Ep.3/ Positively being
The story of our founder, written from a fireside in Melbourne, Australia
3 minute read
16/7/22, Day 25, Inner Autumn
Greetings from a dark and gloriously moody winter morning in Melbourne Australia.
Ohanala is the result of a very long and somewhat arduous journey of understanding my cycle and battling with the debilitating impact of undiagnosed Oestrogen dominance.
I am in awe of how embracing Menstrual Cycle Positivity as a daily practice has changed my life, and allowed me to overcome the physical and mental limitations that my unbalanced cycle use to cause.
Like many other menstruators, my fluctuating hormones and erratic mood swings were misdiagnosed by the medical industry and society as a whole.
We are too quick to label people ‘hormonal’, ‘a mental case’, ‘needy’ or some other label that only deepens the spiral and erases any feeling of connectedness or hope.
Cycle Positivity
As a daily practice has changed my life
Behavioural, emotional and psychological challenges can be the symptom of unregulated hormones that are exacerbated during particular months of the menstrual cycle.
My body does not make enough progesterone, and it also makes too much oestrogen.
The oestrogen spikes during ovulation caused my body to physically feel like I’d had 30 cups of coffee, and the week after my bleed I had no progesterone AND no oestrogen (as your oestrogen is lowest straight after your bleed) which would catapult me into a deep dive of depression.
As the oestrogen levels rose towards ovulation, and with no progesterone to buffer the oestrogen, I physically felt like my nervous system was jack-knifed into a frying pan, and that I’d drunk 20 cups of coffee.
The extreme highs and lows were too much, and I teetered on the edge of trying to feel normal and not wanting it all to end.
The solution was ridiculously simple. I needed to raise my Progesterone which I do with a natural progesterone cream prescribed by my amazing Integrated Doctor, and I needed to balance out my oestrogen which I do by regulating my diet with nourishing food and by a liver cleanse once or twice a year (only do this as prescribed by your health advisor).
Once my hormones were balanced I still felt like there was another piece of the puzzle. I had the physical side of my cycle sorted, yet I intrinsically knew there was a deeper layer that my psyche was yearning for. Enter Menstrual Cycle Awareness (MCA). This is a powerful practice created by Alexander Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer of Red School.
MCA uses the metaphorical model that our cycle is akin to the four seasons of the earth (read more about that here).
By coming into flow with each unique season of my cycle, I have a radical ability to embrace my shadow to go to greater levels of personal understanding and encounters with my true authentic self.
I now have a toolkit to manage stress, deepen connections, improve communication and activate a high level of creativity.
One of the greatest gifts I gave myself, was inviting the people around me into the world of MCA. My partners, my colleagues, my friends and family.
They don’t all necessarily understand the specific nuances or practice MCA themselves, they do however honour what I need in each of the ‘seasons’ and have embraced the seasonal metaphor which makes it easy to communicate where I am at, and what I need in that moment.
The other gift — and possibly the greatest of all — was giving myself the permission to meet myself.
To gloriously arrive in the fullness of my fucked up, wonderous, insanely crazy deliciousness and to create space and time each season to feel into the genuine real me.
Thank you for witnessing. Whether one person and no-one reads this — this community, this space is created for you.
With love and light, Cara
Day 25
Acknowledgements
The above article is written thanks to the powerful work and education on Menstrual Cycle Awareness taught by Alexander Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer at Red School. If you’re curious about working with the power of your Menstrual Cycle you can check out their book Wild Power here, or their podcast.
Written from a place where I am
D25 — Feeling the grace of my ancestral line and the flow of my inner medicine woman. Deep reverence for life and the power flowing in me.