What might change if we treated menstruation not as something to hide, but as a source of knowledge - about ourselves, our society, and the systems we live in? What if the way we relate to the menstrual cycle could teach us how to build a more humane world? Could paying attention to menstruation be a way of paying attention to what our culture has forgotten — care, rest, and integrity?

In this episode I have the great honour to talk to Dr. Lara Owen. Lara is recognised internationally for her pioneering and continuing work on menstruation. She is the author of Her Blood Is Gold, first published by HarperCollins in 1993, and Reorganizing Menstruation, published by Oxford University Press in 2024. She holds a PhD in menstrual organisation from Monash Business School and is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of St Andrews. Lara teaches a Master’s level course in Contemporary Menstrual Studies that attracts students globally and consults with organisations worldwide on menstrual policies and practices.

In this episode, Lara shares generously from both her academic and spiritual paths — the “both/and” of menstruality: holding intellect and embodiment, activism and inner work, courage and stillness. We talk about how her life’s work evolved from a dream and a deep listening to the soul, to becoming a leading global voice on menstruation and menstrual organisation.

Together we explored:

🌙 How Lara followed and follows her soul path - from acupuncture to writing Her Blood Is Gold and pursuing groundbreaking menstrual research …

❤️ … and ow living and working from the heart — even in humble, small ways — nurtures both the individual and the collective.

🩸 Why menstruation is the “canary in the coal mine” of capitalism — and what it reveals about our economic and social systems.

💡 The idea that our lives are activism — that living with integrity and wholeness is a radical act of resistance.

🧘 The importance of slowing down, trusting timing, and avoiding shortcuts in a world obsessed with productivity and profit.

🔬 The need for nuanced, empirical research in menstruality — and Lara’s vision for bridging the embodied and the academic.

📚 Her latest book Reorganising Menstruation, and how menstruation offers us a model for reorganising society toward care, commons, and wholeness.

🌏 The rise of menstrual literacy and the revolutionary potential of women reclaiming their cycles.

This is a conversation about embodiment, integrity, and imagination — about how deep trust and alignment can become the quiet revolution our world needs.

Enjoy!

🌟 Join my softly rebellious on Substack: Subscribe here.

🌟 Sign up here to receive a copy of my free workshop about The wild and poetic anatomy of the female body.

🌟 Work with me 1:1 online or in person, find out more here.

---

💛 The Soft Rebellion Podcast is created and hosted by Flurina Dominique Thali. I love hearing from you. To contact me, email [email protected].

---

Links:

Flurina Dominique Thali & The Soft Rebellion: @flurina.thali / www.flurinathali.com

My guest, Lara Owen: www.laraowen.com - you can find all informations about her course on her webpage, follow Lara on instagram @drlaraowen

Credits:

Intro/outro music – ‘Hymn for Jim’ by Aspyrian: Robin Porter – saxophone, Jack Gillen – guitar, Matt Parkinson – drums, composed by Robin Porter, listen to the full track here.

Graphic: Annina Thali, for more information click here

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

What if descent wasn’t something to fear, but a sacred invitation — to soften, to surrender, to remember who we truly are beneath the noise? This conversation with Carly Mountain felt like sitting beside a fire, slowly warming the parts of ourselves we’ve hidden away. With tenderness and deep wisdom, Carly guides us into the mythic, sensual, and often-forgotten terrain of the body, of feminine cycles, of descent and rising. This is a conversation about remembering — not just with the mind, but with the whole body. It stayed with me long after we stopped recording. I hope it touches you, too.

Carly Mountain is a writer, author of the book Descent and Rising, psychotherapist and initiatory guide. She facilitates women and the people who love them, to remember, reclaim and reconnect with their sensual, emotional, embodied aliveness and instinctual knowing that is rooted in the earth. She draws on twenty years of embodied practice, training and space holding and has a trauma informed approach.

In this conversation we explored:

💫 Carly`s story and what she rebelled against and is softy rebelling for! Yes, coming home to your body is an act of rebellion. But don’t do it for that. Do it for you. For your body. For your sensuality. For your creativity. For your relationship with yourself and all things.

💫 The myth of Inanna and her descent into the underworld …

💫 Carly shares how this myth mirrored her own personal journey and why it continues to speak to modern women facing burnout, identity shifts, or creative rebirth.

💫 How women’s bodies are encoded for this ancient map and the journey of descent and rising in a special and powerful way. Woman, you are made to descend and rise!

💫 How our culture medicalises the experience of a “break down” when in fact to fail is to birth - a break down invites us to descent, to embrace what we have abandoned in our (earlier) life and it’s the beginning of a healing journey. We descent into wounding to raise into healing!

💫 We explore the myths call to reclaim erotic intelligence, surrender, and embodied wisdom. Carly reframes surrender not as weakness but as the courage to meet what’s real - and sees descent not as failure, but as the doorway to collective healing.

Enjoy!

🌟 Join my softly rebellious on Substack: Subscribe here.

🌟 Sign up here to receive a copy of my free workshop about The wild and poetic anatomy of the female body.

🌟 Work with me 1:1 online or in person, find out more here.

---

💛 The Soft Rebellion Podcast is created and hosted by Flurina Dominique Thali. I love hearing from you. To contact me, email [email protected].

---

Links:

Flurina Dominique Thali & The Soft Rebellion: @flurina.thali / www.flurinathali.com

My guest, Carly Mountain: www.carlymountain.com, follow Carly on instagram @carly_mountain

Credits:

Intro/outro music – ‘Hymn for Jim’ by Aspyrian: Robin Porter – saxophone, Jack Gillen – guitar, Matt Parkinson – drums, composed by Robin Porter, listen to the full track here.

Graphic: Annina Thali, for more information click here

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

What if the act of creating — a book, a poem, a life — is also an act of soul retrieval? In this tender and powerful conversation, Coco invites us into the deep terrain of trauma, healing, and divine remembrance. Her voice carries the wisdom of one who has walked through fire and returned with medicine: the sacred feminine, the regenerative force of the body, and the healing power of creative expression. This is a conversation about truth-telling, about birthing the self, and about trusting that our bodies are living libraries of ancient, sacred knowing.

Coco is a UK-based mother, grandmother, creative, mystic, soul guide and writer. Her creativity is informed by her journey as a devotee of the Tantric path (an embodied path of self-liberation) and her personal journey with trauma. She has always felt a call to channel the Voice of the Divine Feminine and is published in several bestselling anthologies. Often thought provoking, yet always heartfelt her work speaks of the sacred wisdom stored in the body, the non-linear nature of trauma and the embodiment of soul. She believes that our innate connection to the natural world can heal humanity.

In this conversation we explore:

- The inspiration and medicine behind Coco’s recently published book, Digging for Mother’s Bones.

- The story that shaped the book — beginning in abuse and mental illness, and unfolding through a spontaneous Kundalini awakening, a near-death experience, and a long journey of integration.

- How the process of writing the book became a path of healing: reclaiming sacred body wisdom, releasing trauma, and embodying the divine feminine.

- The thresholds Coco crossed — from inner resistance to cultural conditioning — and how the creative process initiated her into a new expression of self.

- Practical insights on how creativity can guide us through fear, resistance, and transformation.

- A deep dive into the archetype of the Mother and the Great Mother — the regenerative, feminine force of creation — and how we can unearth the body’s wisdom as a living, sacred library.

Enjoy!

🌟 Join my softly rebellious on Substack: Subscribe here.

🌟 Sign up here to receive a copy of my free workshop about The wild and poetic anatomy of the female body.

🌟 Work with me 1:1 online or in person, find out more here.

---

💛 The Soft Rebellion Podcast is created and hosted by Flurina Dominique Thali. I love hearing from you. To contact me, email [email protected].

---

Links:

- Flurina Dominique Thali & The Soft Rebellion: @flurina.thali / www.flurinathali.com

- My guest, Coco Oya: www.creativelycoco.com, follow Coco on instagram @creativelycoco

Credits:

- Intro/outro music – ‘Hymn for Jim’ by Aspyrian: Robin Porter – saxophone, Jack Gillen – guitar, Matt Parkinson – drums, composed by Robin Porter, listen to the full track here.

- Graphic: Annina Thali, for more information click here

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

What if motherhood isn’t just a role we step into — but a rite of passage that invites us to heal, transform, and reconnect with the cycles of life?

In this rich and nourishing conversation, Naomi Glass shares her journey from disconnection to deep embodiment, from inner patriarchy to cyclical living. Together, we explore the sacred messiness of motherhood, the healing power of nature, and the quiet revolution that begins when we learn to listen — to the earth, to our bodies, and to the wisdom passed down through generations.

Naomi Glass is a conception, birth, baby loss, and postpartum doula, as well as a Matrescence Coach and Birth Story Specialist. Through her practice and space Embracing the Waves, she supports people in navigating the deep rite of passage into parenthood - helping them feel heard, anchored, and empowered.

She offers one-to-one sessions, circles, and workshops (both online and in-person), and is also co-Director of the Real Health Collective CIC, a community project focused on holistic wellbeing for families. Based in West Wales, Naomi is a home-educating parent, smallholder, and writer, committed to healing ancestral legacies and reconnecting with the earth

In this conversation we explore:

💫  Naomi’s story - from an urban upbringing marked by disconnection and struggle, to a soft rebellion that led her toward light, meaning, and healing.

💫  How rediscovering nature and growing her own food helped her heal from disordered eating and find a sense of place in the world.

💫  Her involvement in environmental activism, and how learning about the cycles of nature helped her come home to the cycles within dismantling inner hierarchies and patriarchal conditioning.

💫  Why reconnecting with the rhythms of nature is key to reconnecting with ourselves.

💫  The ongoing, often unspoken rite of passage that is motherhood - and how birthing and parenting her daughters launched her into the transformational process of Matrescence.

Enjoy!

🌟 Join my softly rebellious on Substack: Subscribe here.

🌟 Sign up here to receive a copy of my free workshop about The wild and poetic anatomy of the female body.

🌟 Work with me 1:1 online or in person, find out more here.

---

💛 The Soft Rebellion Podcast is created and hosted by Flurina Dominique Thali. I love hearing from you. To contact me, email [email protected].

---

Links:

- Flurina Dominique Thali & The Soft Rebellion: @flurina.thali / www.flurinathali.com

- My guest, Naomi Glass Find out more about all her offers on her webpage www.embracingthewaves.com

Credits:

Intro/outro music – ‘Hymn for Jim’ by Aspyrian: Robin Porter – saxophone, Jack Gillen – guitar, Matt Parkinson – drums, composed by Robin Porter, listen to the full track here.

Graphic: Annina Thali, for more information click here

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

In today`s episode I`m talking to Dr. Cacky Mellor who invites us to reframe shame as a sacred space - a place where healing begins, stories are reclaimed, and the body becomes a source of power rather than pain. We explore how trauma, illness, and cultural conditioning shape our inner narratives - and how somatic work can help us come home to ourselves.

Dr. Cacky Mellor is a teacher, healer, and community builder whose work blends art therapy, somatics, complementary medicine, and depth psychology to support trauma resilience and healing on both personal and community levels. She specializes in women and femme empowerment, helping people reclaim their bodies and stories through her remote practice, Somatic Reclamation.

With a background in art therapy and holistic psychology, Cacky holds a Master's in art-based activism and social entrepreneurship, is a Master Somatic Movement Therapist and Educator, a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, yoga teacher, and Reiki master. She also earned her Ph.D. in Depth Psychology with a focus on Somatic Studies from Pacifica Graduate Institute. Her work is deeply rooted in community, social justice, and the transformative power of the arts and embodied healing.

This is such a deep, generous and raw conversation about the essence of life - this gentle meeting of who we are on a deepest soul level. Enjoy!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

Have you ever wondered what it really means to be female? Do you sometimes resent being female in a man’s world? Do you feel like something is missing in your experience and don’t know what it is?

Today’s guest, Dr. Sharon Moloney, has spent a lifetime exploring and writing about exactly these questions — and the body of work she has created is pure healing. She says, “I’m a proud and passionate ambassador for the female state of being. It’s the one thing that lights me up just thinking about it, and for which I want to be remembered after I’m gone.”

I am so deeply grateful and happy to have had Sharon on the podcast!

Dr. Sharon Moloney is an author, speaker, women’s health therapist, and bodyworker who guides women to find, reclaim, and embody their sacred female power. Her mission is to restore the sacredness of the female body, which she believes has a crucial role to play in restoring male/female balance on the planet. Her work is informed by her PhD, which explored menstruation and birth as female spiritual experiences. Sharon believes that our female bodies are our most intimate connection with Nature, and her book Activate Your Female Power is a guided journey into that intimacy.

In this conversation, we explored:

- Sharon’s personal story of growing up as the fourth daughter of a mother who desperately wanted a son, and how she experienced her first period as an extraordinary spiritual awakening that led her on a path to uncover and teach about the sacredness and power of the female body.

- The incredibleness of the female body and the menstrual cycle as an invitation to turn inward, connect with spirit, and unfold our truest and greatest potential.

- The negative hypnotic trance of menstrual shame, and why it is a core patriarchal organizing principle that predisposes women to approach birth feeling fearful, disempowered, and vulnerable to intervention.

- And so much more!

---

🌟 Join my softly rebellious on Substack: Subscribe here.

🌟 Sign up here to receive a copy of my free workshop about The wild and poetic anatomy of the female body.

🌟 Work with me 1:1 online or in person, find out more here.

---

💛 The Soft Rebellion Podcast is created and hosted by Flurina Dominique Thali. I love hearing from you. To contact me, email [email protected].

---

Links:

Flurina Dominique Thali & The Soft Rebellion: @flurina.thali / www.flurinathali.com

My guest, Dr. Sharon Moloney: www.sharonmoloney.com, you can email her at [email protected]

Her book Activate Your Female Power, is available here on Amazon or here in Australia.

Her online video program can be found here.

Credits:

- Intro/outro music – ‘Hymn for Jim’ by Aspyrian: Robin Porter – saxophone, Jack Gillen – guitar, Matt Parkinson – drums, composed by Robin Porter, listen to the full track here.

- Graphic: Annina Thali, for more information click here

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

What is our Second Spring? Who are we after menopause? How can we harness the wisdom we’ve gained from previous cycles and transitions to navigate this shift? AND how can the wisdom of menopause plug us deeper into our cyclical summer years too?

This is what I talk about in today’s episode with guest Kate Codrington. Kate is a mentor, speaker, facilitator, artist and podcaster. She is also the author of Second Spring: The self-care guide to menopause, one of the seven best books on menopause according to the New York Times. Kate mentors professionals and people in perimenopause and beyond, is a nature-based Yoga Nidra meditation guide, hosts Life - An Inside Job podcast, has been a therapist for over 30 years and creates multi-level art textile projects.

In this liberating and permission-giving conversation we explored:

* Kate`s “homecoming journey” and how the tough experience of navigating kids and perimenopause led her to the depth of her cycle (just as she lost it!) and initiated her into becoming a trailblazing teacher and mentor in the field of (peri)menopause.

* The seasons and cycles of a woman’s life, from menarche, to our cyclical years, menopause and beyond.

* Why in the summer season she needs her spirit recognised, is invited to plant the seeds of her dreams - and if at times we give ourselves away too much it’s NOT a mistake!

* How menopause is a beginning as this season asks us, very intensely, to come into relationship with ourselves and shows us where we need to put our attention to.

* Why we deeply need to re-write the menopause narrative, and colour in the vibrant, creative life that happens in our Second Spring.

* How learning about menopause can plug us youngsters ever deeper into our creative summers!

---

🌟 Join my softly rebellious on Substack: Subscribe here.

🌟 Sign up here to receive a copy of my free workshop about The wild and poetic anatomy of the female body.

🌟 Work with me 1:1 online or in person, find out more here.

---

💛 The Soft Rebellion Podcast is created and hosted by Flurina Dominique Thali. I love hearing from you. To contact me, email [email protected].

---

Links:

Flurina Dominique Thali & The Soft Rebellion: @flurina.thali / www.flurinathali.com

My guest, Kate Codrington: www.katecodrington.co.uk, follow Kate on instagram @Kate_codrington

Credits:

Intro/outro music – ‘Hymn for Jim’ by Aspyrian: Robin Porter – saxophone, Jack Gillen – guitar, Matt Parkinson – drums, composed by Robin Porter, listen to the full track here.

Graphic: Annina Thali, for more information click here

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

You are never not embodied. You are a body — a treasure trove of wisdom and native intelligence. There’s a bubbling abundance of insight within you, but it’s not something you can access through the mind alone. That’s why we’re called to give authority back to the body — to let her know she can be trusted, and to rewild our experience which is the sacred return to our true nature.

But what does it really mean to live in our body again — to stop outsourcing truth to the mind and remember the language of sensation, instinct, and pleasure?

In this episode, I’m joined by the incredible Michaela Boehm. Michaela teaches and counsels internationally as an expert in intimacy and relationships. Born and raised in Austria, she combines a background in psychology and extensive clinical counseling experience with deep training in the yogic arts. Her unique body of work sits at the intersection of embodiment and intimacy. Michaela is the author of The Wild Woman’s Way and the founder of The Non-Linear Movement Method®, a powerful somatic release practice.

Together, we explore:

- Michaela’s journey from effortless embodiment in childhood, to a period of disconnection and being “stuck in her head,” and finally to discovering profound embodiment practices that now shape her life’s work.

- What embodiment really means: giving authority back to the body, cultivating interoceptive awareness, and deeply listening to the messages the body constantly sends us.

- How we can rewild ourselves — returning to the body, to pleasure, and to the art of being rather than always doing— even in the busyness of modern life. Michaela shares powerful embodiment practices that allow us to live a wildly creative life without burning out.

- Why so many of us end up as “thinking heads on sticks” — and how we can reconnect with the lower body to awaken intimacy, pleasure, and aliveness. We also discuss how to meet the shame that can arise in this reconnection, especially around the lower body.

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🌟 Join my softly rebellious on Substack: Subscribe here.

🌟 Sign up here to receive a copy of my free workshop about The wild and poetic anatomy of the female body.

🌟 Work with me 1:1 online or in person, find out more here.

---

💛 The Soft Rebellion Podcast is created and hosted by Flurina Dominique Thali. I love hearing from you. To contact me, email [email protected].

---

Links:

Flurina Dominique Thali & The Soft Rebellion: @flurina.thali / www.flurinathali.com

My guest, Michaela Boehm: www.michaelaboehm.com, follow Michaela Boehm on instagram @micboehm77

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

The Sacred Feminine is about your power, my power, and the deep, ancient wisdom that guides us toward authenticity, healing, and transformation. Herstory and mythology - often erased or forgotten - reveal that women have always been undeniable forces of nature. These stories offer us new frameworks for leadership, creativity, and courage in a world crying out for change. If we allow Her to lead, the Sacred Feminine offers a roadmap to the most powerful, embodied version of ourselves.

In this episode, I`m talking to Liz Childs Kelly, a writer, award-winning researcher, educator, community builder, and host of the popular Home to Her podcast dedicated to amplifying the voices of the Sacred Feminine. She is also the author of Home to Her: Walking the Transformative Path of the Sacred Feminine, a 2023 Nautilus Gold award winner.

I can still feel my soul shimmer and my heart take flight when I think back to my conversation with Liz. Thank you, dearest Liz, for your work, your courage, and your truth-telling. It’s real, it’s urgent, and it’s so deeply needed.

This conversation is a wake-up call—a power talk urging us to release what no longer aligns, even when it's terrifying. Especially when it's terrifying. Sometimes, we have to leap into the unknown to reclaim our power and remember our strength.

In this conversation we explored:

* Liz’s journey back home to herself and to the Sacred Feminine—how she has always been a seeker, and how the Sacred Feminine gifted her with the profound realization: “I am not crazy. The system is.”

* The nature of female power, and how to reclaim it in a world built around entirely different paradigms. Liz explains why stepping into the unknown is essential to awakening our creative potential and bathing in the cosmic womb.

* Liz shared about the 5 ancient secrets of female power and we can embrace and live them now!

* The power of darkness—the place everything emerges from, the place we are born from. In the darkness, divinity unfolds. It’s where we begin to hear Her.

* The importance of honoring liminality in our lives. We are cyclical beings, and the liminal is not just a transitional space—it is life-affirming, sustainable, and necessary.

Take a rest, lean into darkness and enjoy this wonderful conversation. I`m looking forward hearing from you and what your greatest takeaways are.

BIG LOVE, Flurina xxx

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

We all come from the feminine — from the mother. You and I have unfolded from bodies within bodies. (Did you know the egg that created you was already in your mother’s ovaries when she was still a fetus in your grandmother’s womb?) And yet, we often take her — the mother — and her story for granted. We forget our greatest source, Mother Earth, and our maternal lineage, which is often tangled with shame, grief, and silence.

In this episode, I speak with Pippa Grace — a socially engaged artist, writer, sculptor, and author of Mother in the Mother. This powerful anthology brings together stories from over fifty women, exploring the many layers of motherhood — particularly through the lens of the three-way relationship between grandmother, mother, and child.

Pippa’s work is devoted to amplifying quiet, everyday stories that are often overlooked or forgotten. Where voices have been silenced, her practice helps them find expression through creative means. A lifelong feminist, she specializes in working with women to explore themes like motherhood, grand-motherhood, menarche, the female body, and trauma.

In this conversation, we explore:

* Pippa’s personal journey and what inspired her to write Mother in the Mother. She shares from her experience of estrangement from her birth family, how she felt the lack of mother, and how giving birth became a portal to reconnecting with her maternal lineage and the power of her female ancestors.

* The themes of maternal lineage and women's experiences when they themselves became a mother. We touch on what are some of the challenges or joys women often encounter in their own relationships when they themselves become a mother, how becoming a mother in itself, can be healing for some women, and we look at how Pippa explored the role of being both a mother and a daughter in the same body.

* Her work as an arts therapist, using creative methodologies that help participants rediscover their creative voice, share their stories, and connect more deeply with themselves, their communities, and their environments.

* Practical and inspiring ways we can begin to explore our own maternal lineage for both personal and collective healing.

Enjoy listening!

BIG LOVE,

Flurina xx

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com