The rhetoric about leaving your marriage is so prevalent and so casual that anyone can feel it’s a viable option.
And, it is.
As a mom, there have been periods of time when I have not felt like I can parent the way I wished to.
If I was constantly reading and bombarded with messages about how I knew it was time to leave my kids but I was just feeling afraid to, it would seem like a normal thing to do and we would potentially see a rise in people doing that, as we do in witnessing the dissolving of marriages, not just in tough times, but in bored ones, as well as in pockets of uncertainty.
Instead we are given tools to tend to the nuances of parenting, so that despite its challenges, we are committed to the potential of joy it has to bring.
This is not a debate about staying or leaving your relationship, or even about the inevitable challenges of parenting.
It’s about being mindful of external influences, your personal tendencies and having vigilant awareness of when you may be at the intersection of vulnerable and impressionable, during certain phases of your 28 day cycle, as a woman.
This context and understanding can literally change how we relate in the world. Empowering us to be authentic and aligned, attentive and compassionate to ourselves, in a way we may have never been taught before.
I struggle with disordered, obsessive, compulsive thinking, during my late luteal and menstrual phase.
I ruminate over the potential doom and gloom of an important situation and I circle the drain with zero solution capability, just paralyzing worry.
It can and has been centred around:
Parenting
Relationship
Vocation
Racism
Prior to mapping my cycle and understanding the inner and outer phases as natural, I would be overcome with a desire (or more accurately, an overwhelming compulsion) to RUN, when faced with being hijacked by an entity that consumed my thoughts and behaviour.
I would be that woman deeply provoked by outside messages.
Who although was deeply contented and felt valued in their marriage, would feel an uncanny amount of doubt.
Before consciously navigating my rhythm and cycles, I would mistake this as an intuitive warning, that something must be wrong.
I could be taken down similarly about world issues that I could not control, that all of a sudden felt as though they had complete control over me.
Where before I felt motivated to take a particular course of action, I was instead replaced by feelings of wanting to retreat in crippling fear.
In parenting where I would feel capable, I would all of a sudden feel defeated and ladled with uncertainty.
Prior to inner child work, I neglected to sit with my uncomfortable feelings and rather dismissed them and charged on.
I would recommend to any client I’m working with, track your cycle and know which phase you’re in before making any major life decisions.
The urge and pull of late luteal and menstrual, for example, is potent, convincing and destructive.
It’s best to integrate and bring these feelings into balance before moving.
If you’re reading this and disagree and feel like you make your best decisions in the liminal phase, I’d love to hear from you! Women are brilliant and powerful and intuitive and I trust the experience of every single one.
I too navigated life and relationships without this understanding for many many years, until the cost was too high and I became devoted to having a deeper understanding. From there, this woman emerged.
The woman who knows she waivers in trusting herself and feels at the mercy of a powerful energy that doesn’t seem her own, one that clouds her judgment rather than clears it. An energy that she is waiting to pass, so that she can feel like “herself” again.
The woman who believes that God doesn’t play dice with the Universe, and so if hormones come in there must be purpose for it. Not just an unfriendly visitor that comes in every 28 days that one must avoid direct eye contact with at all costs.
The woman looking to extract the meaning and significance from this phase by examining what still needs to be healed, what she has been tolerating, where communication is needed and/ or boundaries implemented.
The women who resources the great dark period as a teacher, here to help her rise from an illusion. To fear death no longer as she has moved through it and been tossed around by it until she learned to dance with it, and integrate it as part of life.
This woman wants to navigate the wholeness of the experience of being alive, avoiding none of it. This is the call from her brave heart, giving true meaning, significance and embodiment to the word, brave.
I’ve come to recognize, we are all this woman. On varying different stages of our journey but united in this nature all the same.
I love you
I’m here with you.
You’re brave,
Brave Heart.
x.
