Working with the Menstrual Cycle 1/2: Embodiment and Empowerment

A woman’s body has an innate rhythm, a cyclical process that promotes healing and self-regulation. This is the rhythm of the menstrual cycle. The shame and powerlessness girls and women so often experience in relation to their cycle – menstruation and then the menopause – has a significant impact on how women experience themselves in the world.

I think it’s imperative that as therapists we don’t collude with the culture of shame by perpetuating the silence around the menstrual cycle in the therapy room. Instead we can support women to rediscover the beauty and wisdom inherent in their own natural physiology.

When a woman reconnects to the ebb and flow of her cycle, she has the potential to transform her relationship with her body, beginning to experience it as an ally instead of an enemy. Reclaiming the value of the menstrual cycle and working with it, rather than against it, means supporting women to rediscover their innate embodied wisdom and to reclaim their power.

Whilst I refer to menstruating women in this post, I include menstruating clients of all genders to whom this work is also relevant.
 

Threshold into womanhood

For the majority of girls, the onset of her period is met with anticipation and dread. For many, it can be a painful and distressing time; a time of seemingly unpredictable emotional highs and lows, accompanied by debilitating physical symptoms. This experience is usually met with silence in the family and an attitude – so deeply ingrained within our society – that getting our period is an inconvenience, just part of the curse of being a woman. And so you carry on with life as if it wasn’t happening at all.

From an early age, we are all exposed to messages about what menstruation means. In Western society, the messages from the media, pharmaceutical and medical industries are that a woman’s period needs to remain hidden and inconsequential. And we have a whole host of ways in which we achieve this – from readily prescribed contraception that can eliminate our blood entirely, to the wide array of painkillers specifically targeted to relieve period pains, numb any discomfort whilst also boosting energy levels. There is no reason anyone need ever know a woman is menstruating.

But we are missing out on a vital self-care system, one that tells us what our hormones are doing, how our energy and mood will likely be affected and, when we listen in, what our physical and emotional body needs in order to support us in our day to day lives. When we know our cycle intimately, we are able to work with our body rather than against it; that means attuning to ourselves, listening deeply to what we need, inviting self-compassion and strengthening our boundaries.

Powerful societal messages and our subsequent mastery in hiding our own natural physiology become intrinsic to how we experience, not only our menstrual cycles, but ourselves as women. Society associates the menstrual cycle with pain, emotional dysregulation and body waste and dismisses the deeper somatic, hormonal and psychic integration the menstrual cycle supports and encourages.

Organised by these messages, we learn as girls to not only censor ourselves, but more often than not, we come to relate to our bodies as less than and inadequate.

Having the space to learn about the cycle and to explore the day-to-day impact of it –changes in energy, mood and emotions – supports a woman to understand herself more fully. Most women do not know about their cycle. It’s not something we’re ever taught in school. The most attention we might pay to it is knowing when our period is due so we don’t get caught short! But when I teach my clients about the menstrual cycle and support them in getting to know their own, the cry I hear most often is “how come I have never learnt about this before!”

In my next post, I will outline the four phases of menstruation and suggest how we might support clients to work with, rather than against, these natural rhythms.