Your First Period - Your Menarche

“Menarche: The Beginning of a Lifelong Conversation with your Body.”

This is an excerpt taken from my course called "Menstrual Mysteries", a guided journey of learning about what your menstrual cycle is telling you.

How Was Your First Period ?

First things first, can you cast your mind back to your First Period, your Menarche ?

Grab your journal and a pen and answer these questions.....

• What was your experience of your first Period ?

• How were you educated about what was happening to your body ?

• Were you prepared when it happened ?

• Were you celebrated ?

• What do you call your Period... Your moon, your bleed, the curse ?

I believe, your experience of your menarche, forms your experience of your menstrual cycle througout your life.

I remember being too embarrassed to read the book my mum bought for me about my changing body. I remember her drying my hair and trying to talke to me about periods, but I was having none of it. I was too embarrassed. All the education I got in school, I was in a convent ! was all about how not to get pregnant. That sex was a sin and you shouldn't have sex before you get married. That was it, the writing was on the wall, and probably contributed to the many years of infertility !

Then this very big thing happened to me. I was in first year of secondary school. I remember my legs felt really heavy, pains in my stomach, and it happened. Moon Blood. I guess I felt some fear, got home to my mum who supplied me with what I needed. And that was it. THAT WAS IT. Not celebrated, although I would probably have been mortified if I was because the whole world would have known. It was a secret. Something to be kept hidden and not talked about. Typical Irish and Catholic, I would say. And that's how it continued for all of my menstruating life, not talked about and kept hidden.

How much better would it be, if there was a beautiful unfolding for our daughters, where they can see their periods in a positive light, in the light of "power", " wisdom", "cyclical living" ...

Reframing Your Experience

As you ponder the questions above, also think about the cultural traditions and the taboos from where you come from, and notice how they might have influenced your views on your periods throughout your life so far, and even your peri-menopause and menopause.

Once you have journalled on all this, got it all down on paper, you can contemplate on how you would have liked your first experience of periods to have been and how you would have liked to have been initiated into your cyclical nature. Dream about it. Re-frame it in your mind. See yourself in your power as you connect with your body, your womb, and your menstrual cycle, and how you are an amazing woman with the power to create, not just babies, but everything you want to bring into your life.