In this episode, I speak with Sian, who shares her experience of growing up without any preparation or conversation around her menstrual cycle. There was no guidance, no explanation, and no sense of celebration, only silence. For a young girl, this meant confusion, fear, and learning to hide something natural.

Although Sian comes from a Ghanaian family, where a girl’s first bleed is traditionally honoured as a rite of passage, this cultural acknowledgement was absent. Instead, menstruation became something unspoken,  a silence passed through generations of women, carrying shame rather than reverence.

Raised as a young Black girl in a predominantly white environment, Sian also learned to make herself less visible. We explore how this shaped her sense of identity and worth, including the difficulty of being seen, receiving compliments, or believing she was enough.

Our conversation gently unfolds into how early shame impacted her relationship with her body, pleasure, and intimacy. Sian reflects on patterns of self-abandonment, where love was sought through giving herself away rather than being rooted in self-connection. In trying not to be abandoned, she repeatedly abandoned herself.

Now, as an adult woman, Sian is in a process of healing, learning to feel safe, to receive love, and to choose herself. She shares what it has meant to step into a loving partnership for the first time, one grounded in compassion, safety, and self-honouring.

Sian shared the following letter:

“I’ve had to unlearn the idea that I have to earn love.
That I need to prove I’m enough to deserve it.
For so long, I bent myself to fit into people’s worlds —
just to feel accepted.
Now, I’m learning to listen to my own voice.
To say no.
To rest.
To choose me, even if it disappoints others.
Loving myself has become less about confidence and more about compassion.
It’s not about being perfect; it’s about being honest with myself.
And that honesty feels like peace.”