How Mindful Menstruation Transformed My Relationship

If you have a menstrual cycle you have an inner compass.

Isn’t that amazing?

Your cycle offers you unique ways to connect with your body on a physical, emotional, and energetic, perhaps even spiritual level.

During the month, small changes are happening within your body and through menstrual cycle awareness (MCA), you can become more aware of these changes and how they alter what it is that you need.

For example, I know that around day 18-20 I am often much less likely to put up with anything that isn’t my truth, that doesn’t feel in integrity for me. I feel called to ‘take up space’ around this time and am more opinionated. My patience is lower around this time and I need more sleep and to eat well.

If I am able to listen, acknowledge and honour this then this can be used to my advantage.

However, If I don’t allow myself the time to move through this stage in the way I need to then I feel extremely irritable and snappy- cue arguments with my husband, and my kids meet “stressed out mummy’.

Since practicing MCA, my husband has become really attuned to my cycle. In fact, he will often offer up new information to me about my cycle from his outside perspective which can be so interesting.

If I’ve been busy, distracted, and am missing the signs that I’m in a different stage of my cycle he will sometimes remind me if I then burst out crying or start a frustrated rant about the shop not having the right type of lettuce!

Both of us having this awareness has been transformative.

It enables me to effectively communicate my needs because he understands them now. He knows why one week I’m saying one thing and the next I’m in a completely different headspace.

Better still, because I’m self-employed, I’m able to plan my work and my life around my cycle in a way that gives me ultimate freedom. When I’m bleeding I take the time to rest even though I no longer have debilitating cramps that I once did and feel just a little achy.

He knows I need more sleep at this time so we work together to make sure that happens.

I feel zero guilt when I rest during my bleed (or any other time) because I am in acceptance of that being what I need and I know that if I honour that then I’m in the best place to show up and serve my family later on. We both recognize the importance of modelling this honouring the cycle to our children.

We have 2 daughters who are almost 12 and almost 10 and a little boy who is 4. I believe that the cyclical blueprint has been subconsciously set already from seeing their mother and father’s relationship with cyclical living.

Our son will see how it is to live with women who are in harmony with their cycles and know how to harness the power of menstruation and our daughters will enter menstruation with a more positive and significant relationship to their cycles.

So if you’ve been practicing menstrual cycle awareness I urge you to get your partner involved, share with them what you’ve learned about yourself in relation to your cycle, ask them what they notice, and communicate your needs. Help them to understand that it isn’t going to be the same every single month even though there may well be general patterns.

Encourage your partner to get to know a little about their own cycle and how it differs from yours. If you have a cis male partner he will have a 24-hour cycle which will affect energy levels and emotions over the day.

I would absolutely love to hear from you about how MCA affects your relationships