St Brigid’s day – also known as Imbolc the first day of Spring.
What better time to tune in to the feminine creative power.
Brigid’s cross
Brigid or Brigit, a pagan Goddess and early Catholic saint was a woman of significance. As a child growing up in the west of Ireland, St Brigid’s day was a day to make the Brigid’s cross in school. Not an easy task, involving copious amounts of rushes, string, patience, and co-ordination. If we did it right, we could bring it home where it would reside for a year tucked into the top of the picture of the Sacred Heart in the kitchen. Here it would protect against fire, lightening, illness, and evil spirits! Not a bad day’s work.
Brigid a role model
Brigid has been reimagined in the past few years, becoming something of a role model for young women. She broke the rules and made a difference. Ahead of her time she had the courage to set up and run a monastery for both men and women, a radical idea even now, and was widely known for her compassion and assistance to the poor and needy. She became a bishop! in the early Christian church in Ireland and presided over mass, performing miracles such as turning water into beer for thirsty lepers and making a foetus disappear in a young nun who had taken a vow of chastity. She certainly was a controversial figure. Is it any wonder that her story was sanitised by the papacy as Christianity became more established in Ireland? Roman law could not tolerate a woman being the head of a monastery, a bishop or in charge of men. That surely went against the natural order of things!
Male created society
Fast forward 1600 years or so and we find ourselves as women continuing to negotiate our lives around a male created society. Women had no control over their fertility and families were large which meant that they had very little time for things outside the home. Life was short, marriage and parenthood started in the teenage years and most people were dead by the age of 50! I reckon menopause wasn’t much of an issue 300 years ago!!! So, it was up to men to make their way in the outside world, providing for the family, negotiating and shaping the way we all now live in society.
Contraception
Access to education for women began with the development of girl’s schools in the 18th and 19th centuries but universal education came onstream in Western society in the 20th century. The development of the oral contraceptive pill was pivotal. By allowing for control over the number and spacing of babies, women could now work outside the home and contribute to society much as Brigid had all those years ago. Isn’t it interesting that the Celtic tradition allowed women a voice and a role in society, and it has taken us 1600 years to get it back!
Burn out
Early 21century sees a post-modern exhaustion in many women as they continue to navigate a man shaped world. Women work harder to advance their careers and are usually in charge of housekeeping and childcare. Choosing not to work is frowned upon. Being a working mum is a guilt laden path. Burn out rates in women mid-career are twice that of men. I am one of those statistics, ending my own career in hospital early due to unrelenting pressures and stress. What’s going on?
Woman friendly initiatives
I believe that shoehorning ourselves as women into an education and work system designed by and for men is a big part of the problem. The system does not meet the needs of women and it’s wonderful to see the beginnings of change. The publicity around menopause highlighted the problems many experienced women were facing in their jobs resulting in the development of workplace protocols for menopause. Much more needs to happen in this area but it’s a start. Similarly, the introduction of menstrual leave days in Southeast Asia and Spain is evidence of a more enlightened approach to women in the workplace. And while it’s wonderful to see initiatives like these we need to change the culture and the belief system around women in the workplace so that women will avail of these advances.
Hormone fluctuations in the menstrual cycle
The male hormonal system runs on a 24-hour clock. There are no crazy monthly hormonal fluctuations, so a simple daily routine works well for most men. That’s why it’s easy for these guys to work consistently, lose weight on a simple diet or do the same exercise routines and get the results they’re looking for. Us women? Not so much.! We must take our hormones into consideration at all stages of our lives. Puberty, our monthly cycles, pregnancy, motherhood, (peri)menopause. To say nothing about the havoc that stress and sleeplessness causes on our hormones…Is it any wonder we have become disillusioned, exhausted?
Learning about our menstrual cycle and the hormone fluctuations can be the most important thing we do for ourselves as women. Learning about our own bodies, knowing how our oestrogen and progesterone (and testosterone) change as the cycle progresses and how our moods, energy, and physical ability change during the month can allow us to work smarter not harder. We can choose when to go all out on a project, or go for broke in the gym (follicular phase and ovulation) and when not to schedule that important meeting, kick back and take a long hot bath (the week before the period). For too long women have tried to be better than men by working harder and longer, ignoring their own physiology and the biological key to a more successful, easeful life. We need to inform ourselves and get to know ourselves and then maybe we can then let our men and families know what’s going on for us.
The menstrual blueprint
Learning about our menstrual cycle is a blueprint for negotiating the world around us. What a gift to be able to give to our daughters and our families. Being able to find a reason for why she is full of energy, confident, fearful, tearful, exhausted is so gratifying and allows her to feel these emotions without any blame or shame. Where she’s at in her menstrual cycle may help her organise her social life, training sessions, study schedule and help prevent the habit of “pushing through no matter what” which gets us all into trouble from time to time and leads to eventual exhaustion.
Imbolc
So, on this first day of Spring, Imbolc, celebrating the cycle of nature turning towards growth and maturity and occurring halfway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox, I suggest we consider new ways to grow and develop in tune with our own internal seasons. Taking time to inhabit and learn about our wonderful bodies will allow an ease and confidence in ourselves and in the world.
At My Girls Gynae we educate all girls and women about menstrual health, the menstrual cycle and how it affects every aspect of life. We promote tried and tested self-care practices based in the ancient Ayurvedic tradition and modern medical solutions, allowing us to navigate our menstrual cycle to get the best results at work and at home. We strongly believe in promoting a more nurturing, respectful, work/school environment which will serve the needs of women and men equally and help reduce the number of premature departures of highly skilled women from the workforce.
Resources
MyGirl’sGynae.com
Lean In – Book by Sheryl Sandberg
Two lives of St Brigid – Book by Phillip Freeman