Over time, menstrual cycle awareness builds what we call your inner vessel, or ‘container’. It supports you to develop a healthy ego so that you feel more stable in yourself. It helps you to cultivate an attitude of inner kindness so that you can feel rested within yourself.
All of which helps you to clarify your ‘yes’ and your ‘no’, so that you can establish healthy boundaries.
And there is one particular cycle awareness boundary that is the real game changer - the menstrual rest boundary.
The magnificent benefits of setting boundaries which help you claim menstrual rest are too many to name, but one of our favourites is that you get to ‘dock in’ to yourself. Menstruation can be a deep anchoring into yourself, a vital monthly opportunity to take stock, reflect, remember and reset your compass, your true north.
You probably know all too well what happens when you’re not able to claim the rest you need.
At menstruation your boundaries are more permeable. It’s this that allows you to enter into spiritual consciousness, but if you aren’t able to retreat and protect yourself from the pressures of mundane life, you can easily end up feeling overwhelmed, irritable and invaded.
Some of the dark feelings associated with menstruation – such as high anxiety, panic attacks, depression, anger, suicidal thoughts, feeling as if you’re going crazy, acting out and a flare-up of addictions – may be a direct result of not being able to retreat when you need to.
One: Honour your premenstrual boundaries
In inner autumn, you’re likely to feel more permeable as your psychological boundaries fall away. Now is the time to strengthen your outer boundaries with the world. Not only will this help you forge through this time and capitalise on your premenstrual powers, it will also bring you into deeper connection with yourself and your needs, so that you can find new ways to claim the menstrual space you need.
Two: Find your 1%
Menstruation is your natural retreat time. All women probably yearn for it, and long for the total permission to let go of cares and worries. While we fantasise about it, we do have to say that it’s actually a necessity. Even if you only manage to give yourself 1 per cent of what you yearn for, your psyche registers it and is assuaged.
At least until the next time. By then you’ll be stronger, more determined – having tested that 1 per cent and had an entire month of tutelage in honing your power and asserting your boundaries to claim what’s rightfully yours. Just remember: all human beings need downtime. We’re lucky in that we get a monthly built-in reminder to claim it.
Three: Become more aware of your crossover days
The Inner Seasons and their boundaries are re-established through your ability to live into each one, holding or pacing yourself with each season’s imperatives. As you practice more, you’ll start to notice the ‘demarcation lines’ as you move between one season and the next; these are the crossover days.
In our Cycle Power course, you’ll be guided to explore your crossover days in depth; how to recognise your signs that you’re crossing over, and how you need to care for yourself - you can find out more and join the course here.
Your capacity to be aware of your process, and hold the tension of the different currents of energy moving through you on a monthly basis, builds the capacity for cyclical self-care throughout all phases of the cycle month, and particularly at menstruation, where the deepest magic happens.
