Far 2 Fabulous

How Can I Connect with My Body's Natural Cycles for Better Health and Well-being?

• Julie Clark & Catherine Chapman • Episode 65

Share episode

EPISODE 65

Guest Episode with Lindsay Dalton.

What if everything you've been taught about your body's cycles is missing the most important truth? What if the changes you experience throughout your life - from first period to menopause - aren't random inconveniences but a sophisticated map to your own power?

Lindsay Dalton, founder of When The Wild Women Are, takes us on a journey through the wisdom of cyclical living that modern society has disconnected us from. As a former doula who witnessed women's strength in birth, Lindsay became fascinated by how early our relationship with our bodies forms - often with that very first period. Whether remembered as traumatic, celebratory, or simply unmemorable, this initiation shapes how we experience each cycle that follows.

The conversation flows through revelatory concepts like "inner seasons" - understanding how we naturally cycle through energetic spring, productive summer, reflective autumn and restful winter phases each month. Rather than pushing against these natural rhythms, Lindsay suggests embracing them as guidance for when to take action, when to complete projects, and when to rest and listen to intuition.

Perhaps most powerfully, Lindsay reframes menopause not as an ending but an evolution into wisdom and authenticity. As estrogen decreases, so too does our biological drive to please others - allowing many women to finally reclaim parts of themselves they set aside decades earlier. This explains why so many women in their 50s and beyond suddenly find themselves signing up for choirs, returning to childhood passions, and speaking truths they've held back.

For listeners feeling overwhelmed by hormone fluctuations or life transitions, Lindsay offers gentle starting points: simple daily check-ins with your body, tracking patterns without judgment, and finding community with other women who understand. Whether you're preparing a daughter for her first period, navigating perimenopause, or seeking to deepen your connection to your cyclical nature, this conversation offers a compassionate roadmap back to your own inner wisdom.

Find Lindsay on Instagram at @wherethewildwomenare or visit her website to explore her Cyclical Living Journal, designed to help you reconnect with your natural rhythms.

Got a question or comment? Send us a text message here!

Finally Hit Your Protein Goals Without the Hassle—11 Fast & Easy Ways to Get 25+ Grams of Protein, No Stress, No Boring Meals!


Simply click HERE to download your free protein guide.

Thank you for listening.

You can continue the conversation with us in the Far 2 Fabulous Facebook group. Come and connect with other women on a journey to empowered health.

For more information about Julie Clark Nutrition, click HERE
For more information about Catherine Chapman, click HERE

We look forward to you joining us on the next episode.

Speaker 1:

Hello, hello, and before we start this week's episode of the Far Too Fabulous podcast, I want to take a very quick second to apologise for the quality of this recording. Sometimes these things happen, technology lets us down and we have tried our absolute best to give you the best quality of recording that we possibly could in the circumstances. However, we did not want to re-record because there are so many bits of gold in this podcast recording that even re-recording I don't think would would recreate the magic that we have captured. So please, please, please, persevere with it, enjoy the content and again, apologies about the quality of the sound with our lovely guest Lindsay, and we will do our very, very best to make sure it doesn't happen again. Let's get on with the show.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Far Too Fabulous hosted by Julie and Catherine, Join us on a mission to embrace your fabulousness and redefine wellness. Get ready for some feistiness, inspiration, candid chats and humour as we journey together towards empowered wellbeing.

Speaker 2:

Let's dive in. Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Far Too Fabulous podcast. Now today we have a very fabulous guest. We've got Lindsay Dalton, who is the founder of when the Wild Women Are. I absolutely just love that phrase. She's a menstrual cycle and feminine embodiment coach and just an all-round champion for women, I think. So I came across Lindsay because I did her course with my daughter about getting prepared for your first period, which was absolutely brilliant. I'm sure we will cover that as well as we go through. But yeah, Lindsay, welcome to the podcast. Yeah, tell us a bit more about yourself.

Speaker 3:

Thank you so much for having me. Nice to be here. I think it started for me with, you know, being a doula, so that's probably how I would say I came into menstrual cycle awareness. So I was supporting women through birth and, naturally, the progression into really supporting them with their cycles and just realizing just how amazing women are. All the changes that we have to go through, you know, right from what you said. You know the first cycle, our first entry into womanhood, and then you know we're constantly changing, constantly evolving, and I just wanted to soak up more and more information, more and more knowledge about how I can support women as we continue to transition with these various versions of ourselves.

Speaker 1:

That's fantastic. What I love about you coming from being a doula and then sort of building onto that is I very much feel like being an empowerment warrior behind these women and getting them to trust what their body already knows it can do. Recently, there's so much more of a disconnect with our bodies and a lack of trust of our bodies, and so being able to just remind us that we've got it all already.

Speaker 3:

Exactly, and that was the thing for me. It was realising, you know, as I was speaking to people during their pregnancies, it was realising, oh, that disconnect and that mistrust has started so long ago and really, as I said, the entry of womanhood, so it was going back to those experiences that kind of made me realise, oh, we need to start much earlier on, obviously with our daughters, but for us, as women, doesn't matter, you know, how old you are. Listening to this doesn't matter where you are in that stage of your cycle, whether you're perimenopause, menopausal, you still have a connection to that. You know 12, 13 year old girl within you that first had that first period. And that's where I always start with women when I'm supporting them is go back to that.

Speaker 3:

And you know, I've even spoken to women in their 70s, 80s and they remember, they they say, gosh, I can remember it in so much detail, that first period, whether it was a positive, whether it was a negative, traumatic, or whether it was somewhere in the middle where they've not really ever thought it was a thing. But when they start recalling the detail, you can see and you can hear the emotion behind that, and so I think that's really key for us to connect back to. What was that experience? How has that shaped my cycles, my journey with myself as a woman?

Speaker 1:

yeah, imagine I could just feel that from like an older lady who probably at that point would never like it was almost brushed under the carpet that it wasn't, it wasn't important or you shouldn't talk about it, yeah and yeah, and be able to almost like heal that or just you know, just a nod to that was really important. Can you remember your first one?

Speaker 2:

Do you know what? I don't actually remember my first period. I was talking to my daughter about it, because my daughter's 13 and she hasn't started her periods yet, and she was asking me what was it like? You know, my friend said it's really bad, and then there's all this blood and you know, obviously we have a chat about it and I was thinking I can't remember. Can you remember?

Speaker 1:

yours. Yeah, I can remember Weirdly, so I've got this. Probably sounds very strange. Now I've got a picture of me not actually the moment I started sitting on the toilet, but I have got a picture of me laughing on my, on my, on my sort of toilet when we were younger, because it was up on a throne and it just looks hilarious, and I'm just there, I've got my jumper down and I'm just laughing my head off. So I can actually, in my mind's eye, I can picture where I was when that moment happened. That wasn't the actual moment. And my mum I was like mum, what's this? Because it wasn't bright red. So I was completely freaked out and she just she came into it oh, that's lovely and was completely like cooing over me before she even told me it was my period. I was like mum, what is it like? Just speak to me. Um, but we lived in a house with three girls, so it was very open and so for me me it was quite a joyous experience.

Speaker 1:

Sounds very positive, but it was very positive, and I've tried to create that at home, although, I mean, one of my girls is very open and you know what's going on like 24 hours a day, and the other one is not like that at all, and so it's, yeah, just trying to keep that, that flow of communication, open.

Speaker 3:

Really yeah, and everyone's going to be different. You know, not everybody wants it to be, um, something they discuss, and that's okay, but it's creating that environment where it's it, where it is safe and where it isn't taboo and also where it is. You know, there was some significance. You felt that from your mum that there was a significance, so that would have imprinted in your head a message about what womanhood is about, what's about to come. So it's very subtle sometimes the messages that we receive.

Speaker 3:

It's not necessarily that there's a traumatic thing or a very obvious shame, traumatic thing or a very obvious shame, but sometimes even the non-mention of how that might feel, just the acknowledgement of how that might feel you know, might be scary or it might be new or whatever, um, but then they're not acknowledging it, they're just talking about the practical side of things can create us to think that it's a non-significant and that any feelings we might have around that are not really important because we just have to get on with it, soldier on. And this is the message that obviously society has created for women and it's the message we've been getting in perimenopause right. Um, it's only now really that the conversation is opening up, realizing that women are struggling, that women are going through so much and taking on so much more responsibility than we ever would have done in society, at those ages as well. It's only now that we're starting to have this conversation, so naturally it will be more negative because, gosh, we've been oppressed in silence for so long. Of course, now we're being heard.

Speaker 2:

You know it's like it's all going going to come out bad reviews, travel faster type of thing.

Speaker 3:

It's that type of feeling so it's all going to come out. But then, within that conversation, I think it's also really important that, although, yes, I would want to validate and listen to all those truthful experiences and difficult things that women are experiencing through, for example, perimenopause or menstrual cycle or menopause, it's also important to note that you know is a natural transition and that there are positives with, um, you know, journeying through that, and that it's another rite of passage. So we talk about rites of passage being acknowledged are really important for us psychologically, spiritually, physically. And when we don't acknowledge those transitions, that's when we can come up with all sorts of stored trauma, psychological issues going on. Talk to women in perimenopause about the first cycle, because it's like how was this rite of passage marked? And the next one would be, for example, children or not having children. That's still a rite of passage, um, you know, and we can circle through them. Obviously. The next one then becoming um perimenopause, menopause, if that, if that makes sense, talking about rites of passage there yeah, it really, it really does.

Speaker 2:

And now I'm thinking to myself why don't I remember my first period? That's so weird, because I actually started my period pretty late. I think I was pretty much 15, which is quite late. You think I'd have a better memory of it, right? Isn't that weird that I just don't. I just don't remember. You have to ask your mom the moment she remembers. No, I'm gonna ask my mom, yeah.

Speaker 3:

I'd love that In meditation you might come to it.

Speaker 2:

Maybe it was bad and I've blanked it out. I don't know.

Speaker 1:

What I love about that is that, as we're having this kind of awareness awakening at the moment and people are talking about menopause a little bit more and, like you say, these bad reviews travel further a little bit more and, like you say, these bad reviews travel further I'm kind of then hoping that, once we have got I don't know, hundreds and thousands of years of oppression out of our systems, that perhaps yeah, there is, um, still a narrative around it, but perhaps a bit more positive and a bit more of a natural one yeah, and I think also it starts with because we are talking about the difficulties there and obviously you know, as you will know, so many things that we can do or that we have been doing that have been potentially difficult.

Speaker 3:

for example, toxins and inflammation within our diets. You know, all of this obviously is contributing to the picture. So, you know, my hope is that if we start very early on, with menstrual cycle being very you know, I'm very, very aware of my children. I'm not letting them have plastic bottles, things like this, certain chemicals in skincare, all of that stuff and I obviously talk about this in my course how you start that changes the cycle. I'm not necessarily saying that you're not going to get issues like PCOS and endometriosis and stuff like this, but we do know that is a contributing factor. So obviously, if we're kind of past that point, we're going to have to go backwards and unpick and heal some of that. But as we start to educate, we then inform the next generations and there are things that we can do so that perimenopause and menopause don't have to be as much of a struggle.

Speaker 3:

So I think it's really important that, although this is very common, that it's difficult, it's not normal, you know that those two things are very different and I think we have to be careful. We's not normal. You know those two things are very different and I think we have to be careful that we're not normalising the struggle. And you know, it then becomes the same thing. That's happened with periods. Oh gosh, isn't it awful to be a woman, what we have to go through, and now we have to go through this, so it's this martyrdom and it's this kind of burden, and that isn't to take away from, obviously, the lived experience of women that are sharing their stories and their truth as well this is so true.

Speaker 2:

I feel like I want to stand up and give you a round of applause for that, because we've been talking a lot about this in our recent episodes, about the fact that, you know, we're about empowering our clients and the women listening, and there is so much you can do to not just be a victim of this process, and so, yeah, we have spoken a lot about that. But at the same time, when we've been going through, you know, this is what this hormone does. This is what can happen when it starts to decline. It can cause an imbalance here. It all sounds. It all sounds very negative, doesn't it really?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and also I think it's really interesting what you've just said about being able to do things for the younger women to make their sort of journey into menstruation a little bit easier. We can do the same within like perimenopause. So just, you know, taking out those toxins and all that sort of stuff. Yes, and to acknowledge that, because this is our way of life, this is the, a modern way of life, we almost don't realize that that is what's causing the difficulties and that's the and that's all bit yeah, that's it.

Speaker 3:

And because we don't live cyclically, so, you know, in societies we would have lived through the seasons, so we would have eaten through, you know, seasonally and not in the way that we eat now from going to supermarkets, but we also would have lived with the seasons. So we would have been very aware of the moon cycles. We would have been aware of, you know, when the sun's up, when the sun's down. You know all the all the different cycles that we have in the seasons, up, when the sun's down, you know all the all the different cycles that we have in the seasons. And we would have lived, obviously, on the land, connected to nature, realizing that we're part of that nature. And at the moment, people work all sorts of hours and, you know, we've got a lot of this blue light coming at us and screens, all of these things that are not natural to our bodies. And obviously we, you know, we, you know we love a lot of this. We wouldn't be able to do, um, what we're doing now with that, but it's being able to notice, um, that you know, no matter if you don't have, uh, you know, if you've had a hysterectomy or if you no longer have periods because you are, um, in menopause. So obviously, defining perimenopause, um and menopause, so obviously defining perimenopause and menopause as two separate things, you still have a cycle because you're still cyclical. So before you, as a woman, you are still cycling and I don't think it's any mistake that that is, you know, in connection to the moon cycle as being a 29 day cycle and we as a society, our ancestors would have been very aware of that. So you can use, I know it's that it might sound for some people a bit, you know, hippie or a bit strange to think about using the moon as a cycle, but that's what we would be doing. So really think, rather than thinking about day one as your period, think about, you know, the new moon as being day one, and it will kind of give you, you'll start to notice anyone listening to this who doesn't have periods because I hear it all the time from women.

Speaker 3:

It's like, oh yeah, I still feel different times a month. I feel higher energy, or I feel weepy, or I feel angry and but I don't know where I am because I don't have that compass anymore, I don't have that bleed to go. Oh, no wonder I was crying over um, you know they've run out of whatever at the supermarket or I couldn't get this right. You know we have that. We ebb and flow. We are not the same as men. We do not, uh, we are not on a linear. Obviously they have their cycles too, but it's a 24-hour cycle, uh. So you know they have a nine to five cycle. I love to say, I love to tell people about this. It's like, oh, uh, you know, testosterone, um, you know, starts to really rise at that kind of 10 o'clock, uh, time of day, and you know it starts to decline around five o'clock. So it's perfect for the working day, um, no mistake there, but we have that is so interesting.

Speaker 3:

I know, I know it's classic, but, um, you know, but it's a linear cycle. It's the same then every day. So you get up, you have more energy in the morning. You start to have less energy during the day. But we're not like that. You know, sometimes we can have weeks where we're so on it. You know, we've got slow cooker on at 10 in the morning. Sheets of change. We're on it with our work, we're on it with our relationships. We feel good. I feel like it's like Beyonce day, where you're like just, you know, getting this all right and then two days later you're like what's happened to me?

Speaker 3:

I've not done anything, I can't get the energy, it's all falling apart and you beat yourself up because you're comparing yourself to two days ago or last week's first day.

Speaker 3:

We can't be that consistent same energy every single day, and that is what society tells us is that you know it's this linear cycle. All of these things in the workplace like 90-day goals and all of this stuff that is not relevant to women, are cyclical. So when you start to know your cycle, whatever that might look like, you can then start to be compassionate and aware of where you're going to be and where your energy is best placed. I think that's really key, because we haven't lost that compass that we have within ourselves even when we start having our periods it starts by knowing what a cycle is as well, because we we kind of ran through a cycle, didn't we?

Speaker 2:

and we did an episode about the moon, and so many people don't necessarily understand what their cycle is and, because they're so disconnected, they don't even know when their high energy time is in this cycle or when it's not there yeah, that's exactly it.

Speaker 3:

So we're really really talking about um. A cycle has been the whole experience. So from day one should be your bleed, or if you're not bleeding, you know the new moon. You've got a good start point, for example, all the way through until you're at the end of that day before your next bleed, or the day before the new moon again. So that is the whole cycle as a whole and I think it really starts with just tuning in just every day, tuning into yourself and seeing how you feel, just taking literally a minute just to ask yourself how you feel, because we're so busy running around after other people, asking them what they need and doing everything for everyone else. It's only towards the end of the day you start to go oh, how am I? And it's this dissociation almost between ourselves. So it's just getting into that first, you know, first asking the question, and you might not know. I think that's also really important.

Speaker 3:

You might have a while if you're somebody who's really quite disconnected to your own self-care, your own emotions, and it might take you a while to be able to hear how you are. You might feel like I don't know, you might feel so overwhelmed, you don't know that's okay, but the fact that you start to ask yourself the question, how am I? That's a huge step to start looking after yourself and start tuning into how you're feeling. And then you know, because it's even things like I'm sure you work with clients like I'm hungry, I'm thirsty and my basic needs is so good at ignoring those. Yeah, really important thing to start to do um, and then you can start to obviously track your cycle, and that's really important.

Speaker 3:

Um, tracking your cycle, as I said, not bleeding. You're tracking it through the moon. You're tracking your mood, you're tracking your hunger, you're tracking your emotions, all of sleep, or you can track whatever you want, but you've got to relate it back, obviously, to where you are in the cycle and then you will see patterns yeah, it's another huge awareness exercise and we talk a lot about that, don't we?

Speaker 2:

on our podcast about awareness, and I think the, the clients that I work with, a lot of them are so disconnected that that question that you asked how am I? They literally don't know. You know, they know they're not right, but they can't really explain any more than that. You know, and um, yeah, that that total disconnect with the, with the body. I mean we do like a body scan and say just start by doing that so you start to make a connection with yourself. You know, and that and it and it takes a little bit of practice.

Speaker 3:

Um, it's not a quick fix, as you know, with these things tuning in but that's exactly right, like going through it somatically, obviously, with what I do with them having an embodiment. It is uh, you know we're talking a lot about kind of thinking and knowledge and things like that, but it is really about the somatic experience. So coming, just taking those few breaths, you know, it feels good, putting your hands on your heart, which is a really nice way to actually soothe your nervous system and you're just taking those breaths, feeling into what you feel. So it doesn't actually need to have particular words, it doesn't need to make sense to anybody else. I think it's important. You're just going to notice, oh, I've got this. You know, uh, feeling in my stomach, it might feel, um, like like butterflies in my chest, or I might feel tight, or I might feel tired or excited or whatever it might feel. It's the actual feeling, rather than necessarily having to quantify what does that mean? You know, just just start, small, in that way, start to tune in, because your body is communicating with you constantly and we're just, you know, we're just very, very programmed not to listen to that, not to listen to our body's cues, to override our body, and that's another thing that we're talking about.

Speaker 3:

In perimenopause, our body is starting to change and it wants us to really start to change our habits and slow down and, um, potentially do different things in terms of our exercise or our nutrition. It's given us all these cues but we're just continuing like we're in our 20s, trying to power on and going no, I can make it with four hours sleep or whatever you know or whatever else it's like. No, your body's needs change as as you age and and through your cycle, you know you're going to need different things at different points in your cycle. So it's really sad to have the awareness, but I think, for anyone listening who feels that overwhelmed with that, it starts small, as you, I'm sure you constantly say to your clients start small, don't think, oh gosh, I can't do it all. That's okay, you don't need to. Just can you start by just having more awareness on your cycle and being like just acknowledging that that exists within yourself?

Speaker 1:

I think yeah, and that this change isn't a bad thing, it's just different. And I think with there's again in society, there's been a it's. It's labeled like we're like we're slowing down and we're being put out to pasture or all of that, all that stuff. So I think that was what makes us almost like power through, because we're like no no we're not, we're not giving in.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, exactly that it's. I think, you know, seeing that, each of those qualities as we, you know, I talk about the cycle as being like inner seasons, so I don't know if it would be helpful to share a little bit of that. It might be useful, but you've got your inner spring at the beginning of the cycle and that's like a maiden energy, as I like to think about it. So it's like a young, kind of youthful. You know, we're in that spring, baby animals, little flowering buds, and it's like an excitement, all the ideas coming through, starting to wake up. But then, in that, there's like a I want to get it all done and we're just starting. So we need to be mindful that it's just starting. And then, as we come into like the middle of the cycle or ovulation, which would have been and, if you're not bleeding, would be the full moon you've got your like action, that's the you know, got the slope of chronic tender morning time, um, you've got your action and you've got your doing, and it's this kind of quite masculine energy that we prize in society, like we're doing the action, um, and we've got an idea that we need to keep that going, like all the cycle through. Then we come to our autumn, which is naturally obviously like the season the leaves coming down, letting go, shedding, yeah. So that's a good time for kind of really starting to finish up tasks, wrap up things. Then we can come into our slowing down phase and it's fantastic because it really, um, it's really for women. We start to realize that we've got all these aspects and they're all good, but we have to honor each part of them. So we come into the inner winter, which really is deep rest. In that deep rest, we've got a connection to our actual intuition and our decision making and our parity. So there's always strengths within each phase.

Speaker 3:

If they don't, if it doesn't seem like that, one of the beautiful things about menopause is that we are letting go of, you know, oestrogen. Um is part of a people-pleasing mechanism, right, oestrogen is helping us to obviously go out there and and meet people and, uh, obviously procreate, right. So but in, in the lowering of oestrogen, we actually come back into, uh, what is right for ourselves and not in this people. So when we're high in oestrogen, we're more likely to want to do for others, want to give to others. Our people pleasing is much higher. We're more susceptible. We also spend more money in that phase, interestingly. So as we start to, you know, lower the estrogen, we can start to go.

Speaker 3:

What is right for me? What is my truth? What is, do you know what I'm saying? Like? It's a very um, and obviously society doesn't like that so much, so that's why it's been, that's why it's been difficult, but you know, there is a real power in women. You know the wise woman, the archetype of the wise woman and the sage that. I know it's a struggle sometimes to get there, but once we get there, we need to celebrate these women that have been through you know so much, and they have all this wisdom really.

Speaker 2:

I'm going to celebrate my wisdom because I have got pretty low estrogen now, and so my take on that from what you've just said, is that the positive aspects. I've already noticed this in myself, that I'm not in a selfish way, but but I'm just doing what I want.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it's great. It's great. I think there's, you know, before the wise woman, it's the wild woman. That's why my business is called when the Wild Women Are, because the wild woman archetype is all about undoing this idea of being selfish by looking after yourself.

Speaker 3:

Yes, You've been through your mother archetype whether you have children or not, looking after others or caring for others or birthing a business or whatever it might be, you still got that, still got that aspect of yourself. But now how about we come back and kind of untame this version of yourself that's you know, put yourself forward, says like I'll be everything to everybody and I'll give you, you know, my shiny side, and all this? How about let's be our true selves and our authentic selves and start to question do I like doing that? Does that lift me up? Do I get something from that in terms of? Is it fulfilling for me Really starting to dig into hobbies and things that we want to do for ourselves, because so much of that is often lost, and it's that's really, really important that can be such a strength in perimenopause to start to rediscover the things that you potentially love doing when you're a kid, or that hobby that you, you know didn't have the time for.

Speaker 3:

Can we start to find ways of bringing more joy into our lives through perimenopause so that by the time we get to menopause, we are feeling our most authentic selves, really grounded in who we are, and not looking back and thinking I wish I'd done this. I wish I'd done that. You know, just done everything for everyone else. Who am I?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, because that's a major thing, isn't it On people's deathbeds? It's not that they wish they'd bought more or spent more.

Speaker 1:

It was that they'd regretted doing things. I am seeing that so much at the moment. I am seeing that so much at the moment is that is, women around me like retaking up ballet or roller skating or a roller hockey or or something that they've put down at some point because well, probably because they they deemed it not as important as all the other stuff we were we're expected to do, and they're picking it up again and also probably because you know confidence and also confidence.

Speaker 3:

You know it's a lot of times it's confidence because my other work I'm also a vocal coach and most of my clients are in their 60s and they come to singing lessons and they say you know what? I don't want to be a professional singer, but I always wanted to do this when I was younger and I was told I couldn't. Obviously, that's, you know, we could do a whole podcast on on women's voice, but you know it's very much. You see that women coming to the choir, women coming to sing, at essence they've gone. Do you know what? It's time to do something for me. It makes me feel good and I didn't have the confidence to do it when I was younger and I was told I couldn't and I didn't, didn't, push it. But now I'm taking back what I'm reclaiming what I want to do for myself. It's, it's just fantastic and I love that.

Speaker 3:

I love that strength of women um, you know, menopause women who have owned. Actually, this is my time and and we can look forward to that, we can look forward to reclaiming some of that for ourselves well, lindsay, you are preaching to the choir, preaching to the choir, we are avid, avid choir nerds, I, we are there every week, aren't we?

Speaker 2:

yeah, we love it and it's, and you're absolutely right it's been.

Speaker 1:

It's giving those people that have suppressed this side of themselves and actually there's quite a lot of men in in our choir as well, and it's exactly the same that they've suppressed that side of themselves, that that performing side or that sort of extrovert kind of side, and this has been their outlet and their stage to be able to do it. Yeah, I mean in varying degrees, not necessarily as loud as I am in choir.

Speaker 2:

Well, I'm just gonna say that I've noticed at choir, I think because we've both done a lot of the inner work and we've both got a fair amount of confidence I would say you definitely notice in. I mean, our choir is big, our community choir. But I went to a practice at the weekend where there was about two sorry, catherine missed me there was about 200 of us and there were aspects or moments there where I could only hear myself singing and I thought what is going on. And then I asked the people around me, because I was the I was. I said to the woman in front I'm really sorry if I'm singing really loud in your ear. She went oh no, it's really good that you are. Because, um, she said, oh, I'm, I'm, I'm not as confident as you. So, yeah, we, I need you to sing over so that then I can sing up a bit. And and it was really interesting that you get that, don't you in the choir? Sometimes you have people around you can't even hear them singing can you?

Speaker 1:

but I think, but this is, and this is quite a good metaphor, I think, for everything that we're doing, is that we give like we do, that we shed all those layers and we, we don't give a shit, and so we give those other women permission to be able to do that.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely that's what I was just thinking as you were saying that, and interesting that you kind of felt that need to kind of oh sorry, I'm shining my light, yeah, interesting, so it's like a noticing and she. But then she came back to you and went no, keep doing that, I need that, I need you to be that kind of beacon and that's really important. I think you know we have that and I think as well. Um, it's the same thing with birth experiences or periods or anything like that. We do have a tendency to go if I've got a positive experience, if I didn't struggle through perimenopause, if I didn't struggle with periods, if I had a good experience, we do feel bad for sharing those good experiences as well.

Speaker 3:

So it comes back to what we were saying earlier about kind of the negatives are coming through more loudly than positives because we are so mindful of, as women, to give voice. We're so nurturing in that way um, to give voice to people who are struggling, which is so important. But it's equally as important to champion those people that are going. I have this great experience and I want to be that cheerleader because, yeah, that's amazing. I'm so happy for you. It doesn't take away anybody else's bad experience, but you know. So it is very much a case of doing that as well recognizing, celebrating our wins, I think, celebrating those times that are going well and celebrating the work you're doing on yourself yeah, that is so true, isn't it?

Speaker 1:

you do often like, yeah, dim your own light so that you think you feel like other people don't feel. Don't feel bad, but actually you're doing a disservice.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I hadn't even thought about that.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I think it starts really young. I mean, definitely for myself it started kind of very, very young. It's like don't boast, don't be a show-off. It does start very young, mostly for girls actually, because actually boys don't get that as much. They're kind of a bit more celebrated when they achieve, whereas girls are like, you know, don't, don't be, don't be. So out there, you know, and we and we have this idea of modesty. So, yeah, I mean that's. You know we could go to a whole whole thing about that. But it's important, I think, as you're journeying through um, through your perimenopause, your menopause, to also celebrate the times that are good, the things that you change that then have effect, because it boosts other women as well and it helps them to know there's hope and there's changes you can make. It's empowering, it's a feeling of agency.

Speaker 1:

I'm training for the London Marathon at the moment, so I spend many, many hours running next to my sister and we're sort of chatting away, and the theme recently has been that she's a midwife and she really champions within the hospital. She champions as natural a birth as possible. She works in the midwifery led unit and that actually that's why she went into it in the first place, because she wanted to really empower women to do that, which I love. A few times recently she's come back home and she's had the birth has been beautiful, and then stuff's happened afterwards. There's a hemorrhage or there's other things that have happened afterwards and she has been as loudly as she feels like she can saying please, please, please, remember that you have had the most perfect birth that is possible, and to try and not to just remember the trauma that happened afterwards and she said I'm not, you know, I'm not, um, not dismissing. Yeah, that there was that, that the last bit was tough, but please don't let that be the only thing that you remember, this whole experience.

Speaker 3:

I think we do that, though generally, don't we? We it's very hard for us to hold two things as true. It can be true that you know, something was amazing, beautiful and, at the same time, utterly devastating and traumatic, and it's, you know, it's this, it's, it's so, it's so full. And I think it's come back to what I was saying about we don't live in a linear straight line. It's such a complex up and down round in a spiral. We often feel we're going back on ourselves, you know, and I think we start having compassion for that on, and this is so relevant for any journey um, we start understanding that we're just messy, we're humans, we're messy, we're living this really messy life, and as women, I mean when we're cycling, we have 480 hormonal fluctuations a month. Isn't that crazy? It's like such a roller coaster. Yeah, it is such a roller coaster. I'm thinking, oh, my goodness, no wonder you know we are going through. And when you're in perimenopause, my goodness, you're on. I don't even know any names of roller coasters 48,000 hormone changes.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, you are literally swinging from the highest high to like, look, you know, big drops, we're talking. So we've got to really have so much compassion for this journey that we're on and hold all of these things.

Speaker 1:

To be true, you know, really dance between um, holding everything and that's, you know, it's a lot it is, I think, and again, in society, we, we want to put things in boxes, we want to like almost oversimplify stuff and it's and it's just not like that no, it's really not, and I think that's you know.

Speaker 3:

That's where this coming back to your connection with self is so important, because it's not going to be a straight line, and if you can really start to tune into what you need every day and what changes you are going through, that's really going to be your only kind of map. We do have that ability to have a map because we often feel so lost and so we're looking externally, aren't we?

Speaker 3:

we're so lucky that we have all this information, but it's making us very externally driven you know, with AI and with search engines and things like this, constantly women are looking for answers outside of themselves, when actually we've got a lot of the answers through our body and through our cycle. So it's coming coming back to that it's coming right back to the beginning.

Speaker 1:

Isn't it about that, trusting yourself and your inner wisdom?

Speaker 2:

yeah, completely so when we're thinking about the women that are listening to this a lot of them are kind of, I would say, over 40 most of our audience and will be experiencing perimenopause or menopause or or be you know way beyond that. What kind of positive aspects do we want to share with them so that they can just kind of reframe some things, like when you are in perimenopause and you spoke about the highs and the lows and tuning in and there being some positive aspects to these transitions. What would you kind of pick out there for those people?

Speaker 3:

I think, coming back to what I was saying about having more access to your own clarity and your own truth and your own authentic self is a big one. So those less people-pleasing aspects are really important. So I think holding on to that and being on a journey of working towards that I think a big part of that does stem from doing some of the you know you will see, in perimenopause, women that are having struggles will find a lot of teenage stuff coming up. Perimenopause that seems to be a big theme for teenagers particularly, very interestingly, um. So going back through doing that kind of work, through that, whether that is with therapists, whether that is with coach or whatever it might be, is really important. But knowing that this is this is another rite of passage. So if you can find courage to journey back through that, you could come through perimenopause feeling stronger, feeling more connected to yourself, feeling, um, ready, like, excited for the next phase, knowing there's so much more to come, there's more joy, there's more pleasure, there's more authenticity, um, there's more connection in your relationships, because you are just being more you.

Speaker 3:

And although that might sound like a little bit of an airy, airy answer, I just really see this as a little bit of a walk of fire, you know it really is like it's not necessarily going to be plain sailing. Find that strength and that courage to do those changes, or really see this as a positive, that on the other side of this, um, there's a real power to it. So sometimes we're afraid of the things that are going to be difficult, um, or challenging, but try and see that as like a new strength that you're going to gain I think is the way I would say it and just be really compassionate to yourself and surround yourself with women that are going to cheerlead you all the way. I would say it Just be really compassionate to yourself and surround yourself with women that are going to cheerlead you all the way and, you know, be there for you on your difficult days.

Speaker 2:

That was a great answer, Lindsay.

Speaker 1:

I'm fired up. I don't know about you. I'm like yeah let's do this.

Speaker 3:

Do it Absolutely. You know we're made for this, but we need other women because that's what we always would have had through society. So important not to be isolated in your experience, to really have women around you, whether that's a women's circle, whether that's working with amazing female practitioners that have been there, that've got, you know, pieces of wisdom they can share with you. But the support aspect, you know keep talking, keep sharing, because that's how we keep sharing your stories, both positive, negative, all of it.

Speaker 2:

That's how we're going to support each other I love that that you're you're so passionate about that. Women supporting women. It comes through in all your work you do, so thank you for that, because that is that is truly lovely. Is there anything else you want to share? Or we obviously need to let people know where they can find you as well thank you, yeah, they can find me on instagram.

Speaker 3:

If they're on instagram, uh, it's uh, the instagram and then handle is where where the wild women are my website, obviously, which I'm sure you'll share as well, and, um, yeah, I think one of the pieces of work that I've done not that, not that recently, maybe a year or so ago was to create a journal so that women actually have somewhere to go with this tracking. I was constantly talking about track and make notes and I thought actually I should create something here, so that would be a really helpful place for people to start. If they're wondering how can I get that connection back to my cycle, if I'm not bleeding or if my cycle's all over the place?

Speaker 3:

and I know we have a lot of apps and things these days, but again, they're another way of disconnecting us, but they often give us predictions and they're often collecting all of our data. They're not the best way of actually coming back to intuition. So this journal that I created is is for that. It asks you very simple prompts every day, tuning into yourself. So it's a really great way of like what you were saying with the body scan, of doing that, and then it's going to be able to help you find those patterns um as well in there. And there's more more about inner seasons as well, if that was something that resonates with you within within the journal as well. So that's the cyclical living journal. That's on my website and it's also available on amazon. If you put cyclical living to dalton in terms of, you'll find it there as well oh, that's brilliant.

Speaker 2:

That sounds fantastic well, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us today. I've really enjoyed this chat of you.

Speaker 1:

I have we've got, I'm gonna go and just there's so many things in my head I've got to go and journal it all right, yeah, I'm all fired up. I'm all fired up about women's circles and empowerment and and anchoring yourself and all of that good stuff.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, let's do it Fantastic. Thank you so much for having me here.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, you're very welcome.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, take care. Thank you for keeping us company today.

Speaker 2:

If you enjoyed the podcast, don't forget to subscribe and leave a review. Your support helps us on our mission to reach 1,000 women in our first year, so share with your friends and family.

Speaker 1:

You might just change a life.

Speaker 2:

Connect with us on social media and make your life easier by joining our podcast mailing list. You'll find the links in the show notes. Your weekly episode will be delivered straight to your inbox every Thursday morning.

Speaker 1:

Make it a fabulous week and we'll catch you in the next episode.