141. The Sacred Reckoning of Menopause (Elayne Kalila Doughty)

The Menstruality Podcast

We’ve all been there at some point. A shocking challenge disrupts our lives - a loss, a health crisis, a great disappointment - and we become the caterpillar in the cocoon (ie: we turn to mush).

But - as those of you who have been through it may well attest to (!) - nothing turns us into primordial goop like the initiation of menopause.
Today I have the rare honour of speaking with a guest who is not only mid-menopause-initiation but has also been deeply involved in the menstrual movement for two decades, and can therefore share a transmission from the leading edge of this work.
Psychotherapist, author, activist, and ordained Priestess, Elayne Kalila Doughty, has been negotiating the transition of menopause for a fifth of her life - the past ten years… today she shares the story of her menopause ‘reckoning’ - the core-wound truth she was forced to face when she was hospitalised in October last year, and began an intense inner and outer healing process.
We explore:

• Why menopause is designed to slow us down, and how this is in service the the dismantling of the inner patriarchal structures within each of us.
  
  
• How Elayne’s menopause process began with her experience of baby loss at 46, and what she's learned from being an unmothered daughter about how to mother herself (and our planet).
  
  
• A hilarious moment - at around 35 minutes - where we meet Elayne’s brilliant East London cockney grandmother, Olive, and hear about her feisty menopause reckoning, when she was done being compliant. HOLY YES!

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Social media:
Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.school
Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy
Elayne Kalila Doughty: @elayne.kalila - https://www.instagram.com/elayne.kalila