The beauty of cycle awareness
How listening to my body brings wisdom.
I am sitting here, resisting writing. It has been a week where the words are not flowing. I have stopped and started many different pieces feeling unsatisfied.
This morning I realized maybe the point is to write even when it is hard. Maybe I won’t write something beautiful, poetic, or deeply meaningful, but I will write what is real and what is alive right now.
I am expecting my bleed in two days and I am feeling a bit of fogginess, the need to withdraw, and the need to do a lot less.
I have been practicing cycle awareness for years but never has it been harder to do than with a child. I got my period back when my son was five months old and my cycles feel nothing like they used to. I no longer have terrible cramps but I also feel more disconnected from the natural flow of energy it brings.
I have to quiet life down and slow myself down immensely to be able to tune into the fluctuating energies of my cycle. I have been blowing right by the energies and not listening to the wisdom. I love the wisdom, I crave the innate what arises when I listen to the ebbs and flows.
I feel more like myself when I am listening to and working with the four phases of my cycle. I have learned them as maiden, mother, enchantress and crone. I have grown to love my bleed and recognize it as a time of rest and renewed creativity.
It is much harder to rest with a wildly energetic and passionate almost two year old whose new thing is screaming and screeching in delight. But I vowed to myself after my last bleed, where I barely rested and pushed through, I wouldn’t be doing that anymore.
So, I listened more closely this month, I payed attention to the shifts and this week writing has not happened because my inner critic has kicked in. A hallmark of enchantress, usually lasting from day 21 til bleed.
Not only has my inner critic showed up to tell me I shouldn’t waste my time with writing but she has a host of other things to say. I am not doing enough with my son, I am not listening to my body, I am not going to heal my gut issues by eating the way I have.
The best part of my inner critic is she speaks the truth. She delivers it in a rough way but there is truth in all her critiques.
I do not need to spend time writing when it does not feel aligned. I cannot force the words to be there, instead I can take a break and come back. The words will find me again.
I do want to doing things differently with my son, I have been thinking about schooling options for the future. I realize how much I want to homeschool but I feel resistant to surrender into a deeper layer of motherhood…more on this later.
I am not listening to my body. I have been listening to my mind and my gut, making decisions from a place of trauma and fear. I long to listen to my heart too and consider all parts of my being when I make a choice.
I am not going to heal my gut by eating how I have been, which is why the practitioner I am working with told me to do a new diet. My inner critic loves this, food comes with stories and instead of turning my head away as I have in the past, I am looking at what is here. There are old beliefs from my ancestors that I am clinging to instead of doing the work to shift my patterns with food.
If I listen closely enough, I hear her truth and I can turn it into wisdom. I can listen to what she tells me and sit with it during my bleed. And when my bleed passes, I can start to make changes as I see fit.
Listening to my cycle means I do not have to rush the process of growing. Listening to my cycle means everything is right on time. Listening to my cycle drops me deeper into my body and my aliveness.
When I sat down to write, I was not sure what would flow out of me.
I know as a mother, sometimes I feel I am the least important person in the room. When I tune into my cycle, when I listen to my body, I shift that. I notice it helps me hold myself with love and kindness as I move through motherhood.
It reminds me I am human, I am not built to be the same every day, I am allowed to show up differently, in fact it is my super power to do so.
Does anyone else here practice cycle awareness? How has your practice and cycle shifted in motherhood? Share with me in the comments!
Love,
Emma
Thank you for reading and if you are new here, welcome! I invite you to read this to learn more about this space and if you want to learn more about me, read this. Here, I explore mothering, healing, breaking cycles, and learning what it means to be ourselves in motherhood.
If you know someone who is on the journey of motherhood and healing, share this with them. It means everything to me when you share my work with someone you love.
Recent writings you might have missed…
A note of love, gratitude and vision - the beginning of what is to come for this space.
Unspoken Words: Volume 4 & Volume 5 - sharing mothers experiences of what is hard for them in this season of motherhood.
For my fellow writers & mothers - a short reflection on how it may be okay to do one more thing before your write.
Fear as love - how can I trust my people when I cannot trust myself
Oh yes yes to this Emma! Cycle awareness was something I dove into many years ago when I lost my bleed totally for four years. It forced me on a path of womb healing and connecting deeply to my inner rhythms. I have so much reverence now for my body while it bleeds and I feel it’s so sacred. I was so happy when my bleed returned after the birth of both my girls… I could talk about tracking and honouring our inner seasons for hours!!! I love you are listening!!! Have you read Wild Power? It’s my favourite book on cycle awareness.. and they talk about being able to give yourselves even 1% of our needs during the phases… and that has always stayed with me. I take that into motherhood and especially in my bleed… when the urge to cocoon and rest isn’t possible to fulfil… I find ways to give myself 1% at least… which might look like lying down on the playmat and playing doctors with the girls (I’m the patient) or actually asking my husband to come home one train earlier on my heavy bleeding days. I feel really inspired now to write about this too!!! My break is definitely being fruitful and the energy is returning, ironically I’m coming to my inner autumn now so I suspect it will be after my bleed that the blossoming happens. Loved this piece abs the conversation it’s sparking! Xxx
Oh I’d love to talk about homeschool/hear your thoughts. The pandemic pushed us off the fence and into homeschooling. There is much I enjoy about it but I still feel tension at times because I haven’t “regained my life” as they started school as culture talks about.