Cycle Care | New Moon/Winter Phase

Hello there, thanks for your patience throughout this Winter. I find no matter how hard I may fight against the heaviness of the cold months, this heaviness is natures way of telling me to rest and reset myself. I always struggle with times of rest and stillness as I feel like my productivity is a reflection of my self and success. These days I know that's not everything but also when it's a part of your career path and general life it can still be draining feeling the need to be constantly doing more than you are.

We forget sometimes that just being is what we are all here for in the first place.

Until life forces us to remember that is.

For me this was in September of 2021. I really can't believe it's been that long wow. Back at this time my boyfriend and I had just moved to NYC. I was stressed beyond belief with moving to a place I had never even visited and didn't know anyone other than my partner yet. I jumped into work immediately when we arrived and began preparing for school right away. At this time also, the Hurricane Ida flooded the entire East coast and we among so many others suffered a home flood. From the flood we discovered the apartment we'd moved to have black mold in all of the walls in the bedroom and bathrooms as well.

We began a long battle with our landlord and lawyer to remedy the situation but unfortunately the damage had already been done. We stayed in the apartment until October 17th when we finally moved to a new building completely. While living in the conditions after the flood and amid construction I found myself feeling extreme pains in my areas I typically feel my period cramping.

I grew up with painful cramps and periods my whole life, so I brushed this off as the sad normal and carried on with my life. I remember the day I dropped to my knees on the floor and started crying from the intense pain. This would be the first time of many I went to the ER thinking it was my appendix or internal bleeding or something so serious I needed medical help.

I had multiple misdiagnosis's made on me that I accepted without question because I assumed that these professionals were properly informed and wouldn’t tell me something that wasn’t 100% verified. From PCOS, to Fibromyalgia, to Endometriosis; I one by one canceled out each incorrect observation. It wasn’t until I began my own research into how a menstrual cycle works and learned how my body should be operating that I discovered the problem and the solution all at once. 

The hormones. THE HORMONES.

It took going to three emergency rooms and two OB/GYN's in two different states to finally get clarity and also a solution. I absolutely did not want a treatment for the symptom, I wanted a solution to ensure the root cause was remedied because as we know this is something that us yoni owners go through each month. And seeing as your cycle is 28 days, and you are affected mentally physically and spiritually throughout these 28 days over and over and over again during menstruating years - it can begin to feel like an overwhelming wave pool of, well, blood.

My hormones had completely bottomed out and the horror this wrecked on my body, my menstrual cycle, my mental state, and self esteem was hell. 

After finally finding my current Dr. I was able to find someone who could point me in the direction that would lead to the answer. She informed me that my levels were completely imbalanced for so long that my body didn't know what "normal" looked like for my natural self. Basically these hormones work like a pyramid, and if the ones on the bottom go out they can't hold up the top and the whole thing crumbles. This can result in the many conditions we know of today like PCOS, thyroid concerns, reproductive obstacles, and an endless list of daily problems like migraines, insomnia, excess fatigue, lack of appetite - and even overlaps into other concerns like depression and anxiety.

So obviously we need to have a way better understanding of these hormones and how they work and how they stop working based on the food we eat, stress, birth control, trauma, and exposure to harmful things in items we buy and use all the time.

Food + Vitamins

In order to reclaim myself and my cycle it took a lot of working on my diet and health - which I had already thought wasn’t terrible but I have since learned some tips and tricks to optimize your health based on your position in your cycle. Not only have I learned more about how important my diet is but also how important it is to be taking the natural vitamins, herbs and nutrients that our bodies are not getting any more.

(Long story short: produce - vegetables and fruits and even proteins - do not give us sufficient nutrients and energy the way that they should, the way that they used to. In a scientific study based only on the fiber that humans were ingesting before extreme agriculture took over and pesticides and all kinds of other chemicals were introduced to make farming and food profit grow was compared to the fiber that we’re eating now and I think duh, it’s eons of difference between the two which means eons of difference in the way that we are being affected when we eat.) 

Extra reading on changing nutrition: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/vanishing-nutrients/

Excerpt from the article:

“Extra carbon dioxide acts like empty calories or “junk food” for the plants, which gorge themselves on it to grow bigger and faster, consequently getting larger but less nutrient-packed. Just like America’s obesity epidemic, which is partially due to people’s increased access to an abundance of calorie-rich but nutrient-poor food, more is not always better.

Agricultural scientists have known for some time that our food has been getting less nutritious, but they thought it was only due to a byproduct of modern farming methods: soil overuse which leads to mineral depletion, or breeders favoring high-yield varieties, which sacrifices nutrition for size. Meanwhile, plant researchers working over the last couple of decades were finding something surprising: that elevated carbon dioxide also contributes to lowering mineral content in plants.”

Herbs + Plants

Not only have I been using herbs for optimizing my mental health, but also I found they can be used and are extremely important to be used for menstrual cycles especially to combat the varying levels of progesterone, estrogen, testosterone, and cortisol being produced in the brain. 

Some of my favorite herbs which have been used for thousands of years now I will pop in below:

Ashwagandha - provides powerful relief from PMS symptoms, including anxiety and swelling

Dong Quai - balances hormones, relieves menstrual cramps and menopause symptoms

Chastetree Berry - increases hormone regulation, helps ease breast pain, painful menstruation, miscarriage prevention, stimulates lactation in breastfeeding, anti-inflammatory properties, neuroprotective, antidepressant, antioxidant, as well as to support memory enhancement

Vitamin B6 - shown to reduce the occurrence of severity of PMS symptoms

Evening Primrose - relieves pain and inflammation, PMS symptoms, depression and eases hot flashes

I will most often smoke these flowers and herbs alone or with my cannabis flower. Also I will take them as gummies or capsules or brew these herbs as teas. You can also find some teas at the store with these key herbs and ingredients if you wish to give it a go and see how it helps you or those you know.

How I Did It - Cycle Syncing

So I figured the best and easiest way to share this knowledge that I’ve learned and begin to make these practices more understood and normalized again like they were for thousands of years was to share my experience and share my cycle with you along the way. If you're experiencing something similar you are not alone and there is a way to make things better.

I’m actually working in a brand new journal and this journal is solely for my cycle syncing and my relationship with my womb and my yoni. I think it’s pretty ridiculous that penis owners can pick their appendage out of a lineup or literally will spend the equivalent of weeks of time looking at their specimen over the course of their life, measuring, comparing, photographing. And then when it comes to yoni owners, most don’t know what theirs even looks like internally or externally, most people are not familiar with the entirety of their internal reproductive workings, or even which organs and body parts are in which places.

I worked at Adam and Eve during the pandemic induced quarantine and it became apparent just how necessary this information is FOR EVERYONE. Everyone on this earth comes from a yoni. Most people on this earth spend their time attempting to get back into a yoni and people seem to love to analyze and nitpick “behaviors”. This is especially obvious when you contrast this stigma to the masculine perspective where sexuality is embraced but in femininity sexuality (not even the act of it but the fact that you are a being who is inherently sexual and has the ability to create things based on the acts of sex) are made to feel as less than, unworthy, shameful, dirty, or some thing that needs to be hidden and hushed.   

That ends here. Hi.

In January my first day is the 9th. This means I entered the menstrual or the winter season of my cycle on January 9th (or basically the first day that I begin bleeding was January 9).

I feel like for me, it’s easiest working from the period portion of my cycle because I can keep track easier when I have a definitive starting point. Back in October/November I attempted to begin my sync during my luteal and follicular phases and kept losing track or placement so my recommendation is if you are looking to begin your cycle syncing, wait until the first day that you bleed to record this information, keep it somewhere important and safe as we will be referring to this over the course of the year to begin to map out your own personal pattern for your best health and routines.

From here keep a track of each day you continue bleeding, noting fluctuation in lightness and heaviness. When you stop mark this as the end of the Menstrual Phase. You may have heard it called the Winter Season too. I call this my New Moon because I find myself in a form of retreat and rest, hidden away from the world, only seen by myself. I will also write down the different things I find myself feeling. I will mark the days my cramps are intense, where my insomnia is worse, or I have heightened emotions.

These are my lowest energy days so I skip working out, and stretch. I take care of my skin as it's dry and often has healing hormonal acne from the start of my period. I drink extra water and snack a lot rather than eating large meals. I try to give my body what it needs with foods rich in magnesium, calcium, zinc, omega-3s, healthy fats, and iron. I drink teas, and smoothies if I can't eat that day. I have added in nootropics and herbs like Ashwagnda, Lions Mane, Shavarti, Maca Root, Dong Quai, Red Raspberry, Damiana, Skullcap, and Blue Lotus.

For pain relief I use heating pads and I take hot soaking salt herbal baths almost every other day. I will take Evening Primrose oil capsules and Arnica for inflammation and muscle pain. I use CBD and THC daily for a multitude of concerns, but especially during my cycle. An infused bath soak or topical cream can quickly become your go to for pain and relaxation. I take a tincture of CBD daily for anxiety and depression and mood assistance, and find that this CBD helps to encourage relaxation of overworked muscles too.

I have a video of products that I've tried that I can recommend to anyone looking for any holistic and mindful items to try out.

As I’ve been learning to sync to my cycle and listen to my body, I’ve begun to seek out things with aligned ingredients, healing properties, and intentions. I have found a sea of information going back hundreds of years in regards to menstrual care, and these ancient practices that we have lost or forgotten I believe we can take some guidance from in order to create a new normal in caring for those of us who are living on a 28 day cycle rather than a 24 hour one. 

I hope this has been insightful and help in beginning your tracking and syncing back to yourself. Give my video from this week a watch to see my grocery run and routine for right now too. I look forward to my next update to continue learning and growing with you.

Live life like art - beautifully. Bye!