What is menstrual cycle awareness?
Charting your cycle is the foundation of menstrual cycle awareness (MCA) practice. You can chart anywhere, shown above is my personal preferred method of using a menstrual wheel chart.
Maybe we haven’t quite reached buzzword status yet, but it’s only a matter of time! The menstrual movement is gaining traction all over the world, and women/ menstruators are *finally* waking up to the realization that we’ve drank the Kool-aid when it comes to our cycles and our bodies.
Far from being a weakness or a source of embarrassment, our cycles are wise, a crucial vital sign into the state of our health as females, and contain the blueprint that we should all be designing our days around.
So what is Menstrual Cycle Awareness?
Quite simply, menstrual cycle awareness (MCA) is a body- mind- heart mindfulness practice we use daily to help us live in alignment to our natural rhythms as females. It’s a term coined by Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer, founders of Red School.
It’s the active practice of checking in with ourselves daily, based on what day of our cycle we’re on.
MCA is both an anchoring practice and a guide map that over time leads to greater intimacy with our bodies (constantly reading her signs), increasing that self trust and belonging (less self judgment), ultimately giving us the feeling of coming home to ourselves.
Being female-bodied means operating with a cyclical blueprint. As our hormones ebb and flow throughout our roughly month long cycle, we also change in a myriad of ways- both physiologically and psychologically.
Awareness of where we are in our cycle and honouring of these natural rhythms means we can craft self care decisions that nourish our truest and deepest needs. We become our own biggest ally! We become much more pro-active rather than reactive.
When we learn to harness the unique powers of each cycle phase and conversely, nurture ourselves through each phase’s unique vulnerabilities, we go from a disempowered and reactive approach to a much more empowered experience of our cycle. (less cursing it when we actually understand what’s happening!)
We become aware of the cycle’s powerful and generous ability to renew and sustain us month after month. (yes really!)
Learning this language and trusting this wisdom that your body offers can have a profound impact on your physical, mental, and emotional health. It can help you up-level how you show up in your relationships, your work, your parenting, and help you to prepare for the transitions in the female life cycle. (you know, those BIG changes in our life we don’t ever feel adequately prepared for like menarche or first bleed, motherhood (if you go down this path), perimenopause, and postmenopause)
“Menstrual cycle awareness (or MCA) is a spiritual practice and the ultimate mindfulness tool for women. As you feel and respond to your changing mood and energy throughout the phases of the cycle, you’ll experience increasing inner warmth or kindness…a growing sense of integration and coherence that will help you feel more alive and in yourself. This is the mysterious ‘X factor’ that allows a woman to feel just right, clear, and well.”
Excerpt from the book Wild Power by Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer
If you’re ready to start your own MCA practice, (I really encourage you to no matter how old you are- teens, 20’s and 30’s, and yes even in your 40’s and beyond), click on over here to download my free Menstrual Cycle Wheel Chart, designed by yours truly and the one I personally use daily!
