Cycle Awareness isn’t another thing to do — it’s a way of being. When you practice each day, even for just a few moments, it starts to change everything. From feeling less overwhelmed, to trusting your body’s timing to cultivating the creative authority that grows from living in rhythm, it is life-changing.
But in a world that denies our cyclical nature, your cycle awareness practice isn’t going to be celebrated.
(Apart from here! Our hope is that when you read our article each week, you remember that you’re not alone — you’re part of a global community restoring this cyclical intelligence to our world.)
Since our world is so linear, we wanted to share some reminders for why prioritising your cycle awareness practice is vital.
It naturally regulates your nervous system (and prevents burnout)
Cycle awareness attunes you to your unique nervous system and how to care for it through the menstrual month – it’s a stress‐reduction practice. Awareness of your cycle also amplifies your needs on any given day and creates the context and permission for tending to those needs: this self‐care strengthens your health. If you allow yourself to follow the inner promptings of your menstrual cycle, you’ll notice a retreat‐rest‐and‐repair moment (menstruation – your inner winter), to pause, rest and reset every month, preventing fatigue and burnout.
It prepares you for life’s greatest challenges
In the tough moments of life: bereavement, illness, relationship breakdown or other forms of loss, we need serious emotional muscle to hold ourselves. You can think of cycle awareness as an inner gym, cultivating resilience and strength for life’s emotional marathons. Cycle awareness makes you smart about who you are (and who you’re not). By paying attention to the big feelings and thoughts that happen premenstrually and learning to meet them you build emotional resilience. And your fidelity to your cycle process throughout the cycle month, organically strengthen your personal boundaries, which is helpful for all initiations, but especially the big M…
It holds you in your 40s and prepares you for menopause
Getting fit for menopause is about getting as physically strong and vital as you can. It’s also the ability to root down into yourself ever more fiercely, strongly and above all kindly and tenderly, in all aspects of your being. To know and care for your needs and validate yourself.
The art and practice of menstrual cycle awareness is the alpha and omega for helping you to do this. It gives you the ‘container’ for developing the self- awareness and self‐acceptance that will be a sure, sturdy line to hold on to as you navigate menopause. If you can arrive at the doorway of menopause prepared, you’ll be well equipped to meet the challenges without abandoning yourself.
You can experience the greatest sense of connection available to us humans
When you stay close to your cycle, you can experience the time just before menstruation as a gateway to a sense of profound belonging with life itself. When you’re paying attention, menstruation invites you go through a ‘death and rebirth’ in which you learn how to let go and allow yourself to be exposed to a world beyond your ego‐encapsulated self.
We call this “The Void” where your psyche steps out of ‘normal life’ into an interior vastness. To the ego this is a great nothingness (in other words, death) and is ‘not good’. To the deep, eternal part of you it’s the spiritual dimension that’s behind all that we see and do – the dimension that unites us – and an opportunity to experience a state of Oneness.
If your curious to learn more about cycle awareness, find your copy of Wild Power here >>
