My guest today is one of many people who felt like she was losing her mind as she entered menopause. Dr. Arianna Sholes-Douglas is an integrative healthcare practitioner and visionary in the field of women’s health. She has practiced medicine for three decades and is the author of  The Menopause Myth: What Your Mother, Doctor, and Friends Haven’t Told You about Life after 35The menopause was intense for her, and inspired her to reassess everything in her life, including her long career in medicine, eventually making the decision to transform her work life and start a practice supporting women in menopause with an integrative, holistic approach.In our conversation:- We walk through Dr Arianna's 'signs you’re healing in menopause' and how they showed up for her personally, including the patterns that she broke through menopause, how to find our way to self forgiveness, and how to set boundaries.- How our brain chemistry changes in menopause and how this is reflected in the shift from people pleasing to ‘what do I need?’.- Dr Arianna's 'Jewels for the Journey' and the sacred role of menopause in our lives. ---Join us for a free webinar on October 18th: How Menopause Awakens Your Power - www.redschoolmenopause.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

There's lots of confusion about how to define menopause and the years running up to it, making it difficult for people to clarify where they're at in their menopause process.At Red School, we stand for a reclamation of our cyclical experience in a world which denies and demonises our cyclicity. We see this menopause confusion as a symptom of the way we have been shut out of our true experience as cyclical beings. In order for us to reclaim the place we’re in, both in our menstrual cycles and the larger cycles of our lives, we need to be able to feel, name and claim our own experience, as well as having a dignified and meaningful context for it.So, in today’s episode Alexandra and Sjanie walk through the Red School way of contextualising menopause, through the lens of the seasons of your menstruating years—including the autumn of your menstruating years (‘The Quickening’), the Menopause Hinterland in the approach to menopause, and the long inner winter of the five phases of the spiritual initiation of menopause.We explore:Some of the signs that you’ve arrived in menopause - including the increasing feeling that you’re living in a parallel universe!A different way to understand the cycle disturbances that can happen in our 40s - which many refer to as perimenopause (which itself has multiple definitions, depending on who you’re speaking to). How to navigate the tricky period when your cycles are unpredictable or breaking up - the menopause ‘hinterland’ - before you enter fully into the menopause initiatory journey, which has its own order or holding. ---Join us on Instagram for 13 days of Menopause Power, starting Oct 5th  - https://www.instagram.com/red.school---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

Those of us who are passionate about the power of menstrual cycle awareness can feel a little  crazy in our world. Not only does our culture overlook the power of the menstrual cycle, but it continues to perpetuate an atmosphere of shame around all things menstrual. That’s why I love meeting women like Jasmine Alicia Carter. Jasmine is a Menstrual Artist and Feminine Empowerment Mentor. She’s been painting with her period blood since 2016. It’s become a sacred art and ritual that has changed her life and the lives of thousands of women across the globe, through the budding Menstrual Art Movement!In our conversation we explore:How Jasmine paints with her blood, and the healing, de-shaming power of working creatively with your blood.What happened when Jasmine’s menstrual art went viral via an article in the daily mail - how she transformed the hate she received into fuel for her practice. The ripple effect of her menstrual art, for her son, partner, family and the wider community gathering around the menstrual art movement. ---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.hardyJasmine Alicia Carter: @jasminealiciacarter - https://www.instagram.com/jasminealiciacarter

When Lucy Pearce published her book about the power of the menstrual cycle, Moon Time: Harness the ever-changing energy of your menstrual cycle 11 years ago, she was one of very few people talking about periods, and it was one of the first books in print to speak about the Red Tent movement. Over the past decade her loyalty to her cycle has helped her as a multi-passionate creatrix to write twelve books, found Womancraft - a paradigm-shifting publishing house, edit and publish over 50 books, teach courses, create beautiful art and parent three children.Five years ago she received an autism diagnosis, and in our conversation today we explore how this had helped her to understand herself far better, have tools to care for herself and manage her life as a cycle-aware creative in an all-too-linear world.We explore:How to process a neurodivergence diagnosis, renegotiate your life and relationships and create a protective bubble to safeguard yourself.How Lucy navigated years of crippling shame which shut down her creativity entirely, by saying yes to her creative expression in small ways.The truth that real creativity happens outside of our comfort zones, and how we can lean into the stretch to meet what is truly authentic, and unearth that which has been shut down within each of us. ---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.schoolLucy Pearce: @lucyhpearce - https://www.instagram.com/lucyhpearce Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy

Today I’m speaking with someone who knows in a very embodied way how to ride the creative waves of cyclical living… mainly because she knows how to ride actual ocean waves, and in some cases we’re talking 30 foot waves. Easkey Britton spearheaded women’s big-wave surfing in Ireland and is a five time national champion surfer as well as being a marine scientist, holding a Doctorate in Environment and Society and an activist - she was named an ‘Agent of Change’ by Surfer magazine. She’s the author of two beautiful books about our interconnection with water, Saltwater in the Blood and Ebb and Flow. She was writing her first book when she joined Alexandra and Sjanie for the Menstruality Leadership Programme and it is woven throughout with celebration of her own bodily cycles.We explore how water supports Easkey through the cyclicality of her creative process including, The importance of honouring the ebb, the out-breath, the inner winter. She interviews indigenous wisdom keepers throughout the book, and here she shares Lakota skier and activist Connor Ryan’s teachings about how it’s the ebb that allows us to tap into a state of flow.How the cycles of water in our world can anchor us in the natural cyclical wisdom that has been at pay since the beginning of life on earth. The water you drink today has always been present - it may have been drunk by a tyrannosaurus rex!What Easkey’s cycle has taught her about how to hold the tension as she wrote her second book, and how surfing in the ocean has helped her to trust the creative power of showing up, and being present. ---Join our new Your Creative Power online course. We start on September 21st:  www.redschool.net/creativity---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.hardyEaskey Britton: @easkeysurf - https://www.instagram.com/easkeysurf

Today on the podcast we’re chatting about a tried-and tested antidote to the biggest creative challenge most of us face, a challenge which came through in dozens of versions of this question in our inbox during our summer creativity series…How can I make space for my creative expression when there’s so much else going on in my life?Do you relate? Perhaps you find yourself making exciting creative plans, only to get caught up in the flurry of day-to-day life and never really get started? Maybe you are wary of diving fully into a creative project—amidst everything else you’re caring for in your life—out of fear that you’ll burn out (again)? Today’s podcast explores the deep, underground magic of cycle awareness, and how it helps us to understand everything we experience in our lives as part of the biggest creative act of all—being an ever-evolving human in an often-challenging world. We explore:The incredibly creative shift that happens when we dare to trust that everything in our life has meaning - even the things that feel that they’re getting in the way (the job, the caring role, the responsibilities etc)How cycle awareness grounds us in who we truly are, which helps us develop new emotional skills, inner discipline and physiological muscle for all the creative projects that will call us in the future. What Sjanie has learned from her many careers; from working in a potato factory to being a graphic designer, to being a hypnotherapist focused on fertility, to growing Red School.---Join our new Your Creative Power online course and save £100 before Sep 10th: www.redschool.net/creativity---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

What to do when you find yourself in a creative void, either because life has thrown you a curve ball, or you find yourself feeling totally uninspired? Our cycles teach us to trust the fallow times, but that’s a tall order in a world that celebrates productivity above all else. Our guest today is author, Rebecca Campbell and she’s a great person to have this conversation for many reasons, but especially because she’s personally navigated many periods of creative void in order to bring forth creations which have touched the lives of 100s of 1000s of people, including several books, courses, a new podcast and a mystery school.The deeper reason for the richness of this conversation is that Rebecca is a being who fully embraces the mystery. She defines herself as a mystic, and her calling is to weave the sacred back into everyday life. We explore: Why it’s ok to suck at the beginning of any creative process, and how staying safe is an antidote to creativity. How to hold ourselves through big creative leaps, like leaving your job, or starting something brand new.The journaling process that helps Rebecca move through imposter syndrome, and how trusting the mystery helps us to find the courage to share our voice.---Join our new Your Creative Power online course and save £100 before Sep 10th: www.redschool.net/creativity ---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

As cycle-aware leaders, nurturers and creatives we have a unique opportunity at our fingertips. We have access to an amazing inner technology for managing our inner critic. (You know…  that ever-present and frankly infuriating voice inside that likes to remind you that you’re not good enough, that freezes you into analysis paralysis, and that shames you into playing small.) In today’s podcast we explore how to restore this inner critic to its natural home in the cycle - the pre-menstruum - and work to put boundaries in place to contain it. Because, when it’s in its rightful place, the inner critic can actually become a creative ally. We explore:The truth that your critic will never become your best friend. It absolutely won’t! But it can become a life-bringing force, when you know how to relate to it. How to navigate the tricky terrain of your inner critic, and offer some guidelines for putting it back in its natural place, so you can experience its sacred role in your creative process. Our upcoming Inner Critic workshop on September 14th: Your Inner Critic: Your Gateway to Your Creativity where we will learn how to relate to it in a more generative way, and liberate our creative energy. ---The doors are now open for our Your Creative Power course, starting in September. You can find out more and take your seat here: www.redschool.net/creativity---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 we’re talking about womb healing and leadership with Tumelo Moreri who is a Spiritual Healer, Womb Medicine Woman and Embodied Leadership Guide based in Botswana. Her work is anchored in her training in leadership and integrative coaching as well as African Spirituality.It’s a far-reaching conversation, rich in story and sprinkled all throughout with embodied feminine wisdom. We explore:How to follow your Calling, even when everything around you seems to be collapsing, and nobody around you seems to understand (and how your womb can guide you when you’re being cracked open). How connecting with your ancestors - an important part of Tumelo’s womb healing approach - can serve as an antidote to imposter syndrome (and how cycle awareness amplifies this)Our wombs as a gateway to the mother, the mystery our own unique medicine and how we can each work to ‘partner with our wombs’ as leaders. ---The doors are now open for our Your Creative Power course, starting in September. You can find out more and take your seat here: www.redschool.net/creativity---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.hardyTumelo Moreri: @tumelomoreri - https://www.instagram.com/tumelomoreri/

Today we’re picking up an important thread we’ve been weaving through the podcast since the beginning - Queer menstruality.I'm back with Red School Leadership Mentor, Abi Denyer-Bewick and this time we're in conversation with the brilliant Lottie Randomly who graduated from the Red School Menstruality Leadership Programme in 2012.Lottie is a facilitator, educator, activist, writer and mentor with a background in mental health work and resilience building. They’re also a ceremonialist, with a special interest in funerals, and they’re especially drawn to the inner landscapes that people often fear passing through, such as menstruation and menopause as well as death and grief.In our conversation to day we’re looking to expand the concepts around menstruality to include all people who menstruate - as well as people who don’t - all in the name of belonging, which is at the heart of this work. We explore:- How the practice of menstrual cycle awareness naturally brings up questions and personal exploration around the identities we hold. - How to expand the conversation around menstruality expands to include the experiences of all people with menstrual cycles, including non-binary and gender-expansive folks.- “Menstrunormativity” and the harmful impacts around the unsaid assumptions about the menstrual cycle and menopause.---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.hardyAbi Denyer Bewick @abi.denyer.bewick - https://www.instagram.com/abi.denyer.bewick/Lottie Randomly: @lottie.randomly - https://www.instagram.com/lottie.randomly/