Announcer (00:00:04) - This is Dream Power Radio, the place where your dreams turn into reality. Here is your host, Debbie Spector Weisman.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:00:13) - Hello. Hello and welcome to Dream Power Radio. I'm your host, Certified Dream-Life Coach Debbie Spector Weisman. This is a place where we talk about dreams, both daytime and nighttime dreams, and how you can use them to make the internal shift to a life you love and rediscover the truth of who you really are. When I was ten years old, I had something happened to me that changed my life. I got my period. You'd think that such a monumental event would come with some fanfare, or at least a lot of information that would help me understand what was happening to my body. Instead, my mother handed me a Kotex napkin and one of those belts that they used to keep it in place at the time, and that was it. I didn't talk about it with her or with my older sisters. I didn't talk about it with my friends.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:01:05) - The only information I got was from a movie they played in class for girls only, while the boys were in another room watching their own movie. That was my sex education, and that's the way it was in my generation. Menstruation was something that happened that we girls had to endure. Nobody spoke about PMS or even knew what it was. I was lucky that I didn't have issues like unbearable cramps. When I got old enough to start using tampons. I pretty much stopped thinking about my period is nothing more than a minor monthly inconvenience. That's why when I first met my guest today, menstruation mentor Netsenet Ghiday, I had a major reawakening and decided to devote an entire episode to this once shunned topic. First of all, I'd never heard of a menstruation mentor before. I was surprised to learn that it wasn't all about how to pick out the best sanitary pads. No. Netsenet believes that our wombs are sacred spaces, and she guides both girls and women on the importance of honoring our womb through all stages of our lives.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:02:08) - She does this through workshops, women's circles and other areas for community gathering. And she says there's a major connection between what we can learn from our wombs and from our dreams. So let's find out more about it. Welcome to Dream Power Radio, Netsenet.
Netsenet Ghiday (00:02:24) - Thanks. Thank you for having me.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:02:27) - Okay, well, like I said, this is a topic I never thought I was going to talk about. But you bring such wisdom to it that I just have to share it with everyone. So let me start with this. When did you first realize that there was more to menstruation than cramps and inconvenience?
Netsenet Ghiday (00:02:44) - Well, I started my womb healing journey in 2015, 2016 after many years of just feeling aggravated and frustrated and sick and all that. And so I started trying to find other resources like nontraditional resources. I started doing all different kinds of things. Actually. I did some dancing. I did Kundalini yoga. I did some womb steaming. I changed my menstrual products that I was using to things that were more organic and herbal based, and a whole slew of things I did to start learning more about how to connect with my womb and how to honor my sacred bleeding time.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:03:30) - Why you feel it's so important to honor our womb?
Netsenet Ghiday (00:03:34) - Well, one, because your womb is the house. It is the energetic center that connects you to your entire maternal lineage. All the women that came before you and those women carried you and their womb. So there is a backlog of knowledge and an ancestral wisdom there that you can tap into when you start to connect with your womb. And if you know the stories of your maternal ancestors or your mothers, mothers, mothers, mothers, if you know their womb stories, it can help you make sense of what you're experiencing with your own womb.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:04:17) - So what kind of stories are you talking about?
Netsenet Ghiday (00:04:21) - Okay. Well, my personal story. I learned a lot about the women in my family having traumas that they experienced that they hadn't spoken about. And actually, that actually came to me through dream wisdom. And I kind of-- It was twofold. Some of these things came to me through interviewing, like asking questions to people in my family. Other things came to me through dreams, because once I opened the door to start asking questions and then connecting with my ancestors, I began to get more wisdom through my dreams.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:04:58) - So did you actually connect with ancestors in your dreams?
Netsenet Ghiday (00:05:02) - Yes.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:05:05) - And what kind of things did they tell you?
Netsenet Ghiday (00:05:08) - Well, a lot. Lots of things were revealed about certain patterns that that weren't healthy for my family and things that were kept silent.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:05:21) - And what kinds of things were kept between the generations.
Netsenet Ghiday (00:05:25) - I am a sexual trauma survivor, and I'm the first and only woman in my family to have spoken out about what I have. Based on my personal experiences, but through my dream wisdom, some things have been revealed to me that haven't necessarily been spoken outwardly by people in my family, if that makes sense.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:05:46) - Yeah it does. Then when you learned these things, was it difficult to have discussions with your family members about this?
Netsenet Ghiday (00:05:53) - Yeah, absolutely. I don't really talk with my family members about my dream wisdom, because it is not something that everybody regards as something that is good. I'll just say that, okay.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:06:08) - But you do help other people honor their womb wisdom. So how do you do that?
Netsenet Ghiday (00:06:15) - So I hold circles for women where we talk about different things connected to the womb. We talk about how to care for our wombs. You talk about different womb challenges we might have. We talk about products. We talk about rituals and practices we can do. And then I have the programs that I do for young girls to specifically talk about menstruation, which is where the menstruation mentor comes in. I have a program called Honor Your Flow, where I teach girls about how to care for their souls during their period and sacred bleeding time. I also support sexual trauma survivors or survivors who have experienced some type of reproductive trauma. So what I mean by that is like people who may have had abortions or may have had an experience at the gynecologist that was traumatic, stuff like that.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:07:07) - I get that, and it's interesting that you say that you do this through circles, because in dream work, we have dream circles where people gathered together to discuss their dreams.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:07:18) - And in doing so, a with the idea that one person's dream is everyone's dream, and the wisdom got that's received from a dream could be shared by others. So the same thing where, you know, one person has some wisdom that shares with the shares, and everyone grows as a benefit.
Netsenet Ghiday (00:07:38) - Yeah, yeah, I guess you can say that. I call it a metamorphosis circle. But butterflies are my thing. And I really believe that the womb is like a portal for transformation, similar to the stages that the butterfly goes through. So yeah, when we're in those circles, we do share stories, we share our experiences, and it does kind of feel like we're helping each other put pieces together in a puzzle, because we all may be experiencing similar things or different things, but they're all interconnected for sure.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:08:09) - I want to talk a bit about the young girls that you talk to because like I said when I started this episode, I knew nothing, and it was the subject nobody talked about at all when I was younger. Do you find it that people are opening up more now than they used to?
Netsenet Ghiday (00:08:28) - Yeah, I think over the past 7 or 9 years, however long it's been, I asked, I started that journey in like 2013. I think over time it's definitely been embraced more. I mean, look at all the new products we have now. Like we have cups, we have pads, we have cloth pads, we have discs. We have-- there's so many things that we have access to now that we didn't before, but also the conversation around reproductive health and maternal mortality and menstruation equity, all these things, these were not like words or phrases that I heard when I first started doing this work.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:09:07) - You just mentioned a phrase I've never heard of -- menstruation equity. What is that?
Netsenet Ghiday (00:09:13) - People don't realize that there are people who live in poverty and the way that they deal with their sacred bleeding time looks very different than the way that we do it. We just go and buy products at the store. Right? But like, well, let me not say we because sometimes I'm in the same boat and I'm not unhoused. But there are some months where you have to decide: do I want to eat, or do I want to get pads right? And when you're unhoused, you don't have access to the same resources. So there's that thing. But then there's also the equity around, like women in working spaces and how we need to be off work during our sacred bleeding, like they're certain things that we just don't need to be doing during that time so that our body can replenish. So there's that piece. And then the other piece is non-binary and trans folk who are also bleeding that they're not acknowledged. And I think some sometimes it's hard for people to understand that concept as well. So there's so, so many things.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:10:28) - It's very interesting that you say that. Because I would just think all women have the same experience more or less to varying degrees, because we are all women. But it's very eye opening to know that there are differences.
Netsenet Ghiday (00:10:43) - I think that also speaks to the products as well, because now, even with a period underwear, there are different styles because people have different needs. Like I might like to wear bikini cut underwear, right? But someone who is trans or non-binary might prefer briefs or shorts that they can bleed into. There's so much there. I think that that stuff kind of needs to be spoken about more on a larger scale, which I think will continue to happen as time moves forward.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:11:19) - Absolutely. And the fact that there are so many different products now, I mean, obviously I am past the age of my period, but the thought of bleeding into a garment is something that is a little alien to me because how I grew up, but I could see how it could be viable, a preferred option for people.
Netsenet Ghiday (00:11:41) - It is. They work. They're pretty good. I use them myself. So yes.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:11:48) - Because the technologies have changed over the years. I mean, you had 200 years ago women use rags. So you talk a bit about how our understanding our wombs helps us better understand ourselves.
Netsenet Ghiday (00:12:04) - Yeah. So so so one of the things for me in my journey, I realized when I started to really honor my sacred bleeding time and view my womb as a vessel, as a sacred vessel, I began to learn how to better honor my boundaries. And so it over time, it's like one. Your sacred bleeding time comes monthly, so that's every month you have an opportunity to practice creating a boundary for yourself to what I call cocoon yourself. So you put yourself in this womb cocoon so that you can swatter yourself in all the love and care and attention that that maybe you didn't get throughout the month, but because that's what you need during your bleeding times, like you're rewarming yourself. And so that that's the biggest thing is I feel like it teaches you how to learn, how to connect with yourself on a deeper level and to be present, to be fully present and to honor your boundaries.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:13:07) - Very wise wisdom indeed. And on that note, we are going to take a short break. We are speaking all about our sacred womb with Netsenet Ghiday and we'll be right back.
Announcer (00:13:55) - Welcome back to Dream Power Radio with your host, Debbie Spector. Weisman.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:14:01) - Yes, welcome back to Dream Power Radio. I'm your host, Debbie Spector Weisman. And we're talking all about our sacred womb with Netsenet Ghiday. You were talking about how we can understand ourselves, have that time to be with ourselves during the time we have our period. Can you also speak to how this can also facilitate self-love? Greater self-love?
Netsenet Ghiday (00:14:25) - Yeah. Because like I was saying before, it's really the time for you to really show yourself the deep care and love that you may desire or not get during the month. And so you can do those self-love practices in fullness in a way that maybe you didn't before. Now, this is of course, if maybe you have support with your kids, if you have kids or like, you know, but again, that goes back to setting boundaries for yourself. And so that could look like a number of things, like making sure that someone prepares meals for you instead of you cooking for yourself, or you cook in something that is very nourishing and simple and easy for you to make during that time so that you're not stressed, or to taking a much longer bath than what you normally would. It's just like really allowing yourself to indulge in those practices that make you feel cared for.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:15:17) - And do you have other techniques that we recommend to help facilitate this?
Netsenet Ghiday (00:15:23) - Yeah, actually. So I share a home with my 12-year-old brother. And so this is a recommendation for people with children. I actually talk very, very openly with my brother about my secret bleeding time and what things I need to feel cared for. And so he's actually my little runner. Sometimes he goes and gets me my tea and brings it to me. He goes and gets my heating pad and warms it up for me. So I'm finding ways to use what and who is available to you to support you teaching people how to care for you.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:16:03) - That is very important. But what about people who have very busy or stressful lives where you know they're working, or they're going to school, or they're doing something where their period comes, and they don't have the ability to just stay at home or have that time.
Netsenet Ghiday (00:16:21) - I'm gonna challenge that because we all have the ability, and it is just about being courageous enough and being really courageous because the world will tell us that everything out there is more important than what's going on in our bodies.
Netsenet Ghiday (00:16:39) - And it takes having a really strong sense of self and boundaries to be able to say, I need this time for myself, even if it's just two days, you might bleed seven days, but two of those days you're very heavy or you're very cranky or moody or whatever. Those two days. Advocate for yourself and say, no, I can't mark it off your calendar. It took me many years to get used to practicing that, and now it has become normal. So to the point where I speak about this before-- I'm a nanny or I used to be a nanny, I would say this upfront with my nanny clients that I need this time off every month to care for myself because I need to be well here.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:17:29) - And what are some of the other ways we can take care of ourselves? You talked about having somebody making meals for us or taking a bath or just being with ourselves. What else can you recommend?
Netsenet Ghiday (00:17:43) - I would also recommend thinking about when you think about the entirety of the cycle, because it's not just the bleeding time, but then entirety of the cycle.
Netsenet Ghiday (00:17:53) - And so when you're ovulating, that's typically the sign before you start bleeding. It's also typically the time where we need to be pausing. We need to be slowing down. We need to be resting a little bit more to prepare for our bleeding time. So I would also suggest paying attention to the ovulation period. So that you can mark that on your calendar to know okay let's be slow, let's delegate some stuff less, accommodate ourself in a different way so that we can like move more slowly.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:18:26) - So this is a certain time of our month. What can we learn during this time that could help guide us and give us wisdom through the other weeks of the month?
Netsenet Ghiday (00:18:40) - Our ovulating or during bleeding? Bleeding? That's a good question. During bleeding, I think that's the time when you allow yourself to be in deep rest to receive. But for me, it's the time that I feel like my dreams but become more vivid. It's when I feel like I receive more messages.
Netsenet Ghiday (00:19:02) - Maybe the stuff that I have been sitting with throughout the month is finally starting to make sense. But because my dreams are showing me, oh, I was worried about that like three weeks ago. And now I'm starting to understand how it connects to another vision I had. And then after my bleed in time, I can start to put those things into to effect.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:19:25) - It's interesting you're talking about dreams, because I was going to ask you about this. There have been studies that have shown that pregnant women tend to have very vivid dreams, more vivid than they would normally have. And you just mentioned that when you're bleeding, you have vivid dreams as well. Is this something that you find consistent with you? And have you found that with other people you've mentored?
Netsenet Ghiday (00:19:48) - Yeah, I definitely find that is consistent with me. I haven't necessarily most honestly, most people that I mentor don't have a deep connection with their dreams. So it's something that I'm bringing it into their awareness. But I always encourage them to start keeping a journal during a bleeding time and just note it. But for me, for sure, I think that it's something that has deepened more and more over time.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:20:13) - Do you find that the type of wisdom that is conveyed through our wombs during this time changes as we age?
Netsenet Ghiday (00:20:22) - That is, that's a mystery to me because I'm not in menopause, but I meet other women who are in menopause and I ask them, what is the spiritual significance of this experience? I understand very deeply what the spirit spiritual aspects are of menstruation. But the mental puzzle, women that I know haven't quite made that connection yet, and I'm very curious about that.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:20:49) - You did say that you do-- through your circles and your groups --deal with all phases going up through perimenopause and menopause itself. Do you find that the people who you are in contact with who are in menopause feel better not having their periods anymore? Or do they know there's a deep morning that they haven't allowed to experience yet?
Netsenet Ghiday (00:21:10) - That's the thing that that I learned and speaking with them, it's like they went through these changes and didn't have a lot of information about the changes that were happening to them. And then once they figure it out, all the changes, it's like a secret hush hush club with other women who are going through the changes that also don't quite understand the change. So it's kind of it's just weird, but then when I talk a lot about menstruation, they see how deeply connected I am to my sacred bleeding time and my connection to my womb. Then what starts to reveal itself is their mourning their bleeding years. And then we talk about how we can create rituals or practices to honor that grieving process around your youth or your fertility years or whatever that looks like.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:22:06) - So tell me a bit more about this. So what kind of ritual could somebody create around this?
Netsenet Ghiday (00:22:13) - Well, there's lots of things that you could do. I think that rituals are very specific to the individual, but there could be something like now the big thing is the girls having period parties. Right? And then you could have goodbye period parties or start a circle with your friends to just have story shares about your sacred bleeding time and your fertile years and the things that you wish you had or didn't.
Netsenet Ghiday (00:22:41) - You could also do something monthly, even though you're not bleeding monthly anymore. It could just look like, okay, every month I'm going to do something to honor my fertile years in some way. So there's so, so many possibilities there.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:22:56) - But the important thing is acknowledging it.
Netsenet Ghiday (00:22:59) - Acknowledging acknowledging it and filling all the fields because it doesn't just go away just because you mourned it once. It's just finding new ways to connect with your womb.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:23:11) - Yeah, well, especially since hormones play such a big factor in it and control everything from mood to energy to everything.
Netsenet Ghiday (00:23:22) - . Yeah.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:23:24) - So can you share any stories of anyone you've encountered who feel that their lives were transformed or made better through honoring their own wisdom?
Netsenet Ghiday (00:23:43) - I'll say. Yes. Definitely me. But I think all of the women that I have been connected to have taken some something from me, no matter how big or small it is, they learn how to advocate for themselves, and then they've learned how to take more time for themselves. They've not dismissed their intuition. They learn how to pay attention to their body signals. So many things. All those things are life changing practices. I feel.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:24:15) - They are. I want to get back to your talking before about how you help with survivors of sexual trauma. How does getting them to understand the importance of honoring your own wombs help them overcome that trauma?
Netsenet Ghiday (00:24:31) - Okay, so I don't know if you've ever heard the saying that the womb houses all of your traumas or the traumas that you experience because it is such an energetic center. And I do believe this, I also believe that that our womb houses our joy is as well. It is just a matter of preprocessing all the grief first in order to it to experience the joy and be able to pour that in there as well. So. So I think that's where we start and helping them to understand that the unprocessed trauma sometimes sits there and can manifest in physical ways. And once that understanding is there, it's a matter of teaching ways to actually just care. Notice. Be in communication. Communication with your home.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:25:24) - I would think that communication just with other women is equally as important.
Netsenet Ghiday (00:25:29) - Absolutely. That's a big part., a lot of a lot of women that I have encountered who are sexual trauma survivors have mother wounds. So they don't have a great relationship with their mothers, which also can create a disconnection with you connecting with your own womb. So, yes, being in circles with other women helps heal that? I would think so.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:25:55) - Is there a final thought you'd like to leave for our audience?
Netsenet Ghiday (00:26:02) - Your womb is sacred. Honor it as such, and it is a vessel of divine intelligence. And you listen to it. Listen to it and be with it.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:26:11) - So important. Such an important thing. Like I said, this was an area that was totally alien to me most of my life. So thank you for having the wisdom to share with us today about it. So how can people find out more about you and your work?
Netsenet Ghiday (00:26:28) - Okay, so I have a website on KOFI. KO-FI. You can find me there. My name is Fairy Womb Goddess and I'm not quite active right now but will be and that you can find things in my shop there. You can find out more about me. And I also have a YouTube channel that I'll be launching soon. And I have Womb Love Affirmation cards that that you can purchase as well.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:26:58) - Oh, talk about that. So these are cards that you would say to yourself?
Netsenet Ghiday (00:27:03) - Yeah, yeah. So when I first started my womb healing journey before for, I knew about rituals, practices, anything, I just had my words in my hands and I would use oil, rub it on my womb and repeat these affirmations to myself. And a lot of these affirmations came from my journaling in my bleeding time journal, my dream wisdom. Just things that would come to me and I would create affirmations. And so I turned them into a card deck, and they're called Womb Love Affirmation cards.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:27:34) - Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for being on Dream Power Radio today. We've been speaking about the sacred womb with Netsenet Ghiday. I hope you've enjoyed today's program. If so, please hit that subscribe button so you don't miss out on any future episodes. Until next time, this is Debbie Spector Weisman saying sweet dreams everybody!
Announcer (00:27:55) - You've been listening to Dream Power Radio with your host, Debbie Spector Weisman. For more information on Debbie or to sign up for her newsletter, go to DreamPowerRadio.com. This has been Dream Power Radio.