Louise
TW (Trigger warning) // Discussions of abuse
“Women are f*cking magic, man. I can’t even find the words to describe it.”
Louise is truly a badass. She has faced her fair share of adversities - from escaping an abusive relationship at a young age, to having her life uprooted by COVID-19. But despite what she has endured, she navigates life with compassion, courage and an a strong sense of humour. She is also passionate feminist who is determined to empower women by destigmatizing topics and terminology that aim to oppress them - from menstruation to witchcraft. As a Cycle Empowered Coach, she is determined to help women fall back in love with their bodies and to discover the power in their periods. She is a champion, a fighter, a rebel and an advocate. She is unapologetically Louise. This is her story.
P: Please introduce yourself.
L: Hello! I’m Louise Ryder and I’m a cycle-empowered coach and fertility awareness instructor. I’m a writer, a weightlifter, a SCUBA diver, an animal-lover and an extraordinarily proud Auntie. I was born in Liverpool, England, where I’m currently living again for the first time since I was 19. Before the pandemic, I had a 10-year career in entertainment – I used to manage musicals in London’s West End and spent 3 years on world tour with Cirque du Soleil before being unceremoniously spat out in March 2020, so to say life has pivoted is an understatement!
P: Describe or define yourself in your own words.
L: I’m a wild feminist and a rebel. I have endless time and space for the messiness and pleasure of being human. I’m compassionate and can see the good in (almost, ha!) anyone and anything. I’m super curious and intrigued by the human condition and what makes people act in the ways they do – I’m always wondering ‘what’s the intelligence here?’ because I believe that there is always intelligence and our actions are always in service of something, even if it doesn’t always appear that way.
I have a talent for seeing through the conditioning of the world and spend lots of time calling out societal bullsh*t – like the fact that periods are viewed as something disgusting when they’re actually an opportunity for ecstasy and insight, and like how deeply women are conditioned to fit into boxes and be presentable and attractive when really at our core we’re the most powerful beings on the planet, with nothing to prove to anyone.
I’d also describe myself as a witch – because I think it’s important for us to reclaim this word. Really there are no witches and yet we’re all witches. ‘Witch’ was the negative term given to women who were independent, in tune with nature and to those who were helpers and healers in their communities. The witch trials were the biggest genocide of women in our history and yet it’s still spoken about like the victims were to blame. We don’t acknowledge it because of how dirty (or ‘woo-woo’) the word ‘witch’ is, so I like to claim it in it’s true meaning which is simply to be a powerful woman.
P: What is your favorite thing about yourself?
L: My sense of humour! I find myself funnier than probably anyone else does, but if you can’t entertain yourself then really what’s the point? I can make light of almost any situation. I have a particular affinity for humour when sh*t is royally hitting the fan – ask any of my colleagues who were around whilst we were shutting down my show at the onset of the pandemic and they’ll tell you I kept everyone laughing (maybe don’t ask the ones who were still at the arena with me at 3am, that was a different story and there was lots of crying!)
P: Tell us a story. Have you had an experience that has defined you or made you stronger?
L: I have several! One that I’m really claiming at the moment is super vulnerable to share but also feels really important.
I was in an abusive relationship when I was 17 and it ended violently. I left Liverpool not long after it happened, packed the experience into a box and swore never to talk about it. Even through years of coaching, therapy and personal development, I never told anyone I’d met past the age of 17 and never unpacked that box until this year.
Through a really weird series of events as I was nursing a freshly broken heart earlier this year, I ended up in conversation with the ex-partner and abuser. As it turned out, he’s in a 12 step programme, now sober and making amends with the people he hurt. We met up recently and he read me a letter he’d written to apologise. I took my time between our first conversation and our meeting to do my own processing, to finally talk about the event with some friends and a therapist and to really air out the pain I’d been carrying around.
The letter he had written to me addressed so many things that I’d thought about myself and that I’ve carried with me. It was remarkable how close and personal his message was, even as I haven’t seen him or wanted to think about him for 13 years.
It was a terrifying concept to face the idea of meeting up with him, and I never would have felt ready until this year. It was deeply, deeply healing and empowering and to receive a heartfelt apology from someone who hurt me in the worst way was a really powerful experience.
P: What is one piece of advice you’d give to your younger self?
L: Don’t go on the pill.
I wish I could go back and learn fertility awareness and menstrual cycle awareness before I even started my periods. I strongly believe this would have shaped my teens and early twenties in terms of confidence, sexual sovereignty, boundaries, self-acceptance and more. And on a really practical level, we don’t know the impact of hormonal birth control on teen’s brain development and given that sex hormones are integral to puberty – which includes how our brains develop – I can’t help but wonder what impact going on the pill as a teenager might have had on me.
P: What does being a woman mean to you?
L: Infinite power and possibility. Women are f*cking magic, man. I can’t even find the words to describe it.
It means being messy and divine all in one. It means changing, daily, and knowing that’s no bad thing. Being a woman is an ever-changing, ever-growing journey, and accessing the powers of the menstrual cycle is the source of the unfolding.
It means being sovereign, in touch with ourselves and with nature (knowing they are one and the same) and accessing the deep knowing that lives in our bones. To be a woman is magnetic, beautiful, foolish, innocent and wise. It’s about allowing yourself to be all of it: a living, breathing, unapologetic world of contradiction. I love it.
P: Who is one woman that inspires you? What would you say if they were here now?
L: I’m picking two and you can’t stop me. Ha! Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo-Wurlitzer, co-founders of Red School and authors of Wild Power. I work with them at Red School and maybe for some folks, choosing your bosses is a weird way to go, but I am IN LOVE with them and all that they have done for our planet. They developed menstrual cycle awareness in the way most of us understand it today (special kudos to Alexandra who was the first to name the ‘inner seasons’ of the cycle) and they have helped me and so many other women understand our selves and our cycles.
On a personal level, they show me every day what it is to show up authentically and powerfully as a woman, in all of my contradictions, and to live in a real-world balance of spiritual, soulful and human. I’m lucky enough that I get to talk to them and celebrate them regularly so in terms of what I’d say – just that I love them and I’ll never be able to express the depth of how much they have touched me, changed me and how much I appreciate their wisdom.
Connect with Louise
Instagram | @womaninpower.co
Website | womaninpowercoaching.com