The life long gifts of the menstrual cycle
with a link to a free online class tomorrow 22/11
The life long gifts of the menstrual cycle
I am sending this newsletter again, because I forgot to include the link for the free online class tomorrow.
If you have any questions for me, or want to learn more, you might like to join me in my free online class. There is a French version the hour before (same link)
Online class Friday 22nd November - the gifts and challenges of the menstrual cycle and their link with other life phases
This session will explore:
The different phases of the menstrual cycle
How these phases link to other life cycles, for men as well as women
The importance of the Extraordinary Vessels
Relevant movements and touch
Engage in movements, acupressure and meditation to embody the theory
Include an open Q&A to answer your questions
If you can’t attend live, the class will be recorded and shared on my YouTube channel so you won’t miss out. If you have any particular questions and can’t attend you can email them to me before and I will try to answer them in the class.
I look forward to sharing this deep and insightful journey with you—whether you're a practitioner, or not, or a TCM enthusiast.
I have now started locking the room 15 minutes after start time, as it gets disruptive if people join late.
Time: Friday 22nd November, 7.15 pm-8.15pm UK (GMT) or 8.15pm CET
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86404039442
Meeting ID: 864 0403 9442
Passcode: 964521
The richness of ancient knowledge
The essence of my work is informed by the knowledge of the ancients who were much more closely connected to the daily and seasonal cycles of nature – autumn, winter, spring and summer and the changing cycles of the sun and moon. We aren’t connected so directly to this with our modern life style. This lifestyle is not only destroying the natural rhythms of our planet but also our own rhythms. The knowledge of TCM has many gifts to offer us but we need to be aware of the level of disruption there is within our modern bodies. The menstrual cycle and its many challenges for modern women reflects this disruption but can also offer healing.
Modern understandings of our cycle
I want to acknowledge other people’s work on the menstrual cycle which has helped me develop my understanding. It is wonderful that there is a conversation about the power of the different phases and the cyclical nature of women’s bodies. I also believe that men’s energies have a cyclical nature too, although in a different way from women’s and that they too can learn from the clearer expressions of women’s energy through the menstrual cycle.
The Red Moon
The first person who opened my eyes more clearly to the cyclical rhythms of the menstrual cycle was Miranda Gray with her book “ Red moon” which I read when it came out in 1994. A few years later, in 1999, Giovanni Maciocia’s book “Obstetrics and Gynaecology in Chinese Medicine“ helped clarify my thoughts. His was the first chart of the menstrual cycle with combining the modern and Chinese medicine views I came across. Later the work of the Red Tent movement and Alexandra Pope has added to the conversation and more women are becoming aware of their inner rhythms. However many women take the pill which affects these rhythms and some women still see the menstrual cycle as a disruption to their life rather than a gift.
The four seasons and cyclical nature of our cycle
I love the approach of seeing the menstrual cycle like the 4 seasons of our earth, and it is certainly influenced by the solar and lunar cycle (Gray, Pope). It helps women connect more with nature, but I think it’s also important to recognise that our bodies don’t completely reflect nature. We are of the earth but we also have our own unique inner rhythms.
The 4 phases of our cycle are not equal in length and they don’t completely reflect the energies of each season. During the “menstrual phase” which is often written about as our winter, we pass through all the seasons. First there is the Yang movement of spring which initiates the bleeding, then as we lose more and more blood we move through summer to autumn and yes do indeed arrive at winter at the end of our bleed.
Understanding our physiology
I also feel that many women don’t fully understand the physiological changes which are happening in their bodies, especially the role of the corpus luteum. Many women do not even really understand what it is. Perhaps this is partly because if women take a pill which suppresses ovulation then the corpus luteum doesn’t develop. Many women don’t understand that whether the egg is fertilised or not, our body goes through the same process for about a week or so after ovulation. The lining of the womb is still building, and oestrogen is as high as it was before ovulation. It is only if there is no implantation that the body starts to prepare to clear the lining of the womb. This first week after the “summer “ of ovulation isn’t yet a letting go of the “summer”.
If you want more information on this phase please read my blog or watch my YouTube video on this.
Our cycle prepares us for other moments in our life
The menstrual cycle prepares women for other potential moments in our life – being pregnant, giving birth, and how to rest postnatally. It also helps us to move to the end of our fertile phase and into the menopause. Understanding its gifts and challenges is important for our whole life.
My personal journey with my cycle
Reading Miranda Gray’s book, opened my mind to exploring the menstrual cycle more deeply. Even though I was already a shiatsu practitioner, we hadn’t really explored the menstrual cycle. I realised that even though I felt connected to my body in some ways, I still hadn’t fully embraced this aspect of my nature. At the time, I was deepening my knowledge of pregnancy and discovering the powerful Extraordinary Vessels which I hadn’t been taught either. These Vessels helped me understand more about pregnancy as well as the menstrual cycle.
I have many blogs on the Extraordinary Vessels and during December am going to be making new blogs and videos on them, so if there is an aspect of them which you would like me to explain more clearly please let me know.
I had incredibly painful and heavy periods since they first began, when I was around 12. It was partly because of my menstrual pain that I decided to study shiatsu in 1983. I found that by doing the stretches of the 12 meridians (the Makkho YT link) they began to ease a little. My first shiatsu teacher, Keith Phillips, of the Bristol Shiatsu School, was a macrobiotic teacher as well, and I became even more aware of how food affected my cycle. I already realised sugar wasn’t particularly helpful and was vegetarian, but being more aware of eating local and in season foods brought more awareness. I then studied with Sonia who introduced more meditation practices within the shiatsu.
“The curse!”
These tools had helped me with my painful periods. My mother called them “the curse”. The pain was so intense, I would often feel faint, and I remember once or twice fainting in the school assembly, where we had to stand up. I would worry about not being able to make it to the end of a lesson without getting blood stains all over my clothes. My mother took me to the doctor to see if there was anything to be done. I remember he wanted to put me on the pill, but I thought that seemed rather odd and refused. I am not quite sure why. Perhaps it was because my father was very much a “put up with the pain” kind of person. Perhaps it was because I didn’t want to be like my mother, who was bi-polar and always taking some kind of medication. So I just put up with the pain and the fear of bleeding. I wonder if today I would have been diagnosed with endometriosis and perhaps told that I would have difficulty conceiving.
Conceiving and birthing
In fact, I conceived my daughter easily in 1989. After her birth, my periods were much lighter and less painful. I think this was partly due to the changes I had already made in my life with shiatsu, diet and meditation, but partly because of all the preparation I had done during my pregnancy. I had travelled to the US to study with Elizabeth Noble and was inspired by her faith in women’s power. I birthed at home, as I had always felt I would. My mother had birthed me at home always saying it was “the best day of her life”. Mother’s messages are powerful and fortunately this one was a helpful one! I don’t think my mother gave birth squatting, but inspired by Elizabeth Noble, it felt the perfect position for me.
Over time I realised that my experience of birth cleared a lot of energies in a healing way. My periods became calmer and my bleeding less intense. I felt more in my power and gradually understood that this is what the ancient Chinese, and indeed ancient cultures, meant when they talked about passing through gateways of transformation. We can clear limiting patterns, although we can also create new ones if we are not supported well during these times.
I realised that this was not the case with everyone. As time went on I began to see more women who had issues conceiving. People began talking about endometriosis and I was invited to give a talk for a local group. This stimulated my interest in how shiatsu can more directly support the menstrual cycle. I learnt that some people were writing about the cycle as like the 4 seasons, which related to the 12 meridians. The four seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter have been related to after menstruation – spring and then summer, the flowering of the fruit of the egg, and then autumn letting go of the egg and preparing for losing our blood, the winter. Yet, try as I could, with my knowledge of the 12 meridians and my new found knowledge of the 8 Extraordinary Vessels, it didn’t quite fit. This led me to develop my ideas which you can find in the posts I have made on the cycle. The first one is this:
I hope you enjoy re reading the posts I have made for each cycle and also the accompanying You Tube videos. I’d love to hear what you think of my perspective. Please get in touch.
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Wow! A whole new world of women’s knowledge. Thank you for sharing it with us.