by Lee Green, Business Owner, Perth
Until recently there has been a game played the world over that men and periods are two very separate things. Until recently I subscribed to the same belief – men and periods did not exist. Periods were a women’s subject.
In my life as a man I had always seen one long pathway that never had a stop sign on it. I was always trudging through life with no vitality, no love of me or the life I was living. Along the way I found things to use and numb me from this drudgery, but for all the immediate relief there was still the heaviness rooting me almost to the spot.
WOMEN AND PERIODS… WHERE IS THE REST FOR MEN?
How do men relate to periods? Many jokes and putdowns stem from this sensitive part in a woman’s monthly cycle – has this been to debase the understanding that a period is a cleansing part of a natural cycle that lovingly supports the woman’s body? Is there a possibility that men have this cleansing part of a monthly cycle – a period for men that can support the man’s body just as well?
I recall noting that women had an opportunity to stop, to slow down with their monthly periods. Even back then I felt there was a time where a woman had an excuse to ‘get off the roundabout’ for a few days and really rest if the pain got too much. I have witnessed women throughout my life suffer from physical pain, ‘mood swings’, to outright temper flare-ups consistently every month, and nothing seemed to change. It was an accepted way of being that every month, misery and agony would be how the women lived for that time.
There was envy here, not for the period symptoms but because of the stop, the opportunity to have timeout, the stay at home, rest required, something that I had never given myself or so it felt – as a man there was no space for this ‘weakness’.
MEN AND THE FULL MOON CYCLE
In the present day and some years later, through the work presented by Serge Benhayon, who inspires me to feel life as love first and foremost, I have worked on me and have started to know myself as a being of Love. Serge Benhayon and the team at Universal Medicine have over recent months presented so much more to men – not just for those that get to the regular groups but so that all men can truly connect with the truth of who we are.
One of the things presented in the last year was about how the full moon cycle was akin to the period that a woman experiences.
An opportunity to connect with one’s body and truly feel how you have lived in the last month.
My understanding was that we as humanity are connected inextricably to the cycles – women are not the only ones that get to clear; effectively that there is a registered stop for all. A time of reflection and contemplation, of deep nurturing and feeling that we all, every one of us, have access to.
I had listened to the presentation on the moon cycle and whilst I acknowledged it and heard it – it was still very much knowledge. I obeyed it’s coming around but with no real commitment, no sense that what was presented really was for all men to benefit from. I was effectively NOT embracing the possibility of even deeper healing.
OUR CYCLES – PERIOD AND FULL MOON DIARY APP: SUPPORT FOR MY PERIOD AS A MAN
Over this time I have also been using the amazing Our Cycles App developed by the amazing Natalie Benhayon, to track me – my feelings, moods and how my days have been going in relation to the moon cycle.
Interestingly, on days that I do not use the Our Cycles app they become a blur and I know that in not using it to express how I am feeling, there is something up….. perhaps I am a little off key. Even that becomes an amazing check in for me. Was I too tired, didn’t want to feel or face the choices I had made in the day? That’s without even using the app!
So when you pick up the app it has a quality to it for you, the writer, to feel and explore how you have been – this is amazing. I can write just for me about everything and anything that affects my being, that inspires my being, that holds me back, that makes me sad, or cry or shine or fly.
Truly a blessing for humanity!
Men Get PERIODS TOO!
In using the app regularly I have become more connected to the cycle of the moon. It is this cycle that allows my body to clear all that has been used in the lead up to the full moon. The way that I have honoured or dis-honoured me in the lead up to the full moon is all felt in my body. This had gone on for some months when on the 8th day preceding the moon in July, I got a message from my body that was so clear I could not dismiss it. It was very loud.
“This is your period! Your period starts tomorrow.”
I stopped and claimed it. ‘Yes, my period starts tomorrow.’ I even told my wife and daughter this at the evening meal discussion. Claiming this felt funny at first, almost a bit comical because of all of the stereotypes and thoughts coming at me from years of my not truly understanding the power of the period. I was given an opportunity to feel in my body the truth of this for all.
In the week leading up to the full moon the 7th and 6th days are the most intense for clearing.
On awakening that morning, knowing deeply that this was the first day of my period, I felt everything. The holding back, the pushing, the drive, the burdens I had stacked up… you get the picture.
Yet it was so beautiful and amazing to take this next level of responsibility, to own it and claim that yes, that is how I have lived until this moment.
It was a profound stop for me.
It was a celebration of the fact that my body can support me to let go as deeply as I can of the momentums and patterns that still make me choose this or that.
I also felt the amazing opportunity that the cycle presents – an opportunity to re-imprint the very next cycle with more love, more tenderness, more honouring, more trust of the body, of me and the amazingness I am.
I had time in my morning to run a bath and soak me, to really honour this event, this celebration of a man returning to tenderness. As I dressed I felt to wear a shirt and tie and even the choosing of the tie could not be for any other reason than to celebrate and nurture me more deeply.
We men do get periods – it just takes a surrendering of self to really feel the power that the cycles have not just for men, for humanity as a whole. Now that’s worth noting in my Our Cycles App.