It's funny how something that you've never really paid much attention to before suddenly really becomes front of mind.
A few discussions recently have really drawn my attention to just how much of a masculine driven world we live in. This isn't all bad, as there are some really positive aspects to masculinity that work really well. Traits such as dominance, strength, success and competition. But are we balancing this with feminine traits such as supporting one another, caring and nurturing?
One aspect that I've been talking with my girlfriends about lately is the female cycle. As women we go through a cycle every month - at the end of our period our estrogen starts to come back up, until it hits its highest level around the time we ovulate. Then our estrogen levels start to drop off and progesterone increases to its highest levels of the cycle until our period starts.
When a womans estrogene starts to build up the week after her period ends she is in their prime to start new product, make plans, be creative and feel like the world is her oyster with anything being possible. This builds until the ovulation phase which is when women are not only their most fertile, but shine with confidence and that air of being able to tackle anything - hear me roar.
Following this progesterone builds and becomes our more dominant hormone, the 'doing' hormone. During this time (around 10-12 day prior to the next period) organisation skills and an eye for detail come to the surface. Then the menstrual cycle starts again and we all turn into emotional and annoyed mush, not wanting to do anything and eat terrible food - well I'm speaking about me.
So maybe we should think about adjusting the way our community/society works, so that we take advantage of this cycle, rather than putting ourselves in a box where we operate the same way day in and day out, with the same expectations on ourselves to always be on point and winning at every aspect of life. Our bodies are built this way for a reason, and maybe if we move our societies towards being more feminine in their approach we would all benefit. After all, we are miraculous beautiful beings.
Blessings x