How to support your children through puberty and menarche
You’ve been learning about your menstrual cycle and how to attune to its changing daily strengths, vulnerabilities, and self-care needs – and it’s been life changing to finally learn what you should have learnt as a child. So imagine how powerful it would be for our children to learn this knowledge and wisdom now – rather than having to figure it all out after many years of being disconnected to their body, their cycle and therefore, themselves. If you’d love to share what you now know with your child or any other child for that matter but aren’t sure of when or how to start, I’d love to give you some ideas to help you do that confidently in a way that feels gentle, age-appropriate, and empowering for you and your child.
Many mothers have traditionally thought that children aren’t ready to learn about their body, how it changes, what menstruation is, or anything else associated with puberty until they have their first period but when we leave “the talk” until this time, children already have a lot of feelings, thoughts and confusion about what’s been happening to their body and sense of selves for a while, and they question what these changes mean about them if they are left in the dark.
Children in the playground talk and share information that’s usually incomplete or inaccurate, leaving children to piece the story together themselves. Schools deliver education that’s most often squashed down in one or two hours total to combine information on what periods are and how to manage blood, anatomy and how reproduction works which sends children the message that having periods means that falling pregnant is something to fear, and that when they begin their periods, they’re ready to have sex, which is not the case at all from a developmental point of view.
When talking about periods is so uncomfortable, it continues the menstrual taboo that we have been victims of for millennia. So how do we cultivate a period positive culture?
Wise Power: How Your Menstrual Cycle Prepares You For Menopause with Red School
Your menstrual cycle is teaching you how to work with your inner power, ready to become a wise woman at menopause. The wise women founders of Red School Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer have released their cutting edge book Wise Power: Discover the Liberating Power of Menopause to Awaken Authority, Purpose and Belonging. I’m THRILLED to have had the opportunity to chat with the authors and Menstruality leaders about how we can practice menstrual cycle awareness as a lifestyle that ultimately builds our self-trust, resilience, and capacity for presence, so that when the time comes, we can surrender, die and be reborn through the “mother of all initiations” that is Menopause.
Coming of Age Wisdom for Mothers and Daughters with Arahni Lion and Jo Rockendorfer
imagine a world where mothers were given sacred space to welcome their daughters intentionally into their coming of age rite of passage. and where girls were welcomed into circle with other mothers and daughters to find deep wisdom, loving support and a chance to experience true sisterhood all before their 13th birthday. there is a place on earth: it’s called the seeding wisdom journey held annually in the illawarra (nsw) by wise women arahni lion and jo rockendorfer. If you’ve ever wished you were more supported, more seen and heard, more understood and respected in your own maiden years, this is a truly special way of healing that part of you, and to give your child the best start to a conscious, empowered, embodied and connected womanhood. I know that when my daughters are of age, we will be taking the journey together, one by one.
Arahni and Jo share the story of why and how they created this potent experience, what happens within the journey, and why this kind of initiatory journey is needed now, more than ever.
How To Set Embodied Intentions For The New Year
When you want to create real change, its important that you don’t follow what you think you should be focusing on. instead, ask yourself what’s true for you. how will you know? your body will tell you.
Have you picked a word for the year yet? A New Year’s resolution? Is your year mapped out with strict timelines and a whole lotta hustle? Maybe so… But if this approach doesn’t feel quite right to you, I’d love to offer you a different way: a more feminine, embodied, feelings-based way of setting intentions for the year ahead. In this episode I’m sharing my embodied intention-setting technique which I guide all my private wild feminine coaching clients through, so you can get crystal-clear, alive, juicy and deeply inspired to call in your most luscious year yet.
What’s more, the cycle mysteries teach us that New Years Day is not the correct time to be declaring “New Year, New Me!”. Instead, there’s meant to be an in-built hibernation, restorative time to let the death of the last year complete, and the visioning and dreaming of the new year to occur before we rush in all guns blazing with our new habits.
I suggest we allow ourselves one Moon, until New Moon (22nd Jan 2023) to let our visions become clear, so we’re sure we’re choosing the right path that honours our capacity, desires, needs and energy, rather than overriding and pushing through. Let’s resist the urge to overdo it and then quit at the first hurdle, all burnt out, and instead take a cyclical, embodied approach right from the get-go.
Sex And The Menstrual Cycle on wild flow podcast
I’ve been wanting to have a conversation about sex and sexuality on the podcast for some time now. Sex, desire, sexuality, and sexual pleasure are such taboos and often get left to the wayside and yet its such an intrinsic part of the menstrual cycle, and of our humanity. This conversation has left me feeling nourished, connected, soft, curious and whole. I hope that in listening you feel that way too.
Allow me to introduce you to Ruby. Ruby May is a devotee of the Yin, facilitator, community & connection catalyst, midwifing a world in which cyclical awareness is integrated into the way we relate and shape the world.
With a background in working professionally with intimacy and sexuality and a stint working as a dominatrix, Ruby became fascinated in the phenomena of Feminine leadership and how the womb could become a gateway into embodying this.
She is the community leader for the graduates of the Menstruality Leadership programme for the Red School, the biggest education centre globally for Menstrual Cycle Awareness and her own initiative, Know Your Flow. Both support the cultivation of community for developing body literacy, inspired leadership and social change, with over 200 members from over 20 countries.
The author of “Know Your Flow: A cycle Tracking Journal for Personal and Planetary Revolution” and creatrix behind”The Game”, Ruby currently lives in the creative cauldron of Berlin.
Listen, enjoy, share with your partner and friends, and allow this conversation to inspire you into deeper relationship with yourself and your cyclical experience. Happy listening
Welcome To The Pleasure Club
Pleasure. What is pleasure? Does the word fill you with shame, guilt or uneasy feelings? Do you feel like pleasure isn’t for you? Does this potent word conjure up thoughts of sex, and how comfortable you are with your own sexuality?
Pleasure is so much more than this, and my guest on Wild Flow the Podcast, Rowena Hobbins, is here to invite you into reframing pleasure as an essential part of your path to healing and empowerment. In fact she’s here to invite you to join the Pleasure Club!
This juicy chat with my soul sister and biz bestie dives deep into:
Our own personal relationships, attitudes and experiences of pleasure both in the past and present,
What pleasure means to us, and what it means to you, and why it’s not all about orgasms,
What blocks you from relating to and accessing pleasure,
Why you can’t open to pleasure until you’ve done the deep inner work, looking at childhood patterns and conditioning around pleasure first,
Why pleasure is essential to cultivate and learn to hold in your body, and how this missing link has been life changing for both of us
and how Rowena is on a mission to invite women to reclaim their pleasure birthright in her new Pleasure Club in 2023 (this sounds seriously amazing!)
Reclaim Your Menstrual Story to Reclaim Your Body
In this episode of Wild Flow Podcast I sat down for a delicious conversation with Hannah Brown who offers menstrual story work to women to help them unpick the threads of their stories, lived experiences, and relationship with their body and cycle. By exploring the patterns that run through your womb story, you can challenge what’s true, what’s yours and what needs letting go, with the aim of rejecting menstrual shame and reclaiming your cycle. Hannah is a Children’s social worker, trainer/consultant and menstrual cycle coach who has worked with people to support change for nearly two decades. She’s also a client of mine, having been coaching with me and part of my Cycle Sorcery group journey so this conversation feels like a beautiful natter with a good friend.
Why You Should Track Your Menstrual Cycle And How To Do It
Did you know that on average, Australian females experience between 450-500 periods in her lifetime, with the average cycle spanning between 21-35 days, and the average bleed lasting between 2-7 days?
Once we begin menstruating (at menarche – pronounced “men-ar-kee”) which occurs anywhere these days between roughly the ages of 8-15, and commonly around ages 12-13, we begin our monthly bleed (menstrual cycle) until we reach menopause which occurs approximately at the age of 50 (although again, this can occur much earlier or later as it is do individual).
After menarche our periods will be irregular for most of our teen years until the rhythm is established and our hormones settle into their natural, beautiful cycle. You might notice that some months you bleed for longer, or more heavily than other times, or that your cycle isn’t the same length each time. This is all ok – everyone’s cycle is different.
cyclic rituals, sacred self-care and an oracle card reading for your cycle
In this episode of Wild Flow Podcast I sat down for a delicious conversation with my friend Clare Foale, a writer, an artist, a teacher, a space holder, a tapping practitioner, a questioner and an ocean-lover. Clare and I met originally in cycle facilitator training with Mitle Southey, and shared visions and journeys whilst we sat next to each other. I loved her earrings and beautifully warm wisdom and laugh.
Since then Clare has trained with me to become a Certified First Moon Circle Facilitator, and Clare has claimed her creativity by, amongst other things, dreaming and birthing her magickal oracle card deck called Spacious, which is all about honouring our desires, needs, and sacred selves.
What menstrual / cycle awareness means to both of us,
How we can use incredibly simple reflective questions to support us through the more challenging as well as expansive moments of our menstrual cycles, and daily life as women, mothers, space holders,
Why Clare does not like the term self-care and her own personal practice that she finds infinitely more nourishing instead,
She looks back at the last decade of her life from turning 30 to turning 40, and shares the love notes of wisdom she shares with her younger self,
And Clare offers us an oracle card reading from her new card deck Spacious to hold space for ourselves through the four phases of our next menstrual cycle. This is a beautiful menstrual cycle awareness ritual!
red moon or white moon? rituals to sync with the moon’s cycle
red moon or white moon? rituals to sync with the moon’s cycle – on wild flow podcast with Charlotte Pointeaux. In this solo episode of Wild Flow Podcast, I share with you why I love the Moon so much! I offer Menstrual and Moon Cycle Coaching so its safe to say that I love guiding women to connect with the Moon’s cycle, and how we can harness her magick to bring cyclical awareness to life, especially if you don’t have a menstrual cycle. Tune in to hear What the phases of the moon cycle are and how it mirrors the menstrual cycle,
Why the moon is honoured in many cultures as a Feminine energy,
Rituals for working with the moon,
What it means if you bleed or ovulate with the Full Moon, and
How to sync your cycle with the moon, if you choose to.