This post marks the closing of Woman Kind after 12 years of work together with Leora Leboff. The days of retreats and live events are now long in the past, the online course has seen its last participant and the website has vanished from the web. We have arrived in deepest Winter.
Beginnings are celebrated but endings, though equally chaotic, tend to be swept under the carpet. This closure felt worthy of celebration.
No crashing out here, true to form, it’s been a slow and gentle completion over the last year. Layers of tech, marketing, our working relationship and energetic closing have been carefully placed one after another. Here we are at Solstice, the sun low and golden sending us off. Time truly seems to have stood still as we write this reflection.
We’d like to share our last reflections and celebration, as we remember all things Woman Kind (formerly Love Your Belly). The meetings, the plans, the laughs, seeing ideas grow, holding space for each other, holding space for others together, and learning from the amazing folk who sat in circle with us.
we started out as Love Your Belly
On reflection, much of what we offered together was steeped in courage. Take opening our talk to the local Women’s Institute with:
“Who here has brown blood?”
Back in 2016 this was breaking taboos all over the shop, we have been at the forefront of the period positive, and the peri positive movements. All through our work we’ve witnessed courage in abundance, from everyone who showed up for themselves at our in-person workshops and retreats, online and for our final offering of our self-directed program. In the gentle spaces we’ve created, folk have found the courage to bring their vulnerability to light, and found that they were not alone after all. We created the possibility of radical and unapologetic self-kindness to be made part of everyday life. We are proud of how deep authenticity and respect has framed every aspect of our work, and enabled 1000’s of people to make beneficial change in their lives.
We have walked our talk each step of the way.
Often this hasn’t made commercial sense; it’s been quick-quick-slow, it’s been out of step with the rest of the world; but what else would you expect from two rebels who don’t belong in the mainstream? Normal ‘linear’ ways of launching, work-flows, and marketing didn’t align with how we are, and certainly not with our cyclical Selves. A great example of this is how we followed the conventional wisdom to create a Facebook group so we could ‘sell’ to our people. What we actually grew was a beautiful, soulful and safe place where there is actual real community. Amongst its members it is known as ‘the nicest place on the internet’, and even when leaving social media, folk often stay in the group. Selling just doesn’t fit with the vibe. Community grows from safety.
Cyclical business
Our commitment to seasonal and cyclical awareness has driven every aspect of our work together. There were long periods of apparent ‘inactivity’ in our Winters: Leora reports that Kate said NO to everything for a full 2 years in her transition years. We sat in the fertile void, not knowing what would emerge, if anything, for what felt like for-evvvah. We brought Wintery kindness (slow, spacious, intuition-lead) to meetings where one or other of us was adrift, unwell or bleeding.
Our Autumns were shit hot for setting boundaries. We took time off from social media. We edited our content like pros. We took hard, critical looks at the course content and revised it top to bottom. We cancelled meetings and rescheduled. We confronted and communicated difficult things to each other.
Our Springs, both menstrual, creative, and Kate’s Second Spring have been unbelievably tender times. The shyness and shame that emerges here has been tended to, even as the energy rises. Careful returns to screens after a break. Reducing tasks here to avoid overloading our nervous systems. Soothing each other’s shame hangovers after posting.
Summers have been glorious, the rush of the free events we ran and the feedback that followed them. The laughter, mucking about, naughtiness and teasing each other. Those times, so precious and brief, when the words flowed onto the page and we had the rush of being in the zone. And still we rested! Taking time off from socials and screens, Nidra and sofa-time when life was most intense.
Woman Kind has been brought to you not only by rest, but also a thousand amazing lunches. We are both foodies, both cook with love and adore surprising and delighting each other. Fine chocolate, fresh seafood, sushi, comforting winter soups, zingy salads, crystalline cheeses from caves… the taste of Woman Kind remains on our tongues as the best kind of sensory memory.
Our work would not have been possible without the support of our cyclical community either. Starting from our trainings at Abdominal-Sacral and Fertility Massage, through Red School and beyond, we have been lifted up by too many people to mention. A small selection can still be found on Cyclical Living Unwrapped podcast which remains on YouTube here.
Our closing process
The decision to close was taken in January this year, and once the mechanics were completed, we wanted to close and integrate energetically too. To honour our seasonal work, we used our favourite process, the Medicine Circle. Here’s what happened as we stepped through the Circle, embodying the energy of our work together:
Our relationship and collaboration grew with Spring-like possibility and enthusiasm, also a dose of naivety too. What we were learning and sharing was not even close to being mainstream and this meant breaking taboos and starting conversations that were challenging. What a blessing to have witnessed such massive change in so short a time: thank you Davina!
Our working journey together began when we trained in Abdominal Sacral Massage. We laughed so much and bonded though our enthusiasm for all the juice we were learning. Love Your Belly was birthed, with an eagerness to teach others self-massage.
Our Spring phase bubbled, taking abdominal massage out to others, finding our feet with running workshops, marketing ourselves, and growing our facilitation skills.
The Summer brought cycle awareness fully plugged in to our offerings with our leadership apprenticeship with Red School, followed by training as Medicine Circle facilitators. This took us into our Summer and brand change to Woman Kind. The energy behind our work was vast, saying yes to nearly all offers to share workshops. The energy we put in was vast too, with weekly meetings that united Kate’s drive of ideas and tech skills with Leora’s attention to the detail of our output.
The Autumn of our work featured a complete reappraisal and subsequent rewriting of the online program. This grew out of a critical view of the overly simplistic narrative around cyclical awareness that we noticed as period positivity began to navigate the mainstream. It was inevitable that there was ‘dumbing down’ and we wanted to bring more nuance and inclusivity of chronic conditions and mental health. The interplay of being commercial and being true to ourselves was complex, and at times, brutal.
The Winter of our work is all about the acknowledgement that every creative project, even businesses, have their own cycle, independent to the lives of the people involved. It became clear that as a collaboration, Woman Kind, had come to the end of her cycle.
Woman Kind Timeline
Woman Kind has always been about the ‘feels’, about moving towards grounding and safety, but never-the-less this seems a good place to list the events in a timeline.
2013
Abdominal-Sacral massage training
2014
Fertility Massage training
PAPA: Guided belly massage workshop
Launched Love Your Belly website
Stevenage MBS: Guided belly massage workshop
2015
Royal College of Physicians: Guided belly massage workshop
Quakers Watford: Womb Blessing
PMT and Other Stories workshop
Fertility workshop
2016
Completed Red School Leadership program
Royal College of Physicians: Guided belly massage workshop
Quakers Watford: Womb Blessing
WI: talk, yes that one!
Bushey: Love Your Belly retreat day
Quakers: Menopause retreat day
2017
Changed name to Woman Kind: website launched
Quakers: Love Your Belly retreat day
Commit To Kindness online program
Menopause retreat day
2018
Completed Medicine Circle Training
Gather The Women: menopause presentation
Kindness For Therapists: retreat day
Love Your Menopause: retreat day
2019
Kindness for Therapists: retreat day
Am I Going Mad: online program
Wild Woods: workshop
Menstrual Medicine Gathering: evening workshop
Menopause Medicine Gathering: evening workshop
Love Your Menopause Harlow
2020
Love Your Menopause: Bristol
Perimenopause Unwrapped: live course
2021
Come As You Are: free workshop
Perimenopause Unwrapped: live course
2023
Towards Simplicity: free event
Perimenopause Unwrapped: self-directed course
2025
Perimenopause Unwrapped closing sale
All created amongst the chaotic mess of mothering, relationships, our own businesses and creative projects. As we say:
‘If it’s not looking messy, you’re not doing it right!’
You’ll notice a few years, notably between 2021 and 2024 are more sparce. This was when Second Spring and The Perimenopause Journal were written, published and promoted. They could not have existed without the collaborative cooking pot of Woman Kind in which we explored and tested the authenticity of cyclical theories and life, and they must also be included in the list of honours.
Also at this time Leora’s health was becoming more and more challenging and she had to take a step back from work. Throughout this time, being guided by cyclical and nervous system awareness, and all the holding our relationship within Woman Kind continued to offer.
Were we witnessing the flourishing of Second Spring in Kate and the real challenges of Perimenopause in Leora? Authentic to end!
Like the best conscious closure, this process has brought us more love and respect for each other. We continue our deep friendship, and look forward to many more huge lunches.
Finally, none of this would have been possible without the profound learning from the amazing folk who sat in circle with us. Thank you from the bottom of our beat-y hearts.
With love
Leora and Kate xx
