The Menstruality Podcast

• 195. Part Two: How Cycle Awareness Helps you to Manage your Energy (Q+A w/ Alexandra & Sjanie)

  Today we’re in conversation with the brilliant community gathered around this work and podcast in our part two episode about how to work with menstrual cycle awareness as our own in-built energy management system. This conversation is for you if you struggle to follow the impulses of your cycle around the modern-life juggle of responsibilities, or if you’re dealing with low energy levels and you’re not sure why. It’s also for you if you’re feeling good, but want tips to work with your cycle to enahcen your vitality and feel even better.It’s for you if you’re new to cycle awareness - it will help you get set-up with the foundations for setting up your cyclical rhythm of sustainability. And it’s also for you if you’ve been practising for a good while as we get into many of the nuances of the practice, including how to get the limitations of your inner seasons working for you, how to navigate your energy through your crossover days in between the seasons, and how to set cyclical boundaries.  We explore:How to do a ‘movement’ cycle check-in to get an honest, unfiltered information, directly from your body about how your energy levels are on any given day (without your mind getting involved telling you all the things you should be feeling and doing).The core truth when it comes to managing your energy with cycle awareness: the way you bleed sets the tone for your whole cycle, and some tips for claiming menstrual rest (even in a world that is not at all interested in you claiming this). How slowing down is the secret to accessing the power of the premenstrual phase of the cycle, especially when we’re feeling exhausted and vulnerable. ---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 [email protected] media:Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.schoolSophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy

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• 194: How Menstrual Cycle Awareness Helps you to Manage your Energy (Alexandra & Sjanie)

  We’re experiencing an epidemic of chronic fatigue and burnout, especially for women, and people with marginalised identities. It’s part of our modern day polycrisis, and in many ways the exhaustion we’re experiencing in our individual bodies mirrors the environmental challenges that are ravaging our earth, our larger body. We’re driving both to the very edges of their capacity. Beautifully, the practice of menstrual cycle awareness can help us to live in alignment with our natural rhythms, to embrace rest and prevent overwhelm and burnout. We can connect with the four phases of the menstrual cycle as our own personal energy management system. And when we listen for and cooperate with the natural ebb and flow of our inner seasons, we rebel against the subtle but pervasive messaging that we should be more, bigger, faster. We feel better, we’re more creative, more powerful and we model the much-needed art of sustainable living. We explore:What Sjanie learned about sustainable, cyclical living from a fierce lioness she encountered in a dream.The creative power that opens up within us when we dare (and are able) to step out of hustle mode, stop producing and surrender into non-doing at menstruation. Alexandra’s personal story of discovering the power of stopping, through years of intense menstrual pain, which she was eventually able to heal through the power of rest and listening to her body. ---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 [email protected] media:Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.schoolSophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy

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• 193. Cultivating Resilience and Preventing Burnout in Perimenopause (Jolinda Johnson)

  When we enter the autumn of our menstruation years in our 40s and start to experience what many call perimenopause, we can easily think we should keep pushing through even though our bodies, minds and emotional landscape are transforming profoundly.  (Alexandra and Sjanie, the co-founders or Red School call this phase the Quickening, or the autumn of our menstruating years). Our guest today specialises in helping women in midlife recover from burnout so they can rise stronger and thrive longer. Jolinda Johnson is the author of Resilience: 10 Ways to Recover from Burnout and Exhaustion, and works as a Life and Health Coach, as well as a Menopause Coaching Specialist. In today’s conversation we explore the four phases of burnout; from feeling wired and tired, to health challenges to full-on exhaustion, all the way to an official burn out diagnosis and major life changes. Jolinda explains how tracking these phases offer us many opportunities for course correction before we find ourselves flat on our back. So this one is for you especially if you’re in perimenopause, but it relevant to anyone experiencing burnout in any life phase.We explore:Jolinda’s definition of burnout, which is chronic stress without recovery, is characterised by exhaustion, cynicism, and decreased capacity for your life roles. What menstrual cycles changes, as well as other health symptoms can show us about our current levels of burnout. Why we need to set better boundaries with ourselves, and how to do it. ---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 [email protected] media:Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.schoolSophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardyJolinda Johnson: @coachjolinda - https://www.instagram.com/coachjolinda

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• 192. Part Two: Beginner’s Guide to Menstrual Cycle Awareness (Q&A with Alexandra & Sjanie)

  Today we’re continuing our exploration around the fundamentals of the practice of menstrual cycle awareness, through the lens of some of the frequently asked questions from our community, such as what to do if your menstrual cycle doesn’t look like the archetypal cycle, how to track your cycle if you have menstrual health challenges, and how to talk about cycle awareness with your loved ones. The golden thread running through every response from Sjanie and Alexandra is the one and only rule of Menstrual Cycle Awareness which we call the Big Red Rule: that your own unique experience of your menstrual cycle is the most important thing, with all its quirks, strangeness and challenges. As Alexandra shares in the conversation, your job as a student of your cycle is to stay loyal to exactly what you’re experiencing. In other words, there are no ‘shoulds’ with menstrual cycle awareness, and there is no perfect cycle to achieve. The practice of menstrual cycle awareness is a homecoming to yourself, in a world that conditions us to look outside of ourselves for the answers. The power of the cycle rests in you experiencing your own cycle, and trusting your experience of your unique  strengths, vulnerabilities and needs, exactly as they are on each cycle day. We explore:The ‘crossover days’ - the shift from one inner season (menstrual cycle phase) to another and how to track and manage the disturbance that can arise, particularly between inner summer (ovulation) and inner autumn (the premenstruum).How to practice menstrual cycle awareness when you have menstrual health challenges like irregular cycles, period pain, endometriosis, PCOS, PMS or PMDD, infertility challenges or other issues, and how your cycle awareness practice can be integral to your healing journey.What it can look like to share your menstrual cycle awareness practice with your partner, family, friends and even your work colleagues. ---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 [email protected] media:Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.schoolSophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy

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• 191. How to Retire Superwoman and Honour Your Needs in Perimenopause (Dr Joanna Martin)

  In our forties, many of us hit a wall. It can be a time when our responsibilities are at an all time high, just when our bodies are telling us - sometimes very loudly - that it’s time to change the way we’ve been living and working so far. Our guest today, renowned visionary, coach and catalyst Dr Joanna Martin helps us understand how to navigate this phase of life which is often called perimenopause, and which Red School founders Alexandra and Sjanie call the Quickening, through the lens of the archetype of ‘superwoman’.As the founder of One of many, Jo’s organisation has supported over 70,000 grassroots women leaders to have a greater impact without burnout. She recently published her book, Superwoman - Escaping The Myth and in our conversation today we explore how the superwoman archetype shows up in our lives, as well as how to step out of superwoman mode, embrace community and get your needs met, even with all the responsibilities you hold. This conversation is for you if you’re in your forties and looking for ways to show up without burning out. We speak a lot about parenting, so it’s especially for you if this is your path. However, it’s also for you in any phase of your life, if you recognise that you have a tendency to try to push through and do too much, and you want to work cyclically to honour your needs.We explore:The origins of the superwoman myth, and why it drives some of us to embody anti-superwoman, which means we don’t activate our impact potential.Why we can only burn out if we’re not in our body and Jo’s practical approach to get your needs met - the 'Needs Creed'. Jo’s personal Quickening story of meeting her increased need for sleep and alone time, and navigating big emotions as she journeys into perimenopause. ---Join our free online course - Love Your Cycle: Discover the power of menstrual cycle awareness to revolutionise your life here: www.redschool.net/love---The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email [email protected] media:Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.schoolJoanna Martin: @drjoannamartin - https://www.instagram.com/drjoannamartinOne of Many: @oneofmanywomen https://www.instagram.com/oneofmanywomen

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