Escaping the cycle of torment

HOLISTIC HEALTH:Alexandra Pope helps women to see their menstrual cycle as an opportunity for growth in self-awareness and overall wellbeing

MOST WOMEN regard their period as a kind of nuisance at best or monthly torment at worst. Only when they have serious physical pain or emotional upheaval, do they seek ways to relieve the suffering. Rarely do women see their menstrual cycle as an opportunity for growth in self-awareness and overall wellbeing.

Psychotherapist Alexandra Pope would like to change this. Together with hypnotherapist Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer, she runs menstrual health workshops around the world and has lectured on the subject to health professionals at universities and hospitals.

“My work is about restoring women to the intelligence of their cycle, so they can use it as a self-care tool to create wellbeing,” explains Pope. “When you value your cycle as a useful rhythm rather than an interruption or irritant, you can learn to co-operate with it and see the different energies you experience at different times of the month as useful information,” she explains.

She says that while feminists in the 1970s and 1980s found ways to manage their fertility, her work now seeks ways to find deeper meaning in the ebbs and flows as a new form of feminine liberation.

According to Pope, most women experience the same highs and lows during their menstrual cycle although the levels of discomfort will vary. She uses the four seasons, spring (pre-ovulation), summer (just before, during and after ovulation), autumn (pre-menstrual) and winter (menstruation) to separate the different energies of the cycle.

“Some women feel naturally motivated at the beginning of the cycle [spring]. This rises to a peak of energy at ovulation in which they are most radiant and most attractive sexually [summer]. Then, they may experience a collapse of their spirits [autumn] which drops to a need for rest during menstruation [winter],” she says.

That these psychological states neatly reflect the human impulse to reproduce is no co-incidence, but for those who don’t want to conceive or aren’t in a relationship, they can result in mixed messages.

Pope suggests the first step to solving menstrual health problems is to make peace with your cycle. “Resisting the rhythms of the cycle can in itself cause stress. You have to be really awake at the peak of your sexual attractiveness , but you also have to watch what you do with the insights you might have when you are feeling vulnerable and low in spirits before menstruation.”

Pope says many men know ahead of their partners when the woman is pre-menstrual. “This is because they try to take care of themselves and not get it wrong. I say to men that they must value what women say at this time, but not put up with abusiveness,” she says.

“Women’s tolerance levels drop before their periods. They are more reactive at this time, often because they are holding things in the rest of the time. Sometimes men who are needy have to learn to face themselves.”

Pope says it’s very important for young women to have a positive sense of themselves when they first start having their periods. “We need to educate girls about the whole experience of menstruation. They need to know how to deal with the feelings around it as well as the physical symptoms.”

In advance of her workshop in Dublin, Pope will show The Moon Inside You . . . A Secret Too Well Kept, a documentary by Slovakian director Diana Fabianova, on her personal journey to understanding menstruation.

Pope acknowledges many women will baulk at this psycho-spiritual approach to their menstrual cycle. “Most women actually get it, but they say they can’t afford to slow down because it will jeopardise their work. But I say they can value and respect how they feel while still doing their work,” she says.

“Sometimes, this in itself can bring a clearer energy and you are nonetheless powerful. In fact, if you discover and value your rhythms and work with them, you will feel kinder to yourself and more confident.”

The Moon Inside You . . . A Secret Too Well Kept

will be shown on Wednesday, June 9th at 6.45pm in Oscailt, Pembroke Road, Dublin 4, €5.

Creating Menstrual Health

, a workshop facilitated by Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer, will be held in the same venue on June 12th, from 10am, €90. See the fertilebody.com or wildgenie.com