Last week, along with 21 other incredible women (who are as obsessed with the menstrual cycle as I am!), I completed part one of a residential apprenticeship training in menstruality, led by Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer; founders of Red School.

The privilege to learn so intimately from these women is not lost on me. Nor is the gravitas of this work — it's BIG, and in years to come, we’ll look back and think, “WOW, I can’t believe that we lived in a way that didn’t acknowledge, revere, and support the flow and potential of a woman’s menstrual cycle process.”

Please know this: the capacity for world-wide, sustainable, and transformative change here is STAGGERING. For thousands of years, women have been denied the validation of their unique experience on this planet. The menstrual cycle goes unnamed or shamed. The profound and unique way in which women experience their inner and outer reality is repressed. Women often tell me (and I totally GET IT!) that the world often feels as if it’s set up in a way that totally works against the female body’s natural rhythms — leaving us overwhelmed, exhausted, depressed, and pissed off.

I believe that a true and expansive understanding of menstruality is what we need to support women in their physical, mental, emotional, creative, sexual, and spiritual health over the course of their entire lives. From before the first bleed, right into post-menopause, women (and men!!) NEED to be supported in this profound life-giving system. It’s what we ALL need to restore the balance in the workplace, in family life, relationships, the environment, and in individual and collective wellness.

Menstrual cycle awareness can help to shape every single area of a woman’s life. Whether it’s cultivating self-belief, mindfulness or creative expression, working with shame, stress or trauma, reducing environmental impact, building relationships, confidence, balancing the masculine and feminine, forming a sense of life purpose, experiencing the power of pleasure, sex, or play, minimising self-destructive tendencies, anxiety, or overwhelm… I believe that the cycle has answers.

This past week (in some extraordinary UK countryside!) I’ve identified the EXACT moment in my cycle when I’m most open to anxiety and post-traumatic stress, and formed a plan to gently support myself in that time. I’ve figured out why I've been creatively blocked in a particular area for over a year, and I know how I can work with my cycle to move past it. I now know the day I feel those lonely, self-sabotaging tendencies kick in and I understand why that is — there's no need now for my inner critic to tear me down here. I’ve shaped a new set of personal and professional boundaries, gained greater clarity on my calling and current stage of life, and found a softness and patience within myself that can only come through conversing with the feminine.

The world may not currently support or honour the cyclic experience, but attitudes ARE changing, and while it isn’t always easy, we DO have the power to choose our approach.

We can lead with self-curiosity, develop greater cycle and self-awareness and land in a soft, and kind, place within ourselves. MY GOD I am SO bloody about excited about this work!!

OPPORTUNITY TO WORK WITH ME

I have TWO spaces opening in my coaching calendar from July, specifically reserved for women who would like to take the next step, together with me, towards deepening their understanding of their menstrual cycle, menstruality, and learning how to flow with their monthly rhythms. I am 1000% ready to lead you towards greater intimacy with this vital, beautiful, and powerful piece in the puzzle of who you are as a woman. More information on coaching can be found here, or please send me an email with 'COACHING ENQUIRY' in the subject line.

The future is female, as they say. Tell me in the comments: how do these ideas resonate with you?

Claire x

Ps. Almost 600 people all over the world are devouring my Adore Your Cycle eBook. Have you got yours yet?