MENSTRUALITY

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In a world overflowing with influence, advice and opinion, connecting to your menstrual cycle is the most empowering thing you can do. This is such a bold statement, but I can't emphasise this enough!

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After personally struggling with menstrual cycle challenges in my early 40s, I was looking for a holistic way to address the symptoms I experienced each month.  A combination of stress and shifting hormones gifted me with monthly headaches, nausea, brain fog, insomnia and a sense of feeling ungrounded, disconnected and exhausted. It was as if my cycle was speaking to me to make changes to the way I was living, asking me to slow down, listen to my needs and rest more. 

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Over a number of years I slowly built a relationship with my body. I discovered Red School, an incredible organisation dedicated to educating and inspiring women and womb-bearers to awaken to the magic of the menstrual cycle.

 

It was here that I learnt how to connect with my cycle as a daily practice - a simple but powerful mindful practice that has become a source of deep healing and transformation - my symptoms gradually dissipated as I deepened this work and I now live in cyclical alignment with my own rhythm, energies and capacities. I have a deep understanding  of the menstrual cycle, the inner maps of it and how to meet, manage and march to my own beat. I understand how to pace myself, how and when to rest and retreat, how to work with the changing energetic patterns of my cycle and how to harness the gifts and powers of the cycle - creativity, play, imagination, motivation, trust, gratitude, insight, intuition, boundaries and so much more. I understand myself better, appreciate my cyclical nature as a woman with no day or week the same. I ebb and flow, expand and contract.​

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If you would like to learn more about how to practice Cycle Awareness, you can sign up to Red School's free online self-paced course 'Love Your Cycle' - Love Your Cycle | Red School.

 

I would also passionately urge you to read 'Wild Power' by Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer.

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RED SCHOOL

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Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer are the founders of Red School and authors of Wild Power and Wise Power,  are leading a radical new approach to health and wellbeing based on the power of the menstrual cycle through this practice of Cycle Awareness. There is a wealth of resource at www.redschool.net - podcasts, free teachings, courses and a supportive, wise community of women and womb-bearing folk who will give you the warmest of welcomes.

 

​I recently graduated from the Menstruality Leadership Programme with Red School, the only comprehensive training of its kind in the world. It's a rich and immersive programme to lead in the field of Menstruality and contribute to the restoration of the menstrual cycle as a spiritual path and practice. ​My work is led by my Calling to bring positive change to build a more loving, connected and aligned relationship with our menstrual cycles and I plan to weave my wisdom, experience and training throughout all I offer in my work as a reflexologist, sounder healer, sacred space holder and emerging author. I share my experience of this programme in the resources section https://www.elladewhirst.co.uk/post/wisdom-harvest-from-the-menstruality-leadership-programme

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They describe menstruality as "the consciousness that is generated when women love, live and engage with their cycle process" (Wild Power, xxii) and are shaping a radical new story of the profound journey from menarche to menopause and the path to power through the menstrual cycle.

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