For the ninth episode of Period Story Podcast, I had the pleasure of speaking with Susan Sheehan, the founder and CEO of Back Yourself Mentoring, a women’s circle and network of women backing themselves and each other.
Susan shared the story of the tough first few years of her period and what she did to cope with the pain and migraines she used to have. She says that this was her normal and considered this her normal until it changed.
Susan says she had to work around her menstrual flow, under it, over it and it was something she had to tolerate. At the time, she accepted that this was part of being a woman, but definitely didn’t embrace the pain she was experiencing.
It took a pivotal moment for her to realise things needed to change. Susan talks about waking up in the middle of the night and being in such agony that she spent hours on the bathroom floor. It was there and then, Susan decided she never wanted to go through that again.
Susan embarked upon a journey of educating herself about her period and using journalling as a tool to understand what she was experiencing in each phase of her menstrual cycle. She says she started to see patterns in the foods she was craving, the emotions she was experiencing and how certain things such as stress affected her period.
Susan says that journalling has helped her find a deeper understanding and the patterns she was able to spot through journalling helped her change her nutrition and lifestyle and she no longer has migraines, cramps or PMS.
Susan shares the journalling techniques that worked for her to change her period for the better. She says that this is such an important way for us to find our own rhythm and I completely agree!
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Susan’s Bio
Susan wants every woman to connect with herself, returning home to listen to her intuition and be empowered to take action for her life ambitions. In today’s culture of fully scheduled lives, she knows what it feels like to feel overwhelmed and disconnected while knowing you have so much more to offer to the world. By connecting to herself (including embracing her menstrual cycle!) she has changed her lifestyle to enjoy heightened energy, making more conscious life decisions and focusing on what makes her soul sing. She now invites women to live with more ease, while inspiring them to make the changes they desire.
Susan is the Founder and CEO of Back Yourself Mentoring, a women’s circle and network of women backing themselves and each other. Through mentoring, both mentor matching women 121 or through her group mentoring programmes, she knows that surrounding yourself with creative, generous and life ambitious women enables you to thrive consistently in your career and life. She hosts women circles and mentoring groups in London, Ireland and Mallorca empowering women to create tangible change to lead a purposeful life, with ease and a smile.
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Show Notes
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Show Transcript
Le’Nise: Today’s episode we have Susan Sheehan.
Susan wants every woman to connect with herself, returning home to listen to her intuition and be empowered to take action for her life ambitions. In today’s culture, of fully scheduled lives, she knows what it feels like to feel overwhelmed and disconnected while knowing you have so much more to offer to the world. By connecting to herself, including embracing her menstrual cycle. She has changed your lifestyle to enjoy heightened energy, making more conscious life decisions and focusing on what makes her soul sing. She now invites women to live with more ease while inspiring them to make the changes they desire. Susan is the founder and CEO of Back Yourself Mentoring, a women’s circle, a network of women backing themselves and each other through mentoring, both mentor matching women one to one or through her group mentoring programmes, she knows that surrounding yourself with creative, generous and life ambitious women enables you to thrive consistently in your life and career. She hosts women’s circles and mentoring groups in London, Ireland and Mallorca. Empowering women to create tangible change, to lead a purposeful life with ease and a smile. Welcome to the show.
Susan: Thank you Le’Nise. Hello.
Le’Nise: So let’s get into the story of your very first period. Can you share with us what you remember that happened?
Susan: Oh, I actually do not remember having my first period. Let me share with you a little bit of background in terms of culture and where it was coming from. As you can tell from my accent, I’m Irish, born in the late 70s in a small community, raised Catholic, went to a secondary school with the nuns. So it’s a conversation and a topic that wasn’t something that was discussed or brought up. And when I got my period, I was about 13, maybe 13 and a half, actually was probably I’m sure if there was a therapist on here, they would probably say that I’ve blocked it out. Maybe.
My introduction in to my period for the first year or two was one of pain. Incredible cramps, being doubled over, being looked after by my mum, hot water bottles and hot drinks and migraines. And for the first couple of years, I used to take a day off school. And while that probably sounded like fun to some young women or girls. I liked school. So it was a very mixed introduction. I would love to be able to share what a wonderful opening and blossoming experience it was, an empowering experience. It really wasn’t for me, which is why I speak about it a lot now. Though that experience continued from 13 to my probably mid 30s actually, and not consistently, thankfully. And my first two years, or I would say probably first year or two was a day off a month. And it was probably irregular. It’s still irregular. And it was one of cramps, severe cramps and migraines. Yeah, it’s not the experience. It’s experience ahead. Really. And also, which I find really fascinating now, as I embrace it more and more and look back more of my life is that my mum was the same. So we didn’t really know between us, this was normal as well. Right. Even though my sister didn’t necessarily, well I’m not too sure, but she certainly didn’t have the experience that I had. So I think that’s interesting in itself, I think.
Le’Nise: So given that you said that your mum was the same, had the same sort of period and she thought it was normal. Is that how you grew up? Thinking that period pain was normal?
Susan: I think it is more that, obviously I had friends at school and their experiences would have been different because we spoke a little bit about it. I think especially initially it was when we all got it, I can remember there being a little bit of flurry of excitement in the cloakroom and stuff, and remember, it was all girls as well. But then I think less and less we spoke about it. But I do remember there was a certain like almost I don’t know what a badge of honour, but I guess I’ve just used the phrase, around, you know, the different stories. So I knew there were different experiences. But my experience was my experience and my mum’s experience because it was similar; I guess that’s what both of us knew, right? But obviously I was aware that there were other women not having the same experience. And then to go throughout my, I guess, you know, early teens and into my twenties and thirties. I certainly knew that that was not normal, but it was my normal and your normal is just your normal until it changes, I think really.
Le’Nise: So going back to being at school, you said that you were raised Catholic, you went to school with the nuns. Dare I ask if there was any sort of education around menstruation, around periods that you would have participated in?
Susan: No. I was in school from ’89 to ’94 in secondary school. So, no, there wasn’t. I do remember there being Sex Ed, which would definitely not have been sufficient either, so, you know, there was a nod towards that. But I really don’t remember and we certainly wouldn’t have had any of the, you know, there was no products, menstruation products either. When you think about that now, you think, oh, wow. What? What were we supposed to do? And we were a school full of young adults, young women, girls and women. So, no, there wasn’t. There wasn’t any.
Le’Nise: It was the conversation that you were having with your friends and it kind of almost a whisper network of, oh, well, I’m using pads, and I’m using tampons. Was it that sort of thing?
Susan: Yeah. And like I say, initially it was probably more when we were like in the first year. Well that’s what it was called in Ireland right, first year was when you were 12-13 and it was when everyone I guess was flurrying too. And literally it was flowing right? And the conversation started then but after that initial flurry and I guess it was the circle that I was in as well, there was quite a big circle of us. But I guess once it started, then it was just like, now life is like now we get on with things, right. Like just we move on. And, you know, I guess you talk about maybe, maybe boys and maybe or maybe girls or you’re playing, for me I was playing sports and stuff. So I kind of got on with life and so I know that my attitude was very much like, this is it and yeah, that was something, I guess, for me, personally, it was more about, I worked around my menstrual flow. I worked under it, over it, around it on. It was something that I got on, you know, to use these words now pains me a little bit. But it you know, I tolerated it. My attitude was one of, so this is necessary, it is part of being a woman, I was certainly not embracing it. And I was just I guess, putting up with it, you know, like that was the attitude. I’m a very, quite pragmatic woman anyway at the best of times, though, that is to a different level, I think. My approach to it was very much like, this is happening to me and I very much just want to get on with life. I used to play team sports, like I said; it’s called camogie, which is an Irish sport. This was an inconvenience, if anything and very much just treating it as an inconvenience or pain and therefore, let’s make the most of it, I guess.
Le’Nise: So how did you go from seeing your period as an inconvenience and tolerating it to, as I said in your intro, to now embracing your menstrual cycle? That’s quite a big leap. So tell me a bit more about how you got there.
Susan: I was hugely and thank you because it’s quite nice to move on as well, I think it’s important to reflect back but as well. There was a pivotal, so like I said, throughout my teens, that was my experience. There was a pivotal moment, probably about three and a half years ago, so throughout my 20s and 30s, the pain would come and go. I didn’t always have the migraines, they more or less left after being a teen and then in my 20s and 30s, it was more about, I would get cramps and the PMS was sky-high. But about three and a half years ago, I woke up one night in the middle of the night and I got my period and I went to the bathroom and I literally could not get off the bathroom floor. I was in such agony and that was the worst I had ever been, like ever and I just remember lying there for hours and even my husband came in to me, I’m like, you can’t do anything to help me, but he stayed with me that night. And I went I’m never going through this again, I need to find a way through this right? I need to find a way that I am more at ease with this and I would use that word ease now. And so I started looking into it and I started looking for, I guess I just started putting it out there and going, I need to find another way to be around this.
And I came across a woman called Claire Baker whose teachers are; I’m not going to remember their names now but they’re with the Red School and some people will know their book, Wild Power. I did an eight week online course with her and I started journaling and since then, I have been journaling. And I think just before I get into that, which has been a part of my healing journey and what I would now call a spiritual journey, if you wish, you don’t have to call it that. I think even turning my head towards it put a little bit more kindness and I mean, just even honestly like a little millimeter of more kindness and more acceptance and wanting to understand, I think eased the pain a little bit, like genuinely. You know when you have the outside tap on, outside and it’s really, really tight and it’s the tightest it is, so it’s not leaking during the day. It’s really tense and you’re holding it all in and literally you’re holding it all in and then you just release it, just a tiny, tiny bit. I think that’s what I did. I mean, literally, I can feel it now releasing my body, that little bit allowed some of the pain to go away, not just the physical, but the emotional and the mental as well. And so it was a start of a journey and it is a journey because I’m still learning something new every month.
So what I started to do was, I learned to start journaling and I’m not a consistent journaler, for anyone listening, this was not my practice of journaling. I had tried and it and never got into the habit but what I would do is get out a notebook and I tried several different ways but at first it was like put down the headings of ‘physically, how do I feel?’ And I might only start with one word and then ‘emotionally’ and I actually put in emotional and mental, it’s better to get into the habit of actually even writing the words associated with it. And so every day I used to do this, so I wait for I think I waited until the start of my next period because I had no idea, by the way what day I was on or anything. I was not tracking in any way. And so I waited until the first day of my period and I started writing down day one physically how do I feel? Emotionally, mentally, how do I feel and choose to spiritually and at that time I was still on the start of my journey. This is really the start to even my spiritual journey, a very conscious start to my spiritual journey. And so I just write down a word or two, that’s where I started. Like literally that’s where I started.
But of course, once you create a little bit of space and start writing a little bit, you might write, I found myself writing another few words and then another few words. And so, you know, if I’m in spring [follicular phase], I was like, oh, I’m feeling like I’m going back out into the world. And it seems to be a little bit more life around, oh, and I’m getting different ideas coming along, so I did that for a couple of months. And then I started to expand it out because I wanted to see the trends. I guess I started to see a few trends, literally, even after two or three months. This is what I always say to women that I speak to, like even after two months, I started to see these trends and like, oh, my gosh and so I added food because I’ve always been into food. So I wanted to know why do I want certain foods or what would be good for me to have? But it was more about like, what’s going on in the different phases and I’m sure some of your other guests talked about the phases and it was it was so fascinating, like after about four months, I used to go back and day 16, I’d really want leafy greens like I was craving avocados and leafy greens. Isn’t that incredible? So I started adding foods and then I recognised that coming into my period that I really wanted sugary, like really sweet stuff. And look, I’ve always had a bit of a sweet tooth, but I would want sweet stuff and then, you know, I had a conversation with a woman a few months ago at my yoga teacher training and she went, oh, you’re going from yang energy of being out there, performing and to do list and you’re going into this sweet, softer, yin energy and I was like oh! And the sweet stuff is taking me into that Yin energy, that’s why we crave it, I’m like, wow, and then I added…
So this is the joy of journaling, right, you can journal whatever you want. This is your life. We’re all unique. We’re all individuals. We all have our own challenges. If you’re a mum, you can maybe, you know, look at it from how are you feeling towards your family and juggling stuff? But I also did it for Back Yourself Mentoring because I found myself like literally in Summer going out there and talking about it and Summer being obviously ovulation and going out there and talking about it and being on calls and enjoying it and loving it and loving the community and the circle and the wisdom and the nourishment I was receiving and the other women are receiving. And then literally within, you know, a week or 10 days, I was like, I didn’t want to pick up the phone. I didn’t want to talk about it and the contrast and the swings and the pendulum of going from ‘wayhey I love my business, I love these women’, to; ‘I don’t want to talk to anyone. I want to lock myself away’. I thought it was Back Yourself Mentoring, and I was getting literally so confused by this and it was causing angst as well. So I started journaling it and then within two to three months, again, I was like, OK, this is my cycle. I’m cyclical, I’ve got a rhythm, it’s not linear and my background is high, I mean, I was a CFO in finance, right? So it’s binary, like, you know, one and one and it’s linear and it’s a little bit black and white. The journals are the journey and the lessons from this are forever. I’m learning.
I learned that I was just going through a normal cycle. I was really creative after coming out of my menstrual flow and I’d have loads of new ideas and often I would go off on tangents and then in summer [ovulation] I was out there sharing it and hearing from other women and then, you know, really enjoying life and bringing to fruition a vision that I would have set. And then in Autumn [luteal phase], to do lists where I literally just, I just ran through those and I was, of course, with the sweet beauty of autumn as well that you come back to yourself, you’re starring to come back to yourself and I think for me, what I found is there was inner truths there that I didn’t know about, like that I hadn’t appreciated before. And this is something I’m more and more in tune with. And it’s when I know that I can almost wait for my autumn now, to go back to my intuition. When it’s something that’s really important that I’m trying to make a life decision on, I wait for autumn to have that little conversation with myself. And I know when I’m in it because I have the most thoughtful, the most heartfelt conversations with my husband or my close friends as well. I’m like, going, either that I’m really struggling on something about where I’m going or I’m trying to let go of something or that I want us to maybe, you know, just to shift or something that might have been bothering me, that’s when I have those conversations.
And of course, for me, the biggest learning, I suppose, was to let go during winter [menstrual phase] to honour my menstrual flow. I spent years not honouring that, honouring the process of letting go, of avoiding burnout, because like many of us, it was burning the candle at both ends and recognising that it was the time that I could come back to myself, come back home and to allow things to, yeah, to let it flow and to allow myself to have a little bit of time. And I know it’s not realistic for everyone to be able to stay in bed and pull the duvet up and to let that go but even there’s still days like I’m in day 37 at the moment and I’m very irregular at the moment. Actually let me clarify that, I don’t know what my normal is because I only started journaling a few years ago. So I think I’ve always been in irregular. So I can go from being 28 or 30 days for a few months and then going from 22 days to 40 days. There’s no, I guess what I like to say is, there’s no normal there’s only change and there’s awareness. So that’s a long answer. Le’Nise to your question but it was a journey and it was a few years journey and I’m still on it by the way, like I’m completely still on it, I’m still recognising like, I love listening to my favourite podcasts at different times of the month, and which podcasts I listen to at different times in a month. In Summer I love lighter books, I love learning, really, really learning in spring especially, and autumn. There are so many areas; this is what I love about the menstrual cycle. It has so many beautiful ways of teaching us about ourselves, about reconnecting with ourselves.
Le’Nise: I just want to jump in and just to clarify for listeners, because you’ve talked a lot about seasons. So if they aren’t aware of this, the correlation of the seasons to the different phases of the menstrual cycle. So this is something that is developed by the Red School and it’s an analogy looking at so winter is when you’re on your period and then you go into spring, which is the follicular phase so, you’re feeling, your blooming, you’re feeling more energetic and then ovulation is summer and then you go into the different parts of the luteal phase. The second part of the luteal phase is the fall where people most associate this with PMS. And I love how it’s so natural to you that you’ve just peppered this into the conversation and it shows me what a deep connection you now have with your menstrual cycle and how it’s influenced your life in so many different ways. So you’ve said all of this work has revealed some inner truths to you. I also did want to go back to how you were feeling at that moment three and half years ago where you were on the bathroom floor to how comparing that to how you feel now, what changes do you think that this whole process of journaling and being more aware of the connection with food and how much you work? What changes do you think that has made in your menstrual cycle and your period?
Susan: Thank you for asking that. Allow me to join the dots. In the last, let’s say two years, in the last two years, I’ve had two migraines. I don’t have cramps. I don’t have cramps anymore, any and I can’t remember the last time I’ve had period pain, genuinely. PMS was one of the biggest things, especially because, like, you know, I was a c-suite, I was in meetings, just nine to five every day. And I used to have a small level of awareness in that, when I would be coming into my menstrual cycle, that I would sometimes go into the office and go, can you please clear my diary? Like, just get me out of every meeting that I have because I knew that I would be so grumpy. And it would tip over into like taking it out on other people. I really struggled with PMS, if you had my husband on the conversation here, he would confirm that for us. I genuinely have very little these days. I completely contribute that to embracing it, getting softer with it, connecting with my cycle, understanding it. I’m not saying that everything, like I’m not saying that everything is rosy and perfect. When I have a level of stress that I can look back on, I can recognise that I go out of whack. Right. So I know that like in February this year, I had some stress from work and that I remembered that I had some pain and I had definitely PMS and I could just find that the stress levels were raising me a bit.
It’s about acceptance. I was accepting my body and I was also accepting that I can’t be Wonder Woman or anyone out there that remembers Wonder Woman, I loved her. I can’t be Wonder Woman all month and I love it when I’m up during summer and during ovulation, but I also accept that I can’t and I’m not her all the time and acceptance of that, means that I allow myself to slow down coming it, coming into my period. I also attribute it to tweaking my diets and my food to this day, towards nutrition. So I believe that some of the migraines were due to stress because of, you know, I have tested this out over time and watching and reading back my journals and caffeine, so I’ve never been a coffee drinker, but I was a big black tea drinker, and I knew it was more about the ritual of holding in my hand, but I was drinking it as if I just held it in my hand. So I stopped drinking it in the week before my periods and that made a huge…see I was feeling the waves, it’s almost like there were waves that were going through my head, and there were waves of the hormones. I don’t know if anyone else or if you recognise it, Le’Nise, but when I would get those headaches, and sometimes it didn’t develop into, like I said, most of my migraines were really around my younger years, but I would get them now and then and I would literally feel the hormones going through my head but stopping the caffeine the week before was crucial to that. It’s this reinforcing circle, right? I started looking after myself. I started watching what I was eating.
I would exercise, do the relevant exercise at the relevant time. So I would slow down, I love running, so I really got running in spring, late spring and summer and so on the middle part of my month and then I would do a slower yoga. I still struggle a little bit with Yin because I am more of a you know, I study Ayurveda at the moment, I’m more pitta, more outgoing, more like I like to be, ah, you know. So I have to really, really focus on when I need to drop my energy. So my relationship is incredible and I know that if I can do it and if I came from that place of, you know, I learned really early on that when I drank alcohol, that if I had one drink or two, my period would stop, right, it would stop, because obviously I now know that it could only detoxify one thing and obviously my liver was detoxifying the alcohol, so it couldn’t do both and then it would return a few days later and I actually used to remember deliberately having a glass of wine or two just to stop it because it was such an inconvenience to have it. Imagine! What a terrible thing to do to yourself and I do feel that when I see someone that I know going through their periods and I see them having a glass of wine, I’m like, oh, just wait a few days because your poor body cannot cope with it. So I don’t drink alcohol anymore, actually, at all.
I’m vegetarian now. I’m plant-based, actually. I know that the journey that I’ve been on, that it’s set me off on, has been one of self-care, emotionally and physically, and that the ease which it has allowed me to have around my whole cycle, not just concentrating on fixing that few days, that it’s about the whole cycle. So if I look after myself in winter, take it easy, or even by like I said to women, even slow it down to 75%. Right. We’re all going to 120 miles an hour anyway, right? So even if we could slow it down to 75 and to allow it to happen, to allow it to flow, to say, OK, I’m here, I’m here, I’m at ease, the month ahead is better. And I know when I try, and I do this still at times, and I’ve learned this over and over again, that if I push through in winter that the month is a little bit tougher, it is genuinely tougher. So my awareness and my practice and I do call it a practice, has completely changed my whole month. Those 3 days that I have, my period, obviously, women have them for different lengths of times, but those 3 days that I have mine is completely different, as is my whole month, as is my life.
Le’Nise: It’s amazing what you’re saying and you know, it’s a journey and you’ve been through a lot but doing a deep dive into so many different areas and this real self-awareness of how different things affect you. So you talked about alcohol, you’ve talked about caffeine; you’ve talked about the changes that you’ve made in what you eat. I think all of these have created a real difference in your menstrual cycle. So if someone is listening and they really connect with what you’re saying and they say, well, I’m having issues with my period, I want to try this whole journaling practice. Where would you recommend that they start?
Susan: Yeah. So a start is the start, I guess, if you know and you’re somehow, you know, you’re tracking on apps and you know what day you’re on, start today, fill out a little notebook that you liked to write in and get something that you actually really like to pull out, it can just be a little one. You know, that’s nice and soft and a nice pen to write in it and put it by your bed or maybe in your most comfy chair. So if you know where you are already, I didn’t, you can start on that day, if you don’t know where you are, waiting till day one, so day one is the first, it’s not spotting but the first proper bleed. And you can do this in different ways. So what I did was at first I put the headings down so I would put down how I’m feeling physically. You know, if you want to know how you are around your nutrition, put a little header down on the page.
I used a small little notepad, so this can be really as bullet points as you want, or as beautiful and elaborate or an essay as you want. Pick a couple of ways, a couple of headliners. Do pick about your emotions, because that’s a big one of the biggest things. And you can put down spiritual now because, you know, do you meditate or do sit in silence. What are your spiritual practices? So pick. Maybe if you’re starting off, pick 3 things because 3 is a lovely number, right? And especially when you say it in an Irish accent, pick 3 things that you want to track. And every day at the end of your day, just write down how you’re feeling. So, you know, I mentioned tonight I’ll be writing down that I feel clear because I feel quite clear today and I feel quite grounded, actually, as well. Like I say, if you don’t journal, this might be a bit of a task for you right because you’re like you might be resisting a little bit. Write a word. Start with one word. Ideally three words per each like, you know, if it’s physical or emotional or food or how you feel about your business or your kids, if there might be, you know, whatever way you’re feeling and then if you miss it, do it every day. And if you miss a day, don’t worry about it. I don’t do it every single day. Sometimes I go back to it and I write a couple of words and if I forget. But when I was especially when I was starting out and for the last, you know, the initial two years, every single day but the most important thing is that you’re tracking it. Well, I guess the nicest thing to think about is, I’m going to have this wisdom next month, so I’m going to be able to flip back pages and look at this next month.
There is another way you can do it as well. You could take one page split it in four so you can actually split it in four and put what day you’re on that page and then you could use it for the next four months. So you could use that 4 quadrant and then use it for four months. Find whatever way suits you best, so each woman will have a preference. And for the more creative women, they might want to draw something. But I think the words are really, really important as well, because you want to really remember. You think you’re going to remember, you don’t, there’s too much going on in our life. So, yeah, and enjoy it, I think, like have a sip of hot water and create a ritual around it. Or if it’s literally I don’t have time for this, I’m really going to have scribbled down a few words, then so be it. I think the best thing to do is start and look forward to your own inner wisdom and intuition and empower yourself by starting.
Le’Nise: Great. And so just start. I think that those are really wise, wise words. So, they start journaling and then they get a set of information. What would you say to the woman who is two months from now said, ‘Okay, I listened to the podcast episode, and I’ve started journaling and now what’?
Susan: I guess, what do you want out of it? So maybe like with the starting, what is it you’re looking for? I’ll look at two schools of thought on this. One is that the women that will take it up fastest will be women like me that want to find out and to solve it. Your trigger is usually if you’ve got some pain or angst or anguish around it. Right. So there’ll be the women, that, like they will have a very clear purpose from what they want, a desired outcome from what they want from it. So you will start to see trends. And for the woman, that’s like, OK, I’m going to give this a go because I want to know more about myself. It’s the same answer, actually.
Flick back through your journal. So when you’re at a certain point in time, you might be on day four or five, actually, let me give you this, either four or five is when we, it’s a beautiful time, it’s a brilliant time to set your vision for the month or might even be a vision for the next six months, because you’ve got incredible clarity about what is important to you. Once you got past this, all the creative flow comes in. That’s one reason to look at it, right, to go, OK, when do I want to set my vision for my life? It’s looking back at your trends really. So you’ve done two months and you’re like, OK, what now? Start to look back at it and start to reflect and start to look at the trends and the passions that are happening and go, oh, this is interesting.
What it will do is, it would spur you on, and it’ll spur you on to keep going and to keep doing it. It might create new ideas around, oh, what else would I like to know about? I think it’s nice to read back over it. It might be that you want to change something in your diet, change something in your lifestyle, change, you know, bring in a new habit, maybe you want more sleep. Can you see any new patterns of where need it? Actually, if you’ve been writing that you’ve been tired a lot at different places, I can guarantee that most of us are more tired than we think we are. And sleep will always, always make your periods a little bit and life easier. So I think it’s like picking up little nuggets of wisdom that you’ve shared with yourself and say thanks very much for doing it and hopefully encourage you to keep doing it and to take what you want out of it. I think that’s most important… You will glean whatever intuition that you need. It’ll be individual to each of you.
Le’Nise: Can you tell us a little bit more about Back Yourself Mentoring and the work that you do with women to get them connected with their ambition?
Susan: It’s actually this time two years ago; I set up Back Yourself Mentoring. So it is, specifically, it’s all around empowerment. And, you know, the irony of all of this is that the menstrual cycle is now very much part of it as well.
So where it started out from was to offer women the opportunity of having a mentor, because sometimes it is really difficult to find another woman and it’s all women. So it’s mentors, matching women who are career women that are looking to make changes in their career and it can be stepping up, stepping out or stepping back in, it can be running your own business, freelance or whatever it is, it is actually empowering her to give new opportunities and new ideas. And that’s what other women gifted me throughout my life and career and so I create relationships between mentors and mentees. And obviously, as I have journeyed over the last two years, so has the circle of women and community and what we’re doing. And I now speak to women in the women’s groups around menstruation because it’s part of the empowerment journey. Unless we accept ourselves and look after ourselves on self-care, you’ll burn out, right? You will be disconnected, which is where I was. So the idea is that we come back to ourselves, we come home and we feel more empowered.
And so I go into businesses and talk about menstrual cycles and empowering women, about reconnecting with ourselves through different practices, which ultimately will allow women to choose work and life ambitions that are right for them, rather than maybe what they’re being given or maybe having to just take or receive. So the platforms are different, I have group coaching and mentoring programmes for women and women’s circles to do online or face-to-face. But the key for me is that the empowerment journey started with my menstrual cycle, I think, and then came in to Back Yourself Mentoring with the whole premise about we back ourselves and each other and empower each other to choose the life that we want.
Le’Nise: What a beautiful mission. Listeners, if they take one thing from all of the wise words that you’ve shared, what would you want that to be?
Susan: Follow your own rhythm. Each one of us needs to follow our own rhythm, and that rhythm is your inner rhythm and the inner cycle and your inner flow and the outer cycle that have happened. My outer rhythms that are happening all the time. Part of my journey has been to reconnect with the planet as well. So if we care for ourselves and follow our own rhythms, you’ll always choose what’s right for you. You’ll choose what’s in alignment with your body and with your soul. Follow your own rhythm.
Le’Nise: I love that. Follow your own rhythm. If listeners want to find out more about Back Yourself Mentoring and want to get involved with what you do, how would they connect with you?
Susan: You can email me at hello@backyourselfmentoring.com. Our website is the same www.backyourselfmentoring.com. And you can find me on Instagram, it’s @_susansheehan_. Yeah, just drop me an email; I’d love to hear from you.
Le’Nise: Thank you so much for coming on the show, Susan.
Susan: Thank you Le’Nise, I’ve had such good fun. Thank you. What you’re doing is fantastic. Thank you.
Le’Nise: Thank you.