The Menstruality Podcast

What causes menstrual pain? Why do periods go missing? Why do we get PMS and how can we treat it naturally? What is happening in our bodies when we're on the pill? What is a good alternative to the pill? We hear questions like these all the time from our community, and in today’s episode we’re talking with a great ally of Red School, Dr Lara Briden who answers all of these questions and more. The conversation is an amazing resource, and one that we hope you’ll share with your friends who may be experiencing challenges in these areas.Our guest, Dr Lara Briden is the author of the Period Repair Manual: Natural Treatment for Better Hormones and Better Periods. She’s also the author of a second book - the Hormone Repair Manual: Every Woman’s Guide to Healthy Hormones after 40. She has treated 1000s of women with menstrual health symptoms, and has a wealth of wisdom and experience as well as an amazing capacity to make complex health topics and challenges seem simple. We explore:Why ovulation is so important, the common false narrative that the pill can regulate the cycle, and Lara’s five favourite alternative forms of contraception.Lara’s lifestyle and diet approaches for menstrual pain - they have supported 60-70% of her patients to relieve their pain. (And when to know if you could be dealing with endometriosis).Underlying health factors that can cause PMS, and how to make it a thing of the past through natural approaches.---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.hardyLara Briden: @larabriden (https://www.instagram.com/larabriden)

Around 20 years ago, in London, Sjanie was living her life with great abandon. Bold, confident and out there…she was invulnerable.But she had no menstrual cycle - she had been on the contraceptive injection for seven years.It was only when she started to have intense pain after orgasm that she suddenly sensed something was missing and that she needed to get her cycle back… and today we hear the amazing story of what happened once her cycles returned.We also hear the full story of how the menstrual cycle also changed everything for Alexandra, including her long journey to heal debilitating menstrual pain, and the immense gifts she received along the way, by surrendering to the power of menstruation. We explore:What Sjanie’s mentor Maggie meant when she said that Sjanie was living life with her gloves on?!What happened when Alexandra’s partner held her through the worst of her pain, even as she was cursing the patriarchy.And how the intimacy with the menstrual cycle awakened a profound sense of purpose for both Alexandra & Sjanie.---Join our Cyclical Wisdom Quest - Feb 20th - 22nd: www.redschool.net/quest---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

Today's episode is for you if you’re curious about how to maintain healthy boundaries when you are working to create change for a cause that you deeply care about. It’s especially for you if you self-identify as a highly sensitive person. Many people come to cycle awareness because they are feeling burnt out from a system that pushes them beyond their natural limits. Our guest today, Dorcas Cheng-Tozen is someone who knows burnout intimately, and - luckily for us - has devoted herself to a study of how we sensitives can find our way to contribute to creating a more just and beautiful world, which doesn’t break us in the process. Dorcas Cheng-Tozen is an award-winning writer, editor, speaker, and communications consultant whose work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal and today we’re diving into her brilliant new book: Social Justice for the Sensitive Soul: How to Change the World in Quiet Ways.We explore:The "Activist Ideal" and the peer pressure that exists within activist circles to be ‘on’ all the time, willing to sacrifice mind, body and soul on the altar of the cause. A wide variety of activist approaches and roles for sensitive, introverted empaths; including research, art as activism, record-keepers, builders, and what Dorcas calls relational activism.The ‘seasons of activism’ and how to find your own natural ebb and flow as you work to increase the love, compassion and justice in the world. ---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.hardyDorcas Cheng-Tozen: @chengtozen - https://www.instagram.com/chengtozun/

From finding oneself again through perimenopause, to helping to move through depression, to transforming communication with loved ones, today we’re exploring real life stories of how menstrual cycle awareness has changed the lives of our listeners. We explore:How discovering cycle awareness supported Melanie to move through a bout of severe depression to a sense of deep alignment with her true self.Erin’s journey from feeling lost in perimenopause to returning home to herself, making sense of the process and finding grounded clarity.How cycle awareness has brought Rebecca back into a sense of belonging to the earth, and it was such a life-changing realization (and a gift) that she’s made it her life's work.---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

It walks us home to our own natural rhythms. It keeps us close to what truly matters to us. It’s a innate self esteem builder. It even prepares us for menopause…Menstrual (and lunar) cycle awareness are a huge game-changer, and powerful spiritual practices for our wild times. But the truth is that most of us live in cultures that value productivity over rest and profit over health - so we all need inspiration to stay committed to our personal cyclical rebellion. That’s why today’s Menstruality Podcast episode is devoted to all the ways that menstrual cycle awareness can transform our lives. (And ok, we may not have quite reached 100, but we easily could have given a couple more hours!) We explore:How cycle awareness helps us to pace our our bodies, energies and unique nervous systems, rather than allowing the culture around us to dictate who we have to be. When we lean into our own cyclical experience we help to deshame the menstrual cycle and menopause, and instead dignify and honour them as powerful sources of wisdom.  Cycle awareness as a foundational wellness practice, bringing soothing and ease, and helping us clarify and hold our boundaries.---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

Welcome to the final episode in our Wild Power Bonus series - today we're creating a new life-affirming menstrual story. It’s time now for each of us to fully reclaim the power of our menstrual cycle. To do that we have to get smart in a world that doesn’t yet recognise or celebrate it. In this episode we share some of our key Red School cycle savvy tips and strategies for restoring the cycle’s wisdom and creating a new life affirming menstrual story.In this episode you will:- Get to know your four undercover agents for a cycle savvy life- Learn practical ways to create a cycle centred life- Hear us talk about the crucialness of women and all people who menstruate gathering together to change the world.---Registration is now open for our 2024 Menstruality Leadership Programme. You can explore the curriculum here: https://www.menstrualityleadership.com---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, Lazola MaDuka lives a homesteading life on a biodynamic farm amongst giant mountains and trees in South Africa. Her life is utterly wedded to the land, the weather and the seasons - her land tells her what it needs and when. Lazola is also a Period + Menstrual Cycle Embodiment Coach, a Red Tent Facilitator and a certified Menstruality Mentor  - she’s a graduate of the Red School Menstruality Leadership Programme. So, in our conversation today, she connects the dots between her relationship to the seasonal landscape around her, and her relationship to the cyclical landscape within her own body. Along the way she illuminates how menstrual cycle awareness can be a pathway home to our body’s ever-changing needs, as well as to creating sustainable ways of living personally and collectively on our earth. We explore:What the soil and compost has taught Lazola about the power of inner winter and how to claim rest as a natural birthright.  How cultivating more intimacy with both our inner seasons and the seasons in nature around us creates a vivid sense of belonging (and what Lazola’s baboon neighbours have taught her about belonging together!). Lazola’s vision for how the practice of cycle awareness could transform the way we live on earth. ---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.hardyLazola MaDuka: @wombflow_ - https://www.instagram.com/wombflow_

Welcome to our penultimate Wild Power conversation series. These ‘round-the-kitchen-table’ chats with Alexandra and Sjanie were first released when we published Wild Power: Discover the Magic of the Menstrual Cycle and Awaken the Feminine Path to Power. They unpack the book’s teachings through powerful, practical and funny real-life stories and examples. Episode seven is about how to enter what we call the ‘Temple’ of Menstruation. Inside each of us lies a hidden ‘temple’, a place of bliss, love and deep belonging and today we reveal how your menstrual cycle prepares you to enter this ‘temple’ each month at menstruation.In this episode you’ll:Discover how you’re wired for bliss, love and ecstasy when you bleedLearn how your menstrual cycle prepares you enter your inner temple at menstruationWhat you can do to get a full blast of this blessing---Registration is now open for our 2024 Menstruality Leadership Programme. You can explore the curriculum here: https://www.menstrualityleadership.com---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 Kimberly Ann Johnson, who has been working hands on in integrative women’s health and trauma recovery for a decade with 1000s of women, as a Somatic Experiencing™ Practitioner, sexological body worker, educator, and author. She’s the author of many books including The Call of The Wild, and her work has been featured in the NY Times, Forbes and Vogue. She’s a sought-after teacher it feels like an extra special treat that she opened up and shared generously about her journey to understand the impact of her own trauma experiences in her body. We explore the teachings of Call of the Wild book, about what we can all learn about the healthy predator expression of the jaguar in the journey to heal trauma. As Kimberley says on her website, “if you can learn to speak your body’s language, and transmute trauma into positive, reparative experiences in the present, if you can make the shift into acting from a stance of your deepest, truest self … everything changes.”We explore:Kimberley’s menstrual cycle journey in the years running up to menopause; how she has navigated her symptoms and what the journey has taught her about resting, movement and how to tend to herself at this phase of life. .How having a baby and navigating the post-partum period transformed her life. Kimberly’s fresh approach to nervous system repair, and how women can learn to step out of the prey role that we are conditioned into - and which puts us in a default fawn, freeze or flee nervous system response - and awaken their inner healthy predator.---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

Welcome to our sixth Wild Power conversation. These ‘round-the-kitchen-table’ chats with Alexandra and Sjanie were first released in 2017 when we published Wild Power: Discover the Magic of the Menstrual Cycle and Awaken the Feminine Path to Power. They unpack the book’s teachings through powerful, practical and funny real-life stories and examples. Episode six is all about the  inner seasons of your menstrual cycle - where the initiatory action takes place. We call it the workhorse of your journey to come home to your Wild Power. In this episode you’ll:- Learn about the inner seasons of your cycle and the natural powers they hold- How to get into gear with them to capitalise on those powers- And how awareness of the inner seasons can reveal your strengths and vulnerabilities---Registration is now open for our 2024 Menstruality Leadership Programme. You can explore the curriculum here: https://www.menstrualityleadership.com---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