About Alexandra
Alexandra
Pope currently works as a psychotherapist in private practice seeing both
individuals and couples covering a range of issues including menstrual
health and how to deepen into the power and wisdom of the cycle. She also gives individual life coaching sessions supporting people
in discovering and unfolding their creativity and dreams.
Guest lecturer on menstruation and menstrual health at naturopathic colleges, universities, community health centres and counselling organizations, she also holds one day workshops nationally and internationally on the wisdom of menstruation, cultivating female power and menstrual wellbeing, as well as speaking at conferences.
With formal training in Psychosynthesis, she later studied gestalt, process oriented psychotherapy and the teachings on soul by Robert Sardello. The latter two most inspire her work today.
Her work on menstrual health has evolved through a deep listening to her own and other women's experiences, combined with extensive research into the medical, cultural, social anthropological and ethnographical fields. Alexandra continues to write and develop the work started in her book, The Wild Genie, in particular exploring more deeply the nature and power of the Feminine. A passion for the sacred and nourishment of more soulful ways of being and acting in the world infuse all her work.
Lectures and workshops
Royal Hospital for Women,
Randwick (Sydney)
Australasian College of Natural Therapies (Sydney)
Nature Care College (Sydney)
The School of Chiropractic at Macquarie University (Sydney),
The School of Natural Sciences at Southern Cross University (Northern NSW),
University of Western Sydney
Australian College of Natural Medicine (Melbourne)
British College of Osteopathic Medicine
Community health in Sydney and country NSW
Counsellor and
Psychotherapy Association of NSW (CAPA)
Publications
The Wild Genie: The
Healing Power of Menstruation. (Sally Milner Publishing, 2001)
Walking with the Genie: The Modern Woman's Menstrual Health Kit (self
published, 2001)
Papers
2004 Blessing or Curse: Women, Power and the Menstrual Cycle, GANZ (Gestalt Australia New Zealand) International Psychotherapy Conference, Sydney.
2004 Spirituality and the Female Blood Mysteries, ‘Fear and Fascination: The Other in Religion’ AASR (Australian Association of Spiritual Research) Conference, University of Western Sydney
Interviewed by the Australian national and local television, radio and print media, including The Weekend Australian, The Sydney Morning Herald, and ABC Radio National and JJJ.
My
menstrual healing journey
Menstruation was not high on my list of priorities in my twenties and awareness of my menstrual cycle only came through charting it for contraceptive purposes. I rarely changed my rhythm to match my changing internal states, although I had noticed the natural high the coming of my period brought.
The pain from hellThen a pain so debilitating hit me in my early thirties that I was left feeling gutted. Intense pain, vomiting and diahorrea which could last on and off for 3 to 4 days, followed by complete exhaustion. Menstruation became an enormous monthly upheaval, completely disrupting my life.
It also became the opening to a wonderful appreciation of the power and magic of a woman's cyclical nature, knowledge which helped heal my body. This pain had a way of focusing my attention like nothing else! My odyssey unfolded. Central to my journey was the rediscovery of the inner life of women through my cycle. Menstruation as a monthly initiatory process that, with awareness, deepened and strengthened my sense of self.
Healing without drugs
or surgery
To get well took time
and enormous dedication. After a brief foray into orthodox medicine,
I realised it had nothing to offer me that was truly healing. My body was
already in distress and I felt that drugs, in the long term, would only
contribute to that distress.
I wanted to get to the root of the problem and to experience painfree periods without drugs or surgery. My healing would be an investment for life. My overall health was poor - fatigue, allergies, poor digestion , insomnia and frequent bouts of flu. I never got a name from the medical establishment for my menstrual problems, because to do so would have required surgery. However, I believe I had endometriosis and possibly a prolapsed uterus.
The bedrock of my healing was a combination of self care practices (in particular diet and minimising environmental pollutants), wonderful support from natural health practitioners, and my growing appreciation of the talents and strengths of the menstrual cycle. I also developed my capacity to enter the experience of the symptoms on their own terms, to allow myself to be changed and led somewhere new.
I began to see my problems as more than purely personal. I suffered in part because of the cultural devaluation of the Feminine, the lack of respect for woman's ways of accessing and expressing knowledge and power. To heal I had to lift the curse on the menstrual cycle. This was and is public work and meant being an activist in the world.
Pain free
Today, nineteen years
on from that first gut wrenching pain I am happily pain free and have been
for a number of years, my uterus intact and my health transformed.
The Genie
The "wild
genie" approach
Menstrual
symptoms are like a wild disturbing spirit, a genie, bursting forth from the
bottle each month. Rather than try and push the genie back into the bottle,
we need to learn more about this spirit. To embrace it as something useful
and powerful that we don't yet know how to handle. The word "genie" speaks
of power, magic and spiritedness. These are qualities that, with awareness
and time, can be found in the menstrual experience.
Western orthodox medicine is limited in its approach as it generally regards menstrual problems as pathology. It focuses on "treating" or "managing" symptoms rather than healing. The "wild genie" approach offers alternatives to encourage you to heal without using toxic drugs or invasive surgery (which although giving respite, may lead to further problems).
- Learn about an expanded, radical and positive model of the menstrual cycle
- Explore the inherent power and wisdom in menstruation
- Ease your menstrual suffering by learning to harness this power for emotional and spiritual development
- Question the myth that
having a menstrual cycle is a disadvantage and that menstrual problems
are normal
- Receive practical information
to heal menstrual problems and create healthy menstrual cycles
- Understand that appreciating the menstrual cycle will ease your transition to menopause.
Alexandra's
vision
Through
my workshops, counselling and writing it is my vision:
-
That all women will become comfortable and confident within their bodies, valuing the rhythm of their menstrual cycle and embracing the authority that arises from their being.
-
That girls and women be initiated into an understanding of the cycle as an inner guidance system for physical, emotional and spiritual wellbeing, and to recognise the heightened sensitivity and opening that menstruation offers. An opening that can bring greater depth, renewal of spirit and connection to the World.
-
That this information about the menstrual cycle will become commonplace, and comfortably and easily shared.