From Taboo to Conversation

Cold feet, craving carbohydrates, longing for hugs, inflammation in my belly, desire for sexual intimacy, craving for someone to send me flowers, with a delicious dark chocolate, longing for a foot massage; that's how I feel in the days leading up to my menstruation.

Today I'm writing to you in the days before my vagina fills with shades of red, where you think you know what you want and at the same time you don't. Our days before menstruation are like the Venezuelan economy, you don't know what's going to happen.

On Wednesday, I didn't understand why I didn't have as much energy riding my bike or why my sleep was off balance, and today the app reminded me: "5 days until your period - this phase is about transition and slowing down. The leaves are changing (metaphorically). Don't fight it; calm down and let everything wash over you.”

I recently found my diary from when I was 14 and discovered many wonderful things, among them that the same issues that bothered me then are the same ones that bother me today but in a different context, including my hormones, hahaha. I wrote about what was happening to me in the important transition from girl to teenager; my hormones were all over the place, I liked all the boys, I would get in a bad mood, and I didn't understand why.

Nowadays, through the movie "Red" by Pixar, cinema screens send a message to teenagers and adults about the importance of a woman's menstrual period. This is wonderful.

RESPONSIBILITY

Today I hope there are men reading this post, and I want to tell them, we can't plan what will happen on the day before our period or during our period, but I do believe there is a deep responsibility on our part to inform those closest to us of our needs, or that we are in our pink days, those days when our body is cleansing itself, full of changes. Where rest should be a priority, where our body naturally cleanses, where a very wild or very sweet self emerges, where sometimes we feel like eating a lot or sometimes very little, where acne often appears in the same place to announce its arrival.

I remember when I worked in the food truck, I would let my team know that I had my period, thanks to understanding the importance of this cycle in my life. The people around us should support or take care of us on these days. We must normalize our menstrual cycle, we must have this conversation with our partner. Generally, couples talk about the period to know the days of fertility, there are couples who see it as a taboo, there are women who feel embarrassed, there are women who culturally believe that this is only a women's thing, there are men who don't understand and think it's drama, there are men who research and educate themselves to understand more about what the woman is experiencing in this stage.

Today I would like you to ask yourself: What is your relationship with your menstrual cycle? Do you feel you understand each phase? A girl told me her irregular story with her period, she can go up to 6 months without getting her period, and she must donate blood, her body asks for it. How complex we are.

Marina told me after a yoga class that she felt fortunate to be a woman; thanks to the menstrual cycle, she is aware of stopping when her body asks for it, whereas men feel a constant need for productivity and should rather learn to have their rest cycles.

The expansion of days with shades of red

Every women's circle is, for me, a space of expansion. In one of the circles, thanks to the reflection of one of the attendees, she recounted her story of the menopause process and the importance of helping each other in this process. I remembered that I didn't even realize what my mother was going through when she went through this transition; surely I said many times, "she's bitter, she's unbearable," when she was really going through a process that was transforming her body, her psyche, this goes beyond the relationship with fertility. The ovaries stop producing progesterone and estrogen. How do you accompany your partner in this stage? Your mother? Your friend? Do you accompany your partner to the gynecologist? How much do we know about our vagina? Have you thought about seeking advice from a sexologist with your partner or yourself? Our menstruation is undoubtedly a period of expansion if we experience it consciously.

The taboo still exists

There is an absence of topics related to sexuality in relationships, and sexuality goes beyond a night of passion; it is the relationship with our sexual organs, it is our relationship with our own sexuality. Some people prefer to avoid the topic. I invite you to educate yourself more and more, to know your body, to ask uncomfortable questions to yourself and your partner, and if you are a man, to be curious and involved in a woman's menstrual cycle.

It is important to gather among women to talk without taboo about such normal topics as these; together, we form, we help each other. Ask questions to your mother, your grandmother, your aunt. I enjoy it a lot when in women's circles there are those women whom Clarissa Pinkola calls: "the old one, the one who knows, the one who knows the whole process of women, the one who gives maternal care, the one who is a mother and healer." This could be our mother, grandmother, mother-in-law; we must listen to her, she is wise, she has lived, and we must give her place.

Once a month, women go through a sacred transition process, we spend money to not stain the sheets, we have to deal with changes, this process is part of the cycle of life and death, of procreation, of femininity, of the many things that differentiate us from the male sex.

If you are a man and have questions about a woman's menstrual cycle, I invite you to write them in the comments; I'll be happy to answer them.

Thank you for reading me.

Amazonia Arroyo

Naked Woman