Practitioner Articles
Learning to flow with your ‘heavenly water’ – menstrual cycle wellbeing by Sharon Sztar
Learning to flow with your ‘heavenly water’ – menstrual cycle wellbeing
Did you know that in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) menstrual blood is referred to as Tian Gui, translated to Heavenly Water?
I was so heart-warmed when I heard this for the first time. A little different to our western view of it often being labeled ‘the curse’.
Eastern, ancient and indigenous wisdom and practices know how to honour the feminine and her innate cycles.
A true blessing from the heavens, our menstrual blood is a symbol of the continuity of creation and life.
Yet this heavenly water is not only a key indicator of a woman’s fertility but it’s also a key indicator of a woman’s health. Quite simply, if there is a problem with your menstrual cycle, there is a good chance there is something awry with your overall wellbeing. An unhealthy woman isn’t a healthy candidate for pregnancy, so the body will do everything in its power to stop a woman from conceiving unless she is in good stead to do so.
When I got my cycle back after losing it for 2.5 years during a chronic illness, the first thing both my TCM Doctor and my GP said to me was: “Now we know you are definitely on your way to full recovery. The worst has passed”.
Yes, they both based the return of my health on the return of my cycle!
Not only that, but I discovered during this time that I could ‘manage’ my health via my cycle. With this new knowledge, my entire menstrual cycle became something that I embraced and respected like the most precious of womanly gifts.
Periods are not typically the cause of our discomfort or pain. Rather they are the channel through which other underlying health issues are communicated.
The unfortunate thing is that we live in our society that tends to dismiss our periods or recommends eradicating them through hormonal contraceptive measures. The problem is that when we do this, we also eradicate the hormones that make us uniquely women.
Periods are just one phase of our monthly cycle, which actually comes in four seasons. And in each season different hormones are released that provide us with everything from brain food, stress release, cardiovascular support, metabolism power, thyroid boost, inflammation reduction, restful sleep, mental focus, energy, stamina and more.
I like to say that we can be wonder woman, just not on the same day.
By tapping into the heightened strengths and challenges of each week of our cycle, we can actually enhance our work, health and personal life. By knowing when its best to move and when to rest; when to leverage our logical brain and when to access our intuition; when to socialise and when to focus on our inner world, we begin to work with our strengths when they are peaking and support our shadows when they are rising.
And with each season we can adapt our lifestyle, movement and food, just as we do with the daily weather.
Learning to own our cycle and flow with its seasons is one of the most important choices a woman can make in her life. I only wish I found this out earlier than I did.
If you’d like to reclaim your womb health, learn more about your divinely given gift and discover how embracing your menstrual cycle could be the missing piece in your overall wellbeing as a woman, please join me in our one-day Reconnect to your Feminine Flow workshop on Sunday, 15 March 2020.
