[ilovemyyoni]

Calling all women!!! I want to know who out there loves their menstrual cycle??? I am reading a lot about the huge problems that women are having and I hear about it every day in the clinic. I know how difficult menstrual problems can be, I have definately been there! But I also know from experience, that the most profound tool that helped me through it all was a process of getting to know my cycle. Really getting to know and understand the physical, emotional and energetic shifts that happen throughout the month. This has been the most empowering process really helped me to step into myself as Woman! Period's have had a pretty bad wrap of late and there seems to be so much out there being sold to women, encouraging them to cover it up, hide it and pretend its just not happening. but what if we actually listen to our body as it communicates to us through the pain, the emotions and the shift in energy? I know for me, it changed my life and my experience of menstruating and my experience as a woman and I am sooo grateful for that! I fully recognise that there are some period/menstrual issues that really need some professional attention but I am a HUGE advocate of ALWAYS going natural first. Chinese Medicine is the BEST!!! for all women's health problems. And Natural Fertility Education is a method of birth control, when used properly is 98% effective!! and you get to empower your self with the most empowering knowledge in the process. something we should all be learning as teenagers at school. Well, thats my views. anyone got anything to add?

[shweedart]

ooof, no, i'd love my period it if loved me back! I dont know if you read my post on cramps? Though, one thing I do love about it is that for some reason, snuggling up on the sofa with a blanket and a hot water bottle next to the fire with a nice glass of red feels so much more indulgent then ever! I feel like a goddess

[WildChild]

What a wonderful point and I think very true! If women embrase their womanhood - all of it and celebrate it, life would be easier. Much of what we experience starts in our heads. For a long, long time being female has been suspect. We been supressed, repressed, depressed and just plain pressed! Health studies are done on men, rather than women - even breast cancer studies have been! Women have been hidden away and menstration has been treated as something dirty that indicates a flaw.

Truth is that in the long past, women were revered for their abiltity to produce life and their cycle was part of that wonderful and powerful ability. We have a great deal of phalic symbolism today (Look at the Washington Monument and all the skyscrapers) but there once was as much or more, clearly understood Vulva and Vaginal symbolism. Doorways were painted red, for a reason. A woman's menstural time was seen as a time of special power for meditation, which is why some cultures developed a practice of the women separating themselves during this time - later that was warped into a separation due to uncleanliness. We need to reconnect to celebrating this time! This business of pills designed not just prevent pregnancy (it seems many work by killing desire) but to all but eliminate a woman's cycle. This is wrong. It gives an implicit sense that our sheading of the uterine wall is a problem. It's not, it means we are women! Not little girls, not some sort of mindless airheads but beings capable (with a partner) of bring new life to the world. We also bring love, new ideas, and joy - when we are connected to who we really are.

When you dislike something, when you dread it's approach - of course you have more problems. When you are exposed to all sorts of toxins, both physical and mental, you have more problems. Perhaps we need to celebrate this more. How about a special symbol for our special days? Hummm, this has me thinking.

[LanaBear]

meh - I don't dislike it, but I don't like it either.

I went years and years and years without being regular, not having one all together, blah blah blah. I've been like clock work these last 9 months (since my D&C) and I can honestly say I don't mind it when it comes. Do I like everything that comes with it? Cramps, back aches, migraines, sore nips, attitude, NO. But it's par the course and something that I live with...

But WC, you do make good points!

[caterpillar79]

The physical effects are easier to bear - pop some pain killers in your mouth, and you're OK. But the emotional upheaval that I experience prior to having it? My, my! I tell myself - it is difficult to be a woman!

[CHANDLERS WISH]

Our brain controls our whole body. Not our periods, our brain.

So, that being "natural", it's focusing on the positives, and focusing on putting thought patterns into our mind, when something hurts, it doesn't.

I walk, and whilst cramps may be there, by the time I get back, they're gone. I programme, my "mind" to say I can actually stop this. And, I do.

Just like an itch. I put my mind to work and say " I can't feel it", and seriously for those few seconds I don't feel it... then it comes back and I do it again.

I laugh on those occassions, in the knowing that I can beat things by the power of the mind, and need to work on that more.

CW

[LanaBear]

Oh Cat... I'm an emotional basket case that time of the month too! Jekyll and Hyde!

[caterpillar79]

I wonder if we will be in-synch again.

[LanaBear]

haha - I was thinking the same thing. There's a few of us here on that schedule. Mine should hit around the 6th, we'll see.

[caterpillar79]

Me, too. But emotional upheavals due to hormonal changes hit weeks before it.