Today we’d like to introduce you to Lisa De Jong.
Hi Lisa, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
My work actually started long before I ever called myself a coach. I had my own journey with chronic period pain and endometriosis, and for years I just tolerated it, the way so many women are taught to. Everything shifted one evening when I sat down to try a womb meditation, of all things, right before heading out to my brother’s engagement dinner. I was dressed and ready to go, but had a few minutes spare. As soon as I brought my attention to that part of my body, I burst into tears. I realised I’d been carrying years of grief around my womb — I resented my cycle, I quietly wished it away every month. That moment cracked something open in me.
From there I got curious. I trained in Menstrual Cycle Awareness, then started exploring other healing modalities alongside it. At the time I was working as a teacher in international schools, so sharing knowledge with people was already second nature to me. A friend suggested I run a workshop, so I booked a small yoga studio in Dublin and posted it on Meetup.com, not knowing what to expect. It sold out on the first night.
That was really the beginning. I kept training, kept working with clients one-to-one and in groups, and the work kept evolving organically — first into my own coaching practice, then online courses, and eventually into training other practitioners, because my own clients started asking to learn the work from me directly. That’s what became the Menstrual Coach Academy, which now trains coaches and health professionals in multiple countries.
Today my work sits at the intersection of menstrual health, trauma-informed coaching, and the nervous system. It’s grown from my own healing into a much bigger mission: helping women understand their bodies, regulate their nervous systems, and build a relationship with their cycles that’s rooted in curiosity and compassion rather than fear.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Honestly, no — and I think that’s part of why this work resonates with people. My own road started with years of chronic period pain and endometriosis that I just quietly tolerated, the way so many of us are taught to. For a long time I believed healing had to mean a “perfect,” clean diet, and I’d panic and feel like I’d failed every time symptoms came back, convinced I had to start over from scratch.
Building the business itself hasn’t been smooth either. I started from a single sold-out workshop in a Dublin yoga studio, with zero business background, and had to learn everything as I went — how to run online courses, how to hold space for group and one-to-one clients, how to eventually train other practitioners. Growing the Menstrual Coach Academy into something now active in multiple countries has meant a lot of trial and error, and a lot of unlearning my own perfectionism along the way.
The biggest struggle, though, has probably been internal rather than external — learning to regulate my own nervous system enough to build something sustainable, rather than white-knuckling my way through burnout the way I see so many women (myself included, in the early days) try to push through pain and pressure. Ironically, the thing I now teach — nervous system regulation, presence, self-compassion — is the thing I had to learn the hard way myself before I could teach it to anyone else.
As you know, we’re big fans of The Menstrual Coach Academy. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
The Menstrual Coach Academy is a globally accredited, 6-month professional training programme that certifies coaches, therapists, nurses, and other wellness professionals in trauma-informed menstrual cycle coaching. In practice, that means we take practitioners who already work with clients in some capacity — coaching, therapy, physiotherapy, yoga, nursing — and give them the specialised knowledge to bring real menstrual health literacy into that work.
We specialise in the intersection of three areas: the nervous system, through a polyvagal, trauma-informed lens; the endocrine system, the actual science of hormonal health; and psychology, drawing on pain science, attachment theory, and relational coaching. That combination is what we’re known for — teaching practitioners to support clients dealing with period pain, PMS, PMDD, and endometriosis in a way that’s genuinely holistic, rather than just symptom management or surface-level cycle tracking.
What sets us apart is that this work goes far deeper than the “eat seed cycling foods and track your cycle” content that’s become popular online. We train professionals to understand the nervous system’s role in chronic pain, to hold trauma-informed space, and to help clients who often feel dismissed by the healthcare system finally feel understood in their own bodies. Our guest teachers include physicians, pain specialists, psychologists, and hormone experts, so students get a genuinely multidisciplinary education rather than a single-lens approach.
Brand-wise, what I’m most proud of is the community we’ve built. We’ve now supported hundreds of students and clients worldwide, and so many graduates describe the training as as much a personal transformation as a professional one — which is exactly the point, because you can’t authentically hold this work for others until you’ve done it in your own body first.
If there’s one thing I want readers to take away about the Academy, it’s that menstrual health isn’t a niche, “extra” topic — it’s a window into someone’s whole physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing. Our offerings are built to reflect that: a rigorous, science-backed training for practitioners, a genuinely global and supportive student community, and a mission to put this understanding into the hands of people who can then pass it on to thousands of clients of their own.
What do you like best about our city? What do you like least?
One of my best friends lives in Nashville 🙂 I have heard so many great things
Contact Info:
- Website: https://lisadejongcoaching.com/menstrual-cycle-coaching
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lisa_dejong_coach/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisadejong4/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@LisadeJongCoach
- Other: https://www.menstrualcoachacademy.com/
