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| http://bernadettepleasant.com/ |
When you know more, you fear less. And when you are fearless, you are powerful.
Hello everyone. Today's post has the honor of being a part of Bernadette Pleasant's Emotion in Motion Blog Tour. I'm so excited to be involved in such a positive project with other emotional and expressive women bloggers. Learn more about the blog tour HERE and be linked to the other participating blogger's posts. There's more to being a woman than trying to keep up with Beyonce and having eyebrows on fleek. Let's dig a little deeper sometimes to get to the root of things so we can live lives that are as great as they look.
I was given the option to talk about the emotion of feeling powerful or panic. I decided to talk to feeling powerful. At first I wasn't quite sure what I was going to talk to in regards to power and applying it to women's lives but as a creative writer, I figured it would come to me as I started to write. A few hours before I started writing this piece, it hit me out of no where what to talk to. Women many times think their power is in "thinking like a man", being as fast or strong as a man, being deemed equal to and being equally respected as a man or having some high level position in life or their own business. I think our magic and power is in our yoni and our reproductive system. What makes women very powerful is our ability to carry and sustain life. I've found more power and pride through knowledge encouraging me to understand my cycle and my reproductive system instead of fearing it and feeling as if I needed medication or luck to have control over it. It took me getting on birth control, experiencing terrible side effects and one particularly frightening experience on it that led to me getting off of it immediately afterward to see that (not only was I harming my body but that) I was pretty ignorant about my reproductive system.
A lot of women are. It's not our fault. The things that I am learning now, most of us weren't taught growing
up because our mothers didn't know this stuff and we weren't taught in health class in school either. As young girls, in the efforts to keep us chaste and child free before marriage, we're frightened into feeling fear, shame and responsibility for men's inappropriate/disrespectful actions towards our bodies and engaging in sexual activity. We're frightened into thinking we can get pregnant at any moment so we'd better just take the pill, the patch or get a copper ring implanted in us to take care of that "problem". We view our menstrual cycles as gross and annoying; that they make us dirty/unclean and untouchable for 3-5 days out of each month. Talk about leeching all our beauty, pride and power from us. Our power lights are being dimmed and in some cases, put out completely.
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| You can purchase tickets here |
After being sexually inactive for almost 4 years, I entered a healthy relationship with a wonderful man and became sexually active again. I knew that I had to do my part to help prevent pregnancy because I don't want children before I am married. I didn't want to get on birth control because I don't like being on any kinds of drugs so I talked to my OBGYN to learn of my options outside of birth control. I was eager to hear my options from a professional and fellow woman but was disappointed to only be told condoms or diaphragms. There was no talk of the FAM (fertility awareness method). At the time I felt, given my options, that birth control, the pill, was my best option and vowed to get off of it in 2 years or less. I was prescribed the low estrogen pill, Microgestin, the very end of August and got off of it on December 3rd. The synthetic hormones wrecked havoc on my body (messed up my gut flora balance, vitamin deficiencies, weakened immune system, blurred vision...) in the short amount of time I was on them. I realized that I was going to have to discontinue use and find another way to prevent pregnancy until I was ready to start a family. As the saying goes, when the student is ready, the teacher appears. I learned of fertility monitors from a blogger that a friend of mine told me about, and it changed my life forever. I knew nothing about this before. There was a community of women who were not only using the monitors to conceive but to prevent pregnancy! This opened up a whole new world of natural birth control to me and learning to become in tune with my cycle and my body. I learned of the fertility awareness method, cervical mucus (and how the consistency of it denotes if you're fertile or not) and basal body temperatures and that most healthy women with an average cycle of 28 days could only conceive around 6-10 days out of each month. So much for us being able to get pregnant at any time. I now felt in control and that my fertility wasn't out of my hands and control; that I could understand it and work with it to get my desired results. We don't need meds to keep us from getting pregnant, we only have to be aware of our bodies and our cycles. And my research continues as I delve further into learning my body overall now and in the FAM. I'm excited to read the highly recommended Taking Charge of Your Fertility by Toni Weschler over the holiday break. I will be writing more about this topic in the new year so stay tuned. We need to know these things.
Knowledge truly is power and something as small as awareness of my fertility has empowered me and instilled even more pride in my femininity and awe of the female inner body. It has empowered me to be more curious, ask more questions and take understanding my [reproductive] health and my well being into my own hands. It's pretty damn awesome that when we know our cycle, day of ovulation, fertile days and infertile days that we can PLAN our families! Or plan to not have one. There don't have to be any "oopsies" babies. It has empowered me to live seeking knowledge and asking more questions instead of living in a place of fear and worry. It has empowered me to share this knowledge with young girls, women and whoever else will listen. There is power in truly understanding our reproductive systems and health instead of being clueless, ashamed and embarrassed towards the topic. When you know more, you fear less. And when you are fearless, you are powerful.
Bernadette Pleasant, the creator of Emotion in Motion has developed a safe and sacred day-long journey that engages the mind, body and soul. Weaving together the use of music, percussions, meditation, and hands-on healing, her January 4th workshop will create an impactful, life-changing experience for each participant! You can purchase tickets here or participate in her latest giveaway. I'm thinking of going to this workshop.
Milan is a New York City based, creative writer and the founder of AGrlCanMAC. She's a self proclaimed accessories junkie who's passionate about healthy living, adventure, books, crystals, the Law of Attraction and arts & crafts. AGrlCanMAC is a resource for women of color all over the world who want to look good, radiate good and feel good at the same damn time.
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