This is based on a newsletter from Nov. 15, 2022 before I had a Substack. Occasionally I’ll pull one from the years of writing that are hiding in inboxes and put them on here. I’ve edited this for my present self and kinda hated a lot of the writing from the original post.
Nov. 15, 2022
I am constantly inspired by life.
Note - this newsletter is about women with natural cycles. If you are currently on a birth control that fucks with that (even if you have a bleed that is not a period as I always thought it was over the ten years I was on hormonal birth control), I urge you to research the side effects and how to get off of it, as well as the side effects you may expect while you get off of it. You may enjoy researching the FAM Fertility Awareness Method.
I'd like to share a podcast with you that I've listened to a few times and probably even shared here before with Kayla Osteroff. Men, if you value feminine partnership it will probably also help you love and understand the women in your life.
These are some of the points that Kayla Osteroff breaks down around the four parts of a woman's natural cycle -
Phase one - when you’re bleeding - marked by a slowing of energy, a drawing inward, heightened intuition and insight, heightened cognitive empathy, planning and forecasting. Self reflection is natural here. Making decisions to allocate resources for the next 28 days.
Phase two - follicular phase - estrogen is rising to a peak, metabolism increases, energy increases, increased openness and social desire. Emotional intelligence increases as estrogen increases adding to leadership abilities for strategizing and navigating challenges. Can handle stress more. Higher physical power, strength, endurance.
Phase three - ovulatory phase - she calls it the "bloom phase", a phase shift that is very short and marks a shift in nervous system function where we go from parasympathetic (chill) to a sympathetic function. Highest levels of mood-boosting neurochemicals, outwardly focused and charismatic, highest stress capacity and outward focus. Also when we're fertile. As my friend Kass put it, go make those Instagram videos honey because you are sex when you’re ovulating.
Fourth phase - luteal phase (about two weeks long) - the brainy phase, where the brain is actually growing. Progesterone rises to a peak, which increases neuroplasticity and neurogenesis. Heightened capacity to learn, grow, adapt, and verbal acuity increases. Best time to study and learn. The "PMS" phase. Increased resting heart rate and respiration rate. Increased calorie intake. Right before you bleed, you’re likely to gain the most from research and rabbit holes which will then fuel your ability to plan for the next 28 days (read first part of the cycle).
This is why trying to force yourself as a woman into being stable all the time is ludicrous and incredibly draining.
Because basically none of us were ever taught anything about our cycles (I’ve spent most of my life assuming I could get pregnant at any moment of the month, terrified if I had sex), women are likely to be fighting themselves physiologically and consequently it manifests mentally and spiritually as well. By trying to constantly push through what should be natural and predictable energetic cycles, they burn themselves out and make themselves the enemy.
Women need to learn how to interact with their own bodies without trying to force themselves into mimicking men's stable 24-hour hormone cycles.
You may have heard of The Red Tent? The story of the red tent is one that has been colloquially hijacked to say that women were relegated and ostracized while on their periods, then let back into society when they were finished bleeding. One may easily accompany that brief summary with feelings of uncleanliness or the need to hide because they were “dirty”. In my new understanding with German New Medicine, that kind of “feeling soiled” idea can have lasting consequences on health and the psyche, especially skin-related “diseases”.
[Site, discussing skin conflicts] In addition, the conflict linked to the corium skin relates to feeling unclean (smelly sweat, stinky feet, malodorous discharge, incontinence) or feeling soiled, for example, when coming in contact with something considered as repellent such as dirt, feces, urine, vomit, saliva, (menstrual) blood, sweat, or semen. “Dirty” words thrown at one’s face or gossiping behind one’s back might provoke the conflict, because the psyche, in GNM terms, cannot differentiate between real dirt and figurative dirt. A “feeling soiled”-conflict could be triggered through physical contact with a person who is regarded as “repulsive”, for instance, a drunk person, a smelly person, or a person who has a “contagious disease” (venereal disease), provided that one believes that “infectious diseases” are transmittable. The fear of an “infection” and of contracting a disease can affect an entire population (see epidemics such as the Great Plague).
But fuck all that - as it turns out, women gathered together in the “red tents” in order to harness the energy of their collective, concentrated, heightened intuition while bleeding. Ancient tribal cultures understood that women's intuition could be leveraged for the health and guidance of the entire tribe.
So since women's healthy cycles sync up, the women of the tribe would go into the "red tent" together and plan what directions the tribe would need to go in the next moon cycle.
Women that live together today still eventually end up virtually on the same menstrual cycle. Don't you ever wonder why that is and how it must be an adaptive evolution?
The men of the tribe would carry out the missions that came out, brilliant in their natural tendency toward execution and that also brilliant male tendency to thrive on focused, undistracted activity.
If men and women understood natural cycles and worked together leveraging our strengths, we might be better off.
Why would they today? We are so divorced from natural cycling as much as possible. We throw all ideas of traditional masculine or feminine roles under the proverbial bus. Seasonal eating is a trend, because I can buy blueberries in January in Wisconsin, where I’m pretty sure they’re not growing right then. Why would I even know what growing seasons are? We have climate control in our homes, in businesses, and in our cars and get to bitch about the weather for the 45 seconds it takes to walk from one to the other and otherwise ignore it aside from changing the thermostat. We have electric light so that we can avoid the shifting sunlight and we balance feeling depressed without the sun with a constant avoidance of it, slathering on things and clothing to block it off from touching us. Did you know you’re more likely to get sunburned if you wear sunglasses? It fucks with the eye receptors that would help you understand when you’ve had enough.
So when a woman is feeling anything but happy, we call it moody and she thinks there’s something wrong with her and nobody is to blame except the education system. Better get on a drug that will stop her moods. Women are I believe 4x more likely to be prescribed antidepressants than men. And every time they take that pill they also swallow the belief that something is wrong with them and they do not trust their bodies.
Perhaps they’re the most intuitive humans and being divorced from natural cycles affects them even more than it does men.
It would be very helpful if you actually liked this Substack post or left a comment. Thanks.