by Bianca Barban, Melbourne, Australia
At an Esoteric Women’s Group presentation earlier this month, the women of Melbourne were graced by a presentation on Women’s Health given by Sara Harris, Serryn O’Regan, Nina Stabey and Mary-Louise Myers. Each spoke with a strength and wisdom that was both very inspiring and deeply supportive, offering a reflection on how to take honouring ourselves to a deeper level. Continue reading “The Awesome Foursome present in Melbourne”
by Priscila, 35yrs, UK
I never paid much attention or given much importance to my little finger (or any of my fingers), not until something affected them would I notice.
Have you ever had a finger cut from a sheet of paper? Yes, a sheet of paper! I didn’t know how sharp a sheet of paper could be until I cut myself with one by accident… or should I say by perhaps being distracted with multi-tasking?! And then you have to use your hands for cooking, writing, dressing yourself, having a shower etc. and realise how it affects your activities and how much you miss your little finger (and it hurts too!). Until that moment I had no idea I had a little finger! And more so, that a finger could actually ‘speak’!!!! How our body talks to us is amazing. Continue reading “Body Talk – I Love the Way my Ovaries, Absent Periods and Fingers all Speak to Me!”
by Lee Green, Business Owner, Perth
Until recently there has been a game played the world over that men and periods are two very separate things. Until recently I subscribed to the same belief – men and periods did not exist. Periods were a women’s subject.
In my life as a man I had always seen one long pathway that never had a stop sign on it. I was always trudging through life with no vitality, no love of me or the life I was living. Along the way I found things to use and numb me from this drudgery, but for all the immediate relief there was still the heaviness rooting me almost to the spot.
Anonymous, UK
I want to share an aspect of the journey I have been on with my periods and my relationship with them. There are many chapters to the story of where I now stand as a woman and I will cover those in later blogs.
I have had my periods for a few years now, so not very long. In the years before getting my first period I felt an enormous pressure to have a period. I remember most of the pressure wasn’t spoken and it mainly came from myself, but there was one girl who openly told me that at the age of 12/13 not having my periods was weird, and that there was something wrong with me.
Looking back I know without a doubt that this was utter rubbish. I remember very well the difficulty of going through puberty in high school/middle school, and that it was at this time that most girls’ body issues began. Continue reading “My Teenage Years – Discovering What are Periods Really About”
by Rosie Bason, Mullumbimby, NSW
Attending a Women’s Group meeting
Recently I attended a women’s group and it was so supportive in so many ways. One of the things I have come away with and really put into practice is the use of Our Cycles – Period and Full Moon Diary App.
My observations from the meeting
I downloaded the Our Cycles App when it first came out and I had been using it every now and then… when I gave myself the permission and time to write things into it. It’s such a great App; the problem was I didn’t really feel that I was great enough to give myself the time each day to jot things down.
Women at the meeting shared how they used it – or their lack of use – and it really exposed my own. Since then I have been enjoying taking the time for me, to write down how my day was, and with all the different options for moods and feelings I have become aware of how awesome I feel most of the time… instead of heavy, sad, needy or such.
Ahhh….. the day before my period! Continue reading “Our Cycles – Period and Full Moon Diary App – Celebrating My Period”
by Leonne
During my last cycle I had a very painful and heavy period. Thankfully, the most painful day of this period fell on a weekend and I did not have to work. Over the last year, I have been tracking my period using the OurCycles period diary app. Prior to this I had taken a contraceptive pill for 12 years to control a skin condition, so consequently I was very out of touch with my body’s natural rhythm (See my Blog: Acne, My Skin, My Diet and Me). As I have tracked my period I have found that when I have an intense month prior to my period, it is often more painful and heavier. Many things had come up for me in the month prior to my painful period, so I understood that my body was telling me something.
On the Saturday morning when I woke in pain, I was gentle and loving with myself.
Usually this course of action would make me feel better, however the pain seemed to intensify the more I ‘rested’. Continue reading “Painful Periods – Nurturing Doesn’t Always mean Horizontal!”
by Shevon Simon, London, UK
There has been extraordinary change in my body in that my periods HAVE (NOW) RETURNED after some time of absence….
I never thought of myself as a person with difficulties with their period. Yes there was pain, but doesn’t everyone experience pain? And I’ve only in recent months contemplated that experiencing such excruciating pain during my periods could be my body telling me that I was out of sync with the way I was choosing to live and be with myself. An extraordinary concept for me!
I began having my periods around age 11. I was still in primary school and was geared up and excited to have them. My Mum openly had pads and tampons in the house and as she mostly wore pads, I knew this was what I would wear when my periods began. I was so excited to have my period as I could feel my body preparing for it to come, and two of my friends had already started theirs. I wanted to be one of the first so I didn’t get left behind – I was already running the race of competition! My periods began during the Easter break whilst at my grandma’s, but what a shock I received…. Continue reading “Inspiration – My Periods have Returned through Returning to the Real Me; Joy!”
by JK, UK
I am a woman who has been a women’s health statistic – I had endometriosis for over three decades, which I found was an extremely painful and debilitating condition.
I recently re-visited some statistics on endometriosis and found that approximately 176 million women and girls worldwide suffer from endometriosis; 8.5 million in North America and 2 million in the UK and rising. ‘Endometriosis; the presence of tissue, histologically similar to endometrium outside the uterine cavity and the myometrium, is one of the most common gynaecological conditions in women of reproductive age, but it remains one of the most complicated and baffling’ (Rizk & Abdulla, 2003). I too had found the condition baffling…
I started my periods at age 11 in my first few weeks of starting senior school. I knew something didn’t feel right within my body not long after I started my periods, given the amount of pain and discomfort I had each month at the time of my period. I found it debilitating and sometimes had time off school (or work), lying on my bed with a hot water bottle and taking painkillers. My tummy was sore, my breasts were sore and my period cramps were extremely painful; with often no painkillers touching the pain, to the point that on a couple of occasions I went to A&E even in the middle of the night, desperate for some pain relief. I would sometimes nearly pass out with the pain. I remember walking home from school one day and having to lie down on the pavement as I was in so much pain I couldn’t walk. I would have hot sweats and feel nauseous from the pain as well as having thick clotty lumpy dark brown period blood. I would get bowel pain at the same time, diarrhoea and lower back or right hip pain. I knew some of my friends had painful periods but they didn’t seem to have the other symptoms, and often for them a painkiller would do the trick. Continue reading “Endometriosis – Experiences and Observations on Women’s Health – Part 1”
by Anonymous
I’m going to talk about the horrors of my period, what I have been through and how over the years I have been able to change it according to how I live on a daily basis.
At first I didn’t have the same dreadful pain that my other friends had. I was really happy to have my period but as the years went on the symptoms started to really kick in. I didn’t get any of those hormonal periods where you shout and groan about the pain. I remember that as the pain got more and more intense there was still a level of enjoyment of it, even though it was strong.
I felt I understood the nature of its process as I began to observe each aspect of my period. (blood clotting, different colours that the blood came out as, I was also interested in the fact that a woman had to lose a lot of blood each month coming out of her own vagina). It helped me give attention to my body and also respect it by looking after it with a pad. I thought I was too young to use a tampon and I remember seeing what it had looked like in a movie called ‘She’s the Man’ where the main character pretends to be a boy and gets caught using a tampon and then sticks it up her nose, I found that quite funny and disgusting at the same time. The characters were playing around with this thing that you stick up yourself, which put me off a bit. It’s quite nasty the things you can do with a tampon.
Before I had started my period we had a class at school about how to use one and the health rules about applying a pad every three or two hours. It was a whole other responsibility to take other than just doing daily tasks like homework or the chores. It felt like a period of growing up. Continue reading “Time to Change My Period”
by Jennene, Brisbane
Being connected to my period cycle is something that has always been very normal for me. I grew up with a mother who encouraged me to be connected to my monthly cycle – and not to interfere with it in any way. She encouraged me to question why ‘The Pill’ was something that was so easily handed out to women without the understanding of the long term effects this would have on women’s bodies. It was a great foundation to have – and I am deeply appreciative of this.
So for the last 30 years of menstruating I stayed comfortable in this awareness of my cycle without really going any deeper than that. Whilst attending a recent Esoteric Developers Women’s Group (EDWG) meeting something amazing revealed itself to me; that is, I could feel how important it is for this awareness to be built upon, and not just be a laurel on which to rest. Continue reading “Understanding Me through My Period and Our Cycles App”
