The Cycle of She.
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I haven’t talked about this too much.
It never felt important enough to write about. Not sure why, because it’s actually very important.
Over the years — before, then during — and after my formal education in natural medicine, I have to’d-and-fro’d with my opinions on the topic of the nature and call-to-action through a woman’s menstrual cycle.
There was a time not so long ago when I firmly believed that the cycle should be uniform in nature — symptom-less — apart from a few days where there’s blood.
Now, technically speaking, PMS shouldn’t be present in a perfectly healthy body and period pain should not show itself. It’s just about nutrition and biochemistry.
For example, if your rack swells and can’t handle being touched, there’s an issue with oestrogen clearance or you’re lacking in liver-loving B vitamins. If you get cramps/pain, think about magnesium or a necessary chiropractic adjustment.
If you experience hateful irritability before a period, you might not be honoring your body’s call for more calories (ahem, good calories) and that’s generally a liver sign. In both eastern and western natural traditions.
That’s the brief off-the-top-of-my-head science (I don’t bring my notes from college wherever I go, sorry).
But holy shit, there is more to it than that.
Here’s the flip side.
Seasons. Rhythm.
Yin. Yang.
Winter. Summer.
Inward. Outward.
While the biochemical rule of the body needs to be respected, there is much to be said about the effect our high-pressure fast-paced society has had on primal female rhythms.
Say you do everything nutritionally and biochemically with textbook precision (and I hope, some love…) and you still feel not quite on top of your game through the midst of your luteal phase (2nd half of cycle — pre-period). You’re just not as up and out as you usually are.
You might feel more self-doubt and anxiety because of it.
What to do?
Here’s a clue: Listen.
You see (I’m going to echo Christiane Northrup here), during your follicular phase (1st half), you are in a very doing place.
A place of output. Upward. Outward. Yang. This is your body’s spring/summer.
However, in your luteal phase, nutrients go underground. Inward. Below. Yin.
This is Fall/Winter.
Your period is your body’s winter. A natural, seasonal shedding. A stillness. Activity within.
“Life is rich in the time of keeping still, sap flowing, cells curing, changes taking place.
I will return to the great tree and be convinced once again that her branches have danced in the night, and I will know that beneath her outer black stillness there is life living deeply.
Inside us all, in the depths of our winters, things are going on, things we will have no clue of until spring comes, and perhaps not even then.” ~ Gerald May
If you do not heed the call to introvert — even a little — during this time, don’t you think your body will put up barriers to you doing more more more?
Fatigue, cramps, struggles in communication.
Pay attention.
Your body (and perhaps your feminine soul) is calling to you from an ebb. There is much to reconcile. Maybe with others. Maybe with your career, your body, but mainly your soul.
I’m not implying that each month you are destined for some traumatic incident that you have to internally heal pre-menstrually. Can you imagine?!
What I’m wiggling towards is that as females, we gather our power from a place different to (wonderful) men. At least I think that’s how it seems. We have to pull our power from sources deep within. Not without.
And above all else, women access their power through surrender.
Sorry, guys, not that you aren’t divinely amazing or anything, but women are a potent force of creation on this planet, and ebb and flow comes with the territory. There’s complexity and messiness with the feminine, and this needs to be given the required space and respect for blossoming to occur.
Women need to be women.
And I’m not talking about the flimsy, flaky, softly spoken, weaker-sex kind that modern marketing deems as the benchmark woman. I’m talking about strong women.
The deep, fierce, love and wisdom-filled creatures that the Universe intended them to be.
So, back to the blood.
Historically, such time, distance and space was given to women during this time. The Red Tent.
Women were not required to be out and productive in the sense that our modern world has forced us to adopt.
So, if your nutrition is at its best and you still feel a pull inward in the week before and during your period, you must heed this call.
Remember that progress, productivity and activity do not necessarily need to be visible to the world. Seasons exist for a reason. And believe it or not, women are the Yin gender for a reason.
You will be reflective.
You will do deeper into your soul — you will clear away what is no longer of use – know who you are, ready for the spring, when you help make our world a better place.
***
Brooke Steff could say that she writes about the human condition. She doesn’t say that, because she thinks it makes her sound like a wanker. She does, however, write as a response to the beauty and wretchedness that our human souls face. She writes strongly about what is sacred, what it really means to be a woman, and how having a tender heart is an act of rebellion in a world that tells us that love is never the answer. She yearns for Autumn and Winter always. Books make her feel rich. And guests at her dream dinner party include Joan of Arc, Winston Churchill, Zelda Fitzgerald, William Butler Yeats, Anne Lamott, Carl Barron and a couple of bad-ass nuns.
***
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