4 things I learned from tuning into my menstrual cycle
If you follow me on Instagram you’ve seen me posting this week about my “luteal feels”. Tuning into and living WITH my menstrual cycle is a journey I have dabbled with for over a decade - since I took an amazing workshop called Graceful Warriors with a teacher named Andrea St. Jules and we named our uteruses and learned about free bleeding.
My relationship to my cycle has been frought since I started bleeding in grade 8 - much like you, I assume. I always understood it to be this inconvenient and annoying part of owning a uterus, full of embarassment, stains on my jeans, cramps, weird feelings ,and pimples all over my face once a month. It really wasn’t until my late 20s that I bumped into - by total accident and only by pushing my comfort zone - any kind of notion that my cycle could be not only helpful and supportive, but actually the ENTIRE FUCKING KEY TO MY BODY.
LIKE WHAT !!??? WHO HAS BEEN GATEKEEPING THIS INFORMATION (the patriarchal establishment that’s who)
I had heard a bit about Indigenous traditions around moon time and the red tent, and I have some vague notion that your menstrual cycle is a time of deep intuition and connection to the universe - but I didn’t really get it and "I’m still peeling back layers the more I learn.
As humans with uteruses, two major hormones, progesterone and estrogen, cycle through our body on a 28 (ish) day cycle, So the amount of each hormone that is in your body on any given day will change on this cycle. This impacts EVERYTHING in your body including:
energy levels and desire to connect or cocoon
bloating and gas and digestion
hair and skin (oily or dry)
mood and sensitivity to sensory input
sex drive
brain fog and mental clarity
memory
sensation in the vagina and vulva
and the list goes on
I didn’t learn about eating with my cycle until about 10 years ago when I started working with a nutritionist to help me manage symptoms I’d been suffering with - symptoms doctors just called Irritable Bowel Syndrome otherwise known as “we don’t know what is wrong with you syndrome”. I had no idea that the foods you eat can support the things your body is trying to do during the four phases of your cycle. Then bring in my hashimotos diagnosis and the most severe PMS I have ever experienced. The first two weeks of the month I could most be a patient caring parent and by week 3 it was like I became Mr. Hyde and I couldn’t handle my screaming mongrels touching me and I become a short tempered gnarly monster. Cue the Mom shame - hard! The more I have started to read the more I can see that eating and moving in different ways each week of my cycle help my body to get what it needs but also that each cycle, like each season of the earth, has it’s own powers and magic and the more I can live in tune with that cycle the more I benefit my body and my brain and my soul.
So here is what I have learned:
Your cycle is four weeks not just your period and there is something to be gained from tuning into the distinct energy of each one.
The chart below is a general guideline, but pay attention to how your cycle shows up for you, maybe you ovulate on the fool moon that that has you stuck in some major oluvatory feels instead of luteal ones, every body is unique, the whole point here is to tune into yours.
I know people say this all the time and honestly it wasn’t until I used food to heal my Hashitmotos that I really, like really really clued in that food is fucking medicine people. I’m still terrible at motivating myself to cook and chocolate cravings still get me every time, but honestly, awareness of your cycle and moving and living with it will make your life better, ease your peri-menopause and menopause symtpoms, tune you back into your libido and so much more.
The more you honour each phase the more benefit you get from the next. I.e If you don’t actually rest during your luteal and your menstrual phases you won’t get as much of an energy boost in your follicular and your ovulatory. So do what you can to slow down, tune in and honour your needs.
and some of the folks I have learned from.
Health with Holland - loving her nervous system hacks and her hilarious videos about how your attempts to restrict calories in the follicular phase hit the brick wall when your luteal kicks in.
Haus of Vagina - I’m dreaming of her Cycles Journal and her IG stories are amazing reminders to tune into my cycle.
Fertility Friday - The Fifth Vital Sign Book - a book about fertility tracking and how to understand read your cycle to understand your health
Kate Northrup - Do Less Book - living your life based on each cycle to get more done with less energy
and I can’t remember who introduced it to me but I seed cycle - here’s a blog post about it
My amazing wholistic nutritionist - Katanne at It Takes Guts Nutrition
Lately I am working on:
Paying attention to what day of my cycle I am actually in. I use the Agenda app so I can see my cycle in my google calendar and do my best to plan around it. Still a work in progress.
Resting more in my luteal and on my period - providing serious permission for this.
Leaning heavily on nervous system support tools during my luteal to manage my grumpies - especially as it relates to my parenting.
Observing where I am on my cycle and my sexual desire - which right might just mean some days I have a hit of a libido, or I am ever so slightly inclined to at least think about responding to a sexual advance from my partner.
There’s so many more layers to it but that’s where I have started.
If you found this useful pass it on to a friend and follow some of the folks above to start living more with your cycle.
Let me know in the comments. What are you going to try?
Until next week, the Happy V.