The Menstruality Podcast
The Menstruality Podcast explores how menstrual cycle awareness and conscious menopause can enhance health, creativity, and leadership. Hosted by Sophie Jane Hardy, the show features Red School founders Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer, along with thought leaders and culture-shifters. It aims to help listeners claim the power of the menstrual cycle to activate their unique form of leadership.
Episodes
245. The Sacred Sites of Menarche, Menstruation, Matrescence & Menopause (Alexandra & Sjanie)
Last week we gathered in person with twenty-eight of the graduates of the Menstruality Leadership Programme for an in-person retreat, where we focused on healing our experiences of menarche - our first periods. In today’s conversation I asked Alexandra and Sjanie to share one of the powerful teachings from the retreat, which is a new way of understanding menstrual cycle awareness as a spiritual li
244: Matrifocal Leadership and Sustainable, Cyclical Productivity (Lella Sá)
When Lella Sá was seven years old, she learned to meditate with her grandmother, which was the beginning of a spiritual journey that has guided her through multiple expressions of her calling; from modeling, to event management, to biographical counselling, to motherhood, to running a Waldorf school. She now serves as a culture change and productivity consultant focused on what she calls Matrifoc
243. The Menstrual Cycle, Midlife and Metabolic Health (Lara Briden)
Today we’re welcoming back our most popular guest on the Menstruality podcast, naturopathic doctor, Lara Briden, who has previously offered holistic health guidance for menstrual, perimenopause and menopause health challenges which has helped thousands of our listeners. Today we’re geeking out about a vitally important, but often misunderstood aspect of our physical and mental health.As Lara descr
242. Your Womb is a Temple: African Matrilineal Womb Wisdom (Chanana McGarry)
Today we’re continuing our journey into traditional and indigenous womb wisdom, by exploring African earth-based teachings about the womb as a temple. Our guest and guide is Chanana McGarry, who is a Medicine Woman as well as a certified Fertility Awareness & Sexual Health Educator. She’s been exploring how to bridge ancient wisdom and modern science for two decades, helping people to navigate
241. Cyclical Sex Through Your Inner Seasons and Life Cycles (Carly Mountain)
Just like our physical, emotional and mental energy, our erotic energy also ebbs and flows through the menstrual cycle month. Today we’ve invited the brilliant psychotherapist and somatic sex therapist Carly Mountain back to the podcast to explore the connection between the womb and our erotic cycles. Today Carly guides us on a journey through the inner seasons of the menstrual cycle to explore th
240. Sex, Intimacy, and Listening to our Cyclical Bodies (Ita O'Brien)
Today we’re having a fascinating conversation with the woman who pioneered the role of intimacy co-ordinator in TV, film, opera and theatre. Ita O’Brien has worked on numerous high-profile productions including Sex Education on Netflix, and I May Destroy You on the BBC, and is the founder of the Intimacy on Set guidelines which have been widely adopted across the industry, advocating for safe, fai
239. How to Manage Overwhelm, Intensity and Disconnection in Your Inner Summer (Alexandra & Sjanie)
Although the inner summer of the menstrual cycle has a reputation for being easy-breezy, for some of us, this can be a real hotspot in the cycle month. So, this episode is for you if the ovulatory cycle phase is intense or overwhelming, or you feel a sense of pressure to show up and ‘get shit done’ inside an already over-full life. It’s also for you if inner summer brings a sense of being all dres
238. The Spiritual Power of the Womb (Chantal Blake)
The spiritual power of the cycle and the womb is core to Red School’s teachings and offerings, and we’ve explored this topic on the podcast through the lens of many different faith, spiritual, traditional and indigenous traditions including; Maori womb wisdom with Hinewai Waitoa, Andean womb wisdom teachings with Dr Cynthia Ingar, Anishinabe cyclical wisdom with Asha Frost, and ancient African wom
237. How to Practice Cycle Awareness After Menopause (Alexandra and Sjanie)
The Menstruality podcast is devoted to restoring cyclical intelligence at the heart of our world, and we center our conversation on the menstrual cycle as a teacher, guide and ally in this quest. But what do you do if you encounter this work after you’ve been through menopause and no longer have a menstrual cycle? We receive many questions from post-menopause women and folks in our community who a
236. The Power of Cycle Aware Psychotherapy and Mental Health Care (Mary-Claire Decker)
Today we’re exploring how to bring cycle awareness to psychotherapy and mental healthcare. Our guest is MaryClaire Decker (known as MC) who is a Registered Psychologist. MC created Mindful Cycles after seeing a gap in mental health care, and after her own struggles with chronic menstrual migraines reinforced the need for an approach that works with our cycles, not against them. At Mindful Cycles,
235. How to Support Your Child Through Puberty, First Periods and Beyond (Amy Wilding)
1 in 2 girls in the U.S. say they feel embarrassed or ashamed about their period and only 22% of U.S parents feel “very comfortable” talking to their kids about puberty. We need to rewrite this script, and our guest today, menstrual educator Amy Wilding, has written a book to do just that. Amy has supported hundreds of families through her Period of Change programs, helping them reclaim menarche a
234. REPLAY: The Connection between Your Menstrual Cycle and Your Mental & Emotional Health (Alexandra & Sjanie)
Today we’re sharing a replay of one of our most listened to podcasts ever - and it’s all about how getting to know your cycle can be a vital foundation for mental and emotional health.Alexandra and Sjanie, the co-founders of Red School are both retired therapists, and today they share their learnings from their own personal cycle awareness practice (as well as working with thousands of students ov
233. How Menstrual Cycle Awareness has Shaped my Creative Process (Chloé Zhao)
Today it’s our great pleasure to be joined by Chloé Zhao. Chloé is an academy award winning filmmaker, and amongst many accolades, Chloé is the first Woman of Colour to have won an academy award for best director for her film Nomadland.In this conversation, Chloé chats with Alexandra and Sjanie about how menstrual cycle awareness has shaped her creative process, including how she worked with the w
232. How Menstrual Cycle Awareness Can Support You in Perimenopause (Alexandra and Sjanie)
As we enter our early forties, we step into a new life phase with a very different atmosphere and tone. We’re shifting into a new paradigm, often accompanied by changes in our menstrual cycles and ourselves, some of which may be startling or very tricky to manage.Brain fog, memory issues, irregular cycles, heavy periods - the list goes on. You might notice that you have less tolerance for stress,
231. REPLAY: What’s Going on with Pre-Menstrual and Menopause Rage? (Alexandra & Sjanie)
Today we’re replaying one of our most popular episodes - a frank and feisty chat about one of the hot topics in our community - premenstrual and menopausal RAGE.Have you ever been driving in your car and felt compelled to wind the windows up and actually roar because you felt so wildly angry on day 24? Or, if you’re navigating menopause, have you experienced your own ‘burn-the-house-down’ moment
230: How to Manage Anxiety and Overwhelm in Inner Spring (Alexandra & Sjanie)
This episode is the first of a four-part series exploring the common challenges of each of the four cycle phases or inner seasons of the menstrual cycle, and Alexandra and Sjanie are going to reframe these challenges as meaningful limits that support us to access the power of each phase.This first episode in the series is the inner spring, preovulation cycle phase and we’re looking at the challeng
229. How Menstrual Cycle Awareness Can Help us Stay Engaged, Resilient and Resourced (Dr Cre Dye)
Today we’re exploring how the practice of menstrual cycle awareness can help us to stay engaged, resilient and resourced as we meet the challenges of today’s world. Our guest is the brilliant Dr. Cre Dye who is the Menstruality Justice and Inclusion Educator at Red School. Cre has served her local, national, and international communities with heart, mind and body activism for over twenty-five year
228: The Menstrual Cycle and the Female Nervous System (Veronica Rottman)
Historically, trauma research has been done primarily on men, and then applied to women’s bodies as if it’s going to work in the same way. But as our guest today, Somatic Emotional Processing facilitator Veronica Rottman, shares, women currently suffer from twice the rate of anxiety and depression, make up 80% of the population with autoimmune disease and are much more likely to experience burnout
227. The Connection Between Breathwork and Your Menstrual Cycle (Harriette Wight)
After being guided by her doctor to take the pill for twenty years to manage painful periods, breathwork practitioner Harriette Wight was still dealing with challenging bleeds and decided to try something different. She was guided by a friend to try seed cycling, then learned how to track her menstrual cycle and then - via her Yoga teacher - she discovered breathwork. The combination of breathwork
226. The Power of No: Menstrual Cycle Awareness and Boundaries (Alexandra & Sjanie)
One of the most beautiful and practical gifts of menstrual cycle awareness is how it awakens a newfound capacity to know and assert our boundaries. As we track our shifting emotions, mental state and energy levels through the cycle month, we get to know our unique strengths and our limits. This helps to build confidence in ourselves and our nature, so that when we become aware of a boundary that h
225. The Courage of Genius (and What Your Cycle Has to Do With It) with Alexandra & Sjanie
To help you ease into 2026 purposefully, we’re talking about how the cycle helps you to live in your zone of genius today, which is to say, how practising menstrual cycle awareness helps you to know your own nature and stay close to what you’re really great at. We go through the inner seasons of the cycle one by one, sharing how each one can help us to do the courageous, radical act of claiming ou
224: Choose Your Menstrual Cycle Leadership Power for 2026 (Alexandra & Sjanie)
Happy New Year! We have a gift for you to help you start your 2026 infused in cyclical wisdom.Everything that Alexandra and Sjanie create at Red School is focused on inspiring us to connect to the power that lives within our cyclical nature, so that we can know and claim our own leadership roles in our lives. So, in service of this, today Alexandra and Sjanie do a power card reading with the Red S
223. How to Work with the Moon as Your Calendar (April McMurtry)
The moon is a big topic of conversation within the Red School community. Many who aren’t menstruating practice lunar tracking in place of menstrual cycle awareness, and those who have a menstrual cycle often bring moon-inspired questions, such as: ‘should I bleed on the full moon or the new moon?’ And ‘what to do when I’m bleeding but the moon is full and I feel pulled in two directions?’. So toda
222. Menstrual Cycle Awareness and Trauma Healing (Alexandra & Sjanie)
When you practice menstrual cycle awareness, you start to feel more connected to yourself. This process of remembering and embodying more of who you truly are means that you may come into contact with parts of yourself that have been disowned, or that you’ve been shamed out of claiming.Our conversation today is especially designed to support you if you’ve been encountering or unearthing memories o
221. How Cycle Awareness Helps You to Have Difficult Conversations (Sarah Rozenthuler)
Whether it’s at work, in our relationships, as parents or carers, or in our interaction with our community, life regularly invites us to summon up the courage to have difficult conversations. Today we’re chatting about how cultivating an intimacy with our cyclical nature can support us to show up with skillful expression and heart.Our guest today is Sarah Rozenthuler is a world-renowned speaker, c
220. How Cycle Awareness Frees Your Voice and True Expression (Alexandra and Sjanie)
One of the questions that comes up again and again in the Red School community is this: how can I free up my voice and share my truth? So many of us, particularly women and those socialised as female feel stuck, silenced or disconnected from our true expression, so today we’re exploring how the practice of checking in every day with your menstrual cycle and how it’s influencing your energy and moo
219. The Rage, Grace and Alchemy of Menopause (Tanya Forgan)
For many of us menopause announces itself in our lives through some kind of betrayal. For today’s podcast guest, that betrayal came in the form of a dismantling of identity that provoked one particular emotion on a whole new level - rage. Our guest today is the brilliant trauma-informed embodiment guide, facilitator, and heart activist Tanya Forgan. She explores menopause as a series of portals wh
218. Passing Through the Veils: Perimenopause as Sacred Preparation (Alexandra & Sjanie)
As we enter our forties, many of us start to experience signals from our body that show us that we can’t override ourselves anymore. We become more permeable, our energy levels shift, and we tend to have less capacity. If we don’t clock these changes and find ways to adapt our lives, we’ll start to experience trouble inside ourselves often in the form of stress, overwhelm and other physical, emoti
217. How to Navigate The Heat of Menopause with Water Medicine (Tamu Mosley)
Our guest today is Tamu Mosley, who is a student of Alexandra and Sjanie’s Menopause: The Great Awakener course, and is an initiated Sacred Woman, wholistic wellness facilitator, teacher, and mama. Tamu was guided by her mum to track her cycles from her very first bleed, and now, a few years post menopause, she sees how cycle awareness guided her through her menopause initiation.When Tamu was ente
216. How to Manage the Emotional Heat of Menopause (Alexandra & Sjanie)
Menopause is an immense life event, a great initiation. Not only is it a complete hormonal shift in the landscape of your overall health, it’s also a psycho-spiritual transformation, which can bring with it a huge emotional rollercoaster.Rage, grief, emptiness, exposure, hurt, anxiety - they can all create a sense of groundlessness in menopause, to the extent that many of us feel that we simply do
215. Replay: How to Mother Yourself Through Menopause (Chameli Gad)
It’s world menopause day later this month, and throughout October we’ll be sharing on social media about how we can rewrite the cultural narrative of menopause. On October 21st - 23rd, Alexandra and Sjanie would like to invite you to join them for their free three-day online menopause event: How Menopause Awakens Your Power. And their online course, menopause the Great Awakener starts on October 3
214. Replay: How Yoga Nidra can Support Menstrual and Menopause Rest (Tracee Stanley)
It’s world menopause day later this month, and throughout October we’ll be sharing on social media about how we can rewrite the cultural narrative of menopause. On October 21st - 23rd, Alexandra and Sjanie would like to invite you to join them for their free three-day online menopause event: How Menopause Awakens Your Power. And their online course, menopause the Great Awakener starts on October 3
213. Replay: Menopause as a Gateway to Magnificence and Knowing Our Worth (Prune Harris)
It’s world menopause day later this month, and throughout October we’ll be sharing on social media about how we can rewrite the cultural narrative of menopause. On October 21st - 23rd, Alexandra and Sjanie would like to invite you to join them for their free three-day online menopause event: How Menopause Awakens Your Power. And their online course, menopause the Great Awakener starts on October 3
212. Replay: The Myth, Magic and Metamorphosis of Menopause (Dr Sharon Blackie)
It’s world menopause day later this month, and throughout October we’ll be sharing on social media about how we can rewrite the cultural narrative of menopause. On October 21st - 23rd, Alexandra and Sjanie would like to invite you to join them for their free three-day online menopause event: How Menopause Awakens Your Power. And their online course, menopause the Great Awakener starts on October 3
211. Replay: The Transformation of Menopause: Stepping into our Responsibility to Life (Jane Hardwicke Collings)
It’s world menopause day later this month, and throughout October we’ll be sharing on social media about how we can rewrite the cultural narrative of menopause. On October 21st - 23rd, Alexandra and Sjanie would like to invite you to join them for their free three-day online menopause event: How Menopause Awakens Your Power. Their online course, Menopause: The Great Awakener starts on October 31st
210. How to Claim Your Sacred Rest (Octavia Raheem)
In a world which is moving too fast, we have to claim our rest, which is why I’m delighted to share this conversation with an incredible woman who sees herself as a Chief Operating Daydreaming Officer and Dream Keeper. Octavia Raheem is an award-winning author, rest coach, a yoga and meditation teacher, and speaker. Yoga Journal magazine has recognized Octavia as one of fifteen experienced yoga pr
209. The Future of Leadership is Menstrual: A Revolution in Power (Alexandra & Sjanie)
In a world where fast-paced technology and artificial intelligence are on the rise, where each day brings fresh news of global injustice and conflict and where radical shifts are needed to create a sustainable future on earth, it’s no wonder that we can find ourselves overwhelmed and numb. But, the daily practice of menstrual cycle awareness can serve as a powerful antidote, and today we’re explor
208. The Messy Middle of Menopause (Ruby May)
As we’ve explored a lot on the podcast with the women and folks who have shared their own menopause stories, it can be a disorientating, deeply challenging, and very messy process. And today we’re hearing from a woman who is generously sharing right from the messy middle of her menopause journey. Ruby May is a coach, facilitator and community weaver, passionate about midwifing a culture grounded i
207. How Cycle Awareness Can Help You to Navigate PCOS and Irregular Cycles (Shalize Giane)
What do you do when your experience of the cycle doesn’t match the archetypal description of the inner seasons? Many women and folks with cycles experience sporadic, irregular cycles which are very challenging to track, particularly if they’re dealing with health challenges like PCOS, Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. Our guest today is Menstruality Leadership Programme graduate Shalize Giane, who shar
206: Listening to Your Body, Reclaiming Your Power and Knowing Your Worth (Meggan Watterson)
Today’s conversation is an exploration of what happens when women’s stories and voices are suppressed, and how we reclaim our power in a world which has historically denied our worth. It’s the story beneath the story of menstruality, the foundation for all we’re reclaiming with menstrual cycle awareness and conscious menopause. Our guide in Harvard-trained feminist theologian, Meggan Watterson.Whe
205. How to Work With PMS and PMDD Using Menstrual Cycle Awareness (Alexandra & Sjanie)
Today we’re sharing part two of our conversation about PMS - premenstrual syndrome - and PMDD - Premenstrual dysphoria disorder. We began this exploration in episode 202, How Menstrual Cycle Awareness Can Transform PMS and PMDD, where we discussed the premenstrual phase of the cycle as a gateway to our power, and premenstrual symptoms as a truth-telling signal or a warning sign from the deepest pa
204. How Cycle Awareness Helps to Create a Rest-Centred Life (Lou Perham)
I don’t know about you, but rest can be an elusive thing for me. I know I need it, I know I want it, but how do I actually get it? Enter Lou Perham who is rest-obsessed and has devoted her recent years as a Cyclical Living Mentor to helping people, and especially women get more rest. Today we start by exploring Lou’s powerful personal story of the healing power of cycle awareness. When Lou was dia
203. How to Claim and Express Yourself in Inner Summer - REPLAY (Alexandra & Sjanie)
What if there is a direct connection between your pleasure and your power? And what if harnessing the magic of inner summer of the menstrual cycle - the ovulation phase - is the key to unleashing a deeply pleasurable, full expression of who you are in the world?We believe that both of these statements are true, but - as we explore in this podcast - a profound reclamation of the true power of inner
202. How Menstrual Cycle Awareness Can Transform PMS and PMDD (Alexandra & Sjanie)
Did you know that 3-8% of women and people with cycles experience PMDD, which stands for premenstrual dysphoric disorder? If you are one of these people, or you are close to or work with someone with PMDD, this episode is especially for you. It’s also for you, if you - like me - have experienced intense, debilitating, dark and challenging emotional disturbance in the premenstrual phase of your cyc
201. Healing Grief, Fear and Loneliness after Pregnancy Loss (Iris Josephina Verstappen)
A few months ago, our guest today, the founder of Cycle Seeds Iris Josephina Verstappen, was hosting a retreat in a goddess temple in Malta when she began to miscarry. Having accompanied many women through pregnancy loss, both as a doula and a holistic hormone and cycle coach, she’s witnessed the storm of emotions that can arise with miscarriage, as well as the taboo surrounding it. So she decided
200. How to Recover Your Health in Menopause with Herbal Medicine (Melinda McDougall)
If you’re curious to explore natural approaches to support menopause health symptoms today’s episode is for you. Our guest, Melinda McDougall, is a registered Medical Herbalist specialising in women's health and menopause. She combines the latest scientific research into botanical medicines with the traditional knowledge women have used for centuries to manage their health.Melinda shares a tr
199. How to Use Energy Work for Menstrual, Menopause and Womb Health (Prune Harris)
Our guest today, energy expert Prune Harris sees the womb as the deepest house of wisdom that we have, and today we explore how to work energetically to cultivate womb health, as well as menstrual and menopause health. Since birth, Prune has been able to see energy - the energy of humans, animals, trees and the Earth, and she sees this energy as vibrations, colours, and connective patterns. She ha
198. The Connection between Your Menstrual Cycle and Your Mental & Emotional Health (Alexandra & Sjanie)
As part of our ongoing series about the connection between menstrual cycle awareness and our health & wellbeing today we’re exploring how getting to know your cycle can be a vital foundation for mental and emotional health.Alexandra and Sjanie are both retired therapists, and today they share their learnings from their own personal cycle awareness practice, as well as working with thousands of
197. How Your Menstrual Cycle is a Compass Leading you Towards Joy (Edveeje Fairchild)
Menstrual cycle awareness can guide us to create more rest in our lives, including a mini menstrual sabbatical each month to renew us and restore our connection to joy. Our guest today, author, poet and teacher Edveeje Fairchild has been a devotee to rest for her entire life, having been raised in a spiritual tradition that honoured the weekly sabbath. And this non-negotiable rhythm of rest has be
196. How to Connect to the Cyclical Wisdom of Your Dreams (Toko-Pa Turner)
When Toko-pa Turner first started to experience signs of perimenopause, she was simultaneously diagnosed with an autoimmune disease called rheumatoid arthritis, and the combination led to severe insomnia. Sleep deprivation is challenging for all of us, but in Toko-pa’s case it was especially disorientating because for over twenty-five years she has been working with dreams in a mythopoetic way to
195. Part Two: How Cycle Awareness Helps you to Manage your Energy (Q+A w/ Alexandra & Sjanie)
Today we’re in conversation with the brilliant community gathered around this work and podcast in our part two episode about how to work with menstrual cycle awareness as our own in-built energy management system. This conversation is for you if you struggle to follow the impulses of your cycle around the modern-life juggle of responsibilities, or if you’re dealing with low energy levels and you’r
194: How Menstrual Cycle Awareness Helps you to Manage your Energy (Alexandra & Sjanie)
We’re experiencing an epidemic of chronic fatigue and burnout, especially for women, and people with marginalised identities. It’s part of our modern day polycrisis, and in many ways the exhaustion we’re experiencing in our individual bodies mirrors the environmental challenges that are ravaging our earth, our larger body. We’re driving both to the very edges of their capacity. Beautifully, the pr
193. Cultivating Resilience and Preventing Burnout in Perimenopause (Jolinda Johnson)
When we enter the autumn of our menstruation years in our 40s and start to experience what many call perimenopause, we can easily think we should keep pushing through even though our bodies, minds and emotional landscape are transforming profoundly. (Alexandra and Sjanie, the co-founders or Red School call this phase the Quickening, or the autumn of our menstruating years). Our guest today specia
192. Part Two: Beginner’s Guide to Menstrual Cycle Awareness (Q&A with Alexandra & Sjanie)
Today we’re continuing our exploration around the fundamentals of the practice of menstrual cycle awareness, through the lens of some of the frequently asked questions from our community, such as what to do if your menstrual cycle doesn’t look like the archetypal cycle, how to track your cycle if you have menstrual health challenges, and how to talk about cycle awareness with your loved ones. The
191. How to Retire Superwoman and Honour Your Needs in Perimenopause (Dr Joanna Martin)
In our forties, many of us hit a wall. It can be a time when our responsibilities are at an all time high, just when our bodies are telling us - sometimes very loudly - that it’s time to change the way we’ve been living and working so far. Our guest today, renowned visionary, coach and catalyst Dr Joanna Martin helps us understand how to navigate this phase of life which is often called perimenopa
190. A Beginner’s Guide to Menstrual Cycle Awareness (Alexandra & Sjanie)
When people hear about menstrual cycle awareness, they’re often surprised, confused and baffled by the idea that there could be a connection between the menstrual cycle and your creativity, power and wisdom. It’s no surprise given current cultural attitudes around the menstrual cycle and menopause, which are largely ignored or dismissed.So today’s episode is designed to both build a bridge for you
189. The Wisdom of Indigenous Andean Moontime Practices & Woman Medicine (Dr Cynthia Ingar)
In many indigenous communities across the world, people have long honoured menstruation as a sacred time. Today we’re lucky to be exploring the beauty and wisdom of the ancestral moontime medicine of the Andean people, and our guest is Dr Cynthia Ingar, who is an anthropologist and Andean keeper of Woman Medicine wisdom living in the Sacred Valley in Peru. In her late twenties, Cynthia was guided
188. The Womb as a Portal to Personal, Collective and Ancestral Trauma Healing (Dr Jeevan Singh)
Befriending our menstrual cycles and wombs and coming home to the root of our body, and to our pelvic bowls often means negotiating any trauma that we’ve experienced in that part of our bodies, or other traumas that we hold in this part of our bodies. As our guest today, the brilliant Dr Jeevan Singh shares, the pelvic bowl is an organ of relationship that has the capacity to guide our personal an
187. How Inner Spring Evolves our Leadership Skills - Replay (Alexandra & Sjanie)
Spring is just beginning here where Alexandra, Sjanie and I are in the UK, and due to popular demand, this time two years ago we rode off the springtime momentum to create a couple of podcast episodes all about the inner spring - the preovulatory phase of the cycle.Many of you have been sharing questions about this pre-ovulatory phase of the cycle (which correlates to the waxing moon phase if you’
186. Menopause as a Gateway to Magnificence: Wise Power Series (Prune Harris)
Today we’re exploring the immense capacities that open up to us as we move through menopause, and it’s a special episode as Alexandra, the co-founder of Red School is your host, and it’s our next Wise Power series conversation...The Wise Power series began with our Wise Power retreat when S+A’s book Wise Power was published and Alexandra is continuing to have sporadic conversations about what meno
185. Perimenopause - What’s Actually Going On? Replay (Alexandra & Sjanie)
In our 40s, many of us begin to experience a variety of health symptoms and challenges, as well as emotional and psychological shifts. Some call this perimenopause. At Red School, Alexandra and Sjanie call it, The Quickening… So for today’s podcast episode - we’re re-sharing a conversation from a couple of years ago - one of the most listened to and shared episodes ever on the podcast. It was the
184. Our Wombs, Cycles & Menopause as Doorways to Spiritual Power (Uma Dinsmore Tuli)
As many of you will know, Uma Dinsmore Tuli has been a powerful force for good in many fields for decades, including Yoga, Menstruality, and women’s health. She describes herself as a writer, an educator, a Hyperactive Yoginī, a mother of three and a devotee to the Dark Mother. Today we chat about the cycles that guide Uma’s life, from the planets, to the moon, to her early relationship with her c
183. The Connection between Cycle Awareness, Witchcraft and Magic (Mimi Young)
Many of us feel more intuitive and connected to the mystical and the magical in the second half of the menstrual cycle and today I’m directly exploring the connection between menstrual cycle awareness, witchcraft and psychic capacities.Our guest is Mimi Young, a Taiwanese-Canadian, Daoist, animist, spirit worker and medium, who serves her community through ancient Chinese esoteric practices, dream
182. Worshipping the Menstrual Cycle as a Gateway to the Sacred Feminine (Sarah Jenks)
When our guest today, Sarah Jenks was in her 20s, striving to get it all right, and be a good girl, she quickly found herself feeling exhausted, empty and struggling with emotional eating. One day, she stumbled upon sacred feminine ceremony and her life changed. She was inspired to dig into the history of sacred feminine ceremony, where she discovered how it has been branded by the oppressive patr
181. The Spiritual Power of our Wombs and Menstrual Cycles (Usha Anandi)
We live in a world where we so often feel that we need to live like men, work like men, and push ourselves like men in order to be valued. When the truth is that we are more-or-less twenty eight different women each month, and there is immense power and magic in this innate ebb and flow. As our guest today, Usha Anandi, the Founder of Womben Wellness says that women and people with cycles have fou
180. How Your Cycle Can Help You Realise Your 2025 Visions (Alexandra & Sjanie)
Happy New Year! Today we’re back with our first live episode of 2025, and we’re trying out something new and fun - we hope you love it: a ‘power card’ reading for the year to come. Our theme for today is how menstrual cycle awareness can help us all to tap into our visions and dreams for the coming year, and how the daily practice of checking in with our cycle can help us to make them real. So we
179. How to Begin the Year, and Everything Else, with Cycle Awareness - Replay (Sjanie & Alexandra)
As we enter 2025, we explore what menstrual cycle awareness can teach us about how to begin things well. This is an episode we recorded a couple of years ago, when we were each navigating a bumpy beginning to the year, and we used this as a lens to explore how the deep intelligence within the cycle is guides us through life’s highs and lows.Whether you’re wanting to start the year with intention a
178. How to End the Year, and Everything Else, with Cycle Awareness - Replay (Alexandra & Sjanie)
Today we’re sharing a conversation we had a couple of years back at the close of the year and it’s all about what cycle awareness can teach us about all of life’s endings; the smaller, more surface level ones like the end of the year we have coming up, and the bigger more profound ones, like ending relationships, moving house, all the way to the deep grief of losing loved ones.For those of us with
177. How Inner Winter Awakens Feminine Leadership - Replay (Alexandra & Sjanie)
Today we’re sharing one of our most popular episodes from the archives - to tune into the outer winter here in the northern hemisphere… it’s all about how the inner winter of the menstrual cycle awakens feminine leadership…So the thing that originally inspired this conversation was that Sjanie’s period came very early the month before we spoke. She suddenly found herself bleeding on day 12 and she
176. Why We’re Taking a Sabbatical - and How You Can Too! (Alexandra & Sjanie)
Guided by the wisdom of deep rest at menstruation, Alexandra and Sjanie do a 'Big Bleed' retreat for Red School every year, a kind of short sabbatical. Even though Red School is a big eco-system, with a community of 1000s of people and a whole team taking care of many different pieces, they take the bold leadership move of pressing pause on it all, to allow for deep rest, and new inspira
175. How Chinese Medicine Can Support You in Perimenopause (Kris Gonzalez)
In Chinese Medicine, life progresses in seven-year cycles for female bodies, and each of these phases correlates to one of the five elements; water, wood, fire, earth and metal. Today Chinese Medicine Practitioner, Kris Gonzalez describes what it means for us to move from the earth element in our 30s to the metal element in our 40s, and what this transition can teach us about how to create more he
174. The Future is Menstrual (Alexandra & Sjanie)
Today we’d love to invite you to dream with us for a moment… Imagine we could look ahead twenty years, to a world which fully honours the power and magic of the menstrual cycle and menopause… a world where the menstrual taboo has lifted fully, and the menstrual cycle is honoured as the sacred source of life for us humans.As you may well know, there’s a powerful menstrual revolution at work in the
173. Cycle Awareness and Ending Violence Against Women & Girls (Tamsin Fagan)
Menstrual cycle awareness has the capacity to create meaningful change in all areas of life, and today we’re exploring an aspect of our collective human experience which isn’t talked about enough...In a couple of days, it will be the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, and today our guest is Tamsin Fagan who has been doing the difficult, courageous work of ending viole
172. How Cycle Awareness Grows Your Intuition (Alexandra & Sjanie)
In a world that can overly prioritise the linear and rational, so many of us long to connect with and express our instinctive, intuitive knowing, and today we’re exploring how the practice of menstrual cycle awareness can help us to hone the art of intuitive living. Alexandra and Sjanie unpack how the first half of the cycle has an outer-focused thrust which takes you out into the world (it almost
171. Mothering, Matrescence and Perimenopause (Amy Taylor Kabbaz)
What do we do when we’re experiencing significant changes physically, emotionally and spiritually in the years running up to menopause, all we want to do is run far, far away, but we still have kids at home who need our care and support?This question is coming up a lot in our community and that’s why I’m so grateful to be talking with Matrescence expert, journalist and coach, Amy Taylor Kabbaz, wh
170. How the Five Phases of Menopause Transform your Relationships (Autumn Saunders)
Through their decades of sitting with women and people undergoing the menopause initiation, Alexandra and Sjanie have seen that no part of your life remains untouched by menopause, including your relationships with your loved ones and community. Everything needs to undergo a shift, however subtle, as you move into a greater sense of authority with clearer parameters about yourself. As Alexandra sa
169. How we Become a Force of Nature in Menopause (Dr Danielle Arabena)
Menopause, and the years running up to it, can be a time of real challenge and transformation. Without wise guidance and a framework to understand what’s happening, we can be left feeling lost, alone and crazy. Luckily, there are those who can serve as guides, like our guest today, Dr Danielle Arabena, who brings her extensive experience as a medical doctor and a shamanic healer to stand at what s
168. How Conscious Menopause Can Change the World (Alexandra & Sjanie)
It’s world menopause month, and we’re continuing the menopause conversation we began two weeks ago, where we explored how to navigate the dark night of the soul of the menopause process (it’s episode 166), and we’re continuing by looking at the powers that the menopause initiation can awaken in us, if we refuse to abandon ourselves during this betrayal phase of menopause. In their book, Wise Power
167. How to Mother Ourselves Through Menopause (Chameli Gad)
Today on the podcast we’re exploring how menopause can be an initiation into greater self-love, self-compassion and self-mothering. This is our third conversation with Chameli Gad, the founder of Awakening Women. Each year she’s come back here to generously share her menopause process, which unfolded throughout the pandemic and included the death of her son, and her divorce.In our chat today, she
166. How to Navigate the Menopause Dark Night of The Soul (Alexandra & Sjanie)
Many of us are turning up at menopause stressed, exhausted, overworked and under-nourished, often managing multiple care and work roles simultaneously. And then we hit the “death” moment of the menopause initiatory death and rebirth process. The challenges of the menopause initiation can often be compounded by key relationships ending, bereavement, or other extreme life changes. It can all form a
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