Learning how menstrual cycles impact creativity, power, and social change
Interview with Lucy Peach
I chat with Lucy Peach, speaker, educator and author of Period Queen. Together, we discuss menstrual cycles, creativity and inclusive workplaces. At the core of this conversation, we explore how de-stigmatising periods benefits everyone, not just people with periods.
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About Lucy
Lucy Peach believes that embodying cycles of being supports a thriving world. Devoted to raising cuntciousness, she draws on her experience as a human biology teacher, sexual health educator and award-winning performing artist to restore balance and create reverence for our cyclical nature. As a published author, speaker & educator, Lucy has delivered her message to thousands of people through her book ‘Period Queen’, as a TEDx speaker, via her online courses & her show, ‘My Greatest Period Ever’. Lucy works with elite sports teams & businesses to use cyclical thinking for the best outcomes.
We explore the following questions:
Where did you come up with the idea for discussing periods in this way? How did you start?
How does your partner support your work?
How did having a baby spark your creative process?
What other work have you done around periods and cycles?
How do you take your ideas into mainstream workplaces?
How have you brought your work to an international level?
Additional resources we spoke about:
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Transcript
Julia Jones:
Hello, and welcome to Newborn Mothers podcast. We've got Lucy Peach on today who, funnily enough, lives in my little country town. It's not really a country town, but we were just talking about how sleepy our little village is. We actually met down on a retreat that you were running, Lucy. And it was a really lovely business retreat that at the time I was like, “I can't believe this is a tax deduction. I get to eat delicious food and go for a swim at my favorite beach in the world.” So that was a really lovely retreat, and we met some really amazing people.
But, Lucy, I wanted to have you on the podcast because you are a period educator. And actually, before that, I had seen your show at my daughter's high school, so it’s really cool, I think, for so many people our age to be able to introduce their daughters to the topic of periods in a sort of like fun and positive and empowering way. When we were growing up, it was so taboo. So you probably get a lot of people my age going like, "Thank you." But that's how I came across you, and it's been really fun.
Lucy Peach:
Thanks, Julia. I'm just reflecting on what we spoke about just briefly off-air about how I'm Day, like, 27/1 and you're just coming out of period punching on energetically, and I'm like, "Oh, this is so nice. I feel like I can just kind of rest in my little trough, and you're just like powering on" and it's just a really nice little combination.
And yes, so often it's mothers that are, I mean, I want to say, doing everything, but driving this change and really hungry for an alternative. And when the family show happens for My Greatest Period Ever, it's not the same as the adult show because I don't swear, and I've got to be a little bit more careful, it's not as spicy. But I see the young girls coming in with their arms across their chest, and they're like, "Oh God, just periods again. Like why?" And I can see your mum's dragged you in, your mum's dragged you in, and the mum's like, "Oh, thank God." And the girls are like, "Oh."
But then over the hour just watching the girls kind of go, "Oh yeah. Okay. All right," that's like my greatest thrill is because you can't win them over easily, but when you do and they get to take on some of it for themselves, not just about making their mums happy or they have all of these preconceived expectations, I suppose, because it's so loaded, you know? It's such a loaded topic.
Julia Jones:
Yeah, you've picked yourself quite a hard target market, haven't you? Like tween girls. They're not going to be easy to win over.
Lucy Peach:
Yeah.
Where did you come up with the idea for talking about periods in this way and how did you start?
Julia Jones:
But I think you do it because you've got a lot of humour and music, and it's a really fun show.
So, how did you come to talk about periods in that way? Let's rewind a little bit. How did you get here? Because it's such an unusual little niche that you've carved out for yourself.
Lucy Peach:
Well, the origin story is that I always loved science, and I love talking. And I remember when my sister and I were in the bath, we used to play this game where I was Jana Wendt and she was Derryn Hinch, and we would like report in the bath about the issues of the day and we tell each other our news and so that's just a bit of my essence there.
And then, yeah, I just kind of meandered through university doing things that kind of tickled my interest. I did biomed and I did honours in medicine, and then I did teaching in human biology. I didn't want to work in a school full-time back then and I found myself working in sexual health education and as a community educator, so talking about puberty and consent and STIs and contraception and relationships and working with parents and people who work with young people and young people, prisons, all kinds of environments. And at the same time, I had a little boy who was two, and I was also beginning my foray into songwriting and all of those things were kind of separate.
But then I read this book called The Optimized Woman, which really explained, I guess, the difference between men and women. And obviously, we know that gender is not just a matter of your biology and it's a spectrum and there are different ways of experiencing it, but in terms of historically how we've understood men and understood women and often seen women as a slightly defective version of men, with men being the sort of default operating system.
And the way that she explains the menstrual cycle, well, I'll just tell you the first part that really hooked me in, and it was that when you're premenstrual, it's actually your creative phase. And so as a songwriter at 27 with all of the self-exploration that happens around that time, that really spoke to me. And I realized as I was standing there on the spot reading the back of this book, “Oh my God, I am such an asshole to myself when I'm premenstrual.” And every month, there's this fallout of how I would speak to myself, of the pressure I would put on myself or the expectation.
And even when things were good, it was like I was waiting for them to not be good because it just felt like the rug would get pulled from under me. And I didn't really have an understanding of why and how that was.
And once I thought, "Oh, okay, creative phase. All right, let's give that a crack," then I would set time aside every month to write music while I was premenstrual, and that really worked for me because my partner at the time was in the fire brigade, so he was often working nights. I'd put my little boy to bed, I'd stay up until 2:00 AM just hunting down the thread of a song. And some of them were not that great. Some of them were the ones that helped me to win the WAM Folk Artist of the Year in 2017. But the point was that I really took that time to be with myself at what previously had been quite a fraught part of my cycle.
And then I just went onto this whole exploration about really exploring the nuance of the way that my energy changed from day to day and week to week.
And I talked about it to anyone who would listen and people just didn't really want to know. Like when I won that award for the WAM Folk Artist, I remember someone saying, "So what inspired these songs and what were they about?" I was like, "Well, you wouldn't believe it, but I actually wrote all these songs while I was premenstrual." And they were like, "Yeah, cool. Anything else?" Like no one was really comfortable having that conversation.
How does your partner support your work?
And then I was making a music video with my partner who is a creative director. I was getting ready for this particular part of the music video, and I was deciding sort of what to wear and which lipstick color to wear. And I said to the assistant who was with us, "Oh, I'm in my post-ovulatory phase. I'm going to wear hot pink." And he was like, "What? What are you talking about?" And so then I gave him a little synopsis of the cycle and he was like, "You need to make a show about this." And so then I just thought, "Oh, well, I will, and it will sort of be like a sex ed session, but it will have music in it and capes, and I'll give people wine."
And when I was rehearsing it to my partner, he was like, "Yeah, it's really good, but you've got a lot of complicated ideas you could do with a couple of visuals." And I was like, "Well, here's a scrapbook. Talk yourself out." And he'd just gotten an iPad Pro, so that was a fun little exercise for us to... He would sort of write what I was saying and seeing. And then the funny part about it when we first started was how crappy it was, because I would talk really fast, and he was just manically trying to communicate through a pad.
Julia Jones:
Everything, yeah.
Lucy Peach:
Everything. That's right, yeah.
Julia Jones:
When we went to your show, and I think it's probably lots of people's favorite part of the show, he draws the audiences as we're coming in, and he did draw me and my daughter. We were like, "Oh, look, we're up on the screen."
Lucy Peach:
Yeah. And I just love collaborating on this idea because, I mean, I've been talking and thinking about it for a long time, but it's really like such a tender topic that when everyone brings their best to it, it's so exciting.
And actually, observing how a man has engaged with this topic for nearly 10 years and how that resonates with the audience has been such a joy to me. Because when you're sitting in your seat waiting for the show to start, and Richard's drawing all of the people coming in, I'm behind the stage peeking through the curtain, and I'm looking at what he's drawing. So that's how I see who's in the audience is I see, "Oh, the kid with glasses." Oh, cute. And it's like, yeah, just this moment of connection.
And I think also watching the young girls especially watch him who is this handsome man on stage in a kind of suit drawing about periods, I just feel like if they walk out of here and they don't actually remember anything, but the experience of watching a man so reverently and humorously and enthusiastically get involved about periods; hopefully, that just embeds itself somewhere in their brain and they take that with them that that's actually totally normal.
How did having a baby spark your creative process?
Julia Jones:
Yeah, I love that. I love that.
I want to rewind you a little bit because you said when you had a baby, you started singing. I think for a lot of people, it's an unexpected thing that actually having a baby is a massively creative process that sparks all these other creative processes. So can you talk about that a little bit, too?
Lucy Peach:
Oh my gosh, yes. And that, I feel like, is partly why I want... I've been trying to have another baby I've been open to conceive for, I think, six years. And that's part of the reason why. Because I'm like, "What else is in there? What other lid can I blow off by having a baby?" And obviously, there are other ways you can create that experience for yourself without having a baby.
But you're absolutely right. When I had my son, it really gave me this feeling of, and I don't know that it was so much the birth, but I think just really taking stock of the fact that I'd grown this person in my body, I'd kept him alive with my body, and was I now going to go into the next stage of my life waiting to get permission about doing things that I wanted to do?
And it just gave me this sense of like I can do whatever I want. Like I'm pretty sure if I can grow a person and sustain him, I can actually do whatever I want.
And also, I can do it and be really crap at it, and I can do it and be a learner at it, and I can do it and start again. Or I can approach this with the mentality that I'm a 6-year-old. I don't have to be an expert. I don't have to be good at it to enjoy it that belongs to me.
When I was 19, I had wanted to join a choir because I thought that was a good way to start being a singer and the guy who I auditioned in front of was like a hundred in this dusty old flat in Wembley. He wasn't especially enthusiastic or encouraging, and he said, "You're not right for this choir," or something like that. And at the time, I interpreted that as, "Well, he's a 90-year-old man, he's an expert, and clearly, I can't sing, so I'll go and do a biomed degree."
But when I was relaying this story to someone else just recently, he was like, "You know, he was probably saying that you're a soloist, and maybe you're not for the choir." And I was like, "Yeah, I totally didn't entertain that possibility at all." I just thought, "He's an old man, he knows." But once I had a baby, that left me completely, and I just did what I wanted.
And I think the other thing, too, it really kicked in when Reuben was about seven or eight months old, where they're starting to eat food and sleep a bit more. I was able to lift my head above the parapet and sort of really sense into this desire to find a path that was mine, and it felt so good.
And I know we'd go to rehearsal every week, and I'd be exhausted, but it was so invigorating, and it was so incredible, I think. I mean, I love the synchronicity between your cervix and your vocal cords and just how that sort of process of birthing and expressing from that end of your body can speak to birthing and expressing from this end of your body.
What other work have you done around periods and cycles?
Julia Jones:
Yeah, I love it. It's so intertwined.
But I also love how you've really mixed what would be traditionally considered quite masculine things, like medicine and science, human biology, but then when you've had a baby and discovered your cycles and how that all works, then that's actually brought in this whole creative energy around music.
And I know you do speaking and writing and all of that kind of stuff and that's... Even the way that you dress onstage and like you really do express yourself creatively. And actually it's bringing those two worlds together that's been so powerful. Like instead of keeping those things apart, it's pretty much better to have both.
So what was next for you? So you're an award-winning musician, you've put on a period show. What else have you done with this?
Lucy Peach:
I was thinking the other day how really, I was at a Christmas party at this, I don't know if you know Sarah Wallwork. She's got a fitness group called Bodyschool in South Fremantle with all of these incredible women that just go down to South Beach and do weights and run. And she's hilarious and she's just so fantastic.
Anyway, she was having a Christmas party and there were all of these incredible tapestries on her wall with different sort of textures and things. And I was like, "Oh, I would love to learn how to do tapestry and communicate the cycle and women's bodies through that." And then I realized what I'm doing here, Julia, and I'm just picking different mediums and using cyclical nature as an inroad.
I mean I love talking about it because I see over and over how much there is a readiness from other people to just speak about their bodies and their experience of being in the world in this kind of body in a way that's just really normal. And sometimes it's sad and sometimes it's funny and sometimes it's scary and sometimes it's exhilarating and it's all of those parts of us that kind of get truncated.
It's like I'm sort of doing the cycle in the air with my finger. But if you were to look at Day 1 to Day 28 and you think about how menstruating is just being dismissed or degraded at worst, and being premenstrual is demonized and diminished as well. And that's effectively half of your reproductively-viable month and menstruating years where these messages are coming in that it's just something not quite good enough, or actually there's something wrong and-
Julia Jones:
And at the very least you should just pretend it's not happening. Just acting, yeah.
Lucy Peach:
Yeah, just act like you're the same every day and the energy that you have to spend, we're getting good at this language around masking when we talk about people that have neurodivergent ways of being. And I think it's interesting how all of these things are kind of leading us to the same point, which is treating each other like we're a whole person and just how expensive that is energetically when you have to be something that you are not.
And not only does that take energy that you could spend on other things, but it also means you don't get the full benefit of being where you are. And if I'm Day 26, Day 27/Day 1 starting my period, and I don't have another frame of reference other than thinking, "Oh, shit, like I'm tired and I don't have the words available to me straightaway and I'm coming into this podcast," do you know? It's like that way of feeling about yourself. But I know that actually there are real benefits to all of the different ways that I am.
And so getting to explore that through different mediums, I guess, is just more opportunities to communicate that in different ways. But it also means I get to learn different things. And once we did the theater show and we won the Best of Fringe out of 700 shows and we were given funding to develop it and to tour it around Australia and overseas, it was just such a joy to keep refining that message and responding to the audience and seeing the common threads in people all over the place and what actually is similar about us, but how then there's so much nuance and unique stories within that cyclical experience.
And then, yeah, we were invited to perform it to TEDx Performances. And then I got offered a book deal, which again was incredible because that's not something that I thought I would be able to do. But learning the whole process of having an editor and a publisher and a marketing person and a team and having all of that behind me, again, was another experience of like, "Oh, actually with support and scaffolding, you can do anything when you have help and you have timelines and accountability."
When I first said I would do the book and they gave me the timeline, and I was like, "But how do you know that it'll be ready and how do you know?" And she's like, "Oh, we just know." And doing that with my body and with my cycle and knowing, "Okay, these are the times where I'm going to really want to run at it. These are the times where I'm going to want to flesh ideas out with other people. These are times where I'm going to be alone and do some editing and throw things in the bin," was just such a lovely thing to be with throughout all of the things that I've made. Yeah, it's been like having a friend, you know?
How do you take your ideas into mainstream workplaces?
Julia Jones:
Yeah, I love that. Which brings me to some of your other work, too, which is working with workplaces. And I know that we use some of this in our own workplace, too. It's quite common in my all-woman team, there's four of us in the business every day, for someone to say, "Oh, I'm day one. I'm not going to be working on that project right now because this is the zone I'm in." And it's really nice to be able to have that language and know that actually it increases productivity. You actually respect those cycles and let people do the bit that they're good at at that moment.
So yeah, how do you take that into more mainstream workplaces? Because I know probably most workplaces aren't really like mine.
Lucy Peach:
Yeah, with great difficulty. Well, that's not true. Once I'm in there, it's just normal. It's like we're just having a conversation, and typically, the places that I go into already have some measure of, I guess, safety around being your whole self at work. And that is just a joy to step into and add another layer to conversations that they're already having. Because essentially, 81% of adults are at work, and most of us grew up with a very limited understanding of what it was like for cycling people and for women and their experience of being in the world, and I think it's never too late to rectify that imbalance.
And it's incredible, one workplace I was working with, they were a creative company and the manager told me that now when they do big sort of creative sessions that would typically last a day, that he breaks it up into two halves. So today, they'll do one half, and then he'll pick it up in two weeks' time and do the second half in two weeks to give everybody who is cycling an opportunity to bring a different part of their selves to this creative jam. Because he knows that his bread and butter is coming up with creative solutions and that women and people with cycles have different energies and he wants a piece of all of it. He doesn't just want to be limited to only getting you on Day 1 or 20 or whatever it is.
And I thought that is just such a brilliant example of using what you have. And I think there's so many ways that people take this and run with it. I mean, elite athletes have got it down to a fine art of really responding to what their physical needs are and being able to support and harness their different energies.
But even if for your listeners, even if all you do is just say to yourself, "What day am I? What do I need? How can I use this?" Just having that dialogue with yourself. When I say those words, I can feel my hips just going, "Mm, that's nice," do you know? It's like we go out into the world, you put your face on, you put your mask on, you have to react and respond in all of these ways and we forget ourselves, you know? We forget that we're just animals and we have a nature.
So just coming back to those questions of, "Where am I? Not just how are you today, but where are you today, Julia? What day are you? What's the weather like in your world?" It's a great start and it's exciting to think about all of the different ways you can let that live in you, that it's just limitless, provided that you are able to have those conversations not just with yourself, but then, obviously, with the people that you love and who love you and where you work. And in an environment like you've just described, it's absolutely primed for being cyclical, being cycle-centric.
Julia Jones:
Yes. You're really right that it's just a starting point of something enormous. Because once you start asking that like, "How am I? Where am I? What's happening in my body?" there are other things as well. Cycles are one part of it, but then there's also like, "I haven't had much sleep, or actually I'm hungry and I forgot to eat breakfast or haven't drank enough water." And you start to tune in with all of that, and you do look after yourself better.
Lucy Peach:
Absolutely. Yeah.
How have you brought your work to an international level?
Julia Jones:
I love it. I think that's a really nice place to end. I'm just going to give you a little bit more of a plug. So you've got a book, Period Queen. You've got a show, My Greatest Period Ever.
Have you done that internationally? You have gone overseas with that, haven't you?
Lucy Peach:
Yeah. We've done it at the Brighton Fringe Festival in the UK. We did that for a few weeks just before COVID and, look, I did it to a wedding party in Cape Town once when I was extremely hungover, which was hilarious and terrifying. But we're doing it in Fringe next year, just four shows, and they're family shows, February 10, 11, 17 and 18, and the tickets are available now.
Julia Jones:
And that's in Perth, the Perth Fringe Show. And to people who are in other places in Australia or international, all your music's on Spotify, your TEDx talks on your website. There's lots of resources.
And I love that you take this message into so many different creative directions. It does mean that it can land for everyone somewhere. Someone might not really be into the music, but they'd love to read a book, so yeah, there's some way for everyone to engage in this.
Lucy Peach:
Yeah, yep. Yeah, next will be my tapestry collection in about 10 years.
Julia Jones:
Yeah, I love it. I love it. We can do an art exhibition next.
Lucy Peach:
Right.
Julia Jones:
Thanks so much, Lucy. Do you have anything you want to close with?
Lucy Peach:
Just I think to say to whoever's listening that not just enough, but actually the world is really lucky to have you on whatever day you are, and you're appreciated. It's no small thing to be just cycling along and jollying along in all the different ways that we are and, yeah, it's wonderful. Thank you.
Julia Jones:
I love it. Thanks so much for being here.
Lucy Peach:
Thanks, Julia.
