"At Home with Snuggs" is a series that revolves around individuals sharing their genuine and authentic menstruation experiences.
This month we chat with Mads, a life coach who works with human design. Mads chats us through listening to your intuition, resting on your period and learning to accept the challenges of an irregular cycle.
Q1- To begin with, would you mind introducing yourself, and giving us a brief overview of you, your work and what you are all about?
My name is Mads, and I’m an Australian Gemini living in East London - a slight cliche to describe myself this way, but a big learning of mine from the last year is that cliches exist for a reason and leaning into them usually leads to unpretentious, unfiltered joy!
My work is split over various mediums, with Human Design my core offering/true love and the thing that influences all of my other projects.
Human Design is the study of individuality. It is a beautiful hybrid of science and spirituality and offers a blueprint into who you are as a person, how you operate.
I launched my business Looking For Air Signs last year. This work has allowed me to offer Human Design coaching to clients, and was the catalyst for teaming up with my sister, an Executive Coach in Australia, to start an advice podcast called I’ll Ask My Sister where we combine the cosmic and the corporate. This is launching in March and I am so excited for what 2024 has in store.
Q2- As someone who works in human design, how do you integrate related practices to support yourself during your period?
A key component of understanding your design is understanding the voice of your unique intuition. My intuition speaks to me through the gut - through very simple yes and no responses. We often over complicate life, relationships and dynamics by giving too much time. Learning to dialogue with the gut in a yes and no way has been such a game changer for me, particularly in vulnerable moments.
Instead of soldiering on when my body is begging for rest, or staying in when I’m craving to be sparkly and seen, I use this decision making tool to override any “what ifs” or “shoulds” or feelings of guilt or obligation during every part of my cycle.
Being more in touch with my intuition and body has also created so much more honesty and transparency with the people in my life, especially during those times I may need to reschedule because I’m not feeling it.
Q3- How does human design impact the menstrual cycle, and are there specific design types that may experience different menstrual patterns? Can you talk about your own experience?
I once heard my HD teacher discuss a theory on people’s menstrual cycle in relation to consistency and inconsistency. In human design, there is a part of your chart that educates you on whether you receive more flow in your life from being more routined or being more responsive and spontaneous with your schedule and day. She hypothesised whether people who are more routined might find this mirrored in their cycle. I haven’t quizzed enough people to know if the theory holds up, but I absolutely love the sentiment.
I am inherently an inconsistent person, finding creative freedom in change and variety. Similarly, I notice these tendencies in my menstrual cycle—it's often short, irregular, and subject to various fluctuations. This realisation has led me to reframe my relationship with its unpredictable nature. Now, I strive to listen to my body instead of lamenting its lack of conformity to my idealised life or schedule. What if its unpredictable timing actually presents opportunities for big-picture magic to unfold? It may seem like romanticising chaos, but I find it helps!
Q4- In what ways can you use a Human Design chart to influence your approach to self-care and well-being during menstruation?
Discovering your HD teaches you about your inherent energy. There are five different energy types - Manifestors, the rulers, the motivators, the ones who speak things into existence. Generators - the sparkly doers, the ones with amazing energy that can lift those around them when they’re doing things they love. Manifesting Generators - the multi-hyphenate, multi-passionate, non-linear incredible multi-taskers who show us what is possible beyond the expected and linear path we think we “should” take. Projectors - the wise ones who see things from a birds-eye view perspective, casting their light, pointing to our shadows and showing us where we can improve for a better reality. And finally, Reflectors - the special few who mirror those around them and reveal both the magic and the muck of the society they find themselves in.
Once you know your type, you can discover how your body likes to live and express its natural energy. This invaluable information is so perfect to apply to what you might need from your own self-care practices, what leads to a greater sense of well-being and how you might approach your relationship to rest during your bleed, or alternatively, what you might need to feel lit up and energetic during ovulation. Anytime you learn more about yourself you really just offer yourself more and more permission to lean into your preferences in every area of life.
Q5- In your work, you likey encounter clients with varying menstrual experiences. How do you think open conversations about periods contribute to a more supportive and understanding community?
There is such beauty in the way I get to work with people. Most interactions are one-on-one, and the majority of the people I see are women or people who experience menstruation. The nature of being able to look at a chart and often remind people of forgotten parts of their essence or the gifts that might have been buried, means the work creates a very intimate space to talk about all types of life experiences.
We are so cyclical, and the more cosmic my work gets, the more cosmic my tribe and my clients get. It is standard practice for us to speak freely of the moon, the planets, our energy types and how these all feed into our feelings and experiences around our period. Bleeding is as natural as breathing and I’m grateful it’s spoken about so openly in my community.
Q6- When are you most connected with your body?
A big part of tapping into my own access to joy has been rediscovering the things I loved to do as a kid. Dancing at the dinner table, making up routines with my friends, and taking dance classes was such a huge part of my childhood.
It is rare that I will go through a day without dancing in the mirror in my underwear. It grounds me right back into the present moment, into my skin, and I find it such a celebration of myself and my body at every part of my cycle. Nothing has connected me back to my body more and it has been the most healing and balancing thing for any of the hiding I might have tried to do during my late 20s.
Q7- How are you kind to yourself, others and the planet?
I’m such a sucker for philosophical quotes on instagram (the most millennial comment ever) and there is an amazing one summarising Aldous Huckley’s career. It says “It’s embarrassing that after 45 years of research and study, the best advice I can give to people is to be a little kinder to each other.”
It is honestly so simple, but I love it so much and I try to do this wherever I can. A huge part of unlocking flow as a generator is understanding that when you are excited by your life and your contribution, you raise the energy of those around you. I take this responsibility very seriously.
There is also something I find about being an Australian in a British context - a certain silliness and sunny demeanour that a lot of my Australian friends walk around with. Since moving to London, I wear that stereotype like a badge of honour. If I can share some light with the people I come into contact with, well, I like to think that passes on a little bit of juicy, good and flowy energy - like a contagious smile from a stranger. It has a ripple effect.
Q8- Could you share any rituals or self-care routines you follow during your menstrual cycle?
There are some months where self-care during my period looks like being as clean and looked after as possible - clean hair, clean sheets and a beautifully moisturised body. Others where you need comfort food and a good night on the couch. Regardless of my mood, period underwear has been a big part of my evening cycle routine for the past three years.
There is a word in Australia that isn’t used in the UK, and I refuse to give it up because I love it too much.
The word is dag or daggy. It exists somewhere between uncool and an endearing version of naff. Before using snuggs I would have to say my experience with period underwear was that it was so incredibly practical but incredibly daggy. Snuggs couldn’t be further from this term. They are stylish and beautiful and feel silky smooth and I honestly love them.
Q9- Can you describe your personal journey with your menstrual cycle and how it intersects with your day to day life.
I used to be so frustrated by my irregular period. Now I find magic in it. I treat my bleed like a full moon or a good cry — making space for an emotional release, a purge of all the things I’ve been holding onto from the month. It comes when it’s needed.
I journal, I go gentle, I go with it, not against it. And, I find immense beauty in getting to do that each month.
Q10- How has your understanding of your own menstrual experience influenced your perspective on menstruation in a broader context?
I have a lot of gratitude for the menstruation experience. There is something so profoundly beautiful about observing things through the lens of cycles. Just as nature requires a summer, autumn, winter and spring to achieve balance, so do we, and I really love leaning into this notion more and more in my daily life.
Sometimes it is the season to go in - to retreat, to hibernate, to self-reflect, before we can move ahead. Then we’re in the season to be out in the world, taking action, being magnetic and sharing our magic. Learning to surrender to my cycle rather than trying to cram it into my full schedule has changed my perspective on so much of how we move through the world and how we exist as humans. Our periods are powerful teachers.