Original date written: September 2012
Note: This post is about one of the qualifying characteristics that makes a woman a woman – her monthly cycle. While this topic will be of specific interest to women of all ages, I encourage men to read as well so they can understand how driven the body is by this cycle…to bring new meaning, light, understanding and hopefully healing to the women in their lives as well as those relationships.
The Dawn of a New Era
Beginning about three months ago, I had a revelation about my monthly cycle. It dawned on me that for most of my life since my “friend” came at the young age of 12 that I had been taught to shun, dread and hate the monthly flow. I had been taught that my emotions would go off the charts and that those emotions should not be trusted and therefore that I would not make rational decisions during this time of the month. I had been taught that it should be hidden, covered up and that any fluctuation of my emotions that did surface should be ignored, stuffed and pushed down so as to not let me appear as just another “emotional woman”.
Where in the world did all these thoughts come from? Why in the world would I be taught these things about my body and my emotions if this was a natural part of my life, of the circle of life? Why would I be taught to have such a disdain for my own body when this very act is what allows us to bring new life into the world? And I know it is not just me, but the majority of women around me as well are suffering from their monthly cycles both emotionally and physically.
With these questions and thoughts in mind, I decided to apply my Rephrasing to Practice Joy concept to this part o my life, especially in light of what I have been learning about womanhood.
Prevailing Thought Patterns
In my attempt to further understand my hypothesis that the gender roles leads to the prevalence of the struggle for power and control as well as abusive relationships, I have been scouring Amazon looking for books on history. In my search I found a book entitled The Creation of Patriarchy by Gerda Lerner. Ms. Lerner systematically approaches history looking for the how and why we went from a matriarchal form of society to patriarchy – which interestingly enough took place over a span of centuries but culminated right about the time writing came in to play.
I plan on writing my own book and creating a class to teach more on this all important subject (which if you want to keep informed of those offerings, please join me on my mailing list or Facebook Page). But to share the short of it, because our global society has been geared to more of the masculine for about 4500+ years, prevailing thought is that “male” and “masculinity” is the norm or at least the basis for norm. Anything that is not “male” or “masculinity” deviates from the norm. In order to cultivate a society that continues to uphold the male-side of life as the highest goal or achievement, the deviations must be made or at least tried to be made into more of the masculine ideal.
This can be seen when one looks at a lot of the written work (mostly written by men) through out written history: in the bible, in Greek and Roman writings and especially in the more recent era of psychology starting with Sigmund Freud. By looking at the history of these writings as objectively as I can, in combination with the subliminal messages that inundate any woman in our culture today – I finally understood why I was having such painful monthly cycles – both emotionally and physically.
Note: never finished this blog post. But you can read more about Moon Cycles here.
