In my early twenties when I began my first real relationship, like many of us, I decided to go on to contraception. It was the nineties, and it was just what you did, and it was the responsible thing to do. And I had zero cycle awareness education aside from some basic biology at school, so I was really innocent about it all. I went on the contraceptive injection, which totally shut down menstrual cycle.
I’d always been very bold, active and sporty. I felt fearless actually, which is why I set off hitchhiking around the Middle East on my own, sleeping rough, and having all kinds of adventures. I felt invincible and invulnerable.
I went on to live and work in London as a graphic designer, and although I was very productive, active and creative, all my energy was devoted to ‘doing’, and my inner life was a desert; very little self-care, scant self-reflection, and no intimacy with myself. I couldn't feel myself. I really couldn't feel very much at all.
I remember being dogged by the question: what am I for? What's my purpose? What have I got to give or bring? It really plagued me, but I was so disconnected that the question awoke a painful sense of lostness.
And then my body called me home. The body always finds a way - often through disease and disruption - to bring us back to ourselves. The way it showed up for me was with a sudden, unbelievable, chilling pain that I started to experience after orgasm. Right after that rush of pleasure my body would go cold and my womb would spasm and cramp, to the extent that I'd often find myself on the bathroom floor feeling like I was going to be sick.
Now, as I’ve been sharing on the Menstruality podcast a lot lately, I am a very sexual human, so I couldn’t ignore this pain for long. It continued to call to me, working my psyche until I had the sudden, clear insight that the pain was connected to the contraception. Something in my system was blocked, disturbed and needed to flow freely.
I needed to get my menstrual cycle back.
I was seven years older now, and wiser to the alternative options to contraception. I also did several things to help my body recover from the toxic load, to clear the contraception out of my system, and begin the process of repair. And when my cycle finally returned, I bled and bled and bled, as if my blood was a river rewilding the desert of the previous seven years.
And with the river of blood, my inner life also flooded back in, and initially it was quite shocking. I discovered how sensitive I truely was, I began to feel things and be deeply impacted by my environment, my relationship, and the world around me.
My dear friend and mentor Maggie who was twenty years wiser had previously said to me, "You know Sjanie, it's like you're playing the instrument of life with gloves on." And I actually didn't know what she meant at the time. But boy, when the gloves came off, I got it, and my life transformed.
I ended the seven-year relationship that I'd been in during the years I was on contraception and started living on my own for the first time. I fully devoted myself to my new career as a hypnotherapist and psychotherapist and began lecturing at the London College of Clinical Hypnosis, leaning strongly on my newly awakened gifts of sensing and sensitivity that returned with my cycle.
It was like my life burst into technicolour, and new visionary faculties also came alive for me. My previously dormant mystical, intuitive side came online and I started having visions, receiving unquestionable signposts, and experiencing synchronicity after synchronicity - including meeting the amazing Alexandra Pope, which led to the creation of Red School, where I stepped fully into my calling of teaching and sharing Menstruality.
So, my cycle returning took me on a wild, and deeply fulfilling journey from invincibility to an exquisite, vibrant, tender place of vulnerability, permeability, and sensitivity, which has become the ground of my leadership.
We each have our own unique pathway, into the leadership that our cycle is calling us home to. Perhaps you might like to reflect on yours? In what ways has your menstrual cycle awakened new capacities in you, called you home to yourself or shown you what you are here for?
And if you'd like to step into the next level of apprenticeship to the wisdom and power of your cycle, come and explore our Menstruality Leadership Programme. We would love you to join this adventure of a lifetime with us.
