Ever felt the shame about being on your cyclical rollercoaster?

We've all read that sentence a thousand times, "Women are cyclical beings." At first glance, it sounds like an affirmation, right? "Gee, thanks for noticing! I am, indeed. I feel seen, thankyouverymuch."

But let's dive deeper. To me, it means:

  • Follicular Phase: After my bleed, my estrogen levels rise and my womb starts building up lining to potentially welcome an egg. With estrogen levels growing so does my attunement to my people. Estrogen, the ultimate bonding hormone, takes the wheel.

  • Ovulation: Estrogen and testosterone skyrocket, turning me into an energetic, horny kitchen maven. I'm all about intimacy, heart-to-hearts, and dinner parties. We become more yielding, relaxed and caring, which is attractive to mates at a time when we are most fertile. As if this elegant cascade of events wasn’t enough to ensure procreation, we also release feromones that signal that we are fertile. Mother Nature doesn't mess around.

  • Luteal Phase: Here, estrogen drops twice, leading to mood swings and a patience deficit. Progesterone, the inward-turning, protective hormone limits my availability to outside forces and shifts me towards balancing outgoingness with introspection.

  • Menstrual Phase: This is the quiet, inward, anti-social phase. It's the culmination of the introspection set in motion by progesterone's release. Often experienced as inconvenient, especially with those pesky cramps. Our hormonal household, usually buzzing with activity, suddenly takes a tranquil turn and expects us to join this introspective interlude - a stark contrast to the culturally expected ongoing productivity and outgoingness that society often applauds.

I've been preaching about this cycle stuff since the mid-2010s. I have spent a significant part of my career discussing female cycles with legions of women who came through my β€œvagina steamery”, part of Ayurvedic offerings at the yoga studios I ran over the past decade. Yet, even though one could wake me up in the middle of the night and I could (and would!) enthusiastically deliver a lecture about female cycles, I have yet to internalize and apply my own wisdom.

Just the other day, in my pre-menstrual phase, we were dropping the kids off at school with my husband. I took in our boy; and hubby, took in our, at the time, reluctant and tantrum-y girl. Truth be told - the husband was also, at the time, reluctant and tantrum-y, however, he will differ on the latter. After I dropped off my child and chatted with the teacher, I spotted my daughter in the other yard crying in her teacher's arms. I was certain that husband was over our daughter’s unwillingness to put on those layers for the chilly morning and just handed her off to the teacher to deal with. That makes sense, he was spread thin and his patience levels were near an all-time low. As I returned to the car, he casually says, "I think Vesna needs a jacket."

At this point, my dear friends, I LOSE itttt. 

"You sat in the car all this time just to tell me she needs a jacket? Couldn't you have done that already?" - I am in the thick of it, holding onto my point of view like a life raft. The decade of meditation, years of therapy, teaching about the workings of the mind, mindfulness training, taken and given - bear fruit only three weeks out of the month. As soon as my progesterone and estrogen drop, all that mind training is out the door. Mind you he was not just sitting there waiting for me to take a jacket back to the classroom. It occurred to him when I opened the door. Yet, I had no room for this sort of explanation. I was sure he was just being a jackass. A lazy one.

Now, that I'm writing this, a couple of days later, being in the bleeding phase of my cycle, my hormone levels imparted the kind of clarity that makes me see clearly who was the jackass. Spoiler alert, it was not the husband. Now I have the introspection and clarity from within to see that as soon as I stop re-acting, the other stops acting.

Now that I am bleeding, I have the wisdom of a crone. In a few days, I'll have the energy and live in the possibility of a maiden. As my estrogen rises to aid ovulation, I’ll become more caring and social. And then once my sex hormones plummet in order to shed my uterine lining, so will my self-awareness.

Each cycle I promise myself that I’ll get through my procrastination list in my energetic phase prior to ovulation and will cook extra meals during my kitchen-maven ovulation phase so that in my PMS phase I don’t have to. Before bleeding I will spot my reactivity as a product of my hormone drop and laugh at myself. Each cycle I get closer to my goals and in some cycles, I totally drop the ball.

I cross my fingers that I do better next month.

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