About a month ago I gifted myself an online workshop by the fabulous Jenny Keane named Period Power. I’ve been bleeding for twenty years yet never really thought about it other than the utter inconvenience of it all. The mood swings, hormonal madness, binge eating everything chocolate in sight. And of course feeling like a bloated whale doesn’t help either. Apart from that and the headaches, back aches and sometimes not being able to sleep from intense belly pain, I have been pretty good at ignoring that part of being a woman.
Until I moved to New Zealand and met a beautiful bunch of ladies who were really into the whole period thing and cyclical living. Like, actually planning their life according to their cycle. Just like the moon, women have a cycle of about 28 days. Male cycles are 24 hours. The entire world runs off the male hormonal cycle of 24 hours where we are expected to be really productive in the morning, slowing down a bit in the afternoon and resting in the evening. The problem is women don’t work like that. We are not the same every day, we don’t have a 24 hour cycle and start fresh again. No no no. Our cycle is about 28 days, divided in four parts where we experience four inner seasons.
The period being our internal winter, after bleeding we are blossoming into spring, when we ovulate we are experiencing our summer and as our body is preparing for our next period we go into a cosy inner autumn. Just like different seasons ask for different ways of living, with our inner seasons it’s just the same. We crave different foods, exercise, communication, openness or cosiness and reflection depending on what phase of our cycle we’re in.
Darling, I’m nearly 33 and just figuring all this out. What the fuck. Why isn’t this taught in school? Why doesn’t every person in the world know about this? Talking about life hacks! To understand ourselves, our friends and partners so much better because we know where we/they are in their cycle and what we/they are capable of at that time.
I know I’m being absolutely ridiculous but I watched the workshop on the first day of my period a few days ago and I’ve been LOVING my period since! Every day I’m like okay today my blood is this colour, which means this and that so what is my body telling me? Also: PMS is not normal y’all. It’s your body calling out to you, saying something is missing. Maybe you haven’t had enough sleep or vitamins or too much stress and caffeine?
It’s crazy when I think of the nights I spent sleeplessly rolling around the bed holding onto my belly because I felt like it was going to explode like a balloon. Cursing that damn period and what it was doing to me, giving me all that pain and furious moods. I learned to listen to these issues as signs my body was giving me that I was taking on too much work, stress, worries and probably waaay too much coffee. Not enough sleep, nourishing food and self care.
I’m just starting this journey I wish I started twenty years ago, and I really wish for all my friends to tap into their cycle and body and live the most luscious lives – even and especially while bleeding.
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