Dr. Tammy Ben-Shaul has been researching, studying and therapising women for over 25 years. Starting from psychology and feminist studies, leaving academia, she's moved continents emphasizing different aspects of life in her work. The range seems broad, but isn't: it's always how women are shaped by patriarchy.

Thus mental health, well being, energy as a resource for the body, heart and mind distorted and depleted by the consciousness submerged in the current social order. As a psychologist and relational psychotherapist, a yogi and dharma practitioner, menstrual educator and shamanic womancrafter, Tammy is here to help women thrive.

This was such a deep and meaningful chat and one I hope to continue in part two in a later episode. We speak about:

• Tammy's journey through studying psychology and how a course in Women's Studies (that taught radical feminism!) changed the trajectory of her carer
• how Tammy sees menstruality as the key component which will help us dismantle the current social order
• the power of the moon to impact our energy, and meeting our needs according to this template
• the understanding the sources of a woman's power can be informed by understanding their taboos, including sexuality, the power of our blood, our ability to create and to sense the unseen.
• a list of Tammy's recommended resources to begin understanding and living from the menstrual cycle

Find Tammy online at https://www.sacred-psychology.com/

and her list of recommended resources including:

• Wise Power: Discover the Liberating Power of Menopause to Awaken Authority, Purpose and Belonging
• Jane Hardwicke Collings and the School of Shamanic Womancraft
• Menstruality Podcast from Red School
• Hagitude: Reimagining the Second Half of Life
• Wombs of Peace
• The Wisdom of Menopause (Revised Edition): Creating Physical and Emotional Health During the Change
  

 

___

Hey there beautiful! I have something for you! ⤵️

GRAB OUR FREE GUIDE HERE

---

TRANSCRIPT - S4E18 Menstruality to Break the Current Social Order with Tammy Ben-Shaul

Tammy Ben-Shaul: [00:00:00] when we say the current social order, we're talking about the economy. You were talking about the.

political system. And we're talking about everybody who's caught up in all the systems that we are just rolling through.

Kylie Patchett: Welcome to Wild and finally fucking free, hosted by me, soul fueled storyteller Kylie Thatcher. We dive into the truth talking, unedited stories of metamorphosis, growth and evolution. I deeply believe that sharing our stories holds transformative magic. Join us to listen to future humans, change agents, extraordinary ordinary people, healers, and paradigm shifters as we honor the power of our messy magical stories.

Let's get wild and finally fucking free together.

Hello, everybody. Welcome to the podcast. Once again, I have got, I know this is going to be a juicy conversation before we even start the beautiful Dr. Tammy Ben Shaul in the studio. Hello, Tammy. How are 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: you? I'm really good. 

Kylie Patchett: So excited to have this chat. We were connected by mutual friend of ours, the beautiful Kirsten Baus.

Um, now I know you have so many dimensions of things that you marinate in, in terms of, Personal and professional focus. So for those who don't already know you and your work, would you like to explain who you are, what you do, however you would like to? 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: Yes. Well, right now I can say that I'm the official founder of Sacred Psychology, which is, yeah, it's a comprehensive kind of finally birthing a 10 year process of, I know of the last 30 years, I guess, of my work and my research and my [00:02:00] learning and practices and starting to offer it outside the clinical space.

I guess that's, that's the main thing. That's why it's moved away from, you know, that kind of clinical psychologists dot com thing. 

Kylie Patchett: Yeah. Yeah. The APRA box. Yes. That's what I like to call that. 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: Yeah, I'm on the way, I'm on the way out. 

Kylie Patchett: So for those of you who are listening from other countries, APRA is the governing body or the, is it a governing body?

It's an association for psychologists. So it sets professional standards. It also means that psychologists need to play inside of a very, Clearly defined box, which then diminishes their ability to help people on all levels that they can, in my humble opinion. Anyway, you're beyond correct. Now, what sort of, um, what sort of work have you done?

And because you have, you have many. Like, as you said, sacred psychology, I love the fact that you've used that because to me, it's almost a paradox in my head, right? It's like psychology in the box does not actually look at me. 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: Yeah. So tell us more 

Kylie Patchett: about that. 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: Well, I mean, I've been a psychologist for a really long time and I've been trained in a way that was, um, It had a real, real depth to it, and, and it was very comprehensive, and it was, um, beautifully relational.

And that, was good, but it wasn't particular. It wasn't like all psychology. It wasn't particularly including women. And yes, shocking, shocking. Yes, I know. Crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy that. And I had actually started my studies and after the first year of having electives, I'd already Um, not coincidentally, um, fell into a class of women's studies.

What was [00:04:00] used to be called women's studies in the nineties. 

Kylie Patchett: Yep. 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: Yep. Yep. And, and it just blew my mind. It really reframed everything I knew about humans and myself really reframed everything and, and then I was ready to leave psychology.

The year after I did the women's studies, there was a professor who came to the university that I was at, um, teaching women's psychology. So she brought me back to it, and that was perfect because I started doing all my research, so my honors research and then my master's research I was already doing in a different country, and then my PhD were all around women's identity and self development through the relationships, all the relationships.

So this relationship. So good. 

Kylie Patchett: And it was 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: really 

Kylie Patchett: good. Sorry. Sorry. I want to go back to what drew you to women's studies? Like what? Um, cause I, I'm always when I do these interviews. Oh really? So what, what kept your interest? 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: Oh, I just, a friend of mine said, Oh, you should go, you should take this elective.

It'll be cool. I took this elective. It was interesting. I don't know what that it was. Feminism is hardcore feminism. Yeah. Radical feminism. It was not what we see out there, not in politics, not in the health system, not in the education system, certainly not at universities. It was nicely delivered, hardcore radical.

And from there on, That was my, that was my, uh, framework. Yeah. It just turned everything upside down. How do we, how do we have enough of feminism so that we don't need it anymore? Oh, 

Kylie Patchett: yeah. A self liberating concept. I love the fact that. Women's studies is such a diluted, like, you know, [00:06:00] pleased up version of actually what radical feminism is.

So I'm so glad that whoever was a smart person that labeled it in a way that made it accessible, but actually delivered what they really wanted to underneath the label. Um, what did you learn in that study or in that, that year of that program that surprised you? 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: I learned that everything I had ever thought was my problem was society collective.

Yeah. Everything was culture and society. So, Mm-Hmm. everything that I had experienced in the world, which many, many, many, many of us do and did. Mm-Hmm. and teenagers today, still experience it today just as much. 

Mm-Hmm. , 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: everything that is, um, the body. Everything that is emotions, everything that moves around, everything that are your thoughts, everything is actually like just being submerged in a social order.

That doesn't have to be really just like, it's actually, we're humans. We can shift it and that it's a system. It's not the people. We just kind of perpetuated blindly. Yeah. That's not reality. No, it isn't. It really isn't. It's not reality. Yeah. We can drop guns like this. Yes. We can practice. Menstrual awareness, but that I didn't learn there.

That was like, another 

Kylie Patchett: layer 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: years later, um, but I, so everything, nothing like boys didn't have to be boys and girls didn't have to be girls. And it wasn't about gender in the sense of gender spectrum. It was I who, you know, I just like, don't have a petite blonde body doesn't mean that I'm not feminine.

So it wasn't right, like, so it was, it was about my femininity. It wasn't about my gender affiliation or orientation. 

Right. 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: So that I am fine whether I decide to have hair on my body or not, whether I, anything, everything. All of it. Yeah, [00:08:00] 

Kylie Patchett: anything. Anything. I decide individual, 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: my eyebrows, my everything. 

Kylie Patchett: Yeah.

Everything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh my goodness. So many hours of sculpting our bodies into someone else's definition of, you know. Like the coloring of the hair or the whatever, like whatever, you know, and yes, there's a part of me that goes, you know, whatever, if that's your thing, that's cool. It's not my thing.

That's fine. But if you're doing it to fit into someone else's model, then that's what I have an objection about. Um, when you're talking about a system, what it reminds me of is when I very first kind Cause for many, many years, just outing myself completely, when I heard people railing against the patriarchy, you know, I'm using air quotes, I almost rolled my eyes because I'm like, you can't blame everything on the one thing.

Like it, it, it felt to me for a long time to be this kind of like offhanded thing that we just, oh, that's just that sort of thing. It's kind of like in the same vein as I, oh, that's the government or that's whatever. And it's to me, because I, I believe so much in personal responsibility and personal choice and freedom that it went that kind of, I don't know, putting it all in one basket didn't feel right to me.

But then I remember doing an interview where someone actually explained patriarchy, like, The ocean that we're all swimming in that we're all conditioned. 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: That's what I say when I say 

Kylie Patchett: submerged. And, and we believe that that's just the way it is where actually, no, it's reality through a very specific lens.

Tammy Ben-Shaul: But you also touched on something that is very complex and that's the idea of free will. And that's where other things that's coming to sacred psychology really, um, come into place. And that's sort of, um, you know, the spiritual practices. 

Kylie Patchett: Yes. The wisdom 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: practices, the idea that we're not just a shaped product, right?

Like we're dependent arising of everything that is [00:10:00] around us. And so the, uh, that kind of thing of free will gets lost very, very quickly. Yes. Really quickly, because it's not, you know, really, it's just everything. If you inquire into it and you take it apart, doesn't negate responsibility. It really doesn't, you know, in, in, in any area of my life, there is immense ethics can't even describe so much that it often goes out of the system, but that doesn't, that doesn't mean that I am actually the one choosing.

Kylie Patchett: Yes. I see what you're saying. 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: Yeah. It's complicated. 

Kylie Patchett: So how would you, if we were to go back to like the very beginning of defining. When, when you say the system, when you said before about submerging this thing, that's actually a system. Are you, is the word that you would use to describe that the patriarchy, or would you describe it differently?

Like, what's your definition? I call it 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: the current social order, because I think that patriarchy triggers as much as it triggered you. Yeah. I think that it, um, it just, I lose, um, I lose the conversation when we say the current social order, we're talking about the economy. You were talking about the.

political system. And we're talking about everybody who's caught up in all the systems that we are just rolling through. Yeah. Right. And very unconsciously, we don't necessarily really even think that we can just be something different. And it goes very, like, it's very tricky to talk with people. In general, when you've already had kind of, you know, 30 years into feminism 30, you know, 30 years into psychotherapy and the word relational that everything is everything is really absolutely everything is relational now, which is great, but [00:12:00] everything is now known.

out there because of the internet. And so we can't, us psychologists can't talk about diagnoses in the same way or attachment systems in the same way or psychoanalysis in the same way. You can't say psychoanalysis without people kind of rolling an eye because the universities are even, are even negating it.

And so you can, and you certainly can't say yoga when you actually mean Like, a huge non embodied practice. Yes. Right? The death and the deathless. You can't say the Dharma without people thinking that they know exactly what you're talking about. Yep. And I think, yeah. You certainly can't talk about menstruality because people are so scared of the blood.

Oh, my goodness. So many questions tied it all together. If you want to fast track, yeah, then I can tell you that that's the key to dismantling the patriarchy. Let's 

Kylie Patchett: go there. Let's go there. Because, because what you're saying, I, I can, I was actually having a similar conversation about the word somatic just in a podcast interview that I just recorded, because I think it's great that social media allows more people to understand that there's a way of accessing.

You know, a felt sense in their body, but I also don't think it's great because then we have so many noisy voices that are giving maybe incomplete, maybe inaccurate, depending on the source, whatever, but it's certainly a sense. Like, all of these things are so big that they can't be captured in a two second scrolling, you know, social media posts and nor should they be, you know, let's talk about that.

Can I make a comment about that one? Yes, please. Yes. 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: So it's hilarious because, you know, we all know everything that's somatic right now, somatic experiencing and somatic inquiry and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, Having its time 

Kylie Patchett: in the sun. 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: A hundred percent. And we won't name the names that should not be named because it's, they're good people.[00:14:00] 

But when I sit in a reading group with my co like. You know, the people who work for my orientation and they're all in their 60s and 70s. And I talk about embodied sexuality and I, all the things that I like to bring into, to just juice up our conversations. They've studied somatic things since the 70s Decades ago.

Yeah. Like psychoanalysis never, never not. Like never, it never focused on it, but it was certainly there. Yes. So it's just the, you know, yeah, I've gone and done, you know, yoga teachers training course so that I could incorporate it according to the rules of psychology in clinic. But it's not where my somatic work comes from.

No. It's the brain. Yes, exactly. Yeah. So that's about somatics. 

Kylie Patchett: Yes. 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: I feel like 

Kylie Patchett: let's just go, yeah, let's just go straight to menstruality. So you're, what you just said was the key to dismantling the systems is menstruality awareness. Please tell us more about that. 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: So obviously, um, anything to do with, um, anything to do with women's blood rights, anything to do.

And, and a lot of what I'm saying, I do have to reference quite a few teachers. 

So I'll go, the direct one is Jane Harville Collings, she's my, the Australian one, the direct one. Um, but there are other teachers that I've worked with, Deanna Lamb and, and with the Red School kind of crew. And yeah, And they're all just like the gurus of these topics.

And it's been something that I've been working with through, um, through the Red's Tenth Circles. And the Red's Tenth Circles basically taught me just from a weekend that I wanted to, you know, to have something different than my PhD. Yeah. Basically, [00:16:00] the conversation around processing what had never happened.

what was never honored, what was never taught, what was never looked at, what was never, um, imparted, what was, um, silenced, what was shamed, what was, um, what was hidden and bringing that and working with that and, and, and seeing just how many of my clients in clinic can't even connect with their moods and their ways of thinking and their body in relation to the cycle just blew my mind Because once I want, it's kind of like once I've heard it, I couldn't not work with it.

I'm feeling very radical as a clinical psychologist, like, you know, it was 12 years ago. Wow, that would have been radical 12 years ago, far out. I was just quietly saying to my clients, so where are you on your cycle? Where are you in your cycle? And then kind of going between that experience where women think they're crazy, to a place of saying, like, hang on, you just need support.

You're actually, hang on, you're just about to bleed. So maybe, maybe you shouldn't be doing all the housework. Yeah. And maybe, and maybe, um, you lashing out at your children is a result of you being exhausted. And maybe all the trauma rises. And that's what I started tracking in my clinic, that on the luteal phase.

All the trauma starts rising. And it's heartbreaking because once the luteal phase was over and there was a bleed, there was relief. Yes. And then there's this kind of like building up, building up, building up ovulation. It's not always fine, right? Mm-Hmm. . Because if you've had a really traumatic life, then.

Um, when you're in the kind of in the ovulatory phase, then everything is really intense and huge. Yeah. And then you start bringing in the [00:18:00] moon cycle and you see just like these, just these disparities and these incongruences and they're actually. Again, to link it back, they're all a result of patriarchy because, you know, women not resting and women having to be efficient all the time and women not disconnected from their cyclical nature in the, in the first place.

A hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. And, and having to stuff it and stuff the tampon in, um, you know, and compare themselves to what they see on the advertisements and all that menstrual shame kind of culture. 

Kylie Patchett: Yeah. So what, what can happen when. So as because I'm interested. Because all of your work, when we tie it all together, I keep on coming back to this women's identity and how women fit into the ocean or the, you know, wherever we submerge and, and all of those things.

And I feel like, as you said, you know, women's psychology. Such a new thing because, you know, women have only been around for 100 years. Hello. Um, and that, you know, I'm a scientist originally, originally in the fact that women's bodies weren't even included in science studies until the 80s, I think in Australia.

And it's just, how is this even possible? Like, That means that when I was born in 1975, women were not part of science experiments, but yet our bodies were subjected to the findings of like, Oh yeah, this is safe. Cause it was safe. That's why I wanted to, that's why I wanted 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: to leave psychology. 

Kylie Patchett: Yeah.

Because it's so, yeah. Um, but when, so if you're working with someone, say in clinic and. They become more connected to that cyclical nature and they start to disconnect from the messages and the conditioning. Can you tell us more about, like, are you saying that we break the patriarchy or break the system because one woman at a time we basically reject the system, we don't buy into the system, or is it deeper than that?

Tammy Ben-Shaul: Well, [00:20:00] that's what I've kind of, um, had enough of in the sense that I'm, um, Like, I love working one woman at a time, one with one woman at a time and one man at a time, because you know, men are related to women and they really, really care for their sisters or disconnected from their sisters and want to understand their mothers.

And so many men have. Realized through working with me that their mothers were just perimenopausal or that their sisters were not connected to their bodies and they're not actually borderline personality disorder. No, 

Kylie Patchett: no. Oh my God. 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: I've got so much to say about that. They've experienced trauma and they were sexualized and all these, all these horrific things that, that beautiful men who come to therapy, not a lot of them, I gotta say.

There's not a lot of men that, you know, come to long term therapy and really work out, you know, really, really stick with, uh, the hard work, but working one woman at a time is, um, let me say it this way. When a woman understands that her autoimmune disease or the herpes pathology, or that her sanity or that her relationship with her husband or her children or her mother are not going to, um, resolve if they don't rest and if they don't advocate for themselves, it's a really long process I'm talking about.

This is not, it doesn't always come until my clients work. Not all of them really. It's the ones that experienced most trauma and can't actually function otherwise. 

Kylie Patchett: That's been my perimenopausal experience. So when you were saying about luteal phase and all the trauma coming to the surface, I was able to push that down for the entire time until I hit perimenopause.

And then it erupted like a volcano. 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: Um, which has [00:22:00] been a blessing. Now I want to talk to the public. So now I want to, now I want to talk to the therapist. So the courses that I'm creating and the workshops I'm, I've created are geared towards therapists. So it goes to there. You're 

Kylie Patchett: reaching 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: many. Yeah.

There's not that much interest. And then there's the, um, then there's of course talking festivals and you know, talking to you. I really think that, you know, you, you.

It's okay to learn the theory, but to implement it in your life and to actually go to your workplace or even talk to your partner about actually, I'm, I'm going to the, in Australia, it's really easy because there's granny flats. Yes. Every time I'm going to bleed. We're building my office in the garden at the moment and I tell you, if it doesn't happen soon someone might.

Exactly. It's like the Hunger Games around here sometimes women. Mm-Hmm. And I'm the mother that goes away a lot. And dismantling the mother kind of, yes. Technology. Painful. 

Kylie Patchett: Yep. 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: Yeah, because I immigrated to Australia exactly when I hit perimenopause and I didn't know that. Interesting. Yeah. So I had to start going to retreats to regain my composure.

Kylie Patchett: Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yep. I went the, um, totally isolate myself from the entire planet for a year route. 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: And that's what I think women should do. And that's what I think they should be supported in. 

And that's where I'm kind of like, that has, do you see how pervasive the change has to be? 100%. That's why I asked.

Kylie Patchett: It will 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: dismantle the system if every woman goes on a year long retreat. I just met up with a friend that I haven't seen for two years and she apologized and I was like, why? You're 42. Like who, who doesn't need to do their art or their [00:24:00] craft or their message and disconnect and reevaluate everything that's happened in life.

Kylie Patchett: Yep. Yep. Yep. And I think that there's a natural wanting to do that by. Well, for me, at least my personal kind of trajectory was like being brought to my knees on my 47th birthday, then completely reevaluating and completely cutting myself off from all everybody and everyone for a good year. And then in that immersion, actually understanding what I really had the resources.

And the give a fuck factor, let's face it. Cause I was like, I don't care about most of the stuff that I do in my life. Like I literally couldn't care. In fact, it's highly irritating. And so, yeah, I began to dismantle that way. And I am definitely very blessed to have had the space to do it as well, because I understand, you know, when we, I remember reading, um, wise power a few years ago and they talk about, you know, have a year off and I'm like, what flipping reality can we just check out for a year.

But really, 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: they also said put the money aside. They said put the money aside. They did. They started putting some money aside. And even though I cannot, I have four children, I have a full family, I cannot take a year off. Yeah. And also it's other things because the world is Spiraling, right? So partners lose their jobs.

Yep. Yep. And, and that's okay because that's also changed. Like it's all right for us to rise right now. We know that, right? Like that's the whole kind of, this is what's happening. Like the, all the grass blades are coming up. We're all like, there's room for all of us here because there's a whole system to push out.

Kylie Patchett: Yes, exactly. Right. 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: And the money that I started putting aside when reading Wisepower basically affords me to go on a retreat here and self retreat here, self retreat there, go there, go for longer periods of time when I'm going [00:26:00] overseas. It's just so good. So necessary. 

Kylie Patchett: Yes. Oh my goodness. Yes. 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: I want to bring in the moon for a second just because I feel I can feel like I'm not as sharp and articulate and.

And like, not my full intelligence, like it's not my full intelligence. And I'm just wondering, like, if, um, you know, it's so helpful to know that during perimenopause, you start kind of thinking with the moon without even knowing it, just like you didn't know that you were governed by, by the estrogen and the progesterone.

You also don't know how intense the impact of the dark. The growth, the waning, the waxing and the waning is, and it's just like you forget about it and then you have like a shitstorm day. And then my entire clinic has had a shitstorm weekend and we're not even there yet. We're jumping there. It's just like week three.

Now we're like, oh, we're like in week four now with the moon. And then, you know, and people don't like to believe that. Like, I'm really, this is something that like my clients just like don't want to talk about. But I do say, and then there's some receptivity, just like it's going to impact you. So we might as well mention it.

This is a double whammy or this isn't intense. So I can really feel how my brain is not, you know, if you talk to me in two weeks, I'll be a really different. Yeah, 

Kylie Patchett: you're on fire. Yep. Yeah. I get that all the time and I'm like, Oh, I need to learn to, um, batch my. Different tasks, according to the moon more, because I used to, according to my cycle, but now my cycles all over the shop.

So it's like, well, like that's not, that's not an anchor point necessarily for regular. Um, can you tell us more about the moon and in terms of the, um, you know, inward facing outward facing kind of concepts of like, there's, or is that, is that how you see it also that there's a, there's a time for being out there and outward and shining, being [00:28:00] super articulate and.

On fire. And then there's also a time to be resting at inward facing. 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: Yeah. There's a time to, you know, Jen, how we're calling teachers a lot, the wisdom of the cycles. And I've taken that kind of, um, map, of course, she's, you know, I apprentice with her and I'm allowed to teach it. And yes, that's what I'm trying to teach psychologists really, because it's just the thing.

So really the dark moon portal time is similar to winter is similar to the crown energy and it's similar to midnight. So the qualities of the dreaming and the qualities of rewiring, replenishing, um, you know, all the rewards basically, as she said, this, um, is a real and the visioning capacity. 

Yes, 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: right.

So it's really a critical time. So if a client says to me today, I'm feeling like shit and I have to go and present at a wherever they have to present. And then I say, well, yeah, but just like, maybe, maybe cover yourself up in a particular way or slow it down. If you, if you can acknowledge that that's what's going on, then you're already modeling and teaching.

Kylie Patchett: Yeah, 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: exactly. And that, and that has to happen in the corporate spaces and has to happen in the agent spaces. And it has to happen in every really, in every sector, the banking, like they need to start talking about why there's mayhem at different parts. 

So much to it. So I think that this retreats time, this dimming, like this happens, like, I don't know if you feel it, but I kind of like feel like this.

Kylie Patchett: I actually feel like, um, especially when I'm meditating, cause I have a fairly solid meditation practice in the mornings when I'm meditating, I feel like I can much more easily access. a much deeper connection internally to myself. Whereas when I'm meditating, when it's full moon, it's less easy to, [00:30:00] so that's how I experience it.

But yeah, I, I, I can understand what you're saying. It's like a, yeah, a dimming to the external, but more of an illumination on the internal, I guess is what I'd say. 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: Yeah. So I think that, you know, I kind of feel like I'm going to let myself go in the everywhere zone and the everywhere zone is of course, um, You know, there's, there's two aspects to it.

One is, you know, this statement that if you want to know where women's power is, look at where the taboos are. 

Kylie Patchett: Yeah. Oh, that's a juicy. I think if you want to, 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: if you want to, you want to know where women's power is, look where the taboos are. I don't know if, I don't know, I know, I know many of the teachers have quoted this before.

Yeah. It might be. I don't know who said that. I know who will say the other one. 

Yeah. 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: Um, but this one is really around, you know, birth and menarche and perimenopause and menstruation and blood and, and everything to do with giving birth. So I'm talking about your birth and death and sexuality. So all of those is where women's power lies.

And no wonder that these are the ones that are that were over the thousands of years that it's took patriarchy to really evolve. So that's a real keen interest of mine to, to have everyone understand that because of the other side of that, there is that, um, Native American Hopi statement, 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: which you may have heard with women give their blood back to the land.

Men will come back from war and earth will find peace. Ooh, 

Kylie Patchett: I haven't heard the entirety of that, only the first, like the first and the second bit. 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: Yeah, I can tell you as an Israeli citizen that I'm very, very, very much about that. And I don't have time. There is no time. Women have to start bleeding on earth so they're connected to their wombs.

Yes. So, and I am part of a circle called Wombs of Peace that's also [00:32:00] related 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: to that and they are doing magnificent work with all the elders in the world. And everybody can join it, you just search Wombs for Peace. Everybody search Wombs for Peace and join it. Put it in the shownotes. 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: And it's not just for, it's not just for women, anybody can join that as long as they're.

Sort of understanding that the circle is a few elders. 

Yes. 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: Everyone is starting to move the momentum of grief together. All right. Because the nervous system of people who are on those lands, right? Whether they are Israeli or Palestinians, the nervous system of these people. Completely. I was there three weeks ago.

So I can tell you. The siren goes off and a missile. is thrown at you, you cannot actually think the next day about how to do anything but save your children. So it's really quite, um, tricky, really, really quite tricky. But that's why governments need to go and people need to start being people. Really, you know, yeah.

So those are, that's where menstruality is. Like, I don't, I feel like I don't have time. Yeah. It needs to be, it needs to be quicker. There's an urgency. 

Kylie Patchett: Yes, there is an urgency. Um, Oh, so many things I want to go down the track of. I feel like

I've been feeling into a lot around the persecution of women for power. It's been quite a journey for me over the last few months. And I feel like when you say about the taboos, to me, that's all of the, it's the sexuality, it's the magic, it's the connection to the cycles of nature. And. The ability to create literally.

So our creative ability, and I'm not just talking children, I'm talking, you know, and to see the unseen and sense the unseen. So all of those things. And if we follow that all the way through, it's very easy to see how that has all [00:34:00] contributed like to the oppression of all of those things through the system.

Let's talk about, you know, what did you say before current social order? I was going to say culture, but I knew that wasn't right. Um, How can we start? Like, I certainly know that there is a piece of, and honoring what you're saying about working with groups and working with, you know, the, at the corporate level, at the workplace level, at the etc.

Where does a woman start to have the conversations in her own relationships? So let's talk about, let's start with the family unit. 

Sure. 

Kylie Patchett: If, and similar to me during my perimenopause where I was like, I am actually not available for a whole heap of stuff. So my roles and responsibilities needed to shift significantly.

Um, and again, I count myself as very blessed to have a, you know, a beautiful open man that I've partnered with for a long, long time, like almost three decades. So, I had the sense of safety in myself to say this is actually not fucking sustainable anymore. Like I just can't do it. And interestingly, a lot of our conversation had to do with no one has ever expected you, like it's not an external, it was driven internally.

And I totally, I totally agree, particularly in our family of four. Um, but if, if someone's listening to this and they're saying, I do understand that I need more retreat time and more not responsible time and, and more quiet and not being fueled by this obligation shit that is in the collective. Where would you suggest that she even starts to have Those honest conversations with those around.

I don't know. That's a big question. We've only got a certain amount of time, but you know, what's the starting point 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: individually? Well, I think that it really, the, the best, the best kind of, um, [00:36:00] you know, whatever pathway is to go with what it is that she does in her life. Whether it, if she's a, you know, if she's a stay at home person or a person, like many people that I know who has had to drop off, drop off the, the rails, like never actually let's go the most extreme, which is not that rare, um, had to stop working.

And that's not perimenopause. We're even talking about well before 25. But whatever. Hit, 

Kylie Patchett: hit burnout because it's not sustainable, however, they're 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: coping. Yes. Yes. And autoimmune development and whatever, um, childhood trauma came up and they never even got on the road. Okay. Or, or the mother who, who had a regular job and, and they're starting to feel like this would benefit.

or someone like us who is kind of in a supportive relationship. So it's where you're at, like what it is that you do. If everything is collapsing, it's probably a really good idea right now. I would say to turn to any of those schools that offer, that offer these teachings, start listening to the menstruality podcast.

Tammy Ben-Shaul: And if you're going, and then once you kind of understand Once you understand that you are a cyclical being, then it's easier to say it the next time you have a coffee with a friend. And then with that friend, you can maybe say it to, how are we going to talk to your partner? Because every partner is very different.

And start noticing how they are. Did you notice that I cook better food when it's like, when I'm better rested? Or did you notice that I'm really agitated, or I've been told that this is scientifically, you know, Kirsten's work is, you know, far more rooted in kind of like the neuroscience of things. And she knows that stuff really well, like we overlap, but really, [00:38:00] you know, we kind of joke that we're very complimentary because I'm very, very, very far into the spiritual and she's spiritual and I, of course, I'm a researcher.

Yes. I just don't want to be at university anymore. Yeah, exactly. And, and so I think that it's, you got to know who you're living with and you've got to know what the conversation is and, and you know, and it's just about your values I guess, and how the relationship goes. So we're not going to go drinking and partying on this date, but can we, can we go on this date?

Right. And I really, you know, and everybody really wants to help. actually, and if somebody is not collaborating with you, and this is, you know, one of my beautiful Dharma teachers will say that, like, if you are not being, how do you know whether to leave a relationship, if you're starting to shift and change, and you're not supported, nobody has to join your, you know, your retreat, or your meditation practice, or your yoga practice, or your nutritional practice.

But, If they say to you just go to the doctor and take take the fucking medication. 

Kylie Patchett: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: no because You know, so you gotta have, you gotta know. And I think that that's where I, you know, that's where I'm, I do long term intense therapy three times a week for years, twice a week or once a week, never less than that.

But now I'm starting to offer mentoring. So I will give you, I will do an assessment of where you're at psychologically. I'll do an assessment of where you're at menstrually. And I'll give you and I'll give you a suggestion to go forward. And of course, you know, when I say these things like not everybody has the 300 a session.

We go sliding scale, we'll do exchange, we'll do, we'll do contribution, right? Like I don't [00:40:00] need 300 an hour from every person, but I do need it so that I can offer this person 40 hours, 40 hours 

Kylie Patchett: a session, 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: or 10 a session. Or bring me veggies from your garden. 

Kylie Patchett: Yeah, exactly. 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: I don't know, brew me, brew me some oils.

I don't care. But there needs to be some exchange. Otherwise, really. Not good for the film. No, absolutely not. It has to be an exchange. Um, 

Kylie Patchett: I feel like as I'm talking to you and I know we're running out of time, so I want to kind of bring, bring our conversation to the point where I think When we're talking about like, first of all, some of us never wake up to being in the ocean and that's okay.

Cause the ocean is very real and very conditioned and very whatever. However, I do believe that there is a lot of women that are going, what's the actual what? Hang on a minute. Hang on a minute. And I think that that's by design. I feel like we have reached the tipping point. We're at a pendulum shifting, you know, we just about, and that is why there's so many things that are crumbling and going pear shaped.

Um, what I will say, and I think just reflecting back to you, reflecting back to our listeners of what you just said about, you know, talking to a friend or talking to you or talking, I cannot underestimate sharing your Perception of how this ocean is affecting you with someone else, because I feel like when it's just us in isolation, it's too easy to be convinced by the ocean that it is your problem.

And you said that originally, you know, I realized this was not my individual issue. It's a 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: collective issue. And I was 23 and it was 1996. 

Kylie Patchett: Yeah. Amazing. 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: [00:42:00] Right. I didn't wake up until, 

Kylie Patchett: yeah, many years after that. 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: Yeah. But that was just patriarchy. Right. Like 2012, I learned about the red tent. Yes. 

Kylie Patchett: Yeah. 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: Yeah.

Yeah. 

Kylie Patchett: So, um, I think it's so important to, I love the idea of kind of marinating and other points of view. And it's like, start with the menstruality podcast, start with what are the resources would you recommend to someone if they were kind of at the tipping point of this questioning? Yeah. Where else could they look?

Tammy Ben-Shaul: I would, um, I would read Jane Harwood Colling's Sage Essence. Yes. I would go to her website. I would, you can download the, her story then. We got the Chalice Foundation. And that's Jane Bennett. Yeah, she's in Melbourne. She's done Celebration Day for girls and she's everywhere. 

Kylie Patchett: Beautiful, 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: beautiful. She's around the world, actually.

I'd read Hagerty because it's fun. Oh yes, yes, yes, yes. She's not my culture. I'd read The Red Tent. I can look at all the resources that are just behind me. Um, if you're a psychologist, definitely, definitely, um, I mean, definitely look me up, but you can read all the kind of, I can, you know, Say Carol Gilligan, I can say with these are just their names.

Yes. The people, um, can hop on my website when it's ready, or you, I mean, I, I am tammy benal.com as well, but there's no resources there. It's just for 

Kylie Patchett: That's 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: fine. By the time 

Kylie Patchett: this comes out, you will, so we will be linking all of the things that we've 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: just mentioned. Yeah. Yeah. It's, and there's, and there's Christian Northrop who a lot of people don't like so much because, you know, during Covid she was very outspoken.

Mm-Hmm. . But really her, um. You know, her book around the wisdom of menopause, it's just a resource book. Exactly. That's really good. 

Audio Only - All Participants: Hmm. 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: I think that's. That's the overview. I mean, that's a beautiful piano lamb, Jane Bennett, the red school and Jane Hardwicke Collings again and again and again. And if you're anywhere in the [00:44:00] world to do, I would do the four seasons journey.

Like you'd be, you'd have fun. You'd be supported. 

Kylie Patchett: Tell us what that is very quickly. So four seasons journey 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: is the school of shamanic women crafts. So Jane Hardwicke Collings school is the four seasons journey is basically a whole process journey. year long process of I think eight weekends we were together.

And it just taught all these things again and again and again and a lot of other processes. And you hang around women who do nothing but support you. 

Kylie Patchett: Yeah. Nothing would support you. Amazing. Because so many of us are programmed to care, give, not care, receive. Yeah. Thank you. We could have talked for another three hours.

You probably have to come back for another episode, Tammy, in the new year, but thank you for sharing your wisdom with us. And I just, I want to just, I mean, you don't need my, um, reflection back at you, but I just, I. When I speak with people like you that are still operating, you know, the still, still there's that box that people think of as psychology, but people like you that are bringing in all of these different layers so that we're not just talking about it from a clinical perspective of bringing in spirituality and menstruality, um, it just.

It leaves me feeling like the world is going in the right direction. So thank you so much for your time and wisdom. My 

Tammy Ben-Shaul: pleasure. Bye bye.

Kylie Patchett: Thanks for tuning in to Wild and Finally Fucking Free. I'm Kylie, your host, and Given that I know you would have enjoyed this episode, please do us a favor and subscribe, leave a review, and share it with fellow freedom seekers. Remember, being seen in all our mess and magic helps heal ourselves and the world.

Because the world needs more world [00:46:00] and finally fucking free humans. Have a great day.