Let’s Talk About Our Period 🩸

Taking the "menace" out of menstruation (or something like that) and also adding a very specific and uncomfortable (for you) call to action.

Okay, I only have a couple of male subscribers, so I figure they can just scroll right past this one if it makes them uncomfortable. It’s called “knowing your audience,” sweetie!

We’re talking about our period today and if you are a woman who bleeds and this topic makes you uncomfortable - then all the more reason to talk about it, right?

I shared a little bit about my first-period experience in my Inner Child newsletter the other week and how my relationship with my period has always centered around embarrassment. My first period EMBARRASSED the hell out of me because I got it in an uncomfortable situation and I also got it before my friends. My childhood was riddled with embarrassment and being the first of my friends to get my bleed around age 12 made me feel worse about myself than I already did.

I also was never really taught about it.

My mom handed me the American Girl book, ‘The Care and Keeping of You: The Body Book for Girls,’ and was basically like, “Let me know if you have any questions.”

Of course, I had questions!! I had so many questions?! But I was scared to ask them because my relationship with my mom was not one where you just sit around and talk about pubic hair and vaginal bleeding. It never was.

So I wasn’t prepared for my first bleed and it was, quite frankly, traumatic.

The experience set the tone for future bleeds.

I always associated my period with trauma.

I learned to hate it.

Whenever I got on birth control, I would take the next month’s pills right away or keep my Nuva Ring in for extra days so I could skip my period for the month. The thought of using pads or free bleeding disgusted me. I wanted to plug it up as best I could and avoid it altogether.

Not only I was repulsed by the flow, but I also used to get extremely painful cramps that would lead to nausea and multiple trips to the nurse's office in school.

I hated my period. My period was trauma.

At age 31, when I started working with my Holistic Life Coach, she asked if I’d be interested in doing a session with a Menstruation Coach.

I thought it was the strangest thing at first, but when I signed on to work with my coach I was in such a place of hopelessness about my life that I remember being like, “Anything is better than how I’m feeling, I’ll try anything.” And so I kept that same attitude about meeting the menstruation coach.

Our session moved me to tears. She had me recall my first period which I brought up part of my experience in this post here, but essentially, I had felt really scared. When meeting my preteen self at that moment, my current self felt so much love for her. I commended her on how she handled the situation, and how brave she was to finally ask for help - it is HARD to ask for help.

And then I started to make peace with my period.

In order to do that, I had to understand my cycle and everything happening inside my body at that time.

For the next year or two, I paid attention to every craving, every desire, every cramp, every change in my skin and hair, and every feeling. I started to gain a fondness for my womb as I uncovered each phase of my cycle.

I am familiar with how each phase feels in my body now.

I love my follicular phase because I wake up the day after my period ends feeling fresh and new. I love the first part of my ovulatory phase because I’m eager and active and oh-so-feminine and sensual.

But I learned that my womb grieves during the end of my ovulation into my luteal phase.

As my energy decreases, my womb mourns that I have yet to be inducted into motherhood. As it begins to eliminate an unfertilized egg and shed its lining, I can’t help but feel a bit of remorse.

When I enter my bleed, *I* get sad, too. Another reminder that I am not a mother, a desire I’ve had since I was a little girl.

But it’s okay because instead of hating that bleed, I lean into whatever emotions come to arise.

Sometimes it’s grief and sometimes it’s frustration that I have to slow down. But I know it’s time to slow down.

I’ve started to take baths during my bleed.

I self-pleasure during my bleed.

I free-bleed into period underwear, and I can feel my body thanking me for letting it breathe.

My teenage me would be absolutely shocked that I live life this way.

I do still get cramps some bleeds (and some I really don’t) but nowhere near the nausea-inducing cramps of my youth.

I don’t really go out or drink alcohol when I’m on my period because I embrace the much-craved rest.

Most people DON’T understand it.

But some do.

I sat in my first “red tent” ceremony the other night in my Divine Feminine Mystery cohort. We talked about ancient times and how women would sync with other women in their tribes and would gather in a tent during their bleed. Their bleed in this shared container allowed them to tap into their intuition together and allowed them to explore their clair senses.

It’s how they instructed men to hunt and gather because they were so open and in tune with each other and their consciousness.

During our red tent, we all shared our relationship with our bleed and I left feeling so whole and so grateful to get to talk about this topic with other women. I felt heard and supported by my sisters.

I also realized that what was keeping me from loving my period was being able to talk about it openly and realizing how it bonds us in such a divine way.

I woke up the next morning so joyful, I actually wished I was still bleeding so I could love it a little bit longer.

It is important to talk about your period with your sisters. Connecting with your bleed and making peace with it is not weird or gross, it is an act of radical self-love and acceptance.

So let’s talk about our periods.

I encourage you to drop me a comment or, if you’d like to remain anonymous to others, sneak in my IG DMs and tell me what thoughts come up around your bleed.

Seriously.

Message me about your period.

Give me the messy details - “It’s clumpy,” “My flow is too heavy,” “I hate how long it is,” “I am afraid I’ll bleed through my pants.” I want to hear it because I want you to feel like you have a safe and loving space to talk about this.

This is how we heal. Together.

All my love,

Adele