Unlock your potential by connecting with your hormones
Most women are well aware of challenging moments with hormones. From first menstruation to the monthly hormonal changes, hormonal surges at pregnancy and then the dreaded menopause. In fact, in our society it has become the norm to expect and experience pain, mood swings, irritability, bloating and a number or other tortuous states of being with hormonal imbalances. Yet it does beg the question, ‘Does it really have to be like this?’
With the advent of my own personal hormonal challenges and menstrual pain, alongside witnessing other women’s challenges in my Kinesiology practice over the past 20 years, I have made enquiries into the truth about our hormones. Many women can probably relate to feeling the need to strive to harmonise with the highly productive, technologically and intellectually driven world we live in now. I have felt it too. There is always more work to be done, housework, office work, keeping up with emails, phone messages, social media messages and whatever other method people are choosing to contact you. We can take on high expectations as women to be a good mother, wife, daughter, friend, colleague, teacher, businesswoman or any number of other roles in life. It is all a perfect distraction form the earthy, cycles of mother nature and our own innate body wisdom. While the corporate and commercial world calls on us to take on masculine ways of being in this world, we miss out on connecting to our feminine ways, our hormonal cycles and ups and downs. I’m not saying that the masculine is wrong or bad, I’m just saying that there has been a loss of balance. While our focus is on the external world of productivity, commercialism, violence, threat and toxicity, we can miss the opportunity to experience our visceral, intuitive, highly sensory self, which has a guiding wisdom to give us a sense of dynamic ease in life.
Let’s consider the endocrine system, our body’s internal communication system which regulates our hormones (chemical messengers). When this system is in balance, all of our body functions are appropriately informed and supported. And as we know, hormones regulate the monthly cycles. They also regulate our digestive functions, metabolism, mood and a whole host of other bodily functions. Becoming attuned to your body’s natural functions and cycles can be a very nourishing process. To hear and honour your own internal communication systems through awareness to sensations and feelings in the body sets you up for strong physical foundations and an intimate relationship with yourself. What we are experiencing internally is quite often mirrored in what we experience externally. Therefore, when that feeling of “I wish people would listen to me” arises, it can be a beautiful guidance system to listen and honour yourself some more. Then hopefully others will come to that party with you too!
Let’s look at the first significant hormonal experience menarche, the first menstrual cycle. In some cultures some women are celebrated at this time and don’t have the negative associations with menstruation that many women in our culture have. Imagine if this one simple change was made in the lives of women, where menstruation was seen as a natural gift and a sacred process, attaching a sense of joy with the experience, rather than disdain or inconvenience. This in itself could make a profound difference to a woman’s life and encourage a relationship of deep intimacy and love with the self and this amazing body that carries us through life. After all, a considerable portion of a woman’s life is involved in menstrual bleeding when you add it all up.
It can be difficult to feel connected with all of life and with others when there is a gnawing distraction of pain and isolation that can come with pre-menstrual and menstrual moments. Yet positive feelings and experiences are also possible at this time in your cycle. There has been times in my life when I felt very much in balance in myself and my menstrual cycle was a beautiful experience. It can be a highly sensual, and powerfully intuitive time for me when I am in good health in myself. There has been times in our history when women would take time out to menstruate together, rest the body and connect with each other and with the gifts and wisdom that nature offers. I have started this practice for myself to a degree and find that it helps me to experience more joy at this time and I tend to then have more energy throughout the whole month.
A friend of mine has her husband cook the meals and support her with the children in the first 3 days of her cycle. My practice has been to take on less work and take more time out to do activities that nurture me, such as walking in nature and taking long hot baths. I am a fan of creating in the kitchen and like to bake beautiful things for myself and my husband at this time. Sometimes it is difficult for me to be exactly on schedule with taking days off for my cycle as it is not as regular as it use to be, however, all aspects of me seem to be well trained for this practice now and usually my cycle will wait until I have days off before it hits the heavies, so to speak.
We don’t hear many positive stories around menopause or see a woman being acknowledged for her transition into eldership. I am lucky to have met some women who have experienced a smooth menopausal transition and have asked them about what the secret is. One woman I know is an open hearted woman who has always advocated for tuning into what feels right. She is a beautiful living example of woman’s wisdom in the way that she intuitively honours her body and her emotions. Another woman I know swears by detoxifying the body and nurturing the body with good nutrition. A dietitian I once spoke to, believed that menopause was the time when you addressed your buried emotions and that menopausal symptoms were the result of the energy of these emotions rising up and releasing from the body. A journalist I followed wrote about how menopause was an initiation into honouring the self. She painted it as a time when you relinquish taking care of others because you become so outraged about the rest of the family not taking responsibility for themselves and therefore refuse to continue investing your energy in making their appointments and organising them.
I love all of these frames of reference, yet the question is - what do you want to make of your hormonal experiences? We have these amazing lives to live and celebrate, and our choice in relation to how we do that can make all the difference when it comes to having happy and healthy experiences. If everything in life is simply energy, this gives us an empowered perspective because energy cannot be destroyed, it can only be transformed from one state to another. Can we train those negative thought waves to intuitive frequency waves? Can we change those body pains to a communication for a need to be met? Can we change our erupting emotions of fuming fire and watery sadness to an expression that honours the natural cycles of giving and receiving, birthing and dying?
I have developed a checklist for hormonal health for you to get some feedback for how you are traveling in this arena and how you can support yourself. It often appears to be a secret as to what women experience and as to what is happening in these mysterious bodies. Yet when we bring these secrets into the open and explore them, they can create treasure filled adventures. Our innate sensual being is something divine when we allow it to be expressed and heard.
You can request my Hormonal Checklist and Support Tips by emailing Simone at info@soulnurturing.com.au