The Menstruality Podcast

• How to Work With PMS and PMDD Using Menstrual Cycle Awareness (Alexandra & Sjanie)

  Today we’re sharing part two of our conversation about PMS - premenstrual syndrome - and PMDD - Premenstrual dysphoria disorder. We began this exploration in episode 202, How Menstrual Cycle Awareness Can Transform PMS and PMDD, where we discussed the premenstrual phase of the cycle as a gateway to our power, and premenstrual symptoms as a truth-telling signal or a warning sign from the deepest part of ourselves about all that needs to be healed within us, and in our world. In part two we get practical and look at how menstrual cycle awareness can help you if you experience extreme pre-menstrual disturbance, through the lens of some brilliant questions and stories that the community gathered around this podcast have sent to us. They include what to do if you’re in premenstrual hell right now, the most important practical actions to take that genuinely help with symptoms and why cycle-aware therapy or professional support is often essential, especially if you’ve experienced trauma. We explore:The three menstruality ‘medicines’ which can help PMS and PMDD: cycle tracking, premenstrual power and rest at menstruation.The small, repeated acts of self-care and boundary-setting can shift everything; and we share our favourite personal examples like dealing with premenstrual rage by roaring out of the car window and smashing plates!The power of writing a love letter to yourself in your ‘good’ part of the cycle. ---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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• 204. How Cycle Awareness Helps to Create a Rest-Centred Life (Lou Perham)

  I don’t know about you, but rest can be an elusive thing for me. I know I need it, I know I want it, but how do I actually get it? Enter Lou Perham who is rest-obsessed and has devoted her recent years as a Cyclical Living Mentor to helping people, and especially women get more rest. Today we start by exploring Lou’s powerful personal story of the healing power of cycle awareness. When Lou was diagnosed with PCOS - polycystic ovarian syndrome - in her late 20s, she was crushed when her doctors told her that she was unlikely to be able to have children. Having always wanted to be a mother, she responded by trying several holistic healing approaches to heal her heavy, painful periods, eventually committing to a two-year Yoga teacher training which supported the regulation of her hormones, and also included teachings about menstrual cycle awareness. Wonderfully, a year after she started tracking her menstrual cycle she had pain-free bleeds and six months later she was pregnant with her son. This led to her joining Red School’s Menstruality Leadership Programme, and since then, she has been applying the healing power of cycle awareness in a new way, using it to craft what she calls a rest-centred life, and guide others to do the same. We explore:Today she shares the ten types of rest we all need, and how to access more of them, including; physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual.  How Lou created her own map of self-care practices based on the inner seasons of her menstrual cycle, and it all started with the vital cycle awareness question; what do I need on this cycle day? How Lou practices cycle awareness and lives the wisdom of her cycle as a single working mother.---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.hardyLou Perham: @louperham - https://www.instagram.com/louperham/

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• 203. How to Claim and Express Yourself in Inner Summer - REPLAY (Alexandra & Sjanie)

  What if there is a direct connection between your pleasure and your power? And what if harnessing the magic of inner summer of the menstrual cycle - the ovulation phase - is the key to unleashing a deeply pleasurable, full expression of who you are in the world?We believe that both of these statements are true, but - as we explore in this podcast - a profound reclamation of the true power of inner summer is necessary, in a world which demands us to be in an endlessly productive summer-mode all of the time. As a result of all the societal projections created by hustle and beauty culture, the power of summer is much misunderstood, and many people struggle with it. In this replay of our popular episode from two years ago, we share ideas for how we can free ourselves from the narrow band of experience within which we’re told to operate, so that our unique magnetism and authenticity can be fully inhabited.We explore:The shadow-boxing that can take over inner summer when we live in a linear world which neglects our cyclicity.How being with the instinctual aliveness of our animal bodies helps us to unleash and express our power in the inner summer, as well as hold the charge of our Calling in the world. The direct connection between dropping deeply at menstruation and the full claiming of our inner summer selves. ---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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• 202. How Menstrual Cycle Awareness Can Transform PMS and PMDD (Alexandra & Sjanie)

  Did you know that 3-8% of women and people with cycles experience PMDD, which stands for premenstrual dysphoric disorder? If you are one of these people, or you are close to or work with someone with PMDD, this episode is especially for you. It’s also for you, if you - like me - have experienced intense, debilitating, dark and challenging emotional disturbance in the premenstrual phase of your cycle, often known as PMS or premenstrual syndrome. Today Alexandra and Sjanie explore the inner autumn of the cycle as a gateway to our power. As they share, our premenstrual symptoms aren’t a design flaw, but can be better understood as a truth-telling signal or a warning sign from the deepest part of ourselves about all that needs to be healed within us, and all that needs to be healed in our world. Part of the challenge we all face here is that we live in a world that dismisses and denies our cyclical experience, which creates a disconnect with our cyclical wisdom. In other words, what if it’s not the menstrual cycle that is the problem, but rather it’s a culture that pathologises, shames and denies the power and value of our cycles, and especially the power of the premenstrual phase? We explore:How the premenstrual phase of the cycle gives you feedback about your sensitivity and how to tend to it, so it can be in service to your power - because the world needs your depth of feeling.The emotional spirals that PMDD can evoke, where intense feelings arise, attack becomes your best defense, you lash out at others, and then, a couple of days later, often once your period has arrived, you have to pick up the pieces and negotiate the aftermath of self-hatred and shame.Why we all need to take what we feel in inner autumn more seriously. The premenstrual phase of the cycle is the emotional ‘novocaine’ wearing off, a time where you come to your senses, and you have heightened intuition and insight. ---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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• 201. Healing Grief, Fear and Loneliness after Pregnancy Loss (Iris Josephina Verstappen)

  A few months ago, our guest today, the founder of Cycle Seeds Iris Josephina Verstappen, was hosting a retreat in a goddess temple in Malta when she began to miscarry. Having accompanied many women through pregnancy loss, both as a doula and a holistic hormone and cycle coach, she’s witnessed the storm of emotions that can arise with miscarriage, as well as the taboo surrounding it. So she decided to publicly share about her experience with her 60,000 followers, to be a permission slip for others, so that they don’t have to suffer in silence. In our conversation Iris shares generously and vulnerably about how she has navigated the grief, loneliness, confusion and earth-shaking fear that it could all happen again, as well as the paradoxical feelings of love, possibility, and gratitude for how the experience of pregnancy opened her up. Our hope is that if you’re one of the one in four women and people who experience pregnancy loss, this conversation helps you to feel less alone with whatever you’re feeling. We explore:The imposter syndrome that arose for Iris when she tried to go back to work, and found herself questioning how this could have happened to her when she was doing everything “right”, especially as an educator in the field of cyclical living and women’s health, and how the antidote was simply to lie with her belly flat on the earth. The lack of community support around grief and loss, but especially in the post-partum window after miscarriage where the body is still recovering from the pregnancy, and Iris offers some great ideas for how to support a friend going through this. How Iris is navigating the identity crisis that comes with inhabiting the liminal space between maiden and mother, between becoming and unbecoming, as well as being in a body that looks and feels different after her pregnancy loss.---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.hardyIris Josephina Verstappen: @cycleseeds - https://www.instagram.com/cycleseeds

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