awareness connects you to yourself it puts you at home in yourself so there's more of you there to make choices about yourself and therefore to meet your symptoms because you need to really meet your symptom and to let yourself be touched by it, to let yourself almost be undone by it,

to just give in. I gave in. I not gave in as a negative. I surrendered. I said, okay, I'm all yours. Just write, you know, I'm going to follow you, pain. And you used that word surrender this morning, Sophie, because you had to meet something very difficult inside you that cycle

awareness helped you to do yeah yeah so I'm looking back now to to 10 years ago when I had these huge surges of rage and coupled with pain so digestive pain but it was also I call it digestive pain it could have been endo I don't know I don't know but pain around my my guts and lower abdomen and brain fog joint pain fatigue I felt so angry at everything at life at my body at the patriarchy at the world and there was nowhere to go with it so I had to just keep coming in and it wasn't pretty like you said it was just really messy and there were just so many messy moments I had a great conversation with Chloe Caldwell on this podcast about PMDD and Shisha's so beautifully about her massive challenges and I related although I don't think I had PMDD

but it was just so messy and I just had to keep going in and trusting that something was at work it just carried on then into this infertility who knows what that was born from was it from these health challenges do I have endo it was always inconclusive unexplained infertility but that took me into this next level of body like why are you letting me down there's this thing I want more than anything in the world and what is coming on and I and I felt so that's the victim part and I felt I was doing everything I possibly could I mean the list is ridiculous of what I tried in the name of of getting pregnant and this podcast isn't about infertility but it's relevant because it just the invitation was consistently surrender and not in the very annoying light way that people say you

just got to let go and it'll all happen like no that was my I'm going to punch you in the face moment I was literally going to get a t-shirt that said do not fucking tell someone going through infertility to let go ever or just relax no do not but on a deeper level I was being asked to what was I being asked to do just to be with the shadowy shitty part of life you know we're all going to die we're all going to experience suffering it's the nature of the human condition and existence. And my cycle awareness practice, and especially all this work I've done to sort of digest and transmute this rage and grief, taught me how to be with the paradox of, I'm longing for this child.

My life is so beautiful and I hate everything. And at points I became suicidal because I can't I don't know how to make this happen and my cycle awareness practice helped me to be with it and you know eventually that gave me great training for the surrender into IVF and the surrender into into birth and now the great surrender of being a mum but it's this I can't find language for it because it's it's you know i can hear yeah there almost isn't language for it but it's this extraordinary intimacy that you're being called to come into and um it's very raw and it's very very exposing of also the fact that there's

no guarantee of anything there was no guarantee of anything working you know that i would heal you would eventually have a baby and what that means to face that it is so profoundly initiatory but cycle awareness really is tutoring us it really helps you to build the muscle to dare to do that and to hold ourselves to hold ourselves to hold ourselves in there and to risk meeting it to risk holding our dream of what we want and risk meeting the reality of what is in the moment and to and to you said to trust that something is at work i held on to that for dear life sophie through all the madness of my health trusting that something meaningful was at work and i mean it was i could weep now i mean you know my body you are a wonder body jesus i get pissed off with you sometimes wow wow you delivered the goods it's magnificent what has come through there yeah but it it's you know and and i can't say to

anybody you know risk going in there and facing it it's it's between, yourself and nobody else and nobody else whatsoever. But like you said earlier, the pain will keep us coming back. Just like my longing for a child kept me coming back. There was no, it was non-negotiable. I'm going to meet this. I'm going to meet this. Wow, Sophie, this is profound. So surrender.

Woof. Yeah. Woof. We're not using that word lightly yeah I'm just thinking about all the others you know we've been talking about pain and a little bit about PMS but I'm thinking some other menstrual challenges that some people experience yeah we have a lot of questions coming in around irregular cycles or extended periods of no bleeding or extended periods of bleeding and questions around how to regulate irregular cycles and also pmdd is another big one that

comes in isn't there yeah yes yeah okay so in a way there are specific things to say to those things, but in a way, they all come back to be with the phenomena that is occurring and tend to your self-care, tend to your cycle. So the cycle is the fifth vital sign. It's a sign of your overall health and well-being. It's giving you feedback about your overall health, about the status of your nutritional status, the levels of toxicity in your body, environmental pollutants, because that impacts hormones. That's the first thing. That's where it shows up in the endocrine system, as I understand it and tending to your stress levels and I mean and all

that those it actually any kind of health symptom and let's focus here on menstrual health symptom any menstrual health symptom is calling you to care for your health overall. And the thing about cycle awareness is that the more you practice it, the more insightful you get about what you need. It's really interesting. You actually just start to know stuff. You go, shit, what am I doing? I should be, you know, blah, blah, blah. You just know stuff stuff it's like you

become more intuitive more sort of in just this kind of instinctual knowing about what you need what's right for you and not right not right for you it is extraordinary this kind of embodied knowing that can unfold true yeah really that's important to name that that's the wildness isn't it it is the world yeah the unleashing unleashes something within us and it's our instinct and our intuition yes i think that's so important what you're saying sophie yes your weight you're awakening your own innate faculties for knowing um because we've always been taught that the experts are out there you know well that it's all going to come from the cranial brain, it's all going to come from the cranial and yeah, my brain is

magnificent, it still likes to work. It's unrelenting, it's capacity. And I it's good. I appreciate it. And cycle awareness wakes up our gut knowing and heart knowing the pelvic brain, which has got some interesting research and evidence coming out and the pelvic brain which has got some interesting research and evidence coming out about the pelvic brain now you know there are so many forms of intelligence within us cycle awareness wakes them up yeah yes so cycle awareness is activated it's a catalyst to awaken this knowing and then the other ingredient here is because we've said it but i want to say it again it helps you to assert your own needs it

it but more than that it helps you to because healing healings uh symptoms are a bugger I mean they disrupt your life and you know you're trying to go over there and you just get sidelined it's the biggest disruptor of everything it's hell and. And it means, you know, you've got to make changes in your life, which you don't really want to make, you know, dietary changes. Yeah, you know. And there's a discipline. You've got to stick to it, and it spoils your fun when you want to go out with your mates, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And I totally connect with the word. And what happens with cycle awareness is that your sense of, what's the word, Sophie? Determination to- Agency. Agency, that's the word. Yes, your agency to do those things gets stronger.

And it gets stronger with age because the more you know you the more you practice cycle awareness the stronger you are holding to yourself and the more you know who you are and therefore what you're about and what's important to you what's not important to you and also you may hopefully be awakening your calling you know getting that getting stronger and becoming in yes and the more you're in touch with that the more you and you want to serve that you go okay to do that i've got to be well okay and you have a a motivation to do the things that are difficult and you know it's for me now it's just the self-care stuff is people go it's a no bugger I go do you know what's the bugger feeling crap I don't want to feel crap I love how I feel today and if it means I have to do these things I am

quite happy to do them because I've got a job to do in the world I've got a mission there's something I love doing I just want to get on and do it and so it's a no-brainer for me and that just gets stronger and stronger and stronger and stronger but if I look back in my 30s and 40s oh it was hard at first it wasn't that simple but it gets stronger through staying close to yourself and over this summer we're talking a lot about what happens in menopause with this too oh exactly so we've got this coming for those of us who are still in our cycling years yeah yeah so all that you know the self-care stuff is just bottom line what regardless of symptoms but let's just take irregular cycles the thing that i would do this is all i can share

if i was having really irregular cycles the thing i would do is this is all I can share. If I was having really irregular cycles, the thing I would do is fertility awareness. I would want to know if I'm ovulating or not. And just what's happening really with the whole cycle, because, you know, charting your fertile signs, you know, and then yes, all around that is one, it's just so you're really embodying in yourself in a very intimate way, charting that. And there's something around that mindfulness, I feel that is regulating. But also just knowing what's happening hormonally, whether you are ovulating, and if you're not to attend to that to get you know Lara Bryden is brilliant on that and and she would have uh you know a number of blogs on things you could do

right away I'll put a link to her work in the show notes also Nicole Jardim I'll also add her in the show notes as well so that's actually one thing that i would really really do the other thing i would do is um the deer exercise which uh is available on our free hormone harmony course i think it's lesson seven and it is an energetic practice that you do it involves massaging the breasts building chi in the body and there's a breathing exercise connected with it and it can take anything from a few minutes up to about seven minutes seven minutes depending on how long you do it you need to do it every day but it can it's really good for helping to regulate cycles and I've got a really great story I'll share with you my story but. But if you've got heavy bleeding, it can reduce the bleeding.

It's actually very, very good for that. It's also very, very good for acne, you know, that's connected with the cycle. Those things, yeah, it's particularly good for. But also if you've got very light bleeding that sort of concerns you, what the deer exercise does is balance the um endocrine system and whatever's out of balance sort of comes into balance so i would actually even recommend it for period pain too i mean you've got nothing to lose it costs nothing uh you'd be nourishing chi in your body you'd be feeling your breasts you know and checking your breasts always a good thing

to check yes good but massaging your breasts in a very it's a very light touch it's not heavy duty massage it's just a very very light touch uh that you're doing and then afterwards you do this special breathing thing and and clutching your pelvic floor holding that i would definitely do that and the amusing thing after years which makes me laugh i hadn't had a period for almost two years so you know i was 55 whatever i know i was about 54 or something and um well i think it was almost two years and then one day i thought i think i'm going to do the deer exercise just to be chi in my body, you know, just nourish my body with all chi, something good, sexual energy, because it builds sexual energy.

It's good for everything. And I did it for about two weeks because you need to do it each day. And then I lost interest. I went off on something else. And then what was so radical was I started seeing fertile mucus. I went, what the Jesus? And two weeks later, I had this beautiful, completely symptom-free bleed, just the purest, freshest, red, clean blood. It was, I mean, it was extraordinary. And then I had two more after that exactly a month apart so I had three more I had three

bleeds after that two weeks of doing the deer exercise I had these three bleeds that were just textbook 28 days the most exquisite red bright red blood and then never again wow that's a good final hurrah it was a good interesting final hurrah it was really fascinating i must have just stimulated something with the deer exercise anyway i just share that for fun's sake but i certainly share this exercise for irregular cycles heavy bleeding acne uh skin things um and even very very light bleeding really it's just worth doing almost regardless for PMS as well actually and even PMDD I would try it yeah I think it would be good to say a word about perimenopause because that's another thing that we receive a lot of questions about around

people in their 40s though it can be earlier right to us with symptoms like insomnia irregular or shortening cycles grief anger temperature fluctuations and lots of people go to the doctors but hormone tests come back as normal but it feels like something's changing in them and we will do a whole episode about this and and the term you use for the for this phase of life which is the quickening is there a word you want to say now before we um attend to your overall health because what's happening in your 40s and that i'm grateful to the work of dr geraldine prior and of course lara bryden has uh amplified written about her work in this field um around progesterone our lovely soothing hormone of progesterone can start to decrease but this doesn't have to be the end of the world it is it just means that um well you know

progesterone as i understand it because i'm not the expert in this field is the soothing hormone it soothes it does all sorts of things but particularly it helps us with stress so if that's diminishing and you're still you know you're tired and you've got a very stressful life and you haven't got that hormonal buffer anymore. Yeah, you're going to have symptoms. So you've got to adjust yourself, you know, how you're doing things, adjust your self-care or bring in your self-care in a way. Now it's non-negotiable. You can't actually just take your body for granted so if you've always had very sturdy health and suddenly you're starting to have

problems um it's your body saying i'm just running out of chi a little bit you know i just don't have the same kind of resources you know it's just a little marker that you're getting older and that you need a different type of response to yourself now and this again is not a weakness you know you've got other kind of intelligences or forces or powers that are coming through there's like an evolution going on in your psyche now you can't take yourself for granted you can can't just trust your sleep to be there, perhaps. Although I'm hesitating there because if you're getting symptoms, it's saying up your self care. Don't take yourself for granted.

Your body's needing something. Think about what that might be. Trust your intuition on that. Get professional support. And it's everything that we've been talking about in terms Think about what that might be. Trust your intuition on that. Get professional support. And it's everything that we've been talking about, you know, in terms of self-care, diet, self-care practices around, you know,

stress reduction stuff. I mean, we're going to be creating menopause remedies and resources, free sort of resource. And I'm just slowly working on now starting to work on now to put together and actually you know everything that we write in there you could be following and doing yep and that'll be coming out when wise power comes out in September. It's a cross so few, we get it there in time. Well, this is amazing. I feel like we've covered so much ground and we've referenced several times through my story

and just through what we've been sharing, how to work with the premenstruum and the anxiety, the depression, the rage, the PMS, the PMDD that can happen in the second half of the cycle do you have any final words to share about that i know it's a huge topic it's a massive topic yes and just from my side as a someone who's very rooted in the initiatory powers in evolution spiritual powers of the cycle i want to say to people who are suffering in a very extreme way let's say with pmdd that second half of the cycle that they are there for my money they are holding um very they have very particular gifts that they're not able to live out or support or perhaps are

unaware of, but are certainly not supported in because these powers of the second half of the cycle of the premenstruum are not valued. So I often think of those people who suffer with PMDD, and if you're someone who's listening who has PMDD, this might be something for you to consider that you are a high sensitive. And so the pre-menstrual phase, of course, makes you more permeable. And that permeability is simply too much for your system to cope with because you're not supported sufficiently to really contain that but in that high sensitivity may lie huge you know psychic ability or intuitive ability that you have a very particular type of intelligence that you may be unaware of i mean i remember one person i worked with one woman i worked with who just briefly and I talked about this with her.

She said, I don't want to know that. She says, I know it and I don't want to know it. And my grandmother had it. And and she got it moves me because it felt too much to her and it felt almost like a burden to her. And that's a process that she's got to negotiate. She has a kind of gift there. And sometimes we don't want our gifts. They're problematic in a world that perhaps doesn't value those kind of gifts. So I just want to name that you may have the powers of the premenstrual, maybe your particular talent. And of course, things like nutrition are crucial.

There's all that basic stuff that's really, really important, the self-care stuff. But to hold that in mind, equally with severe menstrual pain, you know, I realize that's where my powers lay, that capacity to court the unknown, to go into the belly of the beast and to just let myself be exposed and to be a channel for something, that visionary capacity. I am such an ecstatic. And my pain was just going this way, please. You know, this is who you are. And I'm going to have to take you by the short and curlies, I think, to get you there, to see that. I got the message, buddy.

Yeah. Wow. I can feel it in myself because I know that the gold for me does lie in this surrender. It does. And as much as some part of me wants to control everything about my life, the magic always comes from the free fall and the let go, which I'm inside of right now and I'm actually enjoying it. Good.

This has been fantastic. Oh, Sophie, it's been so precious talking about this yeah this is very close to my heart this topic and I feel like the final word um and riff on me with this is really around for for anyone listening who is suffering with any of the conditions or challenges that we've spoken to is that there's nothing wrong with you no no no you haven't failed you have not failed at anything you have not failed at anything and just to bring immense kindness to yourself you know just you know we're with you with this you haven't failed at anything you're opening to something and you need support

and and it's it can be i'm not i don't want to sugarcoat anything here um i'd love you to hold the possibility of something and to as your words sophie trust that something meaningful is at work thanks for joining us on the menstruality podcast today if this episode has been helpful for you or inspiring it would be so great if you could leave us a review on apple podcasts it means that apple shows a podcast to more people so this work about the magic and healing power of menstrual cycle awareness can reach more people so I hope you enjoyed this really looking forward to being with you again next week and until then keep living life according to your own brilliant rhythm