Natalie Clarke
Natalie is a certified coach and menstruality mentor
My Story
I came across menstrual cycle awareness (MCA) when I was 35 after searching for more holistic ways to navigate my life. Despite all the inner work I had done in my twenties, my relationship with high functioning depression persisted. Being from the ‘tough it out’ generation, I wore a mask over the vulnerability as the norm, being both successful yet at odd times suicidal. As public awareness of mental health was starting to shift, I booked myself onto an authenticity workshop called ‘inviting intimacy’ in hope I would find a way (with hindsight: aka a man) to feel happier.
I was on the train platform returning home from the weekend when one of the participants called Rainbow mentioned something about ‘moontime’. I had no idea what this guy was talking about! He looked at me oddly, and me him (he’d spent the workshop rolling around on the floor dressed as a pixie and I’d judgmentally kept my distance). He then explained that some women get their period at the new moon hence the name. I’ll never forget the embarrassment and disbelief I felt, sensing that I ought to know this already. I boarded the train unaware my journey with intimacy had just begun. Rainbow - the fairy godmother I’ll ever be grateful to - was indeed the man I’d lusted after! He had mirrored the self-loving intimate connection I needed with myself - with my everything!
‘Moontime’ was the keyword I needed once home to Google my way to the conscious menstruality movement. Eight months in, I was off the pill, tracking the moon cycle, feeling infinitely better and now the one rolling around on the floor at dance events! Turns out the times when my world would fall apart had a cyclical regularity to them I could now pinpoint and start to understand and prepare for. Fast forward another six months and laughing my way back into another workshop, when a dear soul sister gave me a copy of ‘Wild Power’. The workshops combined with this book were a catalyst to the kind of self-connection I needed. The words presented in Wild Power were of all the wisdom I deeply knew and held in my body but which society had to that point been de-pressing in me.
Of course life had never made sense or been right for me without MCA! A cultural upbringing that has banished menstrual cycles to the edges had put me on an ever negative spiral of fighting against my own rhythm and nature. I had grown a monster of an inner critic inside of me and wanted out. And whilst that part pushed me to be outwardly successful, inwardly I was beside myself. My healthy ego and self authority had been driven underground, and labelled with a medical diagnosis - pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder, PMDD - rather than existing to value myself as the highly gifted and sensitive woman I am. Thankfully the self-intimacy that was unlocked through conscious menstruality alongside other practices meant I discovered a superbly strong connection of being by my side and on my side. The attuned, self aware part of me could use my previous coaching experiences to supercharge my menstrual cycle tracking for a creatively intense personal growth period during 2016 - 2023. Now rejecting all the depression I'd introjected into my body, my inner critic happily partners with my inner champion and their fruits are now expressed and shared with others as Red Lotus.
In 2022 I was able to complete Red School’s leadership programme (seeing my vision to ‘serve the exquisite’ through a ‘return to the collective’ starting with 'combining Clean Language coaching with MCA'). I also deepened my understanding of the forces at play when it comes to women’s health through my post-graduate degree in health leadership and promotion. It was on this course that I discovered an academic paper by Gregg & O'Hara citing the red lotus as a metaphor for putting into action in a systematic way the values and principles of salutogenic wellness. This course and paper spoke to my strategic, left-brained self as much as the seven years of following my intuition and expanding my heart through alternative health paths have.
Red Lotus is the rewriting of the story of depression that was handed to me at my menarche aged 11 and the reclaiming of self-connection through menstrual health informed leadership and spirituality. My wish is that conscious menstruality becomes so mainstream that a depression free society exists where woman are truly valued and a healthy life, from teenage years through to menopause and beyond, is available to all.
With thanks, Natalie, October 2023