The Menstruality Podcast

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, emotional and mental symptoms. Alexandra and Sjanie call these years the “autumn” of our menstruating years, or the Quickening, and in the collective conversation many refer to these years in the run up to menopause as perimenopause. Today we’re exploring these perimenopause years and challenges as a kind of sacred preparation or apprenticeship for the great initiation of menopause - a series of unveilings that allow us to see what has been unconscious within us. Through stories from the community we explore why many of us feel scared of and unprepared for menopause, how the forties are preparing our psyches for the massive spiritual awakening ahead and why menstrual cycle awareness is our greatest ally through the twists and turns of perimenopauseWe explore:The importance of relishing your forties, and the authority and sense of self-knowledge that can come with this decade.How menstrual cycle awareness, and particularly paying attention to your premenstrual phase - the inner autumn of the cycle - can prepare us for the autumn challenges of the forties and perimenopause. How old trauma can resurface in perimenopause, and how to deeply meet what is arising and support yourself to encounter the big emotions  so that healing can take place. ---Register for our menopause online course: Menopause: The Great Awakener - Starts October 31st---The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net---Social media:Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.schoolSophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy

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 entering perimenopause she was studying with the world renowned spiritual teacher from Burkina Faso, Sobonfu Some, who said that when a woman enters menopause, she becomes the carrier of the water of life for the community. In our conversation Tamu shares about the water medicines that supported her through the fire and heat of the five phases of her menopause process, and have become core to her life purpose in her third act. Tamu is the founder of Wholistic Shine and Uchū Botanical and is a kitchen alchemist, a home herbalist, a flower essence practitioner and a student of cha dao (the way of tea). Tamu is guided by a deepening relationship with and devotion to the sacred element water through daily practice, prayer and intention.We explore:Hot flashes as an invitation to burn away self-defeating thoughts. How Tamu honours the anniversary of her final menstrual bleed each year with a water and tea ceremony, and how sitting with tea for over 300 days in a row has supported her relationship with her partner. What it has meant for Tamu to move from her earth body as a mother, to her water body during menopause, and how it has helped her to slowly and steadily create a new creative and work life, post-menopause.---Register for our free three-day menopause event: How Menopause Awakens Your Power on October 21st-23rd---The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net---Social media:Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.schoolSophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardyTamu Mosley: @wholistic_shine - https://www.instagram.com/wholistic_shine

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 don’t know ourselves any more. This emotional heat can include a sense of despair - you had a sense of what you were about, who you were, what was important to you, and suddenly it all fell away, leaving you questioning the meaning of pretty much everything.Today we’re exploring how to navigate the emotional heat of menopause through the lens of honest and vulnerable stories from the Red School community and Sjanie’s own personal emotional rollercoaster in the run up to menopause.We explore:Alexandra’s personal experience of moments of existential terror that can arise in menopause.How trauma can show up in menopause, and a reframe for when you feel like you’re unravelling and it feels like you’re going mad. What happened when Alexandra experienced her most vivid memory of incandescent menopause rage in the car park under the library. ---Register for our free three-day menopause event: How Menopause Awakens Your Power on October 21st-23rd---The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net---Social media:Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.schoolSophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy

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 31st - you can register for the free event and find out more about the course at redschoolmenopause.comToday’s bonus episode is a replay of a delicious conversation I had with Chameli Gad, mystic and Goddess Wisdom Keeper and the founder of Awakening Women, who has been a teacher for me for the past fifteen years. Chameli’s menopause initiatory process unfolded throughout the pandemic and included the death of her son, and her divorce. She’s been generously sharing her menopause process with us here on the podcast over the past three years, and in our chat today, she explores the fruits of her menopause process, from the other side, and she is as honest about her current peace, ease and ecstasy as she was with her mid-initiation pain and suffering.We explore:What it means to ensure that your inner “mama is in the house” in menopause, in three different aspects: the witnessing mother, the nurturing mother and the guardian mother.Chameli’s ‘baby dolphin’ menopause dream and how it has radically transformed her capacity for self-compassion.What Chameli learned about boundaries in menopause, and how she moved from using boundaries as a way to control others, and instead as an act of leadership that arises from within us. ---Register for our free three-day menopause event: How Menopause Awakens Your Power on October 21st-23rd---The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net---Social media:Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.schoolSophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardyChameli Gad: @chameligad - https://www.instagram.com/chameligadAwakening Women: @awakeningwomen - https://www.instagram.com/awakeningwomen

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 31st - you can register for the free event and find out more about the course at redschoolmenopause.comToday’s bonus episode is for you if - like me - you long to feel more calm, rested, peaceful and grounded. Both because it feels better, but also because you know the gold that lies in this state of restedness; for your health, your relationships, your worklife, and your journey through menopause.Our guest is Tracee Stanley, the author of the bestselling book Radiant Rest, and the recently published The Luminous Self. She is a post-lineage yoga teacher, inspired by more than twenty years of study, and she’s devoted to sharing the wisdom of yoga nidra, rest, meditation, self-inquiry, nature as a teacher, and ancestor reverence.We chat about how to set up a practice that allows for rest inside a mainstream culture that says we’re not worthy unless you’re pushing through; whether that’s pushing through grief, illness, exhaustion or menopause. Through it all, Tracee illuminates how deep rest, peace and truth are our birthright.We explore:The importance of unveiling the messages we received about the value of rest from our parents and ancestral lineage; particularly for Black, Brown and Indigenous people.How the practice of Yoga Nidra is a way to know our true self, as well as a powerful act of rebellion in a culture that wants us to keep endlessly grindingThe story of Mataji - a female yoga teacher in her 90s, who was famous for never sleeping, and became one of the first people to teach the wisdom of yoga nidra. ---Register for our free three-day menopause event: How Menopause Awakens Your Power on October 21st-23rd---The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net---Social media:Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.schoolSophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardyTracee Stanley: @tracee_stanley - https://www.instagram.com/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 31st - you can register for the free event and find out more about the course at redschoolmenopause.comIn today’s bonus episode, we’re exploring the immense capacities that open up to us as we move through menopause, and Alexandra is your host. Her guest is Prune Harris, an energy expert, a consciousness educator, and soul activist, who has trained with healers, elders, and wisdom holders throughout the world. Prune shares her personal experience of navigating the great threshold of menopause, and how it can collectively awaken a new, immense capacity to reclaim our deep worth as human beings, beyond concepts of gender and status, but as a lifeforce that is part of the great web of life. They explore:The different cycles that Prune is tracking now post-menopause, and how our life force moves into different expressions of wisdom once we’re no longer being held in monthly cycles. Menopause as an identity death process which brings us face to face with our inner soothsayer, to hear deep truths about ourselves, our relationships and the world, so we can choose the new identities we want to embody in our third act. How menopause is helping to meet the modern day crisis of separation and call us home to our essential place of belonging, so we can radiate it into our lives and into the world. ---Register for our free three-day menopause event: How Menopause Awakens Your Power on October 21st-23rd---The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net---Social media:Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.schoolSophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardyPrune Harris: @pruneharris - https://www.instagram.com/pruneharris

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 31st - you can register for the free event and find out more about the course at redschoolmenopause.comToday’s bonus episode is a replay of my conversation with the brilliant writer, psychologist and mythologist, Dr Sharon Blackie called The Myth, Magic and Metamorphosis of Menopause.When you explore old European myths, it’s the elder women and grandmothers who run the world. In Greek mythology, there are the Fates - three elder women who make the world go round. In Easterm European mythology, the crone Baba Yaga initiates young people and facilitates transformation. In ancient Gallic mythology it is the Cailleach who created and shaped the land, from the beginning of time. In today’s episode Sharon explores the gold that these myths and archetypes hold for us as we navigate the shape-shifting crucible of menopause and enter the second half of our lives as elders.We explore:The Greek myth of the ‘Furies’, the sacred role of their rage, and the necessity of the comparable anger many of us feel in menopause.Why our world doesn’t allow us the time to ‘do menopause properly’ and the impact this has for us on a soul level. The Jungian archetype of the ‘Medial Woman’ who doesn’t define herself according to anyone else, is whole unto herself, and chooses to dive deeply into the mystery of the world.---Register for our free three-day menopause event: How Menopause Awakens Your Power on October 21st-23rd---The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net---Social media:Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.schoolSophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardyDr Sharon Blackie: @sharonblackiemythmakings - https://www.instagram.com/sharonblackiemythmakings

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 - you can register for the free event and find out more about the course at redschoolmenopause.comToday’s bonus episode is a replay of Jane Hardwicke Collings’ conversation with Alexandra for the Wise Power Series, and it’s called - The Transformation of Menopause: Stepping into our Responsibility to Life. Jane is a teacher, author, former homebirth midwife and creator of the School of Shamanic Womancraft, and in the conversation she shares how she prepared for menopause, the gifts it gave her of intuition, vision, confidence and courage, and the new responsibility she feels post-menopause - to be the archetypal grandmother stepping into her power and using it for the good of all, and the earth.We explore:How menopause is the most transformational process we can experience. Jane shares all it required from her; the presence, the energy, the leaning in, the stamina, the self care, as well as the size and magnitude of the transformation, hormonally, physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually.How to take care of yourself through menopause; including strength training, reducing stress, reducing alcohol, learning nervous system regulation practices, and paying real attention to your mind chatterHow Jane’s intuition was enhanced by menopause, awakening a new visionary capacity and skill in receiving downloads of information.---Register for our free three-day menopause event: How Menopause Awakens Your Power on October 21st-23rd---The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net---Social media:Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.schoolSophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardyJane Hardwicke Collings: @janehardwickecollings - https://www.instagram.com/janehardwickecollings

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 professionals who have elevated and changed the field on a global scale. Today we chat about her most recent book - Rest is Sacred, and Octavia shares her personal, extreme journey to claiming her sacred rest, which included overworking and exhaustion to the point of hospitalisation. She describes what her mother taught her about how to carve out space for rest as a single mum in the rural south of the USA, and the profound reclamation of energy she’s experiencing now in her journey towards menopause, reclaiming the rest that her ancestors were not safe to take. We explore:Rest as a refuge when we’re grieving the loss of people we love, and Octavia’s Yoga Nidra rest story after the loss of her mother. The power of “closing our eyes to see” as a direct line to knowing our innate worth.The wisdom of the earth that is revealed in winter, and how the most transformational movements of now and the future will be sustained by the pause, and by people who are resourced by rest.  ---Receive our free video training: Love Your Cycle, Discover the Power of Menstrual Cycle Awareness to Revolutionise Your Life - www.redschool.net/love---The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net---Social media:Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.schoolSophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardyOctavia Raheem: @octaviaraheem - https://www.instagram.com/octaviaraheem

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 exploring how cycle awareness can create a ground of connection to ourselves and our sense of agency and power in challenging times. They also illuminate menstrual cycle awareness as a cyclical, soulful leadership model which can help you step more fully into your leadership and live into your unique way to contribute to the future you long for. Through teachings and stories from the Red School community, Alexandra and Sjanie share about the power of the daily cycle check-in as a fundamental leadership practice, the cycle as a living rhythm of rest, renewal, energy, and release, and how the power of the second half of the cycle invites you to trust your inner voice over the noise of the outside world.We explore:Menstrual rest and connection as the ground of our Feminine leadership, where we can reconnect with our purpose and our innate goodness.Menstrual cycle awareness connects you to a kind of power that is sourced in the Feminine. How the cycle guides us home to what we were made for - to our calling and the deep meaning at work in our lives. ---Receive our free video training: Love Your Cycle, Discover the Power of Menstrual Cycle Awareness to Revolutionise Your Life - www.redschool.net/love---The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net---Social media:Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.schoolSophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy