Cyclical Creativity
If you’ve been keeping track, you’ve probably noticed that I’ve posted less recently. You might assume that I’ve been writing behind the scenes working on my bigger writing project, but unfortunately I haven’t made recent progress there lately either. Due to some other responsibilities I’ve only had one writing afternoon since January and the only things I wrote that day were emails related to school and my son’s IEP. They were important emails that needed to be written, but I also felt that my brain couldn’t focus on the creative writing that afternoon. I gave myself grace and didn’t push it, knowing that more writing afternoons would come.
I think this is an important thing to know about ourselves — that we are not always in the right mental, emotional, or even physical space needed for a given activity. There are a lot of factors that can affect that, stress, surroundings, physical ailments, etc, but I’ve lately been doing some reading on something a bit more foundational that I find quite intriguing. It is the underlying hormonal cycle and the resulting energy flow.
My daughter was the first one to start talking about this with me as she has seen how her cycle affects everything from her mental health to her creative output during the month. There are whole books written on how to sync our life more fully with our cycle, from food to project management to exercise and beyond. There are promises of relief from PMS symptoms, higher energy, weight loss, and increased fulfillment with life. As I‘ve looked into this more deeply there is definitely the skeptical part of my mind that wonders how much science is behind it and how much if any effect we can have with changing our diet and exercise to align with our cycle phases. But there is also a part of me that resonates deeply with the whole idea, which shouldn’t be surprising when you consider that I wrote a whole post on menstruation a few years ago when I recognized the internal shift that I had started to notice when I bled each month. At the very least I believe that we can gain important insights about ourselves and our varying strengths and capacity throughout the month by intentionally tuning into our body’s natural rhythm.
Before I dove into cycle syncing research, I had already started looking into how food can affect our hormones. I’ve been struggling over the last couple years with some symptoms that I’ve not been able to get a conclusive medical answer to, and a friend mentioned that it was possible that these symptoms were related to perimenopause and fluctuating hormone levels. So, over the last month I’ve been eating foods that are claimed to have a balancing effect on hormones. While I unfortunately have not seen an improvement in the inflammation specific symptoms, I have noticed a higher level of energy on most days and I have been losing weight consistently since I’ve started. Those results have encouraged me to keep this up for the next three months, but to shift more into the cyclical approach since I am still at this time experiencing a fairly regular menstrual cycle. I’ll be eating a lot of the same foods, just choosing them based on which phase of my cycle I’m currently in. I’ll also be playing around with some of the other aspects of cycle syncing as well, focusing on the gentle and positive approach I’m seeing in the reading I’m doing. At the heart of these practices is the idea that our cycle is a positive and empowering aspect of femaleness, despite all the cultural programming we’ve received that might tell us differently. Each phase has gifts for us if we learn how to recognize and receive them. I’m holding space for the possibility that this will positively impact my creative pursuits, but at the very least, it will be centering for me to practice listening more deeply to my own body. Knowing that I have a limited number of years ahead of me where I will have this cyclical gift, it feels extra important to be present in the experience. Just as I intentionally savored my last pregnancy and postpartum period because I knew it was my last chance to experience it, I want to fully embody the last few years of my cycle as well.
