Celebrate Menstrual Monday!

By DeAnna | Published: May 2, 2012

Everything starts as a Thought!

A dissertation, a dress, an airplane, this article, or a national holiday such as Thanksgiving…

The thoughts of Sarah Josepha Hale translated into action: she wrote letters to American politicians for 40 years(!) until Abraham Lincoln eventually proclaimed Thanksgiving a national holiday to be celebrated on the last Thursday of November in the U.S.A. What does this have to do with us? Everything!

It took one woman only 40 years to change the tide of a nation, to create a legacy that is now an established tradition. We can do the same with Menstrual Monday!

Menstrual Monday is the Monday BEFORE Mother’s Day, since menstruation comes BEFORE motherhood (and typically long after…)

Menstrual Monday was conceived and birthed by Geneva Catchman in the 1990′s. Since then, grass root celebrations sprang up spontaneously anywhere a woman heard of the idea and was inspired to action. As one of these women I have been celebrating Menstrual Monday privately and publicly ever since I first heard of it :-)

Popular culture, in most places on Earth, goes beyond devaluing menstruation. It is considered a taboo and the attitudes about it are fraught with stereotypes, distortions, prejudice, and misinformation. This has been the case for a few generations, and the legacy of such distorted negativity has been passed on from mothers to daughters since the times of our Great-Grandmothers (if not earlier), as well as through literature, media, billboards and corporations trying to sell feminine hygiene products to women.

It’s time for us to reclaim Menstruation from the “medical condition” and cultural nuisance status in which it was fossilized, to the empowering, renewing, and intuitive condition it truly is. And what better way to do this than to celebrate it in an international holiday?!?

In 2008, in celebration of Menstrual Monday, I built a temporary Red Tent Downtown Sebastopol (the Northern California town where my family and I live) with the help of a handful of women. The response was surprise, curiosity and awe, as women stepped into the Red Tent to find out what it was all about. Not one negative comment was made! Drivers passing by the plaza playfully beeped in response to our sign that read: “Honk If You Are On Your Period!” More than anything, this was an opportunity to educate women, as well as a few brave men, about the power of Menstruation.

What is the power of Menstruation?

Menstruation is the process by which our body sheds the inner lining of our womb, a highly nutritious life-sustaining tissue, which grows monthly in anticipation for new life, and is shed monthly in the absence of pregnancy. This life-giving substance nourishes any and all life, and will give your garden, or house plants, a shot of life that no commercial fertilizer can ever provide.

Menstruation is also our body’s monthly call for rest, renewal, and regeneration.

Menstrual Monday is one way to acknowledge the power of menstruation, to honor and celebrate it, to remember our unique and magical ability to bring forth life, as well as our amazing creative forces that can be otherwise channeled. It is a reminder that our body speaks to us, monthly, and that we need to listen… Menstrual Monday is also a call for unification in celebrating womanhood around the world.

This is an invitation for you to do just this! In the privacy of your home, in an intimate circle of women, or in a joyous public gathering – celebrate!

If it took Sarah Josepha Hale 40 years to change the tides in a non-electronic era, think what we can do in the age of internet and social media… We can change the world!

On May 7, 2012,  in celebration of Menstrual Monday

DeAnna invites you to a

Red Tent Activation –

A Free online global event

Re-membering, Re-claiming, and Re-activating

our cellular memories of the RED TENT,

and birthing a new paradigm

for our current and future culture!

Women are birthing a new world -Join us for the quickening!

Click below to Freely sign up:

http://www.deannalam.com/red-tent-activation/

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© 2012 DeAnna L’am, All Rights Reserved

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Dancing With The Moon

By DeAnna | Published: April 12, 2012

Are your moods predictable?

How about your sleepless nights? Fearless moments? Bashful bouts? “I don’t know what came over me!” we often exclaim, and usually we really don’t have a clue.

Enters the Moon…

Waxing and waning, the moon’s absolute predictable rhythm is change: two weeks of waxing followed by two weeks of waning, and round again… the moon’s movement is constant. Imperceptible at times, the moon’s expansion or contraction takes place continually, moment to moment.

Like the oceans, we are susceptible to the ebbs and flows of the moon, being physically comprised of 75% water, and having a menstrual cycle identical in length to the moon’s cycle around the Earth (both average 29.5 days).

We can live our lives oblivious to the tag of the moon, or in harmony with it. Given the predominant collective feeling of lack of order in an unpredictable world, what would it mean to live in harmony with the moon?

Start by observing.

Watch the sky tonight and see where the moon is. If you can cup it with your right hand it is waxing. With your left – waning. Start observing your mood today; Your ability to sleep; Your level of energy; Your needs; The phase of your menstrual cycle (premenstrual, menstruation, post menstruation, ovulation). You may want to keep a journal in which you track your observations over a few full moon-cycles. Pay attention and journal about the varying impressions, dreams, tempers, and frames of mind, as you and the moon cycle around. Don’t try to interpret anything yet. Rather, observe the phases of your inner landscape, those of the moon, and the correlation between them.

You are ready to play detective when you have observed yourself for a few cycles! Read your notes and start putting your inner jigsaw puzzle together: Do you see a pattern emerging? What were your moods, dreams, and needs during the expansion of the moon? Around the full moon? Through the waning phase? During the dark of the moon? What menstrual phase corresponded to each? I generally find that I am much more inclined to hibernate during the waning phase (typically before and during my menstrual flow) and feel expansive and social during the waxing one (typically post menstrual and ovulation phases).

Having mapped out the terrain – you can start dancing with it! Take into account the phases of the moon, and of your menstrual cycle, when you plan your activities. Where would you put your stuff meetings? Your vacation? A party? A meeting with your boss? An intimate conversation with your mate about where your relationship is heading? A retreat? Creative time? There are endless possibilities of weaving your activities to match your moods and needs during different phases of your cycle. You can take this a step further and match the color and feel of clothing or jewelery with your moods and needs in each of your cyclical phases.

Plan as you may, the unpredictability of life tend to pop up, regardless… There is no need to panic. If life throws you a curve ball, start by breathing, grounding, and asking yourself which phase are you and the moon going through right now? I find that an unpleasant surprise throws me into a downward spiral if I am in an inward phase (waning moon or menstruation) whereas I can easily take the same incident with a sense of humor and poise if I’m in an expanding time of my cycle.

Though life’s curved balls are unpredictable, it helps to know why we are reacting the way we do. We can give ourselves some slack, and be more compassionate with ourselves and others, when we have a deeper understanding of our inner workings as cyclical beings.

When you know yourself deeply, and honor your undulating monthly needs, you start dancing your own rhythms to your own drum!

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© 2012 DeAnna L’am, All Rights Reserved

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Let Your Daughter Find Her Song!

By DeAnna | Published: March 4, 2012

Sing daughter sing
Make a song
And sing
Beat out your own rhythms
The rhythms of your life
But make the song soulful
And make life
Sing

~ Micere Mugo
Zimbabwe, 1970’s
(From: “I’m on my way running”, editors: Lynn Reese, Sean Wilkinson, Phyllis Koppelman. Avon books, 1975)

Isn’t this the wish of every mother – for her daughter to find her own song, beat her own rhythms, make a soulful song of her life, and sing it?

Most would answer with a resounding Yes! But applying this may be easier said than done…

To begin with, there is nothing to apply here!

For our daughters to find their own rhythms we need to get out of the way, rather than teach, dispense, administer, or reinforce…

The only thing required of us is to model singing our own song, beating our own rhythms, making a soulful song of our life, and singing our hearts out!

Our daughters (and our sons for that matter) learn first by imitation. The early childhood mode of operation is copying… We never “teach” our child how to walk, nor do we explain the concept of “one foot in front of the other”. Instead we simply walk… letting our children try, time and again, to do that which they see us do. Through trial and error, falling and getting up, they ultimately learn how to walk by themselves.

Similarly they watch us eat, get dressed, play ball… We model everything we want them to do. Why is it we stop modeling (and start talking) when it comes to Being?

As parents we have a huge investment in how our children turn out to be.

We don’t give much thought to how they walk, as long as they walk, yet we give a lot of thought to who we wish them to become.

Do you wish your daughter to become like you?
Take a moment to ponder this question…

It is likely that you’d answer Yes to some aspects, and No to others. Perhaps you would like her to be as dedicated as you are to your vocation, but not as procrastinating…. Maybe you wish her to be as loyal as you are, but not dislike her body as much… whatever it is, take a brave look at the aspects you wish her to be inspired by, and those you wish she wouldn’t even see… Take a break from reading this article, and write each of these lists in a separate column on a piece of paper.

Now, look at your two lists, and consider this: which behaviors do I model out of each list?

You may find that the things you like about yourself, and wish your girl to be inspired by, are the things you never “preach” nor spend any time “teaching,” but rather lead by example, without giving it much thought.
On the other hand, it is likely that you spend time thinking about (and talking to your girl at length about) the aspects you wish her to be different from how you currently are…

You already know how to model behaviors about which you have no “chip on your shoulder.” It’s time to implement this across the board!

Look at the list of things you dislike about yourself (or wish your girl would not follow) and make a plan (starting with the 1st item on the list) of transforming your Self…

This has nothing to do with your daughter!
It has everything to do with your own growth, and your own metamorphoses:
from low to high self esteem, from disliking your body to loving it unconditionally, from hating your period to finding solace and insights during “that time of the month”, or from whatever condition you are dissatisfied with, to one you embrace and grow from.

For now, make a commitment to stop talking with your daughter about any of these ideals you haven’t yet achieved in yourself. Instead, cultivate your own songs, and start singing them… discover the rhythms that make you dance, and start dancing.

Seeing you do this, over time, is the best inspiration a girl can have to finding her own song!

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© 2012 DeAnna L’am, All Rights Reserved

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Coming of Age: It’s Never Too Late…

By DeAnna | Published: February 4, 2012

Were you welcomed into Adulthood?

Did you receive a ceremony? Had a Mentor? Experienced a sense of belonging to your community as an equal member once you turned a certain age?

Most adults living today haven’t…

When I speak with Jewish folks who had a Bar or Bat Mitzvah, they, too, feel that it was lacking. Most say that learning Hebrew was a task that didn’t relate to their life as an adolescent, and that although they felt honored by their synagogue’s community, their feelings at the time weren’t addressed. Nor were their bodily changes, their hormone fluctuations, their confusion, or their budding sexuality…

Most adults I speak with tell me that their parents, teachers, and extended community had no idea about what was really going on in their life during adolescence. Desperate acts such as excessive alcohol drinking, substance abuse, or shop lifting — have all gone unnoticed. Sexual advances from a boy on a date, or questions about sexual identity were not on the adults’ radar. Perhaps it is because these were all good students with high grades, that the adults surrounding them assumed all was well.

How can this happen?

How do parents believe that all is well in their adolescent child’s life while all the while their child feels internally tortured? Why do they think that even though their child doesn’t talk with them, everything is actually fine?

It’s not that we, adults, don’t think of our children. We do, excessively sometimes. We worry about them: about their lack of conversation with us, about their social life, about the grades they bring home, about their future career and prospects.

None of the above meets the adolescent where they are, or truly sees them!

The obsessive thoughts we run through our heads are, lets admit it, mostly about us… Why they wouldn’t talk to us? Are we bad parents? Have we done something wrong? Would they grow up to be professional/successful/married/divorced like us?

We are so busy worrying about how our adolescent child’s behavior reflects on us as parents, on our parenting skills, on our ability to raise young people that would mirror our values to the world, that we forget to see them…!

We mistake Worry for Care…

We confuse our self esteem with theirs, and miss seeing them in the process!

What can we do differently?

As always, we need to start with self exploration, with a deep inquiry into who we each were as an adolescent girl, an adolescent boy, what did we need then from our parents (as oppose to what we need now from our children).

Remember how misunderstood you felt by Mom or Dad? How distant they felt to you? Get into the skin of the adolescent you once were and find out what might have felt better at the time? What could have your Mom or Dad say or do, which would have given you a feeling of being seen, heard, and met?

Then, turn around and give this to your adolescent child!

You will be watering many fruit trees with one watering can!

Your own Inner Adolescent would be soothed in the process; You will stop worrying about your child and start making a real connection; Your child may start feeling seen and acknowledged, and may even begin to think of you as a cool parent! (and wasn’t this what you wanted all along?)

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© 2012 DeAnna L’am, All Rights Reserved

It is my pleasure
to invite you to
RITES OF PASSAGE –
Skillfully Guiding
Girls to Womanhood
& Boys to Manhood

http://www.ritesofpassageevent.com/

A 2-week virtual conference (to which you can listen from the comfort of your own phone) filled with exciting speakers, such as:

- Internationally acclaimed author & lecturer Marianne Williamson
- New York Times best seller author Michael Gurian
- Internationally renowned herbalist Susun Weed

And an array of speakers, each an expert in their field, who will share with you words of wisdom, inspirational guidance, and practical tools to apply with your Tweens & Teens right away!

Online Event Dates are:

Monday-Friday, February 6-10 & 13-17, 2012

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Coming of Age: How Does One Become An Adult?

By DeAnna | Published: January 16, 2012

How does one become an adult? Well, mostly by imitation…

I grew up in a household of two (heavy) cigarette-smoking, coffee-drinking parents. For me, this was the epitome of adulthood… And when I started smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee, at the age of seventeen, I felt that I have arrived!

The “arrival” was not celebrated in any way. However my Dad, who used to buy cigarettes in cartons (for him and my Mom) added a few packs to the family monthly cigarette shopping, on my behalf. I was given the stamp of approval: I belonged.

And isn’t this what Rites of Passage are all about?

Arriving, belonging, getting in par with the adult world around us, which was mostly beyond our reach as children, and is now accepting us as rightful members.

Indigenous cultures similarly rewarded their youth with belonging and acceptance, only that their requirements were far more meaningful. Youth were given a multitude of things that our young lack today:

- Spiritual guidance from an early age, toward discovering the gift one was born to bring to their community

- Active mentors who fostered different skills in a youth, each bestowing their own gifts on their young protegee

- A prescribed set of challenges that will stretch a youth beyond their comfort zone, and will call them to find within them the ability to endure, overcome, and emerge triumphantly

- A tradition of Spiritual Eldering designed to pass on wisdom and knowledge from one generation to the next

- A tight knit community that is eager to collectively honor and celebrate all milestones in an individual’s life

In contrast, the guidance I received, growing up, consisted of explicit messages, overt assistance, and covert expectations, all directed toward achieving high grades at school, an academic degree, and a career that will guarantee enough money to ensure a secure retirement.

There was no conscious guidance toward grounded, balanced, intentional adulthood, and in its absence I could only imitate what I saw around me. It took many years of unlearning (including quitting cigarette-smoking and coffee-drinking) to develop a sense of deeper meaning in my life.

Deeper meaning is what the youth search for. The need we have as young human beings, while transforming from childhood to adulthood, is for meaningful challenges that will help us prove to ourselves that we are courageous and worthy; role models that will inspire us to strive, and communities that will accept us as equals.

In the absence of such cultural offerings, the youth of each generation will devise their own tests that would lead them to become accepted by their tribe. For me, it was cigarettes and coffee that made me feel grown up and ultimately belong. For many today it is gang activity or teen pregnancy. These are the shadow manifestations of an authentic need. They seemingly include every element of traditional rites of passage:

- Going beyond one’s comfort zone to prove worthiness (gang activity and teen sex)

- Performing daring acts that lead to approval (in the eyes of gang members, or boyfriend/girlfriend)

- Ultimate acceptance or belonging (this last one applies to gang members but hardly ever to girls who get pregnant. They often end up shunned by both their boyfriend and their family)

This grim picture only exists because we, as a society, abdicated our responsibility to our young!

It is in our hands to restore the picture to its natural balance. It is our (exciting!) task to rally around our young in meaningful ways, to provide them with meaningful challenges that will stretch them positively, and to receive them as equals when they triumphantly emerge from their trials.

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© 2012 DeAnna L’am, All Rights Reserved

To learn more about Rites of Passage,

It is my pleasure to invite you to  -

RITES OF PASSAGE:

Skillfully Guiding
Girls to Womanhood
& Boys to Manhood

A 2-week Tele-Summit (to which you can listen from the comfort of your own phone, anywhere in the world) filled with wise speakers, such as:

Internationally acclaimed author & speaker Marianne Williamson
#1 New York Times Best Seller author Michael Gurian
Internationally renowned Herbalist Susun Weed
and an array of wise guides, each an expert in their field,
who will share with you words of wisdom, inspirational guidance, and practical tools to apply with your Tweens & Teens right away!

Here is your link to the Event’s Page:

http://www.ritesofpassageevent.com/

Please join us!

The events dates are: Monday-Friday, February 6 – 10 & 13-17

Posted in Coming of Age, Women's Wisdom | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Why Is Menstruation Powerful?

By DeAnna | Published: December 12, 2011

Art by Jessica Jarman-Hayes ©

All indigenous cultures around the world revered women for their ability to birth Life!

In order to birth Life, we must first Menstruate!

In native cultures menstruation was known as the time when the veil between the worlds is thinnest

In native cultures menstruation was considered a time when women have access to the Divine

In native cultures women had special places to go to when they Flowed: Moon Huts, Moon Lodges, Red Tents.

It was understood that when a woman bleeds
she is in a heightened state, and cannot be bothered with everyday tasks!

In native cultures women spent their bleeding days in Moon Lodges talking, crafting, resting, dreaming, laughing, crying, napping, chatting, being quiet, simply having time-off to re-charge their batteries!

In native cultures women in Moon Lodges dreamed prophesies for their tribes

In native cultures people brought questions to the bleeding women: from personal matters, to elders asking whether to wage war…

The answers that Bleeding Women received in dreams, were followed with reverence!

In today’s cultures -

most women have nowhere to go to when they bleed, most women act as if their bleeding time is no different than any other time, most women don’t rest or renew their energy when they bleed, most women don’t talk about what they need when they bleed, many women think their blood is gross…

What’s wrong with this picture???

YOU now know what’s wrong with this picture, so make your own picture, instead!!!

________________________________________

Excerpt from A Diva’s Guide to Getting Your Period – A hip, artsy, full-color, empowering booklet for Tween & Teen girls -
by DeAnna L’am © 2011
Art by Jessica Jarman-Hayes, © 2011
All rights reserved

Posted in Coming of Age, Women's Wisdom | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Are We Binding Our Girls’ Mouths?

By DeAnna | Published: November 8, 2011

In my daughter’s 5th grade class there are three times as many girls with braces on their teeth than there are boys. Though boys are more likely to get braces these days then they were when I was growing up, the majority of brace-wearers are still girls.

Is this a coincidence? I doubt it…

It seems that right when girls start moving toward puberty, when their bodies start budding and expanding, when they start coming into their own identity as young females — is when their mouths are being bound by metal.

Reminiscent of Chinese girls’ feet-binding, braces seems to be mouth-binding for Western girls. The rational in China was strongly rooted in cultural traditions in which the beauty factor was paramount. Is it any different in the West?

Dentists will tell you that it is, yet the cosmetic factor is present in their narrative as much as it is apparent in their ads, showing (mostly) women close up, flashing perfectly-toothed smiles at the camera. You, too, can have such a smile!

But at what price?

The price seems to be many-fold: there are the years (1-4 generally) of daily constraint on a girl’s mouth, the monthly tightening of the braces at the dentist’s office, the restrictions on what foods can be consumed during the brace-wearing period, the excessive need for teeth & brace brushing, and the awkward look of one’s teeth during those years.

And then, there are the messages hidden in these practices…

To begin with, the message conveyed in an orthodontic devise is that one is not good enough as they are. But even more apparent is the message that “you have to suffer to be beautiful.”

For Chinese girls the message inherent in feet-binding was that they can’t walk too far, run too fast, or even stand too firmly on their own two feet. The metaphor for Western girls is that their voices, indeed their self expression, needs a harness, a continual tightening, a molding to a certain norm, an adhering to a generic ideal of beauty.

A well known joke in Europe asks “How can you tell an American anywhere” and the answer is: “They have perfect teeth!” Herein lies the last hidden message in orthodontic devises: uniformity.

Girls who are just coming into their adolescent years, who are beginning the journey of defining themselves, who are striving to discover their unique voices, to define their own expression in the world, are fitted with braces that will work toward uniformity of looks (in teeth at least) and will abide by a uniform ideal of beauty.

Indeed, some girls (and boys) need braces for health reasons, such as the correction of an over-crowded moth, an over-bite, or an under-bite. But are they the majority of brace-wearers?

I know many grown ups with no apparent oral health issues, who have crooked teeth with which they live in peace. Interestingly, most of them are men.

But if a girl of a certain generation missed the boat, it is not too late for her to become uniformly beautiful after the required period of suffering:

More than one woman I know endured (or is still enduring) two-to-four years of braces on their teeth during their forties. When I asked one of them why she was going through this, she exclaimed: “Because I am ugly!” These, mind you, are not women looking for a partner. They are all married, have beautiful children of varying ages, and are fulfilled in their professional lives. Yet the idea of their beauty being absent until such day that their teeth are uniformly lined, has won them over, and they were willing to suffer for that ideal of beauty…

As the global village equalized merchandise consumed by folks, and works toward a common language used by all, can we allow beauty to be diverse?

Can we let our girls find their voices unhindered by devices in their mouths, and accept that their unique voices are in themselves the measure of beauty, rather than looking for it in the teeth through which they are uttered?

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© 2011 DeAnna L’am, All Rights Reserved

Posted in Coming of Age, Women's Wisdom | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Through Alice’s Looking Glass

By DeAnna | Published: October 10, 2011

“First menstruation is welcomed with much celebration and fanfare in Hindu and Buddhist Sri Lankan cultures” writes Audrey Sivasothy in Associated Content on Yahoo (June 4, 2007)

However, On October 4, 2011, Sirohmi Gunesekera writes in ‘The Daily Mirror‘ of Sri Lanka:

“Menarche marks a major change… If only the ceremonies marking the event were cut to a bare minimum, the girl would feel less shy and embarrassed.”

What is happening?

Why is the traditional celebration of a girl’s first blood, which has been in place for generations, is seen by a contemporary writer as obsolete? Why would a ‘modern’ writer call for such traditional rites to be ‘cut to a bare minimum’???

It seems that like Alice, we live in a world in which the looking glass distorts time and perspective.

While we in the west long for the enclosure of tight knit community, the warmth of celebration, and the recognition of passages in our lives, there are voices in cultures that enjoyed these for generations, which call for their elimination.

The writer hopes that “If only the ceremonies marking the event were cut to a bare minimum, the girl would feel less shy and embarrassed.” I ask myself why a girl who is celebrated, witnessed, and welcomed on her first period, in ways she witnessed her cousins, sisters, relatives, and friends being welcomed, would feel embarrassed?

I wonder if she compares her life to that of a girl her age seen on a typical American sit com? Does she see those girls discuss, like, makeup and boys, and measures herself short? Does she long to be cool? Does she perceive her community’s ways as old fashion? Would she trade places with an American girl who, cool on the outside, may starve herself to death, feeling lonely, isolated, not good enough?

It’s a painful thought…

Through Alice’s looking glass, the indigenous customs of Sri Lanka seem powerful and empowering to me, just as American customs may seem to a Sri Lankan adolescent girl looking from the outside in.

A part of me would like to trade places with a Sri Lankan girl in a heart beat! Another part realizes that I, too, felt embarrassed by my parents and their ways… I, too, looked at what my family and community had to offer as something I needed to get away from in order to re-invent myself, find my own voice, make my mark…

My heart aches thinking of a Sri Lankan girl being lavishly celebrated by her culture, yet feeling embarrassed inside… It also aches when I think of the girls I worked with in the U.S. who, upon hearing of how Menarche is celebrated in indigenous cultures, exclaimed: what happened? Why did it stop? How come we are not celebrated anymore?

It is clear that adolescent girls long for meaningful, substantial, significant experiences that will help them make sense of the changes inside them, as well as the world around them.

It is up to us to provide them with such experiences.

In a quest to reclaim girls’ rites of passage and bring meaning and depth to the transition into womanhood, we may look to indigenous traditions to find rich models that have been working for millennia.

How ironic, though, that such models become stale for contemporary girls in indigenous cultures, as they look to us, bereft of ceremonies to mark our passages, and find our ways attractive…

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© 2011 DeAnna L’am, All Rights Reserved

Posted in Coming of Age, Women's Wisdom | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Do You Want To Stop The Rain?

By DeAnna | Published: September 9, 2011

How do you like being called a “baby bearer”???

‘The Times Of India’ refers to you as just that, in an article by Saadia S. Dhailey published on May 18, 2011, saying: “Too much is involved as baby-bearers are reminded of their natural role every month…”

Not only are you a baby-bearer, but this is also your ‘natural role‘! The article goes on to say: “There’s no denying that many of us wish to get rid of the monthly trial forever. Maybe we can…”

Do you want to stop the phenomenon of rain just because it’s inconvenient to be outdoors while it’s wet?

We have become such a convenience-based culture, that we seek to eliminate anything slightly uncomfortable, regardless of the consequences. Lets imagine a world without rain: warm temperatures abide, the sun is shining year-round, we can enjoy the great outdoors 365 days a year, no need to stock up on warm cloths or boots, it’s just another day in paradise! Or is it?

Have you noticed how the great outdoors is slowly but surely drying out? The grasses have turned yellow, as did the trees. Creeks, rivulets, rivers, and lakes slowly shrink and dry out, having no rain to replenish them. It takes time for them to evaporate to nothing, but their disappearance is inevitable. Animals start to die as their water sources vanish, and wait, what about us? Where do we get to drink from? Our reservoirs are almost empty. Well, but no more bothersome rain is falling, isn’t that a good thing?!?

Devising a pill that wipes out menstruation is like creating a method for eradicating rain!

Both menstruation and rain are crucial to our life cycle. Either can be inconvenient, or enjoyed, depending on your attitude and willingness!

If you ever bundled up and took a toddler out in the rain, splashed in a paddle, or lifted your head up and tried to catch raindrops on your tongue, you know how joyful the “inconvenient” rain can be! And, yes, you must have also been terribly inconvenienced by rains on many occasions, as we all have. Is this a good enough reason to start working on methods for rain suppression?

Suppressing menstruation is as short sighted as rain suppression!

Starting with the fact that we don’t know what the long term hormonal repercussions might be, suppressing menstruation is tempering with the blueprint of womanhood! Women are cyclical beings. We ebb and flow with the moon, we dance a monthly rhythm of expansion and contraction, we move from outward- to inward-bound modes of being, from action to dreaminess, and back again… In the same way that we can not thrive in a no-rain world, we can’t thrive in a mono way of being. It is not how we are wired as women…

But what about PMS, cramps, mood swings?

Remember being miserable in the rain versus reveling in it? Rain is not there to inconvenience us. It’s there for a reason, and it calls us to be joyful in it if we so choose. Likewise, PMS and most physical or emotional symptoms related to menstruation are therefor a reason. They are our body’s wise way of calling our attention to the need to stop, rest, go inward, replenish… Suppressing menstruation is killing the messenger!

We can thank it instead…

We can thank our body for reminding us that we’ve been on the go and it’s time to stop for a while. We can appreciate the opportunity for taking stock, for renewing ourselves emotionally, just as our womb renews itself physically by shedding it’s inner lining monthly.

Fighting our body’s message will produce symptoms, or aggravate the mild ones which we ignore. Taking time off, on the 1st day of your period, even if you can only spare a few moments in the morning before anyone else in the household gets up, will help you attune to your inner rhythm. Spend those moments (hours, or the entire day if you are able) reflecting on what you are letting go of from the ending cycle, and what you wish to welcome in the one beginning…

You may soon discover you are drawing strength and renewal from your body’s rhythm, rather than wanting to do away with it.

The manufacturers of the menstrual suppression pill would want to encourage you to not bother. To have every day be the same: sunny, dry, and linear. But who would you rather listen to: pharmaceutical companies or your own body?

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© 2011 DeAnna L’am, All Rights Reserved

Posted in Coming of Age, Uncategorized, Women's Wisdom | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Mirror, Mirror, On The Wall…

By DeAnna | Published: July 22, 2011

Imagine a moment of looking at yourself in the mirror.
What is the first image that comes to mind? Are you smiling? Are you satisfied with what you see? Do you approve of the way you look?

Or are you immediately under attack from your ‘Inner Critic’? Does your gaze zoom-in on the features you dislike most, and an inner harassing litany starts? Or do you focus on giving yourself a message of appreciation about who you are as a person?

If you criticize yourself every time you gaze at your own image in the mirror, you are not alone. Most women, unfortunately, are socialized to do just that.

If you have been working on loving and accepting yourself, you are not alone either. Many women have been laboring on this very path for years. Most find that they are successful some of the time, and slide back to the familiar judgmental-mode at others. One women wrote to me to say she is very mindful about not judging her body in front of her daughters, but when she is alone the internal barrage is as strong as ever…

Women understand that the self-critical current has to stop with us, or we will contaminate yet another generation with its stickiness: the precious generation of our daughters. Most women know we would highly benefit from loving our body in earnest, but don’t know how to turn off the Inner Critic’s voice…

Let’s start by playing detective!
Lets put aside the Judge’s hat, and put on an investigative cap instead :-) With your detective cap on, ask yourself: Whose voice is that judging my body? Where did I first hear this voice? Is it one of my parents? An advertisement from my youth? A line from a movie?

Whoever this voice may belong to, it is Not your authentic voice!

Tracing the origins of your Inner Critic’s voice is the first step to liberation. This may be a slippery road, because you may get fully hooked by the temptation of wearing the Judge’s hat while trying to determine its origins… You might launch into a full-on criticism about yourself, but — each time you hear an inner judgment about your looks , you have the option of stopping, and tracing the origin of the voice. Whether or not it becomes clear who’s voice it is, the asking of this question alone gets you one step removed from being in its grip. You can send the voice back to where it came from, and breathe. Next, think of something you like about yourself and speak it in your mind.

You are erasing old tapes and replacing them with new ones. It takes time, indeed, but not nearly as long as it took to imprint them in your mind in the first place! And the freedom that comes as a result is priceless!

And here is the cherry on top:
Not only will you gain freedom from an exhausting, never-ending inner dialogue of negativity, but you will start modeling self-love and-self acceptance to your daughter!

The road to self-loving may be windy, but it starts with tracing the origins of the negative, self-loathing voices, and returning them to their originators. Practice this for a while, and see how liberating this feels… The next steps will consist of replacing the negative messages with positive ones, and we will talk about this in another article.

Meanwhile, help your Inner judge retire, and revel in your new-found freedom!

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© 2011 DeAnna L’am, All Rights Reserved

Posted in Coming of Age, Women's Wisdom | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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