198 Womb Healing: Reclaiming Power, Pleasure, and Potency with Melanie Swan

💥 THE DISRUPTION

Forget the pastel “self-care” nonsense. This episode gets raw about perimenopause, womb work, and what it actually means to reclaim your creative power from the inside out.

Sally sits down with Melanie Swan, a true rebel priestess of womb wisdom, healer, author, and embodiment guide, currently thriving (and sweating) her way through perimenopause in Northern Thailand.

They dive deep into the real feminine: the kind that doesn’t float in flower crowns but breathes fire, bleeds with purpose, and knows when to pull the curtains, strip off the bra, and waft.

⚡️ WHAT WE EXPLORE:

• Why Melanie left the chaos behind to do “absolutely nothing” and how that saved her sanity
• The radical beauty of perimenopause as a pause from men, noise, and overdoing
• The misunderstood magic of womb work and why it’s not just woo-woo poetry
• What the womb actually represents (spoiler: it’s way more than baby-making)
• How our cycles are ancient maps for creation, rest, and power if we’d only listen
• Why “the feminine” isn’t all softness and how divine masculine energy lives inside us too
• Melanie’s unfiltered take on Instagram spirituality and “the feminine is flowy” clichés

If you’ve ever felt the urge to burn everything down just to breathe, this conversation is your permission slip.

It’s not about hormones or hot flashes; it’s about coming home to your body’s wisdom and reclaiming your sovereignty as a creator.

🔥 ABOUT MELANIE SWAN

Melanie helps women heal the physical and metaphysical womb, restoring the divine balance of masculine and feminine energy. Currently writing her first book, The Sacred Womb, she lives in Northern Thailand, where she swims, writes poetry, and celebrates the art of doing absolutely nothing.

📲 Connect with Melanie:  

Website: https://www.thesacredwomb.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_sacred_womb

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredwombmswan

Sally's Links:

[Free Guide] Healing The Trauma Underlying Your Menopause Symptom Severity: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/healingtraumatheguide

[On-Demand Masterclass] How To Heal The Trauma Underlying Your Menopause Symptom Severity [£17]: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/healingtrauma

[On-Demand Workshop] Redefine Your Values at Menopause and Live Life in Alignment With Them [£27]: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/redefine 

[Online Practitioners Diploma - Self Paced] Menopause Wellbeing Practitioner [£127]: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/meno

[One to One] Transformational 30 Day Rewire (Includes RTT) [£497]: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/redefine 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sallygarozzomindmentor

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sallygarozzo/

Send me a voice clip via WhatsApp: https://wa.me/message/FTARBMO7CRLEL1

Transcript

Sally (00:00.599)
So my guest today is Melanie Swan. Melanie is a renowned leader in healing the physical womb, restoring the metaphysical womb and reclaiming the divine masculine and feminine. Currently she's in the kick-ass transition of perimenopause. She loves doing absolutely nothing, which I love. Maybe having a Thai massage, writing poetry.

and following her creative flow in writing her first book, The Sacred Womb. She has traveled extensively and is now settled in Northern Thailand. So Melanie, so lovely to have you on the pod today. Welcome. How are you over there?

Melanie (00:43.726)
Thank you and hot. Yeah, always hot.

Sally (00:48.947)
Yeah, always hot in Thailand. I don't know how you cope. I really struggle in the heat with histamine issues and stuff like that, but you obviously don't. That climate obviously suits you, is that right?

Melanie (01:01.134)
No, it's No, I thrive in the cold or at least I did. And I mean, I love Thailand and I do like the heat, but I am warmer in perimenopause. But I came back to England like for a visit and to buy underwear basically and clothes that fit me well earlier this year. And I was freezing.

Sally (01:15.796)
Okay.

Melanie (01:27.202)
You know, cause I've been here three years, my body's obviously acclimatized and I didn't realize. I came back to England, it was freezing, kind of shivering when other people were in shorts and t-shirts. And then I came back to Thailand and it kind of reset somehow. And now I'm like a lizard. can just, I can just stand in like 32 degrees and be like, it's quite hot. Yeah. So yeah, I don't know what happened, but yeah, I really enjoy it. And I've got a swimming pool downstairs and stuff.

Sally (01:31.637)
Yeah.

Sally (01:48.845)
wow.

Sally (01:55.595)
god, you're making me so jealous. So can you tell me please, how are you able, how are you managing to do absolutely nothing? What was the pathway into, well first of all that desire to do absolutely nothing and then how did you manage to make that happen?

Melanie (01:59.574)
you

Melanie (02:15.66)
Well, I'm still working. So I'm not doing absolutely nothing, yeah, I was obviously pandemic hit and at the same time, relationship broke down. I mean, it was patchy anyway. It was barely hanging on by a thread, but then, yeah, that just completely broke down during COVID in lockdown when you couldn't move. So that's...

Sally (02:43.659)
God.

Melanie (02:44.494)
That was pretty hard, really, really pretty hard actually. And then, so the first plane I could get on, where it was kind of okay for me to fly easily, I came to Thailand and that would have been three years ago, 49, 48, 47, 46. I have to count back. And Perry Menopause just kind of went, oh yeah, oh yeah, I'm here. And...

It's not, it's my cycle didn't particularly change. my cycle is still really steady actually. It's, it's kind of some shorter, some longer, but my cycle's really steady. But, yeah, my energy changed and I just, I just needed some space, like a lot, a lot of space where there was no, no social commitments, no.

No appointments outside work because obviously the work I do, means appointments. need to be at a certain place at a certain time and that's totally fine. That's my choice. But the rest of the time, I just, for the last few years, I've left really open. It's there at the mountain. I've got lovely mountain view here. I own the pool. I take good care of myself. I do strength training and do self-defense and just started, well, recently started Qigong as well. So I don't.

I don't do a lot, but I kind of do. I think the less doing is in the less social interaction for me, because I've been very much kind of party girl and used to work in marketing and traveled the world and all this kind of thing. And now I'm just like, yeah, nine o'clock comes and I'm drawing the curtains on and getting my gray nightie on.

Sally (04:18.015)
Yeah, makes sense.

Melanie (04:43.214)
There's nothing I like better than just being home before it's dark and just, just really sitting in silence as well or doing a bit of writing or just letting my creativity come and seeing what happens. But yeah, the more space I have, the more I find, the more happier I am.

Sally (04:44.176)
Yeah.

Sally (05:05.739)
Is it what your nervous system has been craving?

Melanie (05:10.582)
Yeah, partly just because of COVID and the divorce hitting at the same time, but also the energy of perimenopause for me anyway, just requires a lot of space, a lot of not many plans, not many doing things, not many going places, just get up. What's the energy of the today? What do I need to do for myself? How can I take care of myself? So yeah, it's...

Sally (05:15.179)
Yeah.

Sally (05:23.413)
Yeah.

Melanie (05:40.074)
It's day to day really. And I found that that is the best thing I can do.

Sally (05:41.717)
Mmm.

Sally (05:47.093)
I really resonate with what you've said actually. And more and more over the last few months specifically, I've been feeling like, you know what? I think I could actually just be on my own for a while. And I'm taking a trip to Spain for 12 days and I'll be, I'm going to be dog sitting a friend, but I'll be on my own. And it's like, well, it's not the first time I've done something like that. I did a language course for two weeks in Italy and I was sort of on my own.

kind of. I was on my own for the first week but just had sort of lessons and then a lot of other people came on the course but I couldn't be on my own very easily back then. I was sort of in my early 30s. I'm 49 now and just recently I've been like my god like this I just feel like there's so much noise everywhere like I'm taking in so much and like you say I work to appointments so anything outside of work I just want that wafting I just want to waft.

Melanie (06:45.484)
Yeah.

Sally (06:45.989)
in my caftan, you know, and just be that wafty kind of person.

Melanie (06:49.972)
Yes, there has to be no bra, preferably no knickers. Just very light clothing, for me the aircon's on and there's just a lot of wafting, yes, pottering, yeah.

Sally (06:54.708)
Yeah.

Sally (07:02.143)
Yeah, love it. Pottering, tending, just tending to little things and tidying up and organizing the shelves and yeah, watering my plants, all that stuff.

Melanie (07:07.64)
Yeah.

Melanie (07:13.07)
Yeah, make a little smoothie. But are you, are you with somebody? Do you have a partner?

Sally (07:17.737)
I do, I'm married and it is tricky. It's tricky at the moment because he is off work and I'm like...

Melanie (07:21.868)
Yeah. Breathing. Does he breathe? he, does he chew? I'm really happy my marriage ended what it did because I, even if I was in a good, you know, nice, nice, secure loving relationship, I really think I'd have needed to just take myself off for two years and just have some space. It is.

Sally (07:27.337)
Well yeah!

Sally (07:36.233)
Yeah, sure.

Melanie (07:51.553)
men on pause after all. and there's also many pause as well. So pausing with the men, in come the cats. And I think I've heard this from quite a lot of women, just needing to not be around men. And that's not that they've done anything wrong.

Sally (07:53.003)
I love that, okay, yeah.

Sally (08:00.245)
Yeah?

Melanie (08:19.522)
but blinking, chewing and breathing are common. Tapping, clinking the bowl are common complaints I've heard from women. But it's the same for me. Like when I'm at the gym, if a man's working out next to me, they usually make more noise than women. I'm talking about them like they're the creatures from the deep blue sea. Like they're even just not grunting, but just breathing louder.

It bothers me, but if a woman's next to me, it doesn't bother me at all. And they might be on their phone or doing things, but I just, really the energy of perimenopause, think the true nature of it is that we do take a pause, that we do take stock, that we do have space because there's so much physiological, emotional, everything, everything changed going on. That.

Sally (08:50.827)
Hmm.

Sally (08:55.767)
Mmm, mmm.

Sally (09:16.479)
Yeah.

Melanie (09:18.68)
I think any outside influence of what that is doesn't need to be there. I think it's a very natural time of retreat.

Sally (09:26.101)
Yeah.

Sally (09:30.387)
Yeah, yeah, going inward. Yeah, I love that. It's actually very inspiring. I feel really inspired by what you've done. You've really listened to your body and your life situation and you've taken yourself into a place where, you know, you're getting what you need. You're getting that space, that breathing space. So I'm taking that as inspiration. And I feel like this conversation couldn't have actually come at a better time.

Melanie (09:32.078)
So yeah, that's what I'm doing.

Sally (09:59.093)
for me as well, which is what I'm kind of going into. I feel like the universe is giving me a little message here, like, yeah, you do need to just be on your own a bit. And I think it's going to be fine this time. But I'd really love to talk to you a little bit more about your work, because I think it's so interesting, like womb work. Often the idea of doing womb work has felt a bit bleh, a bit ick, or a bit slightly repellent to me. don't know if you've...

Melanie (09:59.972)
I like it.

Sally (10:28.479)
found that yourself or if there was something pivotal where you thought actually no this is this doing womb work is really representative of what I need right now. Can you explain a little bit more about what womb work actually is?

Melanie (10:43.182)
Yeah, good question. Because it can be quite vague and it can be a little woo woo and it can be a little bit poetic and the da da da da and the womb and the feminine rise in and like, what is that on a daily basis? And we still need to get up and take a shit and brush our teeth and have a period and we still need to be here. What does it mean? So basically,

Sally (11:03.402)
Yeah.

Melanie (11:12.194)
The womb as an organ and its metaphysical qualities has been dissociated. We've been disconnected from its true purpose for like a long, long time. so women have been in collapse actually and martyr for a long, long time, submission, collapse, just carry on and complain about it basically. And it's our center of power. It's our seat of power.

When we, we need to do this kind of womb work, as you call it, to re-attune to its qualities, to get some energy back in the physical organ so that our menstrual cycle works well and it goes around the cycle. And so that we can feel the metaphysical nature or the consciousness of the womb. But doing womb work in itself.

isn't enough, we have to be able to receive like that deep wisdom, that deep knowing in the rest of our system. So for example, if someone's kind of been caretaking other people, that's a really common pattern with women their whole lives, then doing womb work just to tune into the womb will feel nice. You'll get some kind of insights and wisdom and I get people to

draw their womb and sculpt their womb to get back in touch with the qualities and then listen to the messages coming from it and help them discern between is this my fantasy? Is this me kind of projecting onto it or can I sort of attune now and feel wisdom that's coming from within or guidance that's coming from within? If that then hits our heart and our hearts like,

trust anybody and people are fuckers and I don't like it. The world's a mess and I don't want to be here." All these things, all these qualities that build up, that we all hold in some way until we can process them. If it hits that, then it's not going to go anywhere. So I have to do it in what I call an integrative way is to work with the whole system. That's why I offer like trauma healing and soul work and the shadow work as well because

Melanie (13:37.077)
Yes, it's great to do the womb work and it will help restore a flow within our menstrual cycle and for us to feel it. But if we, if we can't receive what's coming from the womb, then we kind of get an internal conflict and it accentuates an internal conflict. So that's the way I like to do it anyway, is to work with the whole system and the womb to reintegrate it back into a system that is willing.

and can enact the guidance in daily life. So that then builds a momentum of, listened to myself, it went quite well. I listened to myself, it really didn't go well, but it was the truth. I listened to myself, my God, I've got some inspiration. I listened to myself again and now I'm acting on it. And this momentum builds and what it...

What it does over time is not only helps restore a menstrual cycle that takes us round our range of being. What it does is it helps us sit back up again as women.

Sally (14:50.003)
Okay.

Melanie (14:51.106)
Because of this collective collapse submission martyr wound that we've been in.

It's like our spine can straighten because we're full from the inside.

Sally (15:04.814)
Okay, okay, yeah that's starting to make sense. Just clarify for me what does the womb represent? So what are the qualities of the womb that you speak about?

Melanie (15:11.075)
Yeah.

Melanie (15:18.68)
So the womb's got like a consciousness of its own. All the organs do. And that's in Taoist medicine and traditional Chinese medicine.

Sally (15:24.266)
Yeah.

Melanie (15:30.316)
So, but the womb specifically helps us to access our ability as creators. So obviously the, can bring physical life through. So spirit of comes through into our bodies and then kind of alchemizes in the womb and turns into a baby human. then we pop it out. We don't just pop it out. kind of, know, but yeah, out it pops.

Sally (15:53.557)
Bloody amazing, isn't it?

Melanie (16:00.153)
but we also have access to.

consciousness, because that's what a baby is anyway, it's new consciousness coming through. So we can birth new consciousness in a non-physical form. So it might be an idea, it might be something that's going to progress our personal consciousness. It might be something that's going to progress our collective consciousness. But again, we have to work with the whole of our system because the womb, if given enough energy, if we breathe to it and we don't

you know, if we stop pulling away from it going ick and it's understandable that we would have the ick, then if we can clear that and reconnect with our womb, we can put energy back into our womb, then it starts working again. But if you don't work to clear and work with, know, unveil the rest of the trauma in the system, then it's hard to enact that.

inspiration and put it into daily life. So part of the womb work is yes, connecting with this divine feminine energy within the womb, which by the way, there's a lot of misconception about what that is. It's, mean, I'm taking Instagram as an example. There'll be lots of the feminine is softness and the feminine is this. It's just in the absence of knowing the truth, we do make a lot of shit up.

Sally (17:07.603)
Okay.

Melanie (17:31.479)
So we really do, we just pad, we just pad our lives with a load of untruths that feel okay until we get to the good stuff. So the feminine principle in creation is the void, it's darkness, but it's black light. There's not nothing there. There's everything there. It's like pregnant with potential. So part of the womb work is to reclaim our divine masculine.

true masculine aspect has women because see, we've got women's bodies and men's bodies and we tend to go, well, well, Dutchess not me. And men tend to go, well, Dutchess not me. She's kind of wild and kind of crazy. we go, well, they can't feel anything anyway. And they can't express their emotions and the split gets worse basically. And of course there's huge amounts of perpetration on the planet and by men and women. But yeah.

When we can stop projecting that onto men, bring back our projections, and then there is this energy there that is our true masculine energy. We can bring it back into our body. And what it does is it comes, well, for me anyway, it came back in as this gorgeous big juicy crystalline phallus that literally kind of entered my womb and went up my core.

I was totally like, wow, for three days, it's like being penetrated by God. It was really beyond anything I've experienced. that lit up my womb, but it also created this power and this potency in the cell chemical process of my ideas, my inspiration are...

Sally (19:06.844)
Wow.

Sally (19:11.285)
Wow, okay.

Melanie (19:27.52)
It's a it's a seamless process for me to turn those into a physical reality. So I'm, I'm birth in consciousness basically and grounded it here on earth. And we all have the ability to do that. I mean, it counts, sounds kind of sexy, but it's very normal. That's what we're able to do. but because of our disconnection and because of what's been built up in the disconnection, in the absence of the truth and the source within then.

Sally (19:52.949)
Yeah.

Melanie (19:57.485)
We need to work through that as well as power up the womb. it's kind of a mutual simultaneous process, but it restores our true nature basically and our sovereignty as creators.

Sally (20:04.432)
Okay, yeah.

Sally (20:10.999)
Mm-hmm. Mm. And I guess if we're resistant to that, it might be because we don't understand it fully, which is why we're having these conversations, so that we can understand that we might have been suppressing or that part of us, that womb part of us might have been traumatised, particularly with sexual abuse, boundary violation, even the things like enmeshment and being too close.

Melanie (20:21.229)
Yeah.

Sally (20:41.045)
to parents or if we're raising in mesh systems or the opposite of that where there's been neglect, emotional neglect, we might end up neglecting ourselves. So there's so much of the complex trauma work to work through, like you say, so that we can have that relationship to the womb, which as you said, represents creation and like a, almost like you say, potential.

Melanie (20:58.862)
I miss.

Sally (21:10.731)
It's like the clean slate, isn't it? Everything can emerge from that blank space.

Melanie (21:17.326)
You can, and that's what our cycle is trying to take us into every month. So obviously the cycle is a circle, but if we think of the bottom part of it, it's trying to, and so we'll start at beginning. If we kind of rise up to our ovulation and then we start waning sort of down, it's like our hormones are arranged, all of our biochemicals are arranged in a way that pulls us into our body. And that's why we get PMT because.

Sally (21:31.561)
Yeah.

Melanie (21:45.965)
That's, that's unprocessed from childhood. So it creates all sorts of, all sorts of symptoms that go with it. But again, if, if we just can work on those and resolve those, you know, to a certain degree, we don't have to resolve everything perfectly. There's no such thing, but it's just as long as we're working with it, our cycle is constantly trying to take us down different states of beat round different states of being. So.

When it pulls us back into our body and back down to our womb, it's actually trying to pull us into the void when we menstruate because we can get to a zero point if we let it. But again, lots of women just don't know. So on the surface level, it's, there's our collective consciousness is stick a tampon in and get on with it. There is a kind of band of consciousness that

Sally (22:22.822)
Okay.

Melanie (22:43.99)
of women that are now attune into their womb and attune into their menstrual cycle and go with trying to go with the flow. Again, if you've got belief systems around, if I rest, I'm going to lose connection or if I rest, might collapse or I don't deserve rest. Then it's going to be hard to access that void point because what it can do, the potential of it's gorgeous. can reset our nervous system.

And it's wonderful. I've my current periods and I'll say this was a small caveat because I am in Perry and it does change. when, when my bleed comes at the moment, this has been for the past few months, I lie down, put a hot water bottle on my womb and bliss, pure bliss emanates from my womb for about four hours.

and it comes in these beautiful waves. And it just resets and resets and calms and nourishes. And it's beautiful. But I've had to do a lot of work to be able to get there. But that's our potential. then we can, once when we come out of that cave, it's for us to then cultivate our energy around the cycle and not just go.

Sally (23:57.641)
Yeah.

Melanie (24:12.878)
40 miles an hour straight away. It's to sense this undercurrent of pace and energy and creativity and engagement with the world and engagement with self that is this is very beautiful, intimate, internal guidance system that is very natural. It's built into our bodies, but because of the layers of stuff and also the busyness of the world and culture and our lives.

Sally (24:14.315)
Yeah.

Sally (24:33.835)
Hmm.

Melanie (24:41.774)
We can struggle to even know that it's there and live a whole life not even knowing that that's possible. So yeah, that's the potential of womb work really. It's there to restore sovereignty at its core.

Sally (25:00.029)
Yeah, I really like what you said about that it helps us, our cycles help to take us through the four stages of ourselves, you know, like the, like, like it is a circle. What did you call them? Phases of self?

Melanie (25:16.486)
I wouldn't, I mean, there are, it's very popular that it's sectioned, that the menstrual cycle is sectioned into four, like, which is much better than just a linear thing where we're just a bit horny sometimes and then we cry and then we bleed and the whole thing starts again. So what we've been experiencing over the last 10 years is stage, stage one on from that, which is the four seasons, which is, spring, summer, autumn and.

and winter, winter being menstruation, summer being ovulation, two in between. But, and this is what I'm putting in my book. We need to move that on because what women are doing is a trauma-based attunement, mainly, not everybody, which is try reading the books that talk about the Four Seasons and trying to fit themselves into it rather than taking it as, well, this is one or two or three or four women's experience. I wonder what mine is.

And the women who've written those books do write that. They say like, your own experience trumps everything, but you know, trauma doesn't listen. And so I'm in the book, I'm trying to move in the work I do is I'm trying to move that on and off of the space for direct attunement with one's own undercurrent. That, I mean, I spoke to a friend the other day and she was like, sometimes I have seven seasons.

Sally (26:34.921)
Yeah.

Melanie (26:42.08)
She's in Perry as well. Sometimes I have a five. Sometimes a zone just kind of pops up and lasts three hours. So these maps that we're given, I mean, use them and chuck them away basically, because it's about our direct attunement to our body and what's rising, what's moving in every moment. And I know that takes a lot of training.

Sally (26:42.475)
care.

Sally (26:56.757)
Yeah.

Melanie (27:10.348)
and a lot of awareness and a lot of trauma clearing work and a lot of attunement. So it's about what we can realistically do. So if someone's listening to this going, well, yeah, you're kicking your legs up in Thailand and you've got a pool downstairs and you can chill out and attune to your body all the time. It's not, it's just, would recommend people start where they are. And if they can just mark half a day off in their calendar for the next period.

and just get a hot water bottle, go in a dark room and simply be in silence, turn the bloody phone off and just be in silence and experience that. The quality of the darkness is what's inside. So if we can mirror that on the outside, it's gonna allow all our senses to start to turn inwards again and attune to what's in our body.

Sally (27:54.058)
Yeah.

Melanie (28:04.374)
Again, if the stuff there that we find painful, if we don't want to go in, can help you address that. There's loads of healers and therapists that can help you address that and groups and all sorts of different ways of doing it. But what's underneath it, if anyone's struggling is divine. It's literally the divine.

Sally (28:17.579)
Mm.

Sally (28:25.587)
Yeah, yeah, that spaciousness that is created when you do finally kind of sink into it, let it go. There's nothing I like more than just staring out into space and yeah, and being in a dark bubble. love the shortest day. I just love the darkness. I know I'm an anomaly.

Melanie (28:31.597)
yeah.

Melanie (28:39.79)
That's lovely.

Melanie (28:48.157)
Yeah. That's I thought, I got off the plane in Thailand when I moved here and the heat hit me. Cause I came here in July, three years ago and I thought, Oh no, I forgot about the heat in my, in my haste of going, I forgot it's so bright all the time. And except for rainy season when it's just thunderous and very bold. And I love that too. I thought, Oh no, what am going to do? Well, it turns out they have curtain see it.

Sally (29:11.744)
now.

Melanie (29:17.582)
And an eye mask and air con. And that's what I do for two days, every single cycle. As long as I get that, I'm totally fine. you know, take time to just attune and do my practice before I get up as well.

Sally (29:26.495)
Yeah.

Sally (29:34.217)
Yeah, beautiful, beautiful. You're right in what you say about not trying to shoehorn yourself into those archetypal seasons, even the life seasons, you know, like perimenopause is autumn and menopause is winter and then you've got your second spring because there's also going to be

Melanie (29:47.116)
Yeah.

Sally (29:57.027)
flavors around that as well, or you're not going to be able to fit yourself into those archetypes too. And I know for me, like, ovulation sometimes felt too much. Like, like I, like my relationship with summer, it's just a bit too much. And the energy of ovulation, like the horniness that I used to feel just felt like I just, like I was a cage stallion sometimes.

Melanie (30:08.078)
Mm-hmm.

Melanie (30:21.454)
I now have that one day a month. One day, yeah. And I can smell fertile men. No, I think I'm going to stay at home today. Because I'm 49. I don't genuinely want kids, but I think it's Mother Nature's last ditch attempt to...

Sally (30:27.68)
to you.

Sally (30:34.166)
my god, that's so funny.

Melanie (30:48.344)
try and keep the human race going or something, that my hormones are changing in such a way that I'm like, f-f-f-f-f

Sally (31:03.837)
Yeah, yeah, I've felt that myself. my God. Right, I'm just looking at your wonderful questions that you sent me. We've spoke about the true energy and purpose of the menstrual cycle. What I'd like to ask you, what actually is perimenopause and how...

The way that you handle your perimenopause, what might that say about you and what you might be going through or what you might need to address in your life?

Melanie (31:39.439)
Okay. So what is perimenopause? I'll do that one first. So it's the transition period from being like fertile through our fertile years to our non-baby fertility years. Cause we're still fertile, but it's a different. And so if we think about puberty as taking about seven years, it takes about seven years to fire everything up and then things start kind of

Sally (31:45.333)
Yeah.

Melanie (32:09.294)
popping in different places, don't they? Like, I have boobs. what is that? Where's my underarm hair? I'll get to the thing. But it takes about seven years to complete. So perimenopause seems to take about seven years to complete as well. Cause it's the way our whole mind, body, brain, nervous system has.

focused our energy is on getting pregnant.

So that takes a lot of energy actually. 40 % of the energy that runs our immune system goes towards ovulation. And then 80 % of the energy that normally runs our immune system is diverted towards menstruation. That's why women get sick more. Because we don't take care of ourselves at those times. It's super important that we don't run ourselves ragged because it makes us more vulnerable because we're not.

immune system is like, well, it takes energy to bleed. So we have to go through this transition. And I mean, I was finding it quite difficult about six months ago, like the body changes, my boobs have dropped. I've kind of put on weight, my, where did my waist go? my muscle tone has changed. My skin's changing. My hair with strias like, my gosh.

Sally (33:20.885)
Yeah.

Thank

Melanie (33:43.215)
This is hard. And I could see myself kind of ageing in the mirror. And so, um, it was one specific day when I sat and I was like, I'm to have to have a chat with the great mother about this. And I wasn't pissed off. I was just, I was just at a point where, you know, I'd be just doing my daily things. I'm not, you know, busy. don't particularly go fast, but I would just have to sit down, just breathe. There was nothing wrong, nothing needed.

fixing. I wasn't having a hot flash. There was nothing particularly happening. But I could feel the shifts inside. can feel the conversion. And it took me a while to be able to give language to it because it's, it's, it's an unseen process. It's seen because of the body changes, but the psyche changes is

is kind of unseen and we just, get the, we get the outward expressions of like, I'm just kind of annoyed with anything, everything. And that's cause we need to just have more space. So the whole body mind system is changing the way it utilizes energy. And as women, we have the ability to produce lots of blood, but we're not going to need that anymore. So.

If you think of a system that's been running, and this is what I got from the great mother. I'll come back to that, sorry. So I sat with the great mother and was like, excuse me, Melanie Swan here, could I have a chat please? I was just wondering, great mother, struggling here somewhat. I just said, could you speed this up a bit? Because it's hard.

It's just hard. feels like hard, slow, daily grind that needs attending to. for God's sake, like what is it? And I got this image. It was kind of the day that changed my relationship with perimenopause really. I got this image of a bullet train. So the system operates more like a bullet train when we are our energy.

Melanie (36:08.822)
system is focused on getting pregnant. It's like slick and shiny and boom boom. And menopause is more like a steam train, like a beautiful Orient Express, if you will.

Sally (36:27.509)
yeah, that's such a good analogy. Okay. And we're talking about energy, we? Like how much energy we have through, you know, pre perimenopause, perimenopause and menopause. I love what you said about the, how the energy gets diverted. Yeah.

Melanie (36:43.702)
Yeah. it's, say we have like, we just have a certain amount of life force and that's mainly focused on keeping the human race going. But we don't, our body mind changes so that we're not into that anymore basically. And so we go from bullet train to the Orient Express. So the great mother said,

It was a really strong message for me because I really got it. If I just turn this off, all your cells will crash into each other. they'll be, it will cause problems because the system's been running one way with one focus. And it's like the engine's been turned off already.

And your cycle now is running on free, free form running, right? The momentum of the menstrual cycle. Yeah, they've turned the, the engine of the bullet train has been turned off and it's kind of running in its tracks. As it slows down, this needs to be a very natural slowing. Otherwise, no, it'll cause problems, cause major problems in the body.

Sally (37:59.451)
Okay, can't just stop dead.

Sally (38:07.381)
Right.

Melanie (38:07.778)
Because of the power, it's the power of creation. We are creation. It's got that much power in it. And if we just stop it dead, what would we, we just wouldn't be able to function. So then I got it. Okay. That's what I'm actually feeling this just very slow, steady shift. And now since I got that, I I'm totally fine with it. I've accepted that.

I'm transforming into the Orient Express basically. And I'm not, I'm not quite the Orient Express yet, but it's like the doors are being taken off the bullet train as it slows down. And I'm like, where did my muscle tone go? And I strength train three times a week and go to, you know, it's not, it's not the same. My fitness is not the same. but gradually things.

Sally (39:01.331)
Yeah.

Melanie (39:05.654)
are coming in, like new, new states of being starting to emerge. And the bullet train feels like it's now sort of outer casing as this Orient Express starts to emerge from within the bullet train.

Sally (39:25.929)
Yeah, almost the metamorphosis-like kind of thing, yeah.

Melanie (39:28.266)
Yes. Yeah, yeah, it comes out, I'm coming out of my chrysalis. So once I got that, I felt rest assured that, okay, okay, I can't stop this quickly. And in fact, the slowness of it is what's very important about it.

Sally (39:46.987)
The slowness of it is, is, is the thing, okay? We want it to be all over really quickly, get it done, get job done. I just want to be in menopause, but no, no, no, no, no. You can't be like that because of this. You can't just go from a bullet train. You don't want all your doors to fall off in one go. I mean, that's going to feel awful. Yeah. Right, right. So it's a gradual.

Melanie (39:50.474)
is the thing. It is the thing.

Melanie (39:57.655)
Yuck!

Melanie (40:09.422)
Yes.

Sally (40:17.003)
metamorphosizing.

Melanie (40:18.7)
Yes, because the brain changes. There's a different way that we alchemize our life force. So it needs to shift gradually and we need that time to get used to it because the signals between different organs are different and our state of being gets intrinsically changed by it. If we let it, you can skim over it.

Sally (40:21.897)
Yeah, which it does,

Sally (40:46.634)
Yeah.

Melanie (40:48.358)
You can completely bypass it. So I know some people call it the greater waitner or, you know, the great thing or it can be, but it can also be skimmed over. It's not fricking easy. And I've done loads of work. Like I am not finding it easy. I am now I've got the bullet train analogy and the great mother really assured me. And I feel really, really supported with it. Like, and of course I'm going through it.

Of course I've got to go through it. Like I'm writing a poetry book about it and I'll, you know, once I'm out the other side, I'll be guiding women through it to use it as this genuine, I mean, it gets banded about a lot, the word transformation, but this genuine transformation into our power, into our truth, into our authentic self. Because, you know, when we're fertile, we're concerned with

Sally (41:36.789)
Yeah.

Melanie (41:45.945)
how we look to attract a mate at a very base biological level and keep a mate and where are we in the house and the kids are like, I haven't gone down that route, but my system is still operated in that sort of way. Now I couldn't give a flying fuck what people need. it's slowly turning and it's so freeing and it's so beautiful. And I'm discovering what are these new states and

who am I and what am I turning into? And now it feels like more of a unfolding and just a daily kind of thing that I need to be present with rather than something that's a pain in the arse and I wish my periods would just stop. But I tell you what though, the day they stop I...

I've, I have had enough now, as blissful as it is. And yeah, I'm, I'm getting to the point where I'm like, okay, I've worked this a lot and I get it. And yeah, the day I don't, the day I don't get it anymore will be the perfect day. Cause it will, yeah, I'll, I'll be happy.

Sally (42:41.173)
Yeah.

Sally (42:48.116)
Yeah.

Sally (43:00.171)
Yeah, honestly, everything you've said, I've just resonated with all of it, especially the idea of our life force changing, like this going from what biology wants from us to what we get to want instead. So it's almost like it's not dictated to by, you know, what biology wants now. It's dictated to by what we.

what our inner voice, the cosmic mother, wants to be expressed. And I feel that that is a creative juice that flows through us. And like you say, create pre-menopause, we create that way, having children. I haven't had children either. I've always felt like I'm more of a creative person, musically, poetically, all that kind of stuff. And now it's sort of changing a bit. But what would you say?

happens to our life force as we transition.

Melanie (44:04.526)
Well, one thing I experienced, is one of the reasons I had a chat with the great mother, was I was experiencing quite a bit of fatigue. I was finding that hard. And was there something I needed to address? Did I need to do a liver cleanse, a thingy bar, take some supplements, change my diet? And, you know, I can do tweaks to that. I eat pretty healthily and ongoing.

healing relationship with food and eating and women and God and you know that kind of thing. But really what needed to be addressed was the ability to just let my body rest. And I remembered as a teenager, we need to sleep a lot. We want, I remember saying to my mother, I want to paint my room black. I want the ceiling black.

I everything black, black bed sheets, black everything. And she said, no, you're not doing that. I was like, but the world is dark. And I really wanted it. And I remember I just needed that cocoon time. And so what was your question? What happens to our life force? you say?

Sally (45:23.241)
Yeah, how have you experienced that life force change? mean, you can speak from experience or from any ideas that you have around how our life force changes. Like, what's the sort of, what's the metaphor? How do you see it? Because before it's quite high. And then I do feel the life force lowers as we go through.

Melanie (45:45.635)
Yep.

Sally (45:51.061)
perimenopause and menopause, but why? Like, what's the relevance of that?

Melanie (45:52.013)
There we go. It's, yeah, yeah. It seems like it lowers. That's what I've realized. I needed rest because there's so much going on in my body and brain. And it, yes, I was more tired. Yes, I needed naps and I have naps kind of three days out of seven at the moment. There's a less nap time needed right now, but I'm, you know, open to going into more naps again. But.

Sally (45:59.154)
Okay.

Melanie (46:22.638)
Our energy, our life force is needed to kind of fuel these changes really and let, let everything rearrange. So there's going to be a natural dip and our vitality changes. And that's what's really different. That's what I was finding difficult. And that's why it seems lots of women go on HRT because they lose their vitality and think, well, this is shit.

and go on HRT and they get the vitality back because it rearranges the hormones back into the bullet train. But if we can, I knew if I could ride that out enough, it would come back. Something in me just knew. And I've spoken to women post-peri, they're in menopause and they do, they feel a new vitality. It's not the same. It's different, but it's like,

My body is currently under construction for the next phase. And of course I need to pause. Of course I need to change the filter. Of course I need to just stop and slow down and everything's shifting. So I know it's, it has been hard for me and I know it's hard for a lot of people, but if we can just ride it, it's, it's doing something for us. And it.

Sally (47:26.411)
That's so good.

Melanie (47:48.065)
It will take us into the next stage. I mean, I also want to be really, really super clear. If people are all around HRT, this is not kind of me and you sitting on our high horse and going like, well, we're much better and more spiritual and everything, because it's not that way. I've got friends, I know people that have been bleeding for seven, 10 days and are just debilitated and have endometriosis and have tried everything. like,

you're going to want to take something that helps you function as a freaking person. So we all need to do what we need to do. And there's no one protocol or the magic potion or just take red clover or my friend took this. It's like, stop. It's, it's not what we need in Peri. What we need is to actually attune to our body and ask our body, what do we need? Okay. And I've intuitively got different herbs and

Sally (48:34.175)
Hmm.

Sally (48:46.484)
Yeah.

Melanie (48:46.678)
I've read a few different things, but really my body is my tuning fork and that is the baseline. So yeah, the vitality goes, but it's meant to because we don't want that. We don't need that sort of vitality. It's taken us up and out to the world. When we're in menopause, we can sit more in the void. So.

Sally (48:56.648)
Hmm.

Sally (49:10.357)
Yeah.

Melanie (49:11.682)
When we're menstruating, our cycle brings us into that void place once a month, or once every 20 whatever days. When we're in menopause, we've got this empty womb, but it's not empty, it's full of potential because we're mirroring the void. We are the void, we become the void. Yeah, so that we're more able to discern.

Sally (49:17.141)
Yeah.

Sally (49:32.299)
We've become the void, yeah.

Melanie (49:37.687)
And we're less concerned with our ego states. Ego states aren't bad. We're just less concerned with what a hair looks like and whether Gemma said, we got nice glasses down the pub. You know, it's all that crap, all that crap that we think is crap now that's totally relevant when we're 30. We're not concerned with that. And our cycle hopefully has worked us through enough and highlighted enough stuff and chucked enough stuff up that we're actually able to sit in and as the void.

Sally (49:46.603)
Yeah. Yeah.

Melanie (50:07.63)
and be able to discern ego from collective needs. That's not saying we don't have needs or wants or desires or anything. We can have all of that stuff, but let's as wise women be able to sit with the void and see what's needed for our collective evolution and our personal evolution. Because that's what's missed in our culture. It's wiser. People getting wise rather than old and...

Sally (50:07.689)
you

Sally (50:13.963)
Mmm.

Sally (50:30.569)
It's...

Melanie (50:38.21)
dying basically.

Sally (50:39.775)
Yeah, it feels like it's just an ability to be able to sit in the void comfortably to be able to then see what emerges out of that, see what is born out of that. And I'm, you know, a massive culprit of just not doing that and like creating from this and like creating from urgency, creating from...

panic and fear, yeah, but I finally got the message, thank you, good therapist. And she uses the word yield. And that's not a word that has been in my vocabulary, but she says, try and yield to it, yield to the low energy, yield to the burnout, yield to whatever it is you're feeling, let yourself go into it and just stay there.

Melanie (51:31.586)
Yeah.

Sally (51:38.757)
a bit. Don't have this sense of, I've got to get out quickly or I've got to create something quickly to get out of this space. Recognise that this is it, this space of emptiness or low energy, this is what your body wants you to experience, like it wants you to feel it experientially right now and to kind of put words to it or...

Melanie (51:51.014)
Yeah.

Sally (52:05.375)
just let yourself merge with it and then from that something will emerge. Like the seedling emerges.

Melanie (52:12.172)
Yeah, will. we resist it, this process has to happen. So we elongate it.

Sally (52:21.312)
Right.

Melanie (52:23.222)
And then it's more difficult, but the more we can go with it, as difficult as it may be. humans, as humans, we don't like space. We don't like void. We like get our little paws on anything we can. So yeah, to actually to quicken the transition of perimenopause, we need to just accept it.

Sally (52:48.201)
Yeah.

Do you think it helps if you're a bit of an emo?

Melanie (52:54.188)
What's an emo?

Sally (52:57.931)
Like back in the 90s, because I was such an emo in the 90s. And when you were talking about your black bedroom, I was like, I wonder if you were an emo when you were younger. I was always into like evanescence and sort of the pain and expressing the pain and all of that. I loved a bit of melancholy. And I think.

Melanie (53:00.654)
I remember them now.

Melanie (53:09.838)
I'm just...

Melanie (53:13.934)
it.

Melanie (53:20.942)
Yeah, I wasn't an emo actually, I was into acting and expressing and drama and stuff and theatre, but I liked the emos because they dressed up and I liked dressing up as well. But I was also dressing up as Lady Macbeth and the Cheshire Cat and I liked the range, I liked this range of being.

Sally (53:34.313)
Yeah, yeah.

Sally (53:45.803)
was the word you used before, the range of our being, yeah, around the cycle, yeah, yeah, yeah, and all the different layers that we have and I guess that void, because the womb is sort of right at the bottom, isn't it? Like, it feels like it's sinking down into the space of the void, right at the bottom of all of those layers of emotions. And I guess no wonder we don't go there as a society because we're to stay

Melanie (54:01.583)
Mm-hmm.

Sally (54:15.253)
kind of up here in that happy, the sort of getting things done, the over-functioning. Yeah.

Melanie (54:22.862)
Yeah, and there's so much going on. We've created this world where our senses are very stimulated. That's why it's important to take ourselves out during moon time and whenever, whenever the hell we want really just close the curtains, put the eye mask on and just be quiet and be still. It actually consolidates our chi as well.

Sally (54:28.843)
Yeah.

Sally (54:39.851)
Yeah.

Sally (54:44.075)
yeah, I love that. Yeah, it builds it up, doesn't it? It's like grounding. Listen, thank you, Melanie, so much for your wisdom, for your... I love the pace with which you speak as well. It's kind of put me into a bit of a trance-y space, which is lovely. It's been very easy for my brain and just... I feel like I've been in a really warm, nurturing space with you. You've been very inspiring.

Melanie (54:49.965)
It does.

Melanie (55:03.768)
Thank you.

Sally (55:12.811)
I hope our listeners have been suitably inspired as well by you and especially around the of slowness and the warmth and that real sort of juicy, yummy quality of being swaddled almost, know, just allowing yourself to be kind of held in your vocal tones. What are you offering for people? If people have been inspired by you and want to work with you, how can they work with you?

Melanie (55:42.286)
If you go to my website, thesacredwomb.com, I registered that about, it was about 14 years ago now and I was in Thailand and I looked at it, I'm going to go daddy, looking at it, thought thesacredwomb.com, surely that's not available, surely someone's taken it and not much womb workers was around then. So anyway, that's the backstory of it. So thesacredwomb.com, so they want to one healing work, it's like soul work and shadow work and attachment repair.

Sally (56:02.707)
No.

Melanie (56:12.928)
and integrative womb healing. But I'm also doing group intensives as well, three month group intensives on core issues that women really struggle with, which is money and food and visibility and ability to turn ideas into action and pleasure as well. So that's all on my website and there's some training as well. So yeah, I want, I've got a podcast of my own.

Sally (56:36.597)
Yeah, lovely. Yeah, you have, haven't you? How long's that been going?

Melanie (56:43.013)
nine years.

Sally (56:44.475)
wow, I must dive into it. I bet you've got some really amazing stuff on there. Do you interview people?

Melanie (56:52.84)
sometimes, yeah. It's just like, I, I've now some, found someone to edit my podcast. So I was doing it myself. So I'm interviewing more people on there, but, yeah, there's about 70 episodes, I think, on there.

Sally (57:08.043)
Beautiful. And then where are you most active on social media?

Melanie (57:13.838)
I'm most active with my curtains closed in the dark room or the swimming pool. I guess Instagram would be a good place. and I'm at the underscore sacred underscore womb.

Sally (57:31.391)
Yeah, lovely. I'll put all your links in the show notes. Thank you, Melanie, so much.

Melanie (57:35.086)
Thank you. It's been really great to meet you.