As you may know, we believe that there is a hidden agenda within the menstrual cycle and menopause. Over our collective fifty years of cycle awareness, we’ve witnessed how the menstrual cycle can guide us all to embody our calling, to live into our unique genius and to experience a life of meaning, of purpose.
The key to this process is menstruation, and how it slows you down, and lowers you into the deep well of your being. Like a caterpillar nestling into its cocoon before growing it’s butterfly wings, menstruation wraps us in a blanket of protection from the world, with all its shoulds, oughts, and noise, and allows us to hear the quiet voice within.
This often begins by discovering how tired you are, and how much you’ve been carrying. Ideally, as you drop in deeper, you find more inner spaciousness and you are plugged into your deep holy self.
Now, let’s be real, most of us are probably only experiencing five or ten percent of the visionary capacity of menstruation, because we’re not supported. And for many of us, it’s challenging to access the levels of safety needed to land in this otherworldy menstrual realm, perhaps due to menstrual pain, the trauma of living inside a patriarchal culture or because your identity is marginalised.
Togetherness and community with other cycle aware people can help. It's one of the reasons we created the Menstruality Leadership Programme, so that we can gather to share our stories, experiences and insights, and lay breadcrumb trails for each other home to the sanctuary of menstruation. When we gather together around the wisdom of the cycle, we create a fertile crucible for all of us to grow into lives of the deepest purpose.
Whether you feel called or are able to join us for the leadership programme or not, the spiritual power of menstruation is available to you, and we want to share some thoughts today about how to access it.
Menstruation - receive the cosmic hit
Whatever space and time you’re able to create to bleed, aim to do as little as possible. Rest, let go, and as and when the visions, knowings and ideas come, simply take dictation from the universe. Don't argue with it. Don't even think about it. And write it all down in a private journal, don't share it with anybody yet.
Clarity - your own personal coach
When you start to emerge from your menstrual sanctuary, whether it’s been an hour or a day, and head back into the mundane details and demands of your life, you’re likely to feel tender. You need to hold the line to the wisdom gifts you’ve received, even as you do the washing and answer the emails, and luckily the cycle is here to help. As I mentioned in the story above, often what happens, when your bleed is completing, is you have a moment of sudden clarity. Listen out for it, it often comes in the form of a precise instruction or next step to take, and it will be unique to you.
Track your calling through the inner seasons
Then, as you head towards your inner spring (pre-ovulatory phase), and then onwards into inner summer and inner autumn, each inner season has a particular challenge and task, to help us to fulfil the calling. The cycle guides you through the steps required to make your vision manifest in the world. We explore this in depth in our book Wild Power, and it is the backbone of the three month immersive journey we take together on the Menstruality Leadership Programme.
The forgetting…
And remember, it's normal to forget the magnitude of your menstrual visions as you make your way through the cycle month. In fact, it's necessary. Negotiating being in the world, and getting on and doing stuff is also part of nourishing and enlivening your calling. And beautifully, your mind doesn't have to remember the big ideas and visions you receive. It doesn't have to hold them, because your cycle is holding them with you and for you, and your next menstruation will offer you your next opportunity to dock in and discover your next steps.
It’s such an intelligent, complete system. And all you need to do is keep showing up each day with you menstrual cycle awareness practice. If you're feeling inspired to commit more deeply to your cycle as your personal coach in living your calling, your first step is Cycle Power.
