by Dragana Brown, London, UK
There is a misapprehension (or two, or three…) and a certain (stale) air around menopause which says (in an unspoken way) that a woman has reached her best before – or even worse, her expiry date – when menopause looms.
So what happens if the ‘use by’ date occurs during your unripe and not ready-to-be-written-off-the-shelf age? Continue reading “Menopause – Not the Poisoned Chalice you Might Think it is”
Anonymous, UK
I want to share an aspect of the journey I have been on with my periods and my relationship with them. There are many chapters to the story of where I now stand as a woman and I will cover those in later blogs.
I have had my periods for a few years now, so not very long. In the years before getting my first period I felt an enormous pressure to have a period. I remember most of the pressure wasn’t spoken and it mainly came from myself, but there was one girl who openly told me that at the age of 12/13 not having my periods was weird, and that there was something wrong with me.
Looking back I know without a doubt that this was utter rubbish. I remember very well the difficulty of going through puberty in high school/middle school, and that it was at this time that most girls’ body issues began. Continue reading “My Teenage Years – Discovering What are Periods Really About”
by Sarah Cloutier, Animation Producer, London, UK
“Expectation is the root of all heartache” – William Shakespeare
Wise words Will Shakespeare.
I realise I have been nurturing my expectations.
Not at all what I had expected to reveal while I am being more nurturing to myself with many other loving actions and thoughts. I am writing every day in the Our Cycles App about the small nurturing moments in my day: this could be talking with a friend, walking gently to the tube, smiling just for myself, allowing myself to make mistakes, being silly, dancing with myself, taking time to lay out my clothes before my shower or bath, not comparing myself to other women … a long list that grows every day! The loving ritual of writing down these loving actions means I can now see when I love myself even more: what is not love is even more obvious.
I have been using constant energy that has been invested in outcomes, from conversations, meetings, friends, acquaintances, people on the tube – everyone! I expect a certain type of response from people and I am then disappointed when they don’t come through. I expect colleagues at work to respond the way they did yesterday and when they don’t, I feel let down. I expect the young guy on the tube to get up and let me sit down on the way home from work, but when he doesn’t, I feel let down. I expect the person on the checkout to be friendly and when they are not, I feel disappointed. I’m also realising that when I see someone gloomy, I try to make them feel ‘better’ – to make them see they don’t have to be gloomy! I impose my expectations then I don’t understand when they don’t ‘get it’. Continue reading “Our Cycles App – Period and Full Moon Diary – Tracking My Expectations”
by Rosie Bason, Mullumbimby, NSW
Attending a Women’s Group meeting
Recently I attended a women’s group and it was so supportive in so many ways. One of the things I have come away with and really put into practice is the use of Our Cycles – Period and Full Moon Diary App.
My observations from the meeting
I downloaded the Our Cycles App when it first came out and I had been using it every now and then… when I gave myself the permission and time to write things into it. It’s such a great App; the problem was I didn’t really feel that I was great enough to give myself the time each day to jot things down.
Women at the meeting shared how they used it – or their lack of use – and it really exposed my own. Since then I have been enjoying taking the time for me, to write down how my day was, and with all the different options for moods and feelings I have become aware of how awesome I feel most of the time… instead of heavy, sad, needy or such.
Ahhh….. the day before my period! Continue reading “Our Cycles – Period and Full Moon Diary App – Celebrating My Period”
by Leonne
During my last cycle I had a very painful and heavy period. Thankfully, the most painful day of this period fell on a weekend and I did not have to work. Over the last year, I have been tracking my period using the OurCycles period diary app. Prior to this I had taken a contraceptive pill for 12 years to control a skin condition, so consequently I was very out of touch with my body’s natural rhythm (See my Blog: Acne, My Skin, My Diet and Me). As I have tracked my period I have found that when I have an intense month prior to my period, it is often more painful and heavier. Many things had come up for me in the month prior to my painful period, so I understood that my body was telling me something.
On the Saturday morning when I woke in pain, I was gentle and loving with myself.
Usually this course of action would make me feel better, however the pain seemed to intensify the more I ‘rested’. Continue reading “Painful Periods – Nurturing Doesn’t Always mean Horizontal!”
by Rosie Bason, Mullumbimby, NSW
Recently I attended a women’s group and it was so supportive in so many ways. One of the things I have come away with and really put into practice is the use of Our Cycles – Period and Full Moon Diary App.
I downloaded the Our Cycles App when it first came out and I had been using it every now and then… when I gave myself the permission and time to write things into it. It’s such a great App; the problem was I didn’t really feel that I was great enough to give myself the time each day to jot things down.
Women at the meeting shared how they used it – or their lack of use – and it really exposed my own. Since then I have been enjoying taking the time for me, to write down how my day was, and with all the different options for moods and feelings I have become aware of how awesome I feel most of the time… instead of heavy, sad, needy or such.
Ahhh….. the day before my period! Continue reading “Our Cycles App – The day BEFORE my Period Revelation”
by Emily Billsborough, Wollongbar, Australia
Over the past couple of months I have been developing my relationship with nurturing and what nurturing truly means to me in my life. Each moment is full of different interactions between people, environments and situations. We could put this all down to being part of daily life.
I began to ask myself what happens to me in these moments (daily life) when something that I don’t like occurs, or if I react to my partner, family member, friend, colleague, a stressful situation at work, home, at the shopping centre etc.?
How do I cope with what has happened if I have had a ‘bad’ day? Continue reading “Deepening Self Nurturing – Developing Connection with Me”
by Bina Pattel, Age 51, London UK
What are hot flushes, who gets them and why?
I was out there looking for something – anything to take away what I thought was the worst thing ever, and to top it all off, they just didn’t stop.
My hot flushes have been around for about 3 years now. At first, I was convinced they would be gone in a few months; I noticed how much I reacted to them and this made it worse. Well, they are still around and how I react to them has changed for sure.
Stripping off my clothes and creating a drama got a bit boring as they were happening a lot and my laundry room was full of washing! Now I have accepted them as a part of my life. Wearing layers and never covering my neck with a scarf helps, especially on public transport.
I went to the GP who told me that HRT (hormone replacement therapy) is given in the form of a pill to suppress the hot flushes. However, once I stopped taking them, the hot flushes would come back. The GP thought there was no point as she felt I was “managing” them well. I could not understand why any woman would want to delay something like this for a later date – better out than in, I say! Continue reading “HOT HOT Flushes – Embracing Menopause”
by Bernadette, Self-employed in Community Services, Australia
Last month I attended ‘the first gathering’ in Melbourne for a group of women in the cycle of menopause. If I’m honest, I attended because I have loved being with the women who attend the women’s meetings, the sharing that occurs and the unifying experiences that remind us of our true power as women – the power of learning to truly be ourselves, connecting to our ability to be still, to really feel our bodies and to appreciate and celebrate the well of wisdom they contain.
This specific Menopausal Women’s Group I attended because it was another opportunity to have this wonderful experience again… AND I was eligible because I biologically fitted the criteria (not that that was necessary)!
What occurred was profound for me.
During the evening I was moved by all the different ways in which women experience the cycle of menopause.
There were women who were parents of very young children sitting beside a grandmother who was just learning to say no to the demands of her adult daughter. One woman told of her 70-year-old pattern of rescuing her sister that she had recently broken, whilst another woman was facing risky surgery for cancer the following week. Continue reading “Celebration of the Cycle of Menopause”
by Adrienne Ryan, BEd, Brisbane, Australia
At a recent presentation by Serge Benhayon of Universal Medicine, I came to a deeper understanding of the beauty and power of menopause.
This is the stage I am coming to next in my life cycle, where my body will say: the time of bearing and raising children, of ‘bringing life into the world’, has completed and now it is time to nurture and care for others in a different way to:
Support them to take responsibility for the quality of life they are building, knowing that this quality is what they will take with them into their next life.
It is very beautiful to be reminded that women bring life into the world and later support life to leave the world too. I don’t have children but nonetheless children have always been and still are around me in my day-to-day life. Mothering is a quality I have expressed with children and others – it is a part of how my body impulses me to relate to the world as a woman.
EVERYTHING HAS ITS STAGE IN LIFE’S CYCLES Continue reading “Menopause – Not The End Of Life As I Know It”
