Bleeding and Boundaries

On the Woman’s path of reclamation and embodiment we are brought back to living in alignment with our cyclical nature. While still in our bleeding, fertile years this means following the seasonal rhythm of our wombs. This process will be unique for all of us, just as our experience of the outer world seasons is unique to each person. Some of us may desire deep rest while others desire movement. Some may feel tapped fully into inspiration while others experience a quiet inner stirring. Tuning into my inner winter, my bleeding time, and honoring this experience fully has been profoundly healing.

This deep listening and saying ‘no’ to more of the outside world, along with all that came from this way of being, took me from having incredibly painful bleeds to painless bleeds. When I began that journey back to my womb I was supported by my then partner, my friends were on a similar wavelength and the biggest challenge was my own mind and beliefs. I’d often remind myself that I’m not lazy and that it’s good to rest, to slow down, and to go inwards. When we’re in our intentionally crafted spaces, our homes, with very little input from the outside world, the only things we have to face are ourselves. No doubt facing ourselves and all the beliefs we carry is massive work in itself. In this sense, after getting beyond my own programmed voice, claiming my slow inner winter introspective bleeds was fairly easy, and this is the way I’ve been moving with my cycle for the past five years, with the expectation of a two year pregnancy and postpartum gap. The greatest challenge I’ve met in Mothering and bleeding has been the sheer contrast in double toddler energy and bleeding Mom energy, and that is certainly its own dance at times and a place of surrender.

Through some intentional crafting I’m not often around family or many people during these inner winters, but these past couple months I’ve had the opposite experience while traveling with my Mom and Grandmother..

The women in my family don’t claim rest in this way, no one really does, and there isn’t much talk of our cycles or any of the mystical layers of Womanhood. So, when I declined joining in any outings and instead chose to take some space to myself my Mom came to check on me. She asked if I was okay and I responded by telling her I was and that I was in my bleeding time. Her response to this was to pull me in for a hug and tell me she was sorry. I laugh writing this because the interaction felt so perfectly absurd and funny all at once. I asked why she would be sorry that I’m bleeding. To this she said, “I just don’t like to see you in pain.” And there it was, our family story as women.

The beliefs are these:

-Pain is bad and to be avoided/medicated

-The only time you can or should be resting during the day is if you are in severe pain, sick, old, have worked really really hard, or have a small baby

-Resting during the day, especially a nap, when not meeting the conditions stated above means you are lazy or entitled

I was resting so I must be in pain

I assured her I was not in pain, though it would be okay too if I was, and that it’s perfectly fine to claim some space and slowness simply because that’s what feels right and what our body is asking of us. Later we ended up having a beautiful conversation about how these patterns have shown up for both of us. It was also a time of boundary keeping

It’s one thing to hold a boundary with a person, and it’s another thing to hold it with ourselves by not take on the responses of others to the boundary we are holding.

At one time I thought holding a boundary was simply standing ones ground, that all we need to do is claim our rest or whatever it is, and then do that thing regardless of what anyone thought or felt. But the other layer to boundaries is energetic. It’s that moment when we hold our line and then that triggers responses around us, where all this (often unconscious) energy comes towards us. All the unspoken looks and undertones of “you can’t do that, who do you think you are, WE don’t do things that way.”

This is where our energetic boundaries come in, where we learn to hold our field and let what isn’t ours bounce off and away from our being. Because holding your circle and then stewing and worrying about how you’re being perceived is a way of letting a whole lot of garbage in and nearly defeats the purpose of a boundary. Clear boundaries help us to distinguish what is actually ours and what is being projected onto us/what belief someone is trying to uphold through us. Then we can decide if we want to participate.

This can unearth our own grief and anger to hold a boundary with people close to us, especially when it’s in regards to the ways we move through the world. It would feel far better to embody ourselves fully and this be accepted, or even embraced, than it does to have this be dismissed or reacted to in a negative way. Holding a boundary and not taking on the feelings of others doesn’t mean we don’t feel our own feelings - it means we distinguish between the two and then consciously choose to move with what is ours.

These moments, when we’re faced with all the perceptions and are asked to hold ourselves in our wholeness, become gifts. They are our practice to see if we really are claiming ourselves fully or if we only are within the ‘right’ circumstances. It’s here we see where we can deepen our roots of devotion. These aren’t moments that call for perfection, simply our reflection and awareness.