Cycle Synching
I think we have to be really careful to not turn something intuitive and body based into a commodity, and into something that is meant to purely serve and work for us.
Many cycle syncing books talk in terms of optimizing your work life, crushing that board room presentation, and being more productive, creative, and dynamic, mostly in terms of relating to the outside world in a better way. Most messages are geared towards telling women we can be super successful in spite of having a menstrual cycle- is that in question?- that it can work for us and our social, work, and exercise agendas. What I have read tends more towards making it a more sanitary sparkly one size fits all object. The more I think about it the more it feels like projecting capitalism onto our monthly cycles so they can sell. And this is coming from women in the field. Weird.
Cycle syncing, just like the menstrual cycle is not one formula for all women. Just like success and creativity and dynamacy (did I just make that word up?) don’t look one way, not everyone who menstruates feels the same way during the same phase of their cycle.
Not everyone feels juicy and creative before and leading up to ovulation. Not everyone feels lacking in creativity, deeply internal, or miserable on their period. The whole point of the menstrual cycle and of girls and women and anyone else who menstruate is what is your experience? How can you heal your relationship to it and connect with it more? And then we work and create a program from there. I understand that we all want to, and mainstream business advice tells us, to create a neat and tidy package that is explainable in one catchy phrase with clear concise amazing results that can be captioned perfectly on instagram. Health and healing is not encapsulated in a one size package, program, or quote. We are not going to become more healthy as women and menstruating people by adopting the same picture and way of living for all of us.
The idea of syncing our lifestyle, routine, and outlook on life with our monthly cycles is very real. It can make a huge difference both in our own relationship with ourselves and in how we show up in and relate to many areas of our lives.
It’s something that can shift how we live and shift how we give ourselves permission to change throughout the month. We are not meant to operate in or even be the same way throughout. And. The idea of cycle syncing and “optimizing” our cycles as its being portrayed is largely associated with making them work better for our us. It gets talked about it terms of what can your cycle do for you? How can it work better for you? How can you be a powerhouse and utilize your hormones? Which to me is sort of the opposite of the whole point. We do not need to fit our menstrual cycles into a palatable box that society can handle. We don’t even need to wash them down so we can handle them. We need to do the work of learning and healing so we can be comfortable with our bodies and with what they do naturally.
Syncing with your cycle is about being in a relationship with it.
It’s about listening and honoring and learning from it. It’s not just an extractive exchange where it serves you. You give it space to be and express and it offers you certain unique, different things throughout the month that you can then apply to how you live your life. You can make decisions, and arrange things, and schedule things, and not schedule things, and accept what you are feeling, based on the knowledge you are gaining from being in an equal exchange. With yourself and your body.
Looking at it from this angle means the first step of syncing your cycle is getting to know it in the first place. How do you feel throughout the month? Can you track the different phases of the menstrual cycle?. If the answer is not really, or that concept of different phases is new to you, that’s perfect and shows you exactly where to start with your tracking journey.
Tracking our cycles is a way to check in with ourselves and more intimately know what is happening in our body, mind, and emotions throughout the month- which comprises our whole menstrual cycle. It doesn’t have to be complex or take a lot of time. To me it’s very similar to brushing our teeth. Sometime we do everyday.
This is our knowledge to reclaim. And living in rhythm with the cycle in a more natural and reciprocal way not only has the ability to enrich our own lives and personal experience with ourselves, but it really is an act of going against the cultural norm and mother fucking patriarchy that tries to control women through our reproductive knowledge, rights, and experience.