The woman behind the Den

Hello, I'm Irida Hysenbelli.

I'm the founder of Women's Den and a Rite of Passage Doula. My work with women centres around some of the great thresholds of a woman's life — the first bleed, pregnancy and motherhood, and around menopause.

I haven't arrived at this work through one straight path. It has grown over many years of teaching, coaching, facilitating workshops and working closely with people, alongside my own deepening interest in the relationship between body and mind. Over time, I found myself increasingly drawn to women's life stages and to what happens to us during the transitions that shape our lives.

Before Women's Den, I spent many years working in education, teaching, training and guidance in the UK, internationally and here in the Netherlands. My academic background is in Anthropology and Politics and Applied Development Studies, and I later worked as a life and career coach and workshop facilitator. Across these different roles there has always been a common thread: listening, accompanying people and creating spaces where they can explore their own experience.

Alongside my professional life, embodied practice has been an important part of my own life for many years. I have practised Hatha Yoga for around 20 years with a gifted teacher whose work has deeply influenced the way I relate to the body, awareness and presence. This relationship with the body naturally finds its way into how I work with women.

My work with pregnancy and birth is influenced by the Active Birth approach developed by Janet Balaskas — understanding the physiology of birth, working with gravity and movement, and helping women and their birth partners feel informed and able to participate actively in their experience.

There is an artistic thread to my work too. I love to paint, and Birth Art, developed by Pam England, brought together something that felt very natural to me: creativity as a way of exploring some of the feelings, questions and unknowns that can accompany pregnancy and approaching birth. It isn't about being good at art. It is about making room for what might not be so easily put into words.

My understanding and appreciation of menstruality and women's life transitions has deepened through my training with Red School in Menstruality Leadership. This has helped shape the wider vision of Women's Den: to recognise menarche, the childbearing years and menopause not simply as biological events, but as significant passages in a woman's life that deserve space, attention, context and care.

Women's Den grew from a desire to create space for these thresholds — places where women can come together, learn about their bodies, prepare practically, speak honestly, rest, ask questions and be accompanied through change without being told how their experience should look.

At the heart of my work is a simple belief: the great transitions of a woman's life deserve to be met with knowledge, care and community.

How we meet change

The transitions in a woman’s life can bring us into unfamiliar territory.

At Women’s Den, the intention isn’t simply to manage the challenges that can come with these times, but to make space to meet what is changing — and to meet ourselves where we are now.

There are things to understand and respond to practically. But there is also value in giving these transitions our attention — becoming curious about what is changing in our bodies, our relationships, our needs and the way we meet our lives.

Women’s Den creates spaces for that attention: through learning, conversation, embodied practice, creativity, rest and being with others.