The Menstruality Podcast - The Power of Your Premenstrual Phase (Alexandra & Sjanie)

Episode Date: October 13, 2022

The premenstrual phase of the menstrual cycle - or ‘inner autumn’ as we lovingly call it - is often the most uncomfortable phase emotionally, and it is definitely the most misunderstood. The symptoms that show up for many in this phase and the critical, disruptive fire that burns through us premenstrually are demonised in our world and inside ourselves. In this conversation we want to deshame and dignify the gifts of the premenstruum; the heightened sensitivity, the permeability, the way we show up as a disruptor of the peace. We want to transform the premenstrual script which so often makes us question “what’s wrong with me?” to “how can I hold myself through this?” and “what’s powers are at work here?”.We explore:How the premenstruum gives us access to a different kind of intelligence - we know, without knowing how we know!Why we all deeply need the vulnerability of the premenstruum, and how it connects us to each other and to our humanity. How the powers of the premenstruum are the ones we’ll call on the most post menopause - they become the ground of the second half of our lives. Our new book is now available wherever books are sold -  Wise Power: Discover the Liberating Power of Menopause to Awaken Authority, Purpose and Belonging here: https://www.wisepowerbook.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.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, thanks for joining me today. It's so good to be here with you. Today we're talking about the premenstrual phase of the menstrual cycle or inner autumn as we lovingly call it. It's often the most uncomfortable phase for many emotionally. It's definitely the

most misunderstood part of the menstrual cycle. And the symptoms that can show up for so many of us in this phase and this critical disruptive fire that can burn through us is really demonized in our world. And we often demonize it and shame it inside ourselves. So in this conversation we are officially de-shaming and dignifying the gifts and the powers of the premenstrual phase. The heightened sensitivity, the permeability, the way we show up with our loved ones in our communities as a disruptor of the peace at this time of the month we want to transform the premenstrual script which so often makes us question what's wrong with me to how can I hold myself through this and what powers are at work here in me. So let's get started with the powers of the premenstrual

phase with Alexandra and Sharni. Hey you two, let's see where we're at in our cycles. Where are we? No one is in the premenstrual for this conversation, right? No, that's true. Although, as you know, Sophie, I'm 45 and I'm in that autumnal phase of life and feeling these autumnal energies so strongly at the moment. So in my menstrual cycle, I'm day 13. But that autumnal quality is really present along with this summer energy and i have to tell you it's fucking kick ass to feel um the amount of energy and vitality i have in my body i feel like a river full of charge there's so much pouring through me but there's also this incredible discernment I'm very connected to my heart I feel fierce I feel determined I feel bold so this kind of truth speaking quality along with this um uh unleashedness is such a good combo.

So yes, in the summer, but I've got the autumn qualities in the mix, which is a very, very sweet concoction. And that's because in the years running up to menopause, some people describe it as a prolonged pre-menstrual totally and what tends to happen is that um the the autumn autumnal powers tend to sort of inhabit all the inner seasons more and more so you get that sort of autumnal flavor throughout your cycle yeah I love how you're teasing in the autumn powers already I can't wait to get into these um I'm on day where am I five or six six I think and yeah my inner autumn has been working me

a lot because my life has a lot of chaos house renovations broken cars, toddler, elderly parents, moving into care homes, lots going on. And I'm getting very overwhelmed in my premenstruum. And then something's kicking in and saying, you need to take care of yourself. But this month, it made me get a massage on day 27, which allowed me to slow down. And then it gave me this incredible bleed which I haven't had for a few months because I haven't been able to carve out the rest but I feel so restored and so renewed and so plugged into the power of the spiritual power of being with our menstrual cycles so it's gorgeous and I'm grateful for the yeah we'll get into it in this conversation but I'm

just always so grateful for how my premenstruum works me though it's not comfortable a lot of the time yeah I love how you describe how the kind of cues you received in your premenstruum directed you in a way to access because you've had a very powerful experience this bleed i can just feel you are so alight and alive with this new knowing in you you've received something haven't you sophie yeah kind of came through the the steering that happened in your premenstruum you know these these prompts and cues and this necessity you felt to take care of yourself that's so good yeah and there's loads we could say about that but that's another podcast about the spiritual powers of menstruation which i'm sure is in the pipeline but how about you pope cosmic cycler over there about cycling the cosmos now

um well it's moon day 11 and i have been feeling in these last few days um that sort of good-natured energy there's something you know kind of light-heartedness there um i don't know there's just so much i i feel i'm reaping the harvest of something actually I, of course, am postmenopause. And those autumn powers, you know, the premenstrual powers, they are the skill set that you really utilize postmenopause. So, yes, I have, you know, the moon cycle bringing in different energies, and it really is quite distinct for me the moon process um but underneath that i am a woman in 15 years into my post-menopause life and really inhabiting what i might call my sort of um yeah, those autumn energies that we're going to unpack together.

It's like I can really claim them now. And use them. Yeah, that's come from all the cycle of whence I did over the years. So that's the sort of ground of my being, really. The autumn energies. Yes, be careful. Don't mess with me. I would never even dream of it.

I'm a mess with you. That's a really good context to have, Alexandra, because what you're saying there is actually these powers of the premenstruum are the place we live from postmenopause. That sort of really encourages me to give my attention to this phase of the cycle and what's happening in me, knowing that that's the place I'm going to be operating from for the second half of my life. Like I better get this on side. The autumn powers leading into the winter powers.

Yeah. It's that second, whole second half of the cycle. Yeah. That is just your turf now, you know. Yeah. Very much the turf you operate from. And it's very, very empowering. They're very grown up powers, I have to say they require a lot of responsibility but luckily you get lots of years of practice in your menstruating years

don't you month after month yeah i've noticed you've noticed have you so i i was also thinking this morning how complexities in our world and the challenges that we're facing in our world in the wake of the pandemic and all the different things that are happening, the conflicts. These premenstrual powers are needed more than ever in these times in our history as humans, too, wouldn't you say? Absolutely. Gosh, I feel like you've just opened up something huge there with that because yes is the answer, Sophie, and I'm feeling a lot of depth to the layers of the powers that are required. You know, the premenstrual phase demands something of us

in the way, you know know the first half of the cycle is kind of we there you go for a ride almost and then the second half of the cycle you can't afford you can't afford to sleepwalk into the second half of the cycle i'd like to share a story actually to walk us into this yeah and it's really the story of yeah me understanding how to transition from that of the first half of the cycle and how to be with what was happening in the second half of my cycle so about it's probably 12 years ago now but over a decade ago I was tracking my menstrual cycle but mainly for fertility awareness purposes and I was just in a really rough spot in my life where there was there were these waves of huge rage I would call it depression but it came in cycles and lots of anxiety and as I was

tracking my cycle for fertility I started to see a pattern of okay hang on there's something happening around day 22 23 of my cycle where this starts to really amp up and I'd always I'd write like angry I'd like look back at my cycle charts and be like ah okay angry rage feeling awful difficult day all around you know day 22 23 today 26 but it was I can laugh about it now but it was absolutely freaking debilitating it was getting in the way of my work relationship was a massive mess and I know a lot of people listening will relate because we hear it from our community all the time about the challenges that people are facing in the premenstruum but I went on exploring and googling and found the Woman's Quest book, which is in many ways the precursor to Wild Power. And here I open up these pages and it says, you know, the powers of the premenstruum, how to be with your inner critic.

And it just blew my mind. And I spent these 13 months going deeply into this process of really focusing on what is going on in the second half of my cycle and I then continued to let it work me over two to three years and what I was able to do over those two to three years was learn how to be with what was happening in me what what was going on in that rage what's going on in that anxiety what was going on in that depression and these cycles of spiraling negativity and I was able to hear that I was actually being given guidance about my life but it was bold guidance because it was you're in the wrong job you're in the wrong relationship you're in

the wrong country you need to move back to England you need to end it was you're in the wrong job. You're in the wrong relationship. You're in the wrong country. You need to move back to England. You need to end the relationship. You're in the work you're doing. Isn't your calling. It's like, I wonder I was resisting it. Wow. But I did listen and it's, I tell this story a lot because it was, it just transformed my life and it's one of the reasons why I feel so

passionate about menstruality and cycle awareness but especially why I really want and I know we all do want to call all of us in closer to this pre-menstruum day. What is at work in the pre-Mannstrom? What's really going on? And as we were chatting this morning, Sharni, you were saying that starting with the inner summer is quite helpful here. Yeah, I think of the inner summer as in many ways being the opposite to the inner autumn. The inner summer is of course the peak of the menstrual cycle and it's a place in the cycle where there is a simplicity or a unconsciousness that we get to dwell in. I mean, it's so good. Things are much more simple in the inner summer. We tend to feel more robust. It's like our psyches have got got a good amount of like buffering in place. And we've got a lot of energy in our system and when

we have energy it makes us stronger and more resilient and more capable and we can be all things to all people we can live the life that this culture deems to be normal, inverted commas. We sort of fit in with society in our inner summer and we're generous. We think about others. Our own feelings are more quiescent and because of that it's much easier to go above and beyond and this is of course what women are celebrated for you know being multitaskers and givers and caretakers and and being harmonious i was going say, we're not just nice. Yeah, we're being nice. Keeping everything going.

Keeping everything ticking over. And we are bloody brilliant at all of that. You know, we are. But our inner autumn comes along as this profound reminder that that is not a world that we can inhabit ongoingly. Yes. And it's a personal reminder, but I feel like it's a collective reminder as well, that we can't sustain this consistency and sameness and this go go go because it causes so much devastation so much destruction we see it everywhere so our inner autumn comes along as this profound reality

check and how that often shows up for us is in this gear change that happens between the inner summer and the inner autumn because our energy really shifts that what we call the crossover from the inner summer to the inner autumn is often felt as quite a slap in the face or a carpet being pulled out from under you or a hitting a wall or a puncturing to one's self or a wobble it shows up this kind of disturbance because we don't know how to negotiate this gear change usually we're in autopilot you know you got you're going along about your life you're doing this you're doing that you've you've got it all going you full pace and then out of nowhere suddenly your energy drops and you enter a different atmosphere and it's like oh shit yeah that was exactly what was happening for me and

when I looked back at my cycle tracking it's like so I must have been shifting day around day 21 and then boom day 23 the shit hits the fan because I'm not the same person I was last week but the world doesn't understand that I'm not the same person that was last week and then the tension of that causes these outbursts of rage and depression and anxiety and me yeah and then I'm the mad one exactly and you know without cycle awareness the shit hitting the fan and that stuff happening feels like it comes out of nowhere and we're totally blind side blindsided and we're not present we're not with ourselves we're not going slowly enough to be able to be with it and so we are actually reactive destructive self-rejecting connecting harming yes so much of the the shadow of this time plays out because we aren't connected to ourselves and we don't have the awareness we're not coming in with our eyes

wide open coming into the inner autumn yeah and the world isn't seeing any of this either so yes we're not seeing it in ourselves but the world is calling for an endless productivity calling for this did you say alexandra this estrogen fueled niceness yeah estrogen makes us nice yeah keeping it all flowing and it's like a the monoculture that we see in our agriculture across the planet. You know, we make these big fields of corn and wheat and there's no other life. And we're killing our soil, the soil of the planet. And in the same way, this monoculture way of living, as if we can be the same, like you're saying, Sharn saying shiny it's so true what you're saying it's not possible and the pre-menstrual is showing us that it's not sane it's not healthy

it's not natural it's not possible you're killing the inner soil yeah you're really depleting the soil of your being this summer is not the whole of who we are there's a whole lot of other parts of us that are calling and the cycle reminds us yeah there's a whole lot of other parts of us calling and that's oftentimes what happens in the pre-menstruum so we go from this relative simplicity and harmony and this sort of unconsciousness to suddenly things becoming illuminated and these other parts of ourselves coming back online. And they're the parts of ourselves that we have not been tending to. They're the parts of ourselves that have been too difficult to face or too been tending to. They're the parts of ourselves that have been too difficult to face

or too hard to listen to. Because the truth is, and this is where I just want to celebrate the first half of the cycle, because we actually do need time, conflict-free time. We do need time where we're just in a kind of easy groove and we're not grappling with all the challenges

of our life we actually need that time to feel good and build up some reserves and feel connection with the people in life and have fun and do all these things we We really, really need that. But we equally need this illumination that happens in the premenstrual where it's like, oh yeah, okay, you can't keep ignoring the fact that this isn't working for you. You can't keep ignoring how upset you feel about that or the spirit you're grappling with. So these other parts of you want to be faced. There are other parts of you want to be heard. And in your story, Sophie, it's like, I love how you describe this,

how over time the revelation of the feelings you were having, it was like the feelings opened you to this insight like who would have known that the anxiety the depression the rage were pointing you to something yeah well like you say in the first half of the cycle I was trying to make a home for myself in this new country I was going out and trying to make friends and trying to make things work and then I'd get it in autumn and go but it's not something in me would just go it's not my home and I'd feel so lost because I was in the wrong place and then in my relationship I'd be trying to make it work you know cooking nice meals in my inner summer like

trying to have fun and play and then my inner autumn would come I'd be like you're just so annoying and all the things that weren't right because we were supposed to be friends not lovers we weren't you know and imagine where my life would be if I hadn't listened to those. Oh, it would not be pretty, Sophie. It would not be pretty. You know, as you're speaking, the thing that's coming to me is that you have access to a different kind of intelligence in the autumn. It's like you have other faculties that come on board that are not there in the first half in yeah the first half or particularly in the summer of the cycle so for instance at the sort

of pinnacle of the cycle of the summer our left brain rational mind you know reigns supreme we know we're kind of the queen of the universe managing and controlling everything and there's this kind of crystal sharp clarity which is fabulous and then it seems that you come you come into the autumn of the cycle and it's not that that goes it's that other powers come on board and what happens is those other powers bring in more sort of knowing complexity. So those other kinds of intelligence. And I think of it as, you know, we could just say a kind of knowing. It's this it's an instinctual knowing. It's very intuitive.

It's almost like you have sight. So almost, you know, some sort of psychic ability. but it's i don't even want to put that word on it because some people think oh i'm not like that or whatever but it's it's an embodied kind of intelligence so it's it is like a knowing of something it's more animal in nature it's like you're tracking something with your spirit and i always always remember this Italian woman say once in a workshop in Italy, she said, I know without knowing what I know. I know without knowing. She couldn't, you know, you have a knowing that you can't put words to you just know, you have to do blah, blah, like you said, you just knew it was a no it was a no and then later you make sense of it you later can often give words to it yeah yeah what what i um enjoy about your story sophie is

like it was like this the small you was going about trying to make everything work and do your best and uh really you know put energy into building a life. But the big you, this knowing, got revealed in your premenstruum. And that's what happens in the premenstruum. It's like something clears away and we, our deep self, which when you were describing it, Sophie, I thought, oh, like that's your inner guardian. There's this inner compass in you, this love, this knowing in you about who you are and what you're about and what you're for that will not fail you and is going to make bloody sure that you hear the message

and that you stay true it's so searing and so uncompromising and so much of the the kind of symptoms that people experience is that message coming through our deep self, calling for our attention. And the messages get louder and louder and louder. It's so uncompromising. And as you say, thank goodness, because your entire what has unfolded for you, the work that you do, you being here at Red School, you know, it's all can be traced back to that knowing in you. Yeah. And I think it's important to say that it doesn't necessarily mean that we have to make really big life changes in order to be with the power and wisdom. That's not it because I still feel

the same processes are still working in me the same questions the same doubts the same churnings and because I'm able to thanks to this work able to be with the power of the premenstruum rather than demonize it within myself and shame it and reject it I can keep making course corrections in my life now it's not about leaving my relationship but it's about coming back to who I am coming back to who I am exactly making decisions from a deeper place exactly and it's not a one-time thing which is what we love about our cycle is that it keeps bringing us round. And every month there is material to digest. Every month there is reflection to be had. Every month there are questions to be answered and feelings that need to move through our beings and I think of the premenstruum as being this profound process of embodiment each month all the ways we've been living outside ourselves or not inhabiting ourselves or disconnected the premenstruum pulls us in to our skin and into our bones and into our

hips and into our feet and into the ground it really connects us in to our body and the body of the earth yeah and there's something about that whole process that just keeps lining us up every month very integrative it's very integrating it's like a journey from the head to the heart exactly yeah and and a journey from the head to the heart and also a journey into this kind of as you spoke so beautifully about alexander this instinctive knowing. And as you were speaking, Shani, there, and you spoke about, you know, coming into our bodies, into our feet, into the earth. What the premenstruum is doing, so the first half of the cycle is like a celebration of us. It's like, you know, it's the filling up of us. And the second half of the cycle makes us permeable to the fact that we're more than just, you know, our little old selves, that there's something beyond us that we are feeling and

responding to and responsible for. So we become more permeable to the other, more permeable to life around us. So the second half of the cycle, as it brings us into ourselves more and more, it brings us into ourselves in the world, it is opening our egos up basically so that we don't become narcissistic shits it makes us the purpose of the premenstrual is to make us vulnerable actually it is to make us vulnerable to make so that we recognize our humanness because you know that summer energy fabulous though it is if you stay there you just become a freaking automaton desensitized you decent exactly shani it desensitizes so the second half of the cycle is this huge sensitizing process.

First of all, to yourself, you start to feel yourself in the way you haven't done. So it's this recovery of yourself. You come back to who you are, but ever more deeply each month. But you also come back to your heart being open to the world. So let's talk about the sensitivity because a lot of people experience the distress of this heightened sensitivity. And I really, I'm feeling very like fierce right now. I want to dignify that sensitivity. So, you know, if you find yourself bursting into tears premenstrually or easily overwhelmed by what's going on around you

or that you can't tolerate the same kind of noise or that little things upset you, do not shame yourself. Do not diminish what you're experiencing. The sensitivity is one of the gifts of the premenstruum. The sensitivity is, as Alexandra said, restoring you to your connection to everything. It actually brings in life. It brings life in. And my goodness, we need this so much. We need all of you feeling. We all need to be feeling. Because this is how we wake up. It's our care that wakes us up. And I'm really sick of people feeling ashamed of their sensitivity, particularly in the premenstruum.

Yeah. You can hear the emotion in Sharni's voice passion is equally alive in alexandra and me too and at red school we want to do everything we can to resource everyone with a menstrual cycle to have a dignified experience of their premenstrual phase their inner autumn so if you're looking for support in this area we recommend two resources one our free love your cycle online course which is a guided walk through the different inner seasons of your menstrual cycle and has a very powerful reframe of the premenstrual phase and also our book wild power where there's a deep dive into the powers of inner autumn so you can access love your cycle at redschool.net forward slash love and the wild power book at wildpowerbook.com

really i see your tears and i feel you my heart is pounding with you I'm thinking of my very real moments like me I'm immersed in this work but I get to day 23 and the banging crashing of pots in the kitchen and the toddler noises and the dog running around my ankles I'm like just everyone just stop moving and it's so hard in that moment to breathe and remember what you're saying yeah it's like I have to like claw my way up to be to remember this is important Sophie this is right what you're experiencing is right because yeah even my wonderful husband doesn't get it and and you know yeah the world doesn't get it the world doesn't get and our default is to um make ourselves wrong in those moments wonder what's wrong with us the number of people who think what's wrong with me when they're in

the premenstrom yes you know this is the script I want to change not what's wrong with me is everything right about you and it's being able to hold ourselves in those places that's really the key and I would love us to get to that in this conversation Sophie like some kind of tips for what you do in those sorts of moments well let's do it let's do it though we might you may feel like we've covered this enough but I feel we could just say a little bit more about how this is demonized by the world and And therefore, that's why we demonize it in ourselves. Just to really name how, you know, what we're saying, we talk about it all the time, so it sounds normal.

But this is not a conversation that's happening in the world. Well, just as the premenstruum interrupts your gorgeous summer energy, you know, comes to spoil the party so you become a disturber of people around you yes and you know everyone loved you being who you were because they get to be innocent and you know kind of after you get away scot-free it away scott-free with things you know they're not being life is smooth you create smoothness and then you coming back to your senses disturbs that piece of theirs yeah that that innocence that they're being called to account they're being called to account just as you're being called to account you end up calling them to account and when you know it's classic we all do it you know when someone disturbs us we day and she's all grumpy at work and and and and i go what's

wrong you know so i was feeling good this morning why why you know sharni pull and get your act together you know or i do the same to sharni i'm sure she thinks jesus alexander's irritated or she's interrupting my flow yeah we all We all do it. We all do it. I've heard a lot from, this is especially from the men in my life. I've heard my dad say it a lot. I've heard Abe say it a lot. Dad about my mom and Abe about me. Can't you just be more steady?

I just need things to be calm and steady. Yeah. Yeah. And the pre-match-tum says, no. No. No. No. I mean, life is unsteady.

It's the cyclicity that is regenerative and evolutionary. Yeah, it is. They're getting a workout. Yeah. And we're all getting exercised and in that exercise in inverted commas is a moment of it's a growth moment it's a moment of just readjustment because yeah if you stay the same all the time it is it's death it is death yeah yeah you want to check the pulses really that's what we're all here doing it's a great wake up the so let's talk about how to hold

ourselves in this so what held me when I was out there at sea on my own before I got to hang out with you two all the time was I was every day writing down a few words about my cycle and that was my friend in this that was my companion my chart that said what was happening because that was that's that was me every month going this is real there is something at work here there is something meaningful here that was an anchor for me yeah so the the practice of cycle awareness is really key for re-establishing some ground with the premenstruum if you're paying attention when you're in your inner spring in your inner summer you have an awareness when you're entering your inner autumn and that awareness is everything because you can then stay close to yourself and rather than getting blindsided you can start making adjustments early and by adjustments I mean changing the pace of what you're doing

number one but also bringing your attention back to yourself checking in with yourself those sort of adjustments of more tending more inner focus and if you can do that that's gonna help you to have a smoother entry into your inner autumn and help you to sort of be with yourself so when strong feelings come or your inner critic turns up you're present i'd love to just really affirm something there that Shani's been saying. You know, cycle awareness is such a radical act of claiming yourself in and of itself. And Shani, you use the word presence. You know, it means you're present to yourself. And if you're present to yourself, you have choices. You have choices about how you choose to think about yourself.

It's incredible and then you have choice about also about what you might do or not do in a situation um so i really want to affirm that this act of cycle awareness is is such an act of agency aligning yourself with your own power. Yeah. Yeah. The other powerful support for the premenstruum is slowing down. And that's about you pacing your changing energy cuz what happens in the inner autumn is that our energy starts to wane. So we need to be paying attention so we can feel our new capacity because it's not the same capacity we had yesterday or the day before.

Yesterday or the day before, you could stay up late, you could offer to lift everybody else's children. You could make dinner, do the dishes and put the kids to bed and get up early the next morning to do an interview. Today, you're not that person. Today, you need somebody else to make the dinner and have a lie in. So it's that it's on a very practical levels going okay my capacity is different today checking in what can I actually manage today how much energy have I actually got and that's about slowly bit by bit kind of paring back the amount of activity

and the amount of giving that you're doing so that you can start to receive more for yourself that's really important because this pacing keeps our nervous system soothed and a so feel soothed in my premenstruum i don't experience i don't experience suffering i feel so freaking good you know in this contact and alignment and discerning and sharp and even if i'm having strong feelings i'm able to hold them i'm able to let them move through me so the soothe nervous system is just everything everything i really want to could i just come in here on this thing of the change in capacity i want to say it's not a diminishment of capacity. It's a change in the capacity. And Shani, really, you articulated it very powerfully there because I remember it too so clearly. I've come into a deeper gear in myself and I had this knowing of what was of what had to be done this discernment you use the word discernment and kind of almost it's like a sharpness of attention

you know I was talking earlier about how our left brains are just on fire you know in the summer of our cycle we have so much clarity about everything and then we come into the autumn we seem to lose that but actually in the autumn what you wake up to is another kind of clarity that is just laser sharp the more you get to know it the more you but the key of, pacing, pacing, keeping chilled with your nervous system. And if you can do that, then there are these magnificent capacities that you draw on. So you can be very, very effective. Just indulge me for a moment.

You know, our world is obsessed with productivity. So, OK, if we're going to speak that language for a moment. You know, our world is obsessed with productivity. So, okay, if we're going to speak that language for a moment, Jesus, I could really nail stuff in the autumn of my cycle. I was fiercely productive, actually, because I had this alignment and clarity, but also I had this courage. I could be myself more. It was really interesting.

Like the filters are removed. Yeah. The guardians on your lips are removed a bit. Yeah. Yeah. There's something else I want to bring around. Even if the world is still moving very fast around you, how can we go slowly?

Because I know I've been getting such a massive workout these last two months in my pre-menstruum because we're in the middle of a house renovation I keep having to drive um arty half the way across town in rush hour there and back every day and that isn't we're not I'm not able to change that currently that scenario so what I've been doing instead is finding my ways in my micro moments to slow myself down so for example I'll take a bit longer putting him to bed so that I can do some deep 7-11 breathing lying next to his lovely sweet baby body next to me and that soothes my nervous system or when I'm driving when I'm at a traffic light I consciously say because Artie's with me in the car I say

let's take a big sigh now Artie when we do it together and those things are the things that are saving me at the moment because when I just if I try and make things different then I get more into the churn and the anxiety I can't and I know lots of people listening also might find themselves in these times and moments and years where things won't change but we can like armed with this knowledge we can hold ourselves in these small ways all the way through the day totally once we understand this it's amazing how much choice we have within the limits of our life i'm always amazed as you're saying how creative i can be just the smallest tweak not maybe even to what i'm doing but to how i'm doing it, gives me a very different experience.

And it's the awareness that brings choice, as Alexandra said earlier. And there's stuff we can't control. But my goodness, there's so much more choice than I think we ever realize. I'm always amazed. The stuff I think is like non-negotiable. And I'm like, hey, wait a minute. Is that non-negotiable? Huh? Maybe I could just not blah, blah, you know?

I know you have those radical thoughts. Maybe I don't do that. You get more and more daring. It's like, okay, actually, maybe that isn't, isn't you know obligatory maybe I do have an option about that just because everyone does it that way or just because I've always used to do it that way it doesn't mean I have to anymore it's uh it's big and I know like I remember I shared in wild power the story of how my domestic my domestic skill changes through my cycle and anyone who knows me can i just say her domestic skills were never brilliant were never brilliant just note this however in the inner autumn

they're even less brilliant but i share this with everyone because it's a real life thing it's like i do that i do less picking up. I do less fussing around my house, less perfecting, less. I don't waste my energy on that shit because I've got less energy. So I'm just choosing what I'm going to care about, basically. You might be somebody who really, really cares that the tile's hung straight. And so maybe you want that but I'm like no I'm not gonna put my energy there I'm just gonna leave that and I'm gonna do this

instead so it's about yeah using the energy we have for the things that really matter to us and that makes a big difference I'd love to come in with another suggestion for how to meet these water powers allies we need supports

reminders because we're all going to forget this and we all fall into holes and go lose away and just feel it isn't you know it's not working it's hopeless it's all horrible and or we feel rage or whatever but to actually have allies places to go you know like circles community i mean that's what we offer here at red school or you know for instance, for instance, our book, Wild Power. I know people read it, you know, read sections over and over and over and over again.

And interestingly, you know, because we've got this new book, Wise Power, now, I go back and read Wise Power and I find it soothing to me. Yeah, because, you know, know life lots of challenges going on and of course I'm post menopause but the skills that you develop in menopause you are living and working all the time and I find the book

nourishing for me, it reminds me of things, it's really funny my own words coming back to me to support me The the reminders are really good and also can i just say support one-to-one because of the strong feelings that come up pre-menstrually um i just want to name because we haven't mentioned this in this conversation um that part of what's happening pre-menstrually is that our kind of the the boundaries of our psyche are falling away the armoring is falling away and the protective

shielding that helps us to show up in the world and be polite and nice and sort of go about our life falls away but that's very exposing and can often bring us back in touch with past wounding past hurt past trauma which can be very strong and it's coming up to be tended and if you can't do that tending on your own which oftentimes we can't you know seek a good therapist seek someone to work with having therapeutic help and through you know talking therapy body therapy whatever it is makes such a difference to attend to whatever it is that's moving through you so I also want to name the importance of that kind of support as well as just allies who understand the nature of the premenstruum yeah

let's look now as we you know come towards closing this episode about the the powers of the premenstruum about what what the deepest purpose of this is in our cycles in our lives of the premenstruum about what what the deepest purpose of this is in our cycles in our lives of the premenstruum what's the the the spiritual purpose that's at work here spiritual purpose at work yeah we have at menstruation the possibility to enter very expanded states of consciousness. We call menstruation the inner temple, where one can experience a real awakening. It has the potential to offer that, and these feelings of love and ecstasy and visioning very powerful powers and the pre menstruum is perfectly designed to prepare us to enter that inner temple. So if we were still in our summer consciousness, we wouldn't even find the door to the temple.

We'd just be banging up against a wall, really. That rational mind, that doing energy, it's fantastic for a particular job, for which I love and celebrate it. But to be able to enter the sort of inner sanctum of ourselves, which is what menstruation allows us to do, we have to be set up for it. We have to kind of decommission the summer mind. We need to be made more permeable, vulnerable, because that allows us to feel and sense in a whole new way, because our rational mind, as I said, can't find that doorway in.

And so the sort of stages that you sort of move through, we think we talk about it as the breadcrumb trail, don't we, Shani? There's a breadcrumb trail to the inner temple of menstruation and it is this process of becoming more sensitive to ourselves but this permeability that Shani speaks of spoke of and it increases and increases and this this shedding of something it's actually it is your sort of shedding identities you start to lose some armoring really the best way I can put it and you are then in a place of greater exposure now if you were in that place and trying to be in the world it would be hell it would be absolute hell

it would be crippling which is why as you get closer and closer to the your bleed you will feel yourself saying no to your bleed you will feel yourself saying no to everything and you'll feel yourself wanting to just retreat and you know pull away and you want things as you say to be quiet quieter and you'll feel yourself pulling into yourself more and more and more and wanting to be away from the world and this is entirely normal and very very right and healthy and in that exposure you are more present now you have been ready to be present to the spiritual energies that are potentially available at menstruation and there's one other element here it isn't just about becoming more

and more exposed it is about your presence to yourself within that journey of dismantling your capacity to stay with yourself and to take your own side and not shame yourself and my god that is a discipline that you practice over years and years and years this is a high high high discipline that you're developing so you're developing. So you're in that discipline of learning to stay present to the complexity of what you're meeting, because things do become more complex in this exposure. In that discipline of learning to stay present, you are building a psychological capacity capacity to meet and hold the spiritual energies more and more and more. So two things. One, you're growing your psychological capacity and two, you're being made permeable, you're being made more vulnerable so that the spiritual forces can touch you.

When you say so that the spiritual forces can touch you, can you say that in another way as well? Okay, I will. Something that happens right at the end of the cycle is this feeling of stepping into an emptiness. You suddenly, everything that was important to you, it just falls away and it's like you lose yourself and you can feel often a big loathing of yourself in this moment too. You know, you're just very, it's like a darkness you step into. And it's like you don't know who you are anymore. When you're in the summer of your cycle, you go,

yeah, yeah, this is me. And then you get there and you go, what the fuck? What was that all about? Who am I? What am I doing? Those kind of existential questions. But it's actually that nothingness that's everything. So, and then you start to bleed and there's this huge, all you want to do is stop and let go

and surrender and surrender and surrender. And it is that surrendering you surrender into something you surrender into those spiritual energies are always there they're always there all the time everywhere in the cycle wherever we are you know they're just you know they're in the air we breathe but we we are too armoured against them. And now your menstruation gets you by the scruff of the neck and goes, you're coming with me. We're going to drop, you know, down, down, down, down. And your brain is empty and you just want to do nothing.

And that makes you available for something other to come through, to feel that yeah some of what i experienced in this breadcrumb trail and where it delivers me to in administration sometimes i don't always experience this but sometimes what i experience is the strong feelings that come up the ways that i have to take my own side the care that i have to bring myself in the premenstruum, the way I am called to come into myself and particularly come into my heart. It feels a bit like I'm being broken open and it can often feel like heartache or heartbreak

and then when I come into menstruation like that heartache or heartbreak avails me to the to love it's such a real thing for me I remember hearing people talk about this years ago and sort of being like what do they mean love feel love and and over the years and through bleeding I now know that experience it that feeling of being being loved and being in love. And there's, it's everything and it's nothing, you know, it's all of it. It feels so all encompassing. You know, Jane Watson describes it as the mama hug, but it can feel so all encompassing. Yeah. a mama hug but it can feel so all-encompassing yeah and that's what the premenstruum is doing is sort of preparing us to have access to that kind of experience how I've been thinking about it in this past bleed that I just had where I got a real dose of this was how many years I spent in meditation

retreats trying to reach states of consciousness like unconditional love and being fully awake and there was a lot of effort there and as so many of the spiritual paths are in our world they were they were made by men for men or by non-menstruating people for non-menstruating people and what I'm seeing and what you two have been saying for ages but it just takes a while for it to land sometimes what I'm seeing more clearly than ever this month is how there's this spiritual practice opportunity happening within me coming from my body. It's right here in my body. It's not coming from someone on a throne

at the front of a hall telling me how I need to breathe this way or put my body that way or do this and that to achieve some kind of state of consciousness my body is calling me through this cyclicity through the tenderizing of the premenstruum into this vast open openness and awakeness and aliveness and connection to love that is available if i practice it yeah and much of the practice is in the premenstruum yeah because that's the place that is the most misunderstood and culturally unrecognized, and that requires the most spiritual discipline.

So if we care for the premenstruum, that's our gateway in to this spiritual power of menstruality. You know, I often think, I often used to say this, that huge rage and sort of critical, you know, kind of violence that can come out in us premenstrually, this explosion, that what is behind that

is the fact that our souls know there is, the inner temple is calling and our beings are so indignant, actually insulted, insulted insulted that our premenstrual time is not recognized as this kind of sacred passage into something extraordinary. And I feel it over and over again that lurking behind, I'm going to say it again, lurking behind all the rage, at the deepest level, is this, our beings just outraged, outraged, outraged, that it's not named, it's not recognised. Feeling it. Feeling the rage. That puts a different perspective on your rage, Sophie.

Yeah. Okay, well, we could just keep on going, couldn't we, for four more hours, but we probably should be disciplined ourselves and wrap this up now um but to be continued this conversation is to be continued yeah thank you you too thank you very very much sophie so good to be with you in this conversation today such an important conversation so needed let's reframe the way we're understanding the premenstrual phase so we can access the power i hope it's been inspiring for you and you've had some our home aha moments i'd love to hear

from you i always would sophie at redschool.net and I really look forward to being with you next week and until then keep living life according to your own brilliant rhythm