A Musing For The Fairer Sex

There is tremendous (and not always pleasant) debate in Ireland at the moment about abortion rights and repealing the 8th amendment. It has certainly got the people talking and, as usual, it is disturbing how closed minded or uninformed some people are – on either side of the fence.

Women are looking for the right to choose. Some are choosing for themselves, their future and some for the future of that child – it could be a grim one and the mother just can’t see any light on the horizon for that little being.

It has got me thinking about how women think about themselves. The very essence of being a woman. Backtracking to when little girls reach puberty.

Yes ladies, we have plumbing that is peculiar to being a member of the fairer sex and this plumbing likes to remind us, roughly every 28 days that we are indeed, a woman.

How do you feel about this little reminder? Do you curse it? Do you hate the fact you have the symptoms of menstruation? That you have to be a woman at all? That it gets in the way? That you feel like shite so often? That you just wish it would go away? Do you hear your mothers voice telling you that it is dirty? Do you hear a lover saying that he won’t go near it?

Or, do you welcome it like a friend? Do you take the time to perhaps take it easy during that time of the month? Do you inwardly celebrate the inner cleansing – like the autumn leaves falling from a tree, in order to regrow new and strong for the spring. Could you take the time to hear what that area of your ‘soul’ has to say?

You see ladies, if we treated this very womanly physiological event with more respect and compassion, we are treating ourselves, the very core of our femininity, with more respect and compassion too. We are more gentle on ourselves and this gives us strength.

If we were more compassionate with ourselves, we are then able to respect ourselves and therefore demand respect from others. It has always seem an oxymoronic view to me that our bodies are ours and others must respect that, when every month, we can’t stand them and treat them with revulsion – well, varying degrees of that.

Physiologically the nervous system of the uterus and pelvic organs are linked to the enteric nervous system – that’s right we are a whole system. Our identity is held in our gut – smothered by the enteric system and innervated by the sexual nervous system.

The sense of who we are, our identity and what boundaries we are prepared to go to is greatly influenced by those nerves from our pelvis.

So like the Yin supports the Yang, the Yang supports the Yin, but in order to support and respect others and to receive that back, women MUST support and respect themselves.

If anything, start thinking about how you feel about being a woman, physically. Start thinking about how you speak to other women and especially your daughters.

Come on ladies – unite with other women, but first unite with yourself!

In my work, I coach women in improving the relationship they have with their feminine centres. From issues of troubling menstruation to menopause – which is another article!