The Menstruality Podcast

At Red School our mission is to activate the vitality, creativity and leadership of a million people through the power of menstrual cycle awareness and consciousness menopause. And, this year we want to ignite you to make it your year of cycle awareness. To inspire and uplift and encourage you, today’s conversation is a deep dive into the many layers of this life affirming and life-altering practice. We explore:How to actually live your cycle awareness in a non-cyclical world: how to yield the cycle you have on any given month… how to find creative ways to be true to your experience, and to lead from the wisdom of your cycleA powerful example of this - how Sjanie learned to teach from the void of her cycle, and the powerful impact it had on her leadership.How a commitment to cycle awareness cultivates our capacity to drop our patterns of control and be in intimate relationship with life, so we can grow new muscles of relational, sustainable leadership.—If you feel excited about enhancing your vitality, activating your creativity and deepening your leadership through your menstrual cycle awareness this year, we invite you to join our Wild Power free online retreat Jan 11th - 25th. ---The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net---Social media:Red School: @red.school (https://www.instagram.com/red.school)

In a world where rest is seen as laziness, one of the most radical and daring things we can do is lie down and do nothing. And in doing so, we can wake up and bring to consciousness all that is hidden under our busyness. Our guest today is Karen Brody - a mother, writer and author of the book “Daring To Rest”. She is one of the leaders in this movement to be radically well-rested, through her Daring to Rest Leadership programme, where she teaches Yoga Nidra for the modern world. This conversation explores the quietly transformative healing power that rest brings to our lives.How rest - in a similar way to menstruation - is the anchor that roots us into who we are, opening the door to ‘soul whispers’ which help us access intuitive wisdom and live our Calling. How to take care of our frazzled nervous systems and ‘power down’ into truly nourishing deep rest, through the power of Yoga Nidra.How to dare to rest in a world which perceives rest as lazy, weak and unproductive, especially during the transitional moments in life, such as menstruation, menopause and motherhood.---Registration is open for our 2022 Menstruality Leadership Programme. You can check it out here. https://www.redschool.net/menstruality-leadership-programme-2022---The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net---Social media:Red School: @red.school - https://www.instagram.com/red.schoolKaren Brody: @karen_brody(This is the final episode for season one of the Menstruality podcast. We're taking a week off on December 30th, and we'll be back on January 6th with season two! Thank you for listening this year - we're exciting to share more game-changing Menstruality conversations with you in 2022). 

Today we’re exploring themes that are right at the heart of the emerging menstrality movement; love, belonging and an invitation for each of our experiences to be dignified, and honoured, exactly as we are.  I’m talking with LGBTQ+ inclusion consultant, Adele Bates, whose day job is as an education and behavior specialist - just release her first book “Miss I don’t give a sh*t: engaging with challenging behaviour within schools” - we’re celebrating you Adele! Adele is a graduate of our Menstruality Leadership Programme and has been a profound resource as an LGBTQ+ educator in the Red School community. Today we ask how we can move towards more genuine inclusion in our work as Menstruality pioneers, looking at the questions such as:- How is menstrual cycle awareness different when you’re in a same sex relationship?- How can we ensure that non-binary or gender fluid people and trans men feel safe, honoured and a sense of belonging in menstruality work?- How might a trans woman experience menstruality?

Are you a menstrualist? Do you want to create a world where we all prioritise the menstrual cycle? Would you like to know how to work with your cycle to enhance your work as a changemaker? Today’s guest is spear-heading the menstrualism movement. Kate Shepherd Cohen is a menstrual health pioneer, an author, activist, climate campaigner and CEO of a health tech start up. Since graduating from the Red School Menstruality Leadership Programme, she’s revolutionising menstrual healthcare in the UK, and is the first person in the world to offer a Menstrual Cycle Support programme on social prescription through the NHS.Our conversation moves from the practical details of how to create change as a menstrual health advocate, to the visionary exploration of menstrual dreaming as a key tool for all social and environmental change work. We explore:Kate’s recent TEDx talk: “Period Problems - and Why There Is Hope”. What a menstrualist is, why menstrualism is the most important movement of the 21st century, and how we can move through menstrual shame to claim our place in this social and cultural movement (whether we cycle or not). Why menstrual rest is the foundation for any menstruator wanting to birth meaningful change, and how on earth to get it, as well as how we can practice menstrual dreaming to receive visions that guide and inform our work. ---Registration is open for our 2022 Menstruality Leadership Programme. You can check it out here. https://www.redschool.net/menstruality-leadership-programme-2022---The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net---Social media:Red School: @red.school (https://www.instagram.com/red.school)Kate Shepherd Cohen: @kateshepherdcohen

This week we meet The Period Poet herself, Nikki Tajiri who is the author of “She Dreams When She Bleeds” which weaves original menstrual art with cycle-inspired, rebellious poetry and has reached women and menstruators all over the world, as well as Murmur, rumble, roar, an emotional exploration of the space where climate change meets inner transformation.Nikki gracefully translates her intimate cycle awareness into artistic expression, and this episode is a soothing, gentle, lyrical exploration of how we can each express the magic of our cycles and activate our creativity, in our own unique way. Through the lens of her poems and her creative process, we explore:How to follow the creative impulses that arise from the menstrual cycle, even when our inner critic tells us they’re crazy. Why our world needs artists and creatives who dare to channel the fierce, truth-telling energy of inner autumn.Why embracing the life-affirming rhythm and flow of our cyclical nature is so critical to solving the environmental crises we face.---Registration is open for our 2022 Menstruality Leadership Programme. You can check it out here: https://www.redschool.net/menstruality-leadership-programme-2022---The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net---Social media:Red School: @red.school (https://www.instagram.com/red.school)Nikki Tajiri: @nikki.tajiri

The inner seasons of the menstrual cycle are often mirrored in pregnancy, and in this episode with doula and Red School Leadership Mentor Jady Mountjoy, we walk through the three trimesters of pregnancy, learning how to harvest your cycle awareness experience to hold yourself through all the huge changes happening in your body and psyche. Drawing on her experience of guiding pregnant and birthing people over decades, Jady shares how cycle awareness prepares you for the initiation of pregnancy and birth, how the deep intelligence of the trimesters builds the skill base we’ll need for parenthood, and how to move from your forebrain to your more primitive, instinctive brain as the energy of birth begins to court you. We explore:The medicine of the first trimester and how to create a soothing cocoon - even with physical symptoms - slow your life down, and tend to your needs in the vulnerability of the initial phases of pregnancy. The ‘blossoming’ that can arise in the second trimester and how it correlates to inner summer, creating a kind of anchoring, and guiding us into a journey of allegiance to ourselves.How the ‘descent’ of the third trimester can mirror the inner autumn, inviting us soften into the energy of birth, and start to allow ourselves to be beautifully dismantled in preparation for the surrender of labour. ---Jady is one of the Red School Leadership mentors who guides participants through our Menstruality Leadership Programme. Registration is open for our 2022 cycle and you can check it out here: https://www.redschool.net/menstruality-leadership-programme-2022---The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net---Social media:Red School: @red.school (https://www.instagram.com/red.school)

Alexandra and Sjanie take us behind the scenes of their menopause book writing process to explore how menstrual cycle awareness can help each of us cultivate intimate connection to our own unique creative process, whether you’re bringing your creativity to work, art, healing, parenting, nurturing, activism or any other form of expression. They share how they’ve each been tutored by their cycles as well as Alexandra’s menopause process to navigate a wide array of creative challenges, harness the powers of each cycle phase and fully express their Calling.We explore:How to manage the inner critic - especially when it hijacks the early phases of a creative project - avoid the trap of procrastination and heal the layers of shame that can block our creativity.How to harvest the innocence, playfulness and improvisational strengths of inner spring (pre-ovulation) to trick yourself into creative expression, swim in the unknown and bring brand new ideas into the world.How to honour the energy of inner autumn (pre-menstruum) to polish the rough diamond of your work through constructive critical feedback, and get to the essence of what you’re trying to express in the most potent way.---Registration is open for our 2022 Menstruality Leadership Programme. You can check it out here: https://www.redschool.net/menstruality-leadership-programme-2022---The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net---Social media:Red School: @red.school - https://www.instagram.com/red.school

Towards the middle of 2020, Cycle Alignment Guide, Vianney Leigh saw the extent of the burnout in her community, and decided to take action. In the weeks following the Black Lives Matter uprising, she used her own cycle awareness practice to create Period Power Activism, a coaching program that supports advocates and activists to align with the cycle and create sustainable change whilst making room for rest and sustained energy levels.We celebrate the many passionate activists in our community. Whether you’re working to dismantle systemic racism, make the Menstruality field more LGBTQ+ inclusive, decolonise yoga, end period poverty or fight for climate justice, we hope these groundbreaking teachings about cycles and activism support you to speak truth and stand for your values without burning out. We explore:How each inner season of the menstrual cycle can support sustainable activism, help you manage burnout, guilt and anxiety, cultivate more confidence and receive more cyclical wisdom and inner guidance. How Vianney harnessed her creative inspiration and natural capacity to connect with her audience in her inner summer, as well as the potent focus and instinctive impulses of inner autumn to craft her Period Power Activism course. The Black menstrual health crisis, Black maternal health crisis and Black mental health crisis and the extent of the social justice work that is needed.… but first Vianney began by generously and vulnerably sharing her story of working with a PMDD diagnosis and how her cycle initiated a profound spiritual awakening for her. ---Registration is open for our 2022 Menstruality Leadership Programme. You can check it out here: https://www.redschool.net/menstruality-leadership-programme-2022---The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net---Social media:Red School: @red.school (https://www.instagram.com/red.school)Vianney Leigh: @statusflow.com (https://www.instagram.com/statusflow.co)

Menstrual Cycle Awareness (MCA) is life and world-changing for everyone, whether you have a cycle or not. In today's episode, we explore this with Dominick Quartuccio and Bryan Stacey, the hosts of The Great Man Within podcast. They’re a breath of fresh air in a world which can feel full of toxic masculinity. Brave and vulnerable in their desire to break new ground for men and masculinity, they’ve interviewed Red School’s co-founders Alexandra and Sjanie not once, but TWICE. The first interview “A Man’s Guide to the Menstrual Cycle", has since become their most downloaded episode ever! We explore:Innovative, sensitive, simple ways to introduce cycle awareness to your male partner, colleagues, family members or friends, and how to enlist their support to ‘drop your bundle’ in inner winter (menstruation) by giving them a way to ‘be a hero’. How cycle awareness provides a ‘surfboard’ to ride the relationship waves that can happen in inner autumn (premenstruum), and how to bring your truth-speaker in a way that can actually be received.How to have period sex with a male partner, to move through taboos around blood, and cultivate sexual intimacy during menstruation so you can enter the “Holy Grail” together. ---Registration is open for our 2022 Menstruality Leadership Programme. You can check it out here. (https://www.redschool.net/menstruality-leadership-programme-2022)---The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net---Social media:Red School: @red.schoolDominick Quartuccio: @dominickq

Period Coach, Claire Baker has built a wildly successful, impactful, vision-led business as an author, teacher and leader in the menstruality field. In this episode we go behind the scenes of her business, exploring how she works with the superpowers and vulnerabilities of her menstrual cycle to create potent programmes, manage her team skillfully, lead with integrity and find the pleasure in her creative process.We explore:How Claire rides off the momentum of inner spring, paces her workflow to protect her vulnerable new ideas, and invites her playful, innocent maiden self to explore and experiment.The natural magnetism of inner summer, and how to harness our capacity to be seen in this phase to create connections, nurture relationships and express ourselves with confidence. How Claire manages her inner critic and imposter syndrome in inner autumn, uses the power of discernment to evaluate and wrap up her work and crafts space to be in her creative cave. Practical guidance to create space for visioning in inner winter, to receive insights, be your own ‘oracle’ and clarify the most potent next steps for your work.  ---Registration is open for our 2022 Menstruality Leadership Programme. You can check it out here. (https://www.redschool.net/menstruality-leadership-programme-2022)---The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net---Social media:Red School: @red.school (https://www.instagram.com/red.school)Claire Baker: @_clairebaker_