The Menstruality Podcast

Today we’re continuing our series about the limits of the four inner seasons of the menstrual cycle, and exploring these limits less as a problem that needs to be fixed, and more as a gateway to accessing the power of each cycle phase. So far we’ve discussed the pre-ovulation and ovulation phases - inner spring and summer - and it’s time for us to get into the premenstrual phase, which is a cycle...

Today we’re talking about the reality of the grittiness of the forties; the physical health challenges, the emotional intensity, the responsibilities, the overwhelm, the stress. And we also explore how the forties are also a meaningful preparation for the great spiritual awakening and initiation of menopause.  Sjanie and Sophie share their personal stories from this life phase, which we call the Q...

Over the past week, I’ve been sitting with women going through or on the other side of menopause hearing their profound insights about the spiritual gifts of their menopause process for our Spiritual Power of Menopause series. And today we’re sharing one of our conversations here on the podcast - with internationally-acclaimed yoga teacher, author, and public speaker, Seane Corn. Seane has been at...

It’s world menopause awareness month and today we’re sharing a conversation that Alexandra and Sjanie had with the brilliant writer, international speaker and transformational coach Bethany Webster a couple of Octobers ago for the Wise Power retreat, all about healing the ‘Motherwound’ in menopause.  At Red School we’re busy preparing our Spiritual Power of Menopause conversation series which is s...

It’s the first day of world menopause month, and we’re continuing to re-write the cultural narrative around menopause, by exploring the connection between psycho-spiritual initiation of menopause and leadership. Especially the kind of emergent, relational, responsive leadership that is needed in our world today.  In Alexandra and Sjanie’s book, Wise Power, they share that menopause is a training g...

Today we’re flipping the script and replaying an interview from a couple of years ago where Sjanie interviewed Sophie about her experience of bringing cycle awareness to the world of business.  When she’s not hosting this podcast, Sophie is a business coach and strategist. She brings two decades of business experience as a Yoga teacher, filmmaker, non-profit communications director and women’s net...

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 l...

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...

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 desc...

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...

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...

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...

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 dre...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 o...

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...

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,...

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’ momen...

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 challen...

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 yea...

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...

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...