Menopause, and the years running up to it, can be a time of real challenge and transformation. Without wise guidance and a framework to understand what’s happening, we can be left feeling lost, alone and crazy. 

Luckily, there are those who can serve as guides, like our guest today, Dr Danielle Arabena, who brings her extensive experience as a medical doctor and a shamanic healer to stand at what she calls the “crossroads and altars we stand before as women” including menstruation, birth, menopause, death, and our topics for today: perimenopause. 

Dr Danielle is a descendant of the Meriam Mer peoples in the Torres Strait. She is a GP and healer whose nurturing approach integrates evidence-based medical care with the profound wisdom of 'women's business' as seen through her Indigenous Knowledge lens.

We explore:

• How Danielle was guided as a young girl to give her blood back to the earth (which back then looked like soaking tampons in a bucket and pouring it onto her suburban garden).
  
  
• How women who have had ACES (adverse childhood experiences) have a more challenging experience of menopause and how to ride the deep initiations to meet our shadow selves.
  
  
• Perimenopause and menopause as a reorganising process where we are clarifying our legacy for future generations; whether that’s making the world a better and safer place, tending to our relationships with our kin, or doing quieter, more intimate, inner work. 

---

Join us for our Menopause: The Great Awakener course - www.redschool.net/menopause

---

The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email [email protected]

---

Social media:
Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.school
Sophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy
Dr Danielle Arabena: @drdaniellearabena - https://www.instagram.com/drdaniellearabena/