Red School

Why do you love your cycle? Here are our 10 favourite reasons... If you want to fall in love with your cycle, (or deepen your love affair!) we invite you to register for our new, FREE Love Your Cycle course. It will help you: - Enhance Your Vitality You’ll explore how to read your body, manage stress and tailor your self-care so that you can thrive throughout the cycle month. - Know Your Power You’ll cultivate your relationship with the powers of each cycle phase, so that you can feel more confident, inspired and at home in yourself. - Live Your Cycle Wisdom You’ll discover practical ways to actually live your cycle in a linear world. You can register here: /love or click the link in our bio.

Have you read Wild Power? Would you love to go deeper with the teachings in the book? (And would you love to do it from the comfort of your own home or to use it as a way to inspire you while you're washing up or walking the dog?!) Then our Wild Power podcast series may be for you... We recorded these conversations back when we launched the book in 2017, and we finally released them on our Menstruality podcast. in each one, we take one of the core teachings of the book; like the inner seasons, the menstrual cycle as a pathway to power, and the five chambers of menstruation, and unpack it together. To find the episodes, simply search for The Menstruality Podcast, wherever you listen to podcasts. There are seven episodes to listen to so far. The final one is coming out next week 🥳 (Thank you to @sandra.imzyklus for the photo ❤️) #menstrualcycleawareness #wildpower #wombwisdom #cyclicalliving #loveyourcycle #periodpower

We’ve a radical idea for you: menopause holds the key to your deepest fulfilment and the future of our planet. This may sound bold, but to us, it’s indisputable. In this book we’ll show you how to realize the potential and power of menopause, for both yourself and the world. So, strap yourself in – menopause is quite a ride, but we’ll be with you every step of the way. Menopause is an immense life event, a great initiation. Not only is it a complete hormonal shift in the landscape of your overall health, it’s also a psychological and emotional transformation. And to top it off, you’ll undergo a spiritual initiation too. All this means you’re going to change. Profoundly. Think ‘death and rebirth’. Menopause is searingly powerful, and this power awakens great potential. However, the power of menopause is currently being subsumed and lost under a sea of distress and suffering. But what if understanding it is actually the key to transforming that suffering? We believe it is. - Excerpt from Wise Power: Discover the Liberating Power of Menopause to Awaken Authority, Purpose and Belonging. Release date: September 20th - click the link in our bio to get your copy, or visit: #menopause #consciousmenopause #wisepower

How are you doing? And how is your body? There’s been a lot of news flying around lately around the manosphere and misogynistic behaviour, and it can be a lot to process, particularly as women and people with wombs. In support today we want to invite a cycle check in together... Tracking and honouring your experience on this day of your menstrual cycle or lunar cycle (or whatever cycles you’re currently tracking—seasonal, creative, planetary!) is a small but potent act of reclaiming your power, right here and now. Let’s do three things together… 1 - Notice how you feel physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. 2 - Notice if there’s anything you need right now to support this particular cyclical experience (time alone, a truth that needs to be shared, some heartfelt connection?) 3 - See how you could give yourself a 1% dose of that cyclical medicine (a five-minute break by yourself, a text message to start a difficult conversation, booking in a date with a soul friend?) If you’d like to share your cycle check-in, below we'd love to hear—let’s create a red thread of cycle-aware wisdom together today. #menstrualcycleawareness #mca #redschool

Today on the Menstruality podcast we’re exploring how to bring cycle awareness to psychotherapy and mental healthcare.  Our guest is MaryClaire Decker (known as MC) who is a Registered Psychologist, and is known as the @themenstrualpsych MC created Mindful Cycles after seeing a gap in mental health care, and after her own struggles with chronic menstrual migraines reinforced the need for an approach that works with our cycles, not against them.  We talk about: 🌿 how menstrual health symptoms change across the cycle 🌿 the neurological and hormonal shifts that cause mental health symptoms to worsen in the second half of the cycle 🌿 how to adapt therapeutic approaches based on the phases of the menstrual cycle 🌿 the incredible impact of cycle-informed trauma therapy. 🌿 Three reasons why mental health care hasn’t been cycle-informed so far; menstrual stigma, the patriarchal, colonial historical context of psychotherapy and the huge gap in research when it comes to women and people with menstrual cycles. 🌿 Why we risk pathologising people’s experiences, or even misdiagnosing them when we don’t take the fluctuations of the menstrual cycle into account, for example; 25% of people who eventually get diagnosed with PMDD are misdiagnosed with bi-polar disorder first.  You can listen here: /podcast/236 (or you listen to podcasts) Thanks MC! #menstrualcycleawareness #therapyforwomen #psychotherapy #wombwisdom #cyclicalliving

The menstrual cycle is your ultimate guide to befriending yourself, and utterly relishing the full pleasure and authority of being YOU. So significant is this menstrual knowledge, it’ll rewire the way you view your life, how you choose to live, and how you do business. It’ll open new levels of understanding and appreciation between women and men – especially in relationships. It’ll alter how you approach the journey of conception, pregnancy, birth and motherhood (should you take that route), and transform how you understand and greet menopause and your postmenopause life. The story we tell about the menstrual cycle has been pieced together through our own menstrual experiences, and those of the countless women and folks we’ve worked with during the past thirty years. It wouldn’t let us go! It was insistent – snapping at our heels all our menstruating lives, demanding to be known and told. We both feel called to speak up about this awesome potential within our bodies, and we strongly believe that as long as this knowledge remains unnamed and unrecognized, it’s both traumatizing women and people who menstruate, and is a real loss for society as a whole. If you'd like to go deeper with this wisdom, we invite you to read our book, Wild Power, listen to the Menstruality Podcast and you can receive a free mini course in menstrual cycle awareness at: redschool.net/love. #menstrualcycleawareness #loveyourcycle #menstrualcycle #wombwisdom #cyclesyncing

Within the Red School Community, a group of our graduates are producing a collective anthology of writing that explores menstruality through lived, embodied experience. This is an invitation to submit poems, stories, reflections and creative expressions that speak to what it means to live cyclically within a linear world, making space for tenderness, complexity, honesty and contradiction in all their forms. Why do we need to hear your voice? Putting embodied experience into words can feel vulnerable, especially when so much of it resists clear explanation, but writing offers a way to stay close to what is felt while giving it form. Through poetry, and stories, we can share something of our inner world in ways that resonate deeply with others, creating moments of recognition and connection. Writing can also open up new perspectives and gently soften the dominant narratives we live within, becoming a way of reconnecting with ourselves and with other ways of knowing. 🔥Submissions are open! 👉🏼Please click on the link in our bio to find out more, and to see how you can submit your writing. This is not about being polished, it’s not about having the perfect piece of writing (what even is perfect), it’s about bringing your authentic unapologetic self to the page, and seeing what happens. ❤️

Would you like to take a couple of moments practice cycle-aware deep listening with us? The full potency, power and revelation of your menstrual cycle utterly depends on the quality of your attention... so let's do a quick four-step practice together... One: Bring yourself fully present to what’s happening in your cycle experience right now, without trying to control or judge it. Two: Let go of the inner clamour and the usual assumptions, and listen respectfully to your experience. Three: Let yourself be curious, and open to simply receiving whatever’s happening – both inside you and around you. Four: Sustain this focused attention for three breaths, right now. Deep listening is a skill you can bring to your cycle awareness practice to unearth the unconscious and unattended energies that are at work, and magnify the resources on offer. It can be hard to believe that something so simple can allow the power of your cycle to ‘pop’ out and come to life in a big way... but it's true. Please share your cycle day and what you notice in the comment thread below 🌀 #menstrualcycleawareness #cyclicalliving #wombwisdom

What are the five chambers of menstruation, and how do they connect you to your own deep, wise self? ⛺Chamber one: Separation is about withdrawing from the world. It’s the ‘death’ moment – a transition that delivers you to the door of the inner temple. It’s also potentially the most spiritually powerful place in the whole cycle. ⛺ Chamber two: Surrender announces itself with the arrival of the bleed. This chamber is as it sounds – about letting go, utterly giving in to the moment, being in the unknown and doing nothing. You rest, release and cleanse the ‘stuff’ of your daily life, making space for the new to come in. As you empty out, you reconnect to the ground of your being. It’s a feeling of having landed and is the sure sign that you’ve arrived in... ⛺ Chamber three: Renewal, and the time of Great Remembering. In Renewal you’re plugged back into the Source. You can experience a womb-like state in which you feel washed by the forces of love. Now is the moment to receive, to drink in the most extraordinary affirmation of your being. (If you can get a handle on the first and second chambers, the third and subsequent chambers can take care of themselves... almost.) This gives way to the ecstatic power of... ⛺ Chamber four : Visioning - our quintessential Vision Quest time. You recover the deep meaning of your life – your Calling. It’s usually way too big, but it’s all you. You also get answers to questions or life issues you’re struggling with. You become the Oracle, visioning both for yourself and your community. Finally, you begin to feel the energy shift again. As the ‘high’ eases... ⛺ Chamber five: Clarity and Direction emerges. You’re on the cusp of exiting from the inner temple of menstruation, but there’s one more thing for you to receive and that’s clarity and direction. We love how practical the cycle is. Having given you ecstatic revelation it now slips in some down-to- earth instructions for the coming month. #menstrualcycleawareness #cyclicalliving #wombwisdom #cyclesyncing #menstrualwisdom

In this conversation for the Menstruality podcast with @amywildingofficial - the author of Period Of Change: Welcoming Your Daughter's Period with Care and Confidence, Amy shares a wealth of tips and guidance for navigating first periods. 1 in 2 girls in the U.S. say they feel embarrassed or ashamed about their period and only 22% of U.S parents feel “very comfortable” talking to their kids about puberty. We need to rewrite this script! Amy is a queer and inclusive author and menstrual midwife who has supported hundreds of families through her Period of Change programs, helping them reclaim menarche as a sacred and empowered life moment. She calls us all to reclaim what is our birthright: an understanding of our bodies and the framework for seeing the power and wisdom of our cyclical nature. Our chat today is full of practical guidance and tips to support the teens and tweens in your life through their menarche and beyond... Our favourites were the conversation starters, especially when Amy shared the most important thing to say (and not say) to your child when they get their period for the first time. We explore: 🌺 How to throw a Red Party for your child, and all kinds of ideas for how to celebrate together in big and small ways. 🌺 The importance of how we speak about our bodies in front of our kids, and affirmations to help your daughter move through generations of cultural shame, silence and discomfort, and model how to honour our bodies and cycles. 🌺 Amy’s journey supporting her trans kid and guidance for how to show up as a supportive parent and maintain a connection of trust with trans kids when they’re starting their periods. You can listen here: /podcast/235 - or wherever you listen to podcasts. Thank you Amy! #menarche #firstperiod #tweenmom #menstrualcycleawareness #tween

How is this full moon going for you? Drop a YES in the comment thread if you relate! #fullmoon #cyclicalliving #menstrualcycleawareness

Do you experience the five chambers of menstruation? Menstruation is a peak moment of initiation. You go through a death and rebirth, a time of unknowing, a time of remembering, recovering and revelation of who you truly are. Finally you’re reconstituted into a more integrated and embodied expression of yourself. These stages of menstruation are reflected in all initiatory processes, including childbirth and menopause, and are what we grandly call The Five Chambers of Menstruation. These are: Chamber 1: Separation Chamber 2: Surrender Chamber 3: Renewal Chamber 4: Visioning Chamber 5: Clarity and Direction You can find out more in our book, Wild Power, or by joining us for our Menstruality Leadership Programme. We'd love to hear about your experience of these five chambers – please share in the comment thread below. #sacredmenstruation #cyclicalliving #wildpower #menstrualcycleawareness #cycleawareness