Go here to listen to the introductory call, learn more and sign up for the waitlist.
Red School’s Menstruality Leadership Programme offers a radically new approach to women’s leadership training based on a cyclical model of development: the menstrual cycle and the psychological and spiritual developmental journey from menarche to menopause and beyond into our mature years. It is the only comprehensive training of its kind in the world exploring and developing the exciting new discipline of Menstruality, a discipline that is set to change the way we approach women’s and other menstruators wellbeing at all levels of our personal and professional development, creative and spiritual life.
It is a training rooted in an apprenticeship to your own lived experience of the menstrual cycle, and if you don’t have a menstrual cycle, you can work with the moon cycle. The patterning is the same although the menstrual cycle is felt more deeply as it is an embodied process.
Menstruality is a woman’s Inner Intelligence or organising principle that is working her from her first bleed at menarche, throughout her menstruating years and menopause and into her post-menopause years. It is leading her Home to Herself.
Menstruality is an initiatory journey to power (a process of maturation): a psychological death and rebirth process that unfolds over each menstrual month leading to ever more expanded levels of consciousness. Menstruality is the knowledge, knowing and consciousness that accumulates in a woman through the lived experience of this repeated initiation, month after month; and what she simultaneously generates in her community.
In summary, menstruality is both a consciousness and a new professional field which has not previously existed. This training is a chance to be a forerunner in this new emerging field of menstruality.
You will receive comprehensive grounding in the (Red School) menstruality cosmology explored in the context of your own lived experience of the cycle. It is an apprenticeship with your own cycle that will:
You will learn how to:
If you are on the cusp of or have crossed the menopause, you will work retrospectively recovering something of your menstrual cycle story, understanding how the cyclical powers exist within you still and how to honour them, while also exploring this in the context of the transition of menopause itself.
Please note: we don’t teach you how to teach this material but rather support the awakening of your authority to do that)
*If you want to teach and coach in the area of menopause, you would also need to attend our Menopause: unveiling the hidden power workshop. As we are unable to cover the full scope of the menopause transition itself. Currently only available as an in-person event but we are looking to also making an online version.
Personal
Professional
Please note: we don’t teach you how to teach this material but rather support the awakening of your authority to do that.
*If you want to teach and coach in the area of menopause, you would also need to attend our Menopause: unveiling the hidden power workshop. As we are unable to cover the full scope of the menopause transition itself. Currently only available as an in-person event but we are also looking to make an online version.
Any woman:
We aim to create a supportive and safe community within which you can explore deeply the inner forces of your body. However, such is the power of menstruality, we have found that the initial awakening to this work can be sometimes be challenging and catalytic. It is therefore important that you have some personal development skills and your own therapeutic resources in place should you need it.
Initiatory journey:
The birthings (peak moments of initiation):
The Three Inner Maps (the inner architecture of the menstrual cycle)
The layers (the processes at work through the initiatory arc of your life):
The three archetypal powers
The role of the inner critic in the initiatory journey
The four psycho-spiritual menstruality foundations for healing
*In 2017 we offered the first professional training in the Menstruality Medicine Circle Process – a one-to-one tool developed by Red School to be used within menstruality coaching. To find a list of MMC facilitators see the register here
We consider that your apprenticeship begins at the moment you make a commitment to the training. To get the most out of it, it is important to feel adequately prepared. Below we outline the minimum prerequisites for the Leadership Programme, as well as recommendations for further preparation.
Course prerequisites
Recommended preparation
The programme will be led by Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer, co-directors of Red School and authors of Wild Power: discover the magic of your menstrual cycle and awaken the feminine path to power, published by Hay House (April 2017).
Between us we have spent forty years exploring and learning about menstruality from our own deeply lived experience and the collective knowledge we have gathered from working with thousands of women. Pioneering this field, we have created the most comprehensive and life changing programme available to date, offering in-person workshops, online courses and professional training in the field of menstruality. We’ve been featured in countless radio and TV programs, documentaries and in print media worldwide. Working as a very creative and productive partnership, we bring liberal doses of irreverent humour and are not afraid to take an outspoken stance to help shift this outrageous taboo on women’s power.
There will also be three assistants on the training, they are the Red School Mentors
The Women’s Quest Apprenticeship is nothing short of a miracle. Through the experience, I am delighted to have created a personal, practical and useful toolkit to life, including: a feminine instruction manual on the inner workings of my cycle and the creative process, an internal map that guides me straight to profound connection with nature, a sound-proof room to keep my Inner Critic in when it gets too much, a five star cleaning service that has loosened some deep rooted emotional clogs and blockages and a Dictionary of Acceptance that allows all my feelings, thoughts and words to be heard and not judged.
I have such gratitude and love for Alexandra, Sjanie and the assistants for creating an essential, loving, nourishing and fun womb circle. I am so grateful to have sat in the physical presence and boundless energy of a group of incredible women apprentices, and I feel immense joy to know that there is a seat in the circle always, for me and for each and every woman when they are ready. Menstrual cycle awareness and authentic community has brought me one step closer to true love. Grace Winteringham, cofounder PATTERNITY, and many other things. 2018
This menstruality work has, and continues, to influence my life at the deepest level and I thank you for, and honour you for this amazing gift that you have given, to me, to so many others. As you know, my own entrance at the door of menopause was pretty dramatic, and I can honestly say that without the understanding I had from the training, from practicing cycle awareness and of the menopause rite of passage, I don’t think I would have got through it.
Doing the training was one of the best decisions of my life.
As a holistic therapist and yoga and meditation teacher, the training and my own practice with MCA are priceless in the work that I do. Teaching and sharing this deep wisdom with women, I see the profound change and understanding that develops in them; the healing, the delight in finding where their power and happiness lies.
Working with my own cycle brought me to a place of really meeting my power and honouring myself and it gives me so much pleasure to see this happening for other women. This truly is the absolute ‘key’ to women’s wholeness on all levels. The more women that become educators of this deep wisdom and share it, the quicker the earth and this world will heal
Nalini Deane, women’s wellness therapist, yoga and meditation teacher and Dance of Awareness teacher, 2014 Italian Apprenticeship
I feel so grateful to have had the honour of training with Redschool. The Women’s Quest Apprenticeship allowed me to dive deeply into my connection with the feminine and I have emerged from the experience more assured, compassionate and connected to my deeper purpose and true nature in life.
The residentials were profoundly moving and the level of learning had such depth and consideration, yet there was a sense of lightness and playfulness about the course that connected with my own spirit and preferred way of learning. I felt so held the whole way through and so grateful to have been connected to such a beautiful group of like-minded and hearted women that I know I will maintain a relationship with for the rest of my life.
A few months on from the residential I am continuing with a daily practice of MCA and have a greater more attuned and respectful relationship with my cycle, my inner critic and my deeper creative energy. My own power patterns! Honouring my cycle and taking more time to be in my feminine has positively impacted many areas of my life, sending positive ripples into my current work, my relationships and my deeper purpose. I have been able to create much healthier boundaries in daily life and have a heightened sensitivity to my own energies than I ever have had which is helping me to live more authentically and sustainably – as I grow into the next phase of my life. There is now BRS + ARS – life before-red school and life-after-red school! The shift has been that life-changing.
Anna Murray, author, Creative Director and Cofounder of PATTERNITY, 2018
As someone who has grappled with the ‘feminine principle’ and how to recover it to some balance in my own life, the MLP takes the notion of the restoration of the feminine principle into a grounded embodied place. After years of trying to search for answers this training has revealed much to me, and drawn it out from within; clarity, how I operate in the world and a very clear path of what I need to do now. Practical magic! I’m finally feeling at home in myself for the first time ever. The impact has been massive for me.
Adrienne Egan, Maya Massage therapist and healer, 2011/12
Deciding to take the step to commit to the Menstruality Leadership Programme was one of those things where I didn’t know exactly WHY I was doing this, but there was a deep knowing I that I HAD to! The guidance received through the training has been like receiving a map into myself, through which I am learning how to better understand and handle the powerful feminine energies moving through me each month. Through the amazing support from Alexandra and the rest of the group as a whole, I am now beginning to grow a confidence to actually dare to share this female wisdom with others (A further note from Sarah: if I’m honest I have been putting off emailing you to arrange our final session, it feels like an end of something… my heart knows of course that that is not the case, but the mind doesn’t want to finish this amazing chapter with you. Both the Sacred Woman courses that are running now are flowing so beautifully and you are this solid, unshakable inspiration holding up the teachings… I am often referencing my notes from our training weekends in preparation for the Sacred Woman Gathering and am always wowed out by the constant stream of little gems from your sharing. Thank You Thank You Thank You!!)
Sarah Wilks, yoga teacher, 2011/12
What a journey we are on! The apprenticeship training has taken me to a deeper core understanding of my path in ways that I didn’t expect. Using my own cycle, I’m learning how to repair what was broken in my life and create anew, with an authority that self-awareness and years of therapy failed to bring. Through this apprenticeship, Alexandra Pope is reconnecting us with our birthrights as women.
Jacqueline Riquez, artist, mother, and menstrual educator, 2011/12
The Women’s Quest Apprenticeship is a rare gift; a unique opportunity for self discovery that opens doors to every aspect of our reality. It has been both a privilege and a revelation to watch all course participants flourish and grow in such an impressive, tangible manner. And it is humbling to see how far I have come myself in terms of emotional strength and awareness. The Apprenticeship has enabled me to embody an understanding of how vital it is for women to befriend their menstrual consciousness – undoubtedly a fast track to progress in terms of personal development. As these past 9 months have been possibly the most insightful and potent of my life so far, I look to the future with intrigue, awake to the manifold possibilities that Alexandra and The Quest have brought.
Penny Fuller, Yoga Teacher, 40 yrs old, 2011/12
For me the Apprenticeship training was deeply transforming just being within the field of its energy. I felt with you a deep resting and a journeying and traveling in yourself that gave me such permission. I felt deeply touched by your compassion for yourself and felt that radiated to us as women and created a glow and simple deep love in the room…You know from the inside the pain and disturbances and at the same time trusted something stronger than the wounding/periferal and what is all around us and listened and listened from inner ears. I felt I could rest/trust in that too and you gave permission for that which feels precious and unseen, the feminine way with mysterious senses. Like an invisible tincture/essence of silent knowing that you taste and ingest when you know it too. And for this I am deeply grateful as I know how precious and neglected this approach has been…how thirsty and how much denial of that thirst there is and the conflict this creates…
Claire Taylor, Artist 2011/12
The best thing I have ever done! To learn to live The Womanly Way, to befriend myself in all (yes, all!) seasons of my menstrual cycle, to delve where I have never delved before, and come out feeling so so alive and juicy wanting to share it with my sisters! This apprenticeship has given me the biggest Mother-Hug of my life! Thanks.
Jane Legge, 2012/13
You would not be able to fully understand how much my life has changed or how much you and the other women in the WQ Tribe have changed my life. One of things that I have learned from you…is that I must learn to trust. You trust and you have co-created with the divine. You have touched so many lives. And now the women in the WQ tribe are motivated to go out and help and serve other women! I never imagined or even believed that I could be this well and I know that I still have a lot to do. But here is the big change for me, I am actually getting on with it. I am all zipped up, a whole complete woman full of light, dark, softness, harshness. Love the whole bit. I acknowledge all of me…I just don’t have the words to express my gratitude or my Love. So while I had absolutely no intention of enjoying this journey…I am loving it! Not that it is easy on the contrary, but it is blissful because it is honest, real and true!
Althea Hart, community worker, 2012/13
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