The Menstruality Podcast

Red School
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  • ALTERNATIVE HEALTH
  • UPDATED WEEKLY

How can menstrual cycle awareness and conscious menopause enhance your health, creativity and leadership? That's the question we'll explore together in the Menstruality Podcast, brought to you by Red School, where we’re training the menstruality leaders of the future. Your host, Sophie Jane Hardy will be joined often by Red School’s founders, Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer, as well as pioneering thought leaders, troublemakers and culture-shifters to discover how you can unashamedly claim the power of the menstrual cycle to activate your unique form of leadership; for yourself, your community, and the world.

  1. 5 FEB

    227. The Connection Between Breathwork and Your Menstrual Cycle (Harriette Wight)

    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 and cycle awareness changed everything for her.  Breathwork, as Harriette defines it, is the practice of using the breath to consciously change how we feel physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. And today in our conversation we explore the ancient roots of breathwork and the modern day expression, and why it is such a powerful tool for health and wellbeing, particularly when it’s used in combination with menstrual cycle awareness.  Harriette is a graduate of Red School’s Menstruality Leadership Programme, and through her own intimacy with her cycle, she’s created a body of work designed around specific breathwork practices to support each of the inner seasons of the menstrual cycle. In our chat today, she shares her MLP experience including how it changed how she sees herself, how she wants to show up in the world, and how she delivers her work.  We explore: How the inhale and exhale correspond to the two movements of energy within the menstrual cycle, which Alexandra and Sjanie have named: the via positiva and the via negativa. Simple breathwork practices to support you to rest when you bleed, manage the rising energy in your inner spring, to help you feel confident in your inner summerA ‘recovery breath’ practice to manage premenstrual emotional reactivity.--- 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.school Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy Harriette Wight: @yourfriendlybreathingcoach - https://www.instagram.com/yourfriendlybreathingcoach/

    58 min

  2. 22 JAN

    226. The Power of No: Menstrual Cycle Awareness and Boundaries (Alexandra & Sjanie)

    One of the most beautiful and practical gifts of menstrual cycle awareness is how it awakens a newfound capacity to know and assert our boundaries.  As we track our shifting emotions, mental state and energy levels through the cycle month, we get to know our unique strengths and our limits. This helps to build confidence in ourselves and our nature, so that when we become aware of a boundary that has been crossed, we’re more able to find a skillful way to use the power of NO.  So today we’re exploring the power of menstrual cycle awareness for setting boundaries, especially when you’re highly sensitive, in the premenstrual phase of your cycle, and in the years running up to and during menopause, and how this is potentially a life-changing and even world-changing act. We explore: How to work with the inner critic voice that invariably wakes up when we decide to claim a boundary and take care of ourselves. How the initiatory times in our menstruality life arc; like matressense, perimenopause, menopause, illness, loss require even stronger boundaries to hold ourselves through liminal times.Why we all need to re-write the story of the emotional messages of inner autumn as boundary signals rather than irrational outbursts.--- 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.school Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy

    1 hr

  3. 8 JAN

    225. The Courage of Genius (and What Your Cycle Has to Do With It) with Alexandra & Sjanie

    To help you ease into 2026 purposefully, we’re talking about how the cycle helps you to live in your zone of genius today, which is to say, how practising menstrual cycle awareness helps you to know your own nature and stay close to what you’re really great at.  We go through the inner seasons of the cycle one by one, sharing how each one can help us to do the courageous, radical act of claiming ourselves and what we love in a world that celebrates constant productivity over joy. We get practical too by sharing a specific zone of genius practice to each cycle phase - enjoy! We explore:  The power of doing absolutely nothing in your inner winter at menstruation, or the dark moon, and how it anchors you into connection to your purpose. Why it’s so vital to have periods of time where you can experiment in inner spring, to be messy with no inner critic allowed. How to work with your premenstrual discerning energy to take stock and to reflect on what is working and what isn't in your life, so you can stay close to yourself and your zone of genius. --- 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.school Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy

    1h 2m

  4. 1 JAN

    224: Choose Your Menstrual Cycle Leadership Power for 2026 (Alexandra & Sjanie)

    Happy New Year! We have a gift for you to help you start your 2026 infused in cyclical wisdom. Everything that Alexandra and Sjanie create at Red School is focused on inspiring us to connect to the power that lives within our cyclical nature, so that we can know and claim our own leadership roles in our lives. So, in service of this, today Alexandra and Sjanie do a power card reading with the Red School power cards, to help you choose a menstrual cycle power to guide your leadership this year. And by leadership they mean what you’re built for, your gift for the world. And as Sjanie says in this conversation - your unique way of leading in your life is sourced in your connection to your menstrual cycle. Alexandra added a beautiful visual, saying that it’s like an umbilical chord to the source of your being, to the mothership of you.  We had so much fun doing this, and our hope is that you feel like we’re all sitting together round the kitchen table playing! There are three cards to choose from… which one will be your menstrual cycle power ally for the year to come?  We explore: How the menstrual cycle helps us to live our own unique leadership (including Sjanie’s latest premenstrual example of how her cycle is helping to grow her up through her journey with self-responsibility). How the menstrual cycle holds us in a sustainable rhythm of self-care, particularly through inviting us to stop and drop our bundles The Red School power cards as a tool for understanding the different menstrual cycle powers that live inside the four inner seasons of the cycle - and you’ll have an opportunity to choose one to guide your year ahead.--- 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.school Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy

    1h 11m

  5. 18/12/2025

    223. How to Work with the Moon as Your Calendar (April McMurtry)

    The moon is a big topic of conversation within the Red School community. Many who aren’t menstruating practice lunar tracking in place of menstrual cycle awareness, and those who have a menstrual cycle often bring moon-inspired questions, such as: ‘should I bleed on the full moon or the new moon?’ And ‘what to do when I’m bleeding but the moon is full and I feel pulled in two directions?’.  So today we’re exploring how cultivating a connection with the moon can support us to enter circular and cyclical time. Our guest today is visual artist and mother April McMurtry. April has been lunar tracking for twelve years, and describes herself as a guide for repairing our relationship with the cyclical nature of time by attuning to the moon. In today’s conversation we explore how following the ebb and flow of the moon can help us to transform our habits of overriding of our cyclical nature, as well as break free from the myth and tyranny of consistency. We explore: April's fascinating response to the question of whether we should bleed on the full moon or the new moon (and it might be different to what you think). How motherhood brought April to burnout, which led her to step back from teaching and lean into the wisdom of the moon as a way to get grounded in rhythms, rest and stillness. The beauty that can be found in darkness, and how the end of all cycles deconstructs, dissolves and empties us out in preparation for the new. --- 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.school Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy April McMurtry: @themoonismycalendar - https://www.instagram.com/themoonismycalendar

    1h 1m

  6. 04/12/2025

    222. Menstrual Cycle Awareness and Trauma Healing (Alexandra & Sjanie)

    When you practice menstrual cycle awareness, you start to feel more connected to yourself. This process of remembering and embodying more of who you truly are means that you may come into contact with parts of yourself that have been disowned, or that you’ve been shamed out of claiming. Our conversation today is especially designed to support you if you’ve been encountering or unearthing memories or experiences related to trauma as you track your emotional, physical and spiritual ebb and flow throughout the cycle month.  Whether you’ve experienced acute trauma, developmental trauma, ancestral trauma or collective trauma caused by sexism, racism, homophobia, ableism and other forms of othering, discrimination or prejudice, Alexandra and Sjanie explore how cycle awareness can create a grounding of presence and self care to support trauma healing, through the lens of Sjanie’s trauma healing journey, as well as stories from the Red School community, We explore: How the dismissal, suppression and denial of the menstrual cycle, and our cyclical nature is a form of subtle gaslighting that in itself is a form of trauma.  Why certain phases of the cycle, such as the premenstrual phase, as well as perimenopause and menopause, open you to your shadow side and your trauma. Some practical steps to get started with working with your cycle to support trauma healing. --- 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.school Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy

    57 min

  7. 20/11/2025

    221. How Cycle Awareness Helps You to Have Difficult Conversations (Sarah Rozenthuler)

    Whether it’s at work, in our relationships, as parents or carers, or in our interaction with our community, life regularly invites us to summon up the courage to have difficult conversations. Today we’re chatting about how cultivating an intimacy with our cyclical nature can support us to show up with skillful expression and heart. Our guest today is Sarah Rozenthuler is a world-renowned speaker, chartered psychologist, leadership coach, and the author of many books, including ‘Now We’re Talking‘. Sarah first discovered menstrual cycle awareness over two decades ago when she read Alexandra’s first book, The Wild Genie about the healing power of menstruation. She shares her journey with irregular menstrual cycles, her experience of running her own business in the world of leadership development as a cyclical being, and how her cycle awareness practice has supported her in some of her recent tough conversations. We explore: How menstrual cycle awareness can help you attune to your inner energetic state, which means you can pick your moment to talk, or stay silent so that conversation flows rather than derails.How the premenstrual phase and menopause helps us to set boundaries effectively in difficult conversations, and the importance of knowing your red lines.Why Sarah feels like she’s driving a Ferrari in the premenstrual phase of her cycle, and what this means for her capacity to have big, meaningful conversation. --- 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.school Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy Sarah Rosenthuler: https://sarahrozenthuler.com/

    1h 3m

  8. 06/11/2025

    220. How Cycle Awareness Frees Your Voice and True Expression (Alexandra and Sjanie)

    One of the questions that comes up again and again in the Red School community is this: how can I free up my voice and share my truth? So many of us, particularly women and those socialised as female feel stuck, silenced or disconnected from our true expression, so today we’re exploring how the practice of checking in every day with your menstrual cycle and how it’s influencing your energy and mood can support you on this quest.  Through our personal stories as well as stories from the community, we explore how menstrual cycle awareness is a discipline that keeps you close to yourself, and how this practice organically awakens an inner warmth, connection and confidence which lines you up to receive inspiration about what it is that you’re here to express and share with the world. We explore: How menstruation cocoons you so that you can step away from the noise of the world and rest into a sanctuary of connection with your voice - the inner winter silences the world so that you can finally hear yourself. Tools for working with your inner critic and self expression - such as containing the critic in the premenstrual phase of the cycle - so that you can practice experimenting and paying with sharing your voice in the preovulatory phase, your inner spring. How to support ourselves when the holding back of our voice comes out as premenstrual rage or implodes inside as depressive cycles. --- 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.school Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy

    1h 7m
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About

How can menstrual cycle awareness and conscious menopause enhance your health, creativity and leadership? That's the question we'll explore together in the Menstruality Podcast, brought to you by Red School, where we’re training the menstruality leaders of the future. Your host, Sophie Jane Hardy will be joined often by Red School’s founders, Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer, as well as pioneering thought leaders, troublemakers and culture-shifters to discover how you can unashamedly claim the power of the menstrual cycle to activate your unique form of leadership; for yourself, your community, and the world.

Information

  • Creator
    Red School
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2026
  • Episodes
    228
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Red School
  • Show Website
    The Menstruality Podcast

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