How do you cycle? And in this case I’m not referring to riding a bicycle!
Women truly are a wonder of nature. By design, you are powerful beyond measure. You carry in yourself these amazing organs, fueled by naturally occurring chemicals called hormones that when released in appropriate amounts, in a cyclical fashion, allow us the opportunity each month to create another human being, should any sperm be fortunate enough to be allowed entry.
Your Anatomy and Your Cycle
By virtue of these specialized organs and governing hormones, your body transform to grow and carry a child for roughly 40 weeks. And once baby is ready some ninish months later, your body gathers its force to deliver a human being through a rather tiny canal. Then as if your body hasn’t been amazing enough, your hormones collaborate to produce milk, full of immune boosting nutrients and all that is needed for your babies to grow and flourish!
How many of you in your pre-pubescent/pubescent years were told how amazing and powerful your bodies are? How many of you were educated in a way that celebrated your cyclical nature and invited to embrace it, heeding the ebb and flow(pun intended) using it to your advantage?
In the 12 years of practicing in women’s health, I would not be exaggerating when I say the majority of my patients
Sadly, it has been normalized this hate relationship with your cycles. This includes normalizing
The Conversation With Your Mother
Women truly are a wonder of nature. By design, you are powerful beyond measure. You carry in yourself these amazing organs, fueled by naturally occurring chemicals called hormones that when released in appropriate amounts, in a cyclical fashion, allow us the opportunity each month to create another human being, should any sperm be fortunate enough to be allowed entry.
Your Anatomy and Your Cycle
By virtue of these specialized organs and governing hormones, your body transform to grow and carry a child for roughly 40 weeks. And once baby is ready some ninish months later, your body gathers its force to deliver a human being through a rather tiny canal. Then as if your body hasn’t been amazing enough, your hormones collaborate to produce milk, full of immune boosting nutrients and all that is needed for your babies to grow and flourish!
How many of you in your pre-pubescent/pubescent years were told how amazing and powerful your bodies are? How many of you were educated in a way that celebrated your cyclical nature and invited to embrace it, heeding the ebb and flow(pun intended) using it to your advantage?
In the 12 years of practicing in women’s health, I would not be exaggerating when I say the majority of my patients
- loathe their cycle
- They dread their periods (many for good reason-a topic for another day)
- they do not understand their cycles or know about the significance of certain signs and symptoms.
- Quite often, they are not familiar with their anatomy or how it works or how it is not working optimally.
Sadly, it has been normalized this hate relationship with your cycles. This includes normalizing
- pain,
- discomfort and
- illness related to female anatomy and our periods.
The Conversation With Your Mother
Our mothers, grandmothers, great grandmothers and their mothers, generations of women have been consciously or unconsciously, programmed to hate their bodies.
My own mom, God bless her, she did her best. She had to figure her body out with little to no guidance. And that was back when Dr. Google was yet thirty years away and not many books were available for women to learn about their bodies.
This is not to mention the fact that inquiring about such things would have likely been met with scandalous disapproval.
So when it came to telling her first born child, yours truly, about her period it wasn’t with a spirit of celebration I can assure you.
Rather it was with an almost heavy heart that she asked if I knew what a period was. I quickly answered yes as her sullened face informed me this would not be a comfortable or fun conversation.
What We Hear and Feel About Our Cycle
And so I too, thought of my cycle as a burden long before it arrived. It’s not an easy belief to change. In fact, I have been hard pressed to meet anyone including health care professionals, specialists, other women, older or younger, who have a positive, healthy appreciation for women’s cyclical nature. I have never met (I hope that changes) who lives in celebration of her cycle or her body for that matter.
This perspective is perhaps difficult to achieve or sustain. What with all we still do not fully understand, the intricacies and complexities are often daunting rather than amazing. Many of us have unpleasant side effects related to our cycles.
Let's Create Change!
Let us be the generation of women who refuse to accept that we are anything less than amazing humans with untapped potential.
Let us strive for greater understanding and embrace our cycles.
Let us not accept or normalize pain or illness related to our periods but rather see those negative and burdensome side effects as a beckoning to care for ourselves.
Questions??
Our cycles can be complicated but I want to help make them feel less tricky. Do you have questions about pelvic health? Give me a call and I would be happy to guide you through any questions you may have! We can have a virtual coffee while figuring out a few out the mysteries of our cycles!
My own mom, God bless her, she did her best. She had to figure her body out with little to no guidance. And that was back when Dr. Google was yet thirty years away and not many books were available for women to learn about their bodies.
This is not to mention the fact that inquiring about such things would have likely been met with scandalous disapproval.
So when it came to telling her first born child, yours truly, about her period it wasn’t with a spirit of celebration I can assure you.
Rather it was with an almost heavy heart that she asked if I knew what a period was. I quickly answered yes as her sullened face informed me this would not be a comfortable or fun conversation.
What We Hear and Feel About Our Cycle
And so I too, thought of my cycle as a burden long before it arrived. It’s not an easy belief to change. In fact, I have been hard pressed to meet anyone including health care professionals, specialists, other women, older or younger, who have a positive, healthy appreciation for women’s cyclical nature. I have never met (I hope that changes) who lives in celebration of her cycle or her body for that matter.
This perspective is perhaps difficult to achieve or sustain. What with all we still do not fully understand, the intricacies and complexities are often daunting rather than amazing. Many of us have unpleasant side effects related to our cycles.
Let's Create Change!
Let us be the generation of women who refuse to accept that we are anything less than amazing humans with untapped potential.
Let us strive for greater understanding and embrace our cycles.
Let us not accept or normalize pain or illness related to our periods but rather see those negative and burdensome side effects as a beckoning to care for ourselves.
Questions??
Our cycles can be complicated but I want to help make them feel less tricky. Do you have questions about pelvic health? Give me a call and I would be happy to guide you through any questions you may have! We can have a virtual coffee while figuring out a few out the mysteries of our cycles!
~ Lisa Lepage, Physiotherapist
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