Hopefully your period didn't come out of the blue. In order to reap all the benefits of cycle syncing, you must be tracking and award of your body's signals. Ideally when menses comes you have planned a head a little bit and have been using the tension of the Pre Menstruation phase to work or plan ahead.
This planning ahead will be the thing that saves you and helps you enjoy the time of slowness that is menses. I make sure to check all my email, go to the grocery store, make a big pot of stew and block out time on my schedule if I know my period is coming. Sure, you can have a period that is a couple of days early or late, but most of the time I know when it is coming by the signals that my body is giving me. As you go through your cycle syncing journey, you will become much more sensitive to your own rhythm and signals.
Remember that the Menses phase take up one quarter of our cycle. It is full possible that this is 6-8 days. While very few women actually bleed for that long, we should treat this whole phase with respect. The pace of this phase is a full stop followed by a slow ramp up back to normal speed. The first 1-3 days are dedicated to stopping, with the middle 2-3 days as a gentle warm-up back to normal speed. The last 1-3 days are coming back to full function, with maybe some modifications here and there.
Do not engage
It is best during this time to cancel plans and stay off social media. Although a scrolling is a solo activity, social media still has social energy. It is largely not a beneficial way to spend your time - especially if you want to relax and clear your mind. Since relaxing and cleaning your mid is the whole point of taking time off for menses, we want to avoid it at all costs.
This will make a HUGE difference in your mood and recovery state. One or two days away from social activity of any sort is extremely beneficial. Watch movies, read, journal. Silent activities are best. Allow yourself to be blissed out by creating space in your day.
Take Shortcuts
Any and all shortcuts are helpful right now: have dinner delivered if you didn’t cook, call the grandparents to come and pick up the kids, get a babysitter or tell your partner they are on duty for the day, watch sad movies to get that good cry going, delegate tasks away from you, vacation message tell anyone who emails you that the turn-around time will be 48 hours. Whatever it is, if it makes your life easier, DO IT.
Unless you are saving lives, 99.99% of all tasks can be put off for 24-36 hours. My business coach is always telling me, there are no emergencies in business. Women have a tendency to outwork their male counterparts. That's because not only do they want t o prove they are valuable, but they also have the tendency to try harder to please the higher ups and believe others when they say things like “Its an emergency!”
Some may think this is blowing off duty when it is actually respecting yourself. And one of the most powerful universal law is that in order to glean more respect in and from the world, you must have more respect for yourself and your needs and limits. So practice saying “No,” outsourcing tasks and ignoring email for fixed hours.
Review Work and Relationships
One of the greatest gifts of menstruation is the reflection and review that happens when we allow ourselves the space to simply exist. What was upsetting us a week ago is either forgotten, forgiven or in placed in the category of a problem that needs to be solved.
Menses is a dark time that allows us to let go physically and spiritually. It is important that we take stock of thing going well and not so well in our life. Are you still on path to your goals? Are your goals even relevant anymore? Is you relation ships great or is there a check-in, change or clearing conversation that needs to be had? Do you have enough hobbies, meaning or enjoyment in your life? Are these some bad habits that need to be tossed? Do you know all of your trigger for self destruction?
These are honest conversations everyone need to have with themselves on a regular basis. While you do not need to run the whole gamut every month, your life and intuition will tell you what needs to be solved. Sometimes it’s nothing. Sometimes we can just be grateful for the silence and the gift of a good life that is largely in our control.
I promise you, when you start taking time for yourself at the right interval, your life will absolutely feel within your control.
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