The word power features in both of our book titles, Wild Power and Wise Power, and in our online menstrual cycle awareness course, Cycle Power. And really, for us it has been this 40 year long quest to really understand what is powerful about the power of the menstrual cycle that has spurred on the unfolding of all we teach today at Red School.
So today we want to start connecting the dots…how exactly can our menstrual cycles help us to step into our power?
Why do so many of us feel Scared, Confused or Suspicious about Power?
Firstly, let’s name that power can be a triggering word, and it’s no surprise. We’re witnessing huge misuses of it in our world today. The word power often evokes images of middle-aged, white men sitting in board rooms, probably smoking cigars, making unethical decisions with huge negative impacts for the planet and everyone on it.
It’s easy to see how we might assume that power itself is the problem. But the distortion of power in our current culture arises, in part, because we forget that weakness and vulnerability are necessary. These qualities only appear weak because of our one-sided view of power.
Our culture currently sees power as perfection—tough and hard, insensitive, unemotional, untouchable and bulletproof. The tender, apparently fragile, emotionally messy, inept, imperfect or immature parts of ourselves are all perceived as weak and powerless.
However, these vulnerabilities are at the heart of our humanity.
They’re the doorway to a wholesome, integrated, wise expression of power that brings compassion and respect to other people, along with a cooperative and respectful relationship with the natural world that supports us.
Power is our Capacity to have Agency in the World
When we are connected to this kind of wise, relational power, we are more able to go out into the world and create the change that we feel called to make. The menstrual cycle and the initiations of menarche, motherhood (for those who experience it) and menopause are real allies for us here.
Menstrual Cycle Awareness—the practice of getting to know ourselves, our cyclical needs, our strengths and our vulnerabilities—helps us to get to know the power we have within us on each cycle day and in each season of our life. Then, over weeks, months, and years of practice and attending to our menstruality process and how it initiates us, we grow the muscle of being able to hold this power, to allow it to move through us and to take responsibility for it.
The Power of being held by Cyclical Consciousness
When we dare to trust our own direct experience of the menstrual cycle, rather than enter into a performative mode based on how we think we ‘should be’, we step into the authentic power of the natural rhythm of our being.
When we lean back into the cycle, and particularly the second half of the cycle, which we call the the ‘via negativa’, we can be called home to our vulnerability, and to a kind of power that centres belonging and connection.
How is your Relationship to Power?
There is a big inner work to do to negotiate our personal relationship to this kind of wild, wise power. Here are some journalling / reflection questions that we hope will help you to take another step in your relationship to power:
