The Menstruality Podcast Red School

We’ve all been there at some point. A shocking challenge disrupts our lives - a loss, a health crisis, a great disappointment - and we become the caterpillar in the cocoon (ie: we turn to mush). 
But - as those of you who have been through it may well attest to (!) - nothing turns us into primordial goop like the initiation of menopause.

Today I have the rare honour of speaking with a guest who is not only mid-menopause-initiation but has also been deeply involved in the menstrual movement for two decades, and can therefore share a transmission from the leading edge of this work.

Psychotherapist, author, activist, and ordained Priestess, Elayne Kalila Doughty, has been negotiating the transition of menopause for a fifth of her life - the past ten years… today she shares the story of her menopause ‘reckoning’ - the core-wound truth she was forced to face when she was hospitalised in October last year, and began an intense inner and outer healing process.

We explore:
Why menopause is designed to slow us down, and how this is in service the the dismantling of the inner patriarchal structures within each of us.

How Elayne’s menopause process began with her experience of baby loss at 46, and what she's learned from being an unmothered daughter about how to mother herself (and our planet).

A hilarious moment - at around 35 minutes - where we meet Elayne’s brilliant East London cockney grandmother, Olive, and hear about her feisty menopause reckoning, when she was done being compliant. HOLY YES!---

Receive our free Wise Power Retreat menopause conversation series:  www.redschool.net/wise-power-retreat

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The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net

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Social media:
Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.school
Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy
Elayne Kalila Doughty: @elayne.kalila - https://www.instagram.com/elayne.kalila

Today we’re tackling two taboo topics at once. Firstly, sex - an area which many people find charged, challenging, confusing and sometimes shameful and we’re pairing it with menstrual cycle awareness - another topic so often shrouded in shame.

Our guest and brilliant guide is Alexa Bowditch - the founder of sexandlove.co and a cycle aware woman who has a gift for welcoming people into their sexual expression so that sex can feel more safe, intimate, fulfilling and even epic.

We look at the sex challenges that can arise in each inner season of the cycle, and how to work with them to cultivate more intimacy with yourself, and your lover and move towards the kind of sexual experiences you’re longing for.

We start by exploring how Alexa’s personal journey to becoming a sex coach who is now widely known and celebrated as That Sex Chick - and how she’s actually having less sex now than ever before, largely due to her current pregnancy, and how she’s navigating this with her husband...

We explore:
How to have a variety of conversations about creating more intimacy with your lover - including actual scripts for sharing vulnerable longings.

Ideas for approaching intimacy in inner autumn and winter, to support you to get your needs met (including how to move through shame if you’re someone who loves menstrual sex).

How to use sex to heal and feel more safe, both with yourself and in partnership. 
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Receive our free video training: Love Your Cycle, Discover the Power of Menstrual Cycle Awareness to Revolutionise Your Life - www.redschool.net/love

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The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net

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Social media:
Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.school
Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy
Alexa Bowditch: @thatsexchick - https://www.instagram.com/thatsexchick

Our first period - or our ‘menarche’ - is a big initiatory moment, which sets us on the path of menstruality - the path of awakening to our Calling.

During menarche we are each birthed from the ‘womb of our family’, into the womb of our menstruating years. We’re coming into the holding, guidance and wisdom of our menstrual cycle, month after month.

In today’s conversation we unpack what menarche means, why it is such a pivotal life transition, and how we can re-write our own experience of the chasm of unknownness and exposure that we must each navigate as we make this transition of menarche, so we can each claim our uniqueness and honour our true nature.

We explore:
The deep connection between menarche and self worth, and how re-writing menarche can liberate a profound sense of self-belief and self-confidence.

Guidance for how to do a personal menarche ritual (including what to do if your experience of your first menstrual cycle was a let-down, a non-event, or a shaming experience).

We share many different menarche stories, including how Sophie’s reframed her ‘non-event’ first period, how a menarche ritual helped Louise prepare for menopause, and how Sjanie is holding her daughter in the tender approach to her menarche.---
Receive our free video training: Love Your Cycle, Discover the Power of Menstrual Cycle Awareness to Revolutionise Your Life - www.redschool.net/love
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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

When Dr Cre Dye was in her early 20s, she began to feel called to explore the power of her cycle - or as she describes it, her moon, flowers and power.

Over our series of two conversations, we’re exploring the cycle wisdom she has learned, unearthed and received over the last three decades through the lens of her relationships with her two Grandmothers; today her Granny of hidden First Nations descent, and in part two, her African American Mama.

Dr Cre Dye has served her local, national, and international communities with heart, mind and body activism for over 25 years as a mental health therapist, yoga teacher / trainer and university professor. She is also part of the Red School team as our Menstruality Justice and Inclusion Educator, facilitating inner change for social change on our Menstruality Leadership Programme, supporting us all to work with the power of the cycle in a way that is just and inclusive.

We explore:
Why women gathered together in Moon Lodges, in many indigenous cultures to listen for the dreams of bleeding women, and how Cre has followed this lead to embody the sacred through her cycle and her body. 

A wide range of indigenous menarche rituals, including the Anishinaabe rite of passage known as the Berry Fast, the Navajo Kinaalda ceremony and the Hupa Flower Dancers coming-of-age ceremonies.

What Cre has learned from her research about how to honour and trust her menstruating body, and guide her clients to honour the moon cycle. 
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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
Dr Cre Dye: @credyeyoga - https://www.instagram.com/credyeyoga

We’re thrilled to be welcoming mythologist and author, Dr Sharon Blackie back to the podcast today, to take another journey into the mythic imagination together.

We explore how the ancient myths of our land weave us into connection with ourselves as natural, cyclical creatures, to our place in the world, and to the wisdom of our ancestral lineage.

Many of you will have read and loved Sharon’s 2016 book, ‘If Women Rose Rooted’, and today we look at three of the ancient stories through a menstrual cycle awareness / conscious menopause lens, including; 
What the ‘Well Maiden’ shows us about how to act as a bridge to restore the Feminine in our world, particularly by cultivating the skill of listening to the wisdom of our dreams.  

How the wild character of ‘Mis’ can guide us to find solace in the wilderness, particularly during the phases of our cycles and lives which can be full of grief and are often misunderstood by "civilisation", like the premenstruum and menopause.

How the story of the ‘Selkie’ can inspire us to reclaim our wildness, our authenticity and our sense of belonging.
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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
Sharon Blackie: @sharonblackiemythmakings - https://www.instagram.com/sharonblackiemythmakings

Today we're having 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’ moment when your fury threatened to destroy everything you’ve built so far in your life?

What is going on with this rage? Why are so many of us feeling it? And what is it trying to tell us?

In this episode:

- Anger as an indignation of soul, bringing us closer to our essence.

- Sjanie, Alexandra & Sophie's personal journeys with rage.

-  How to work with rage in the menstrual cycle by practising the menstruality Leadership skill of 'holding the tension'. 

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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