8 Ways I Support My Menstrual Health

These are some of the key ways I support the health and vitality of my menstrual cycle with nutrition.

Transcript

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Welcome to the Sacred Womb Podcast, womb-centred wisdom for the Arc of Womanhood, with me, your host, Melanie Swann. Oh, hello, hello. A warm welcome back to the Sacred Womb Podcast. How are you doing today? How is your cycle? How is that gorgeous, juicy, sacred womb centre, that matrix upon which your reality is built doing? I wanted to let you know that when I record these episodes, I'm visualizing you all in the room with me. I'm visualizing you all over the world so that I actually am talking to you. I hope that makes a difference. I hope it comes across because that's where it's coming from. I can't just sit in my little room here with my pink slippers on and just speak. I get myself into the zone before I start and really feel that we're all in a yurt with a with a wood burning stove and the fire crackling and some raspberry leaf and nettle leaf tea. So I like to invite you into the yurt today, and I'd like to talk about eight ways I support my menstrual health. There are blankets in the yurt to get comfortable, little pillows, there's some nice incense burning, and there's birds tweeting outside. So yeah, that's the space I'm in today. So yeah, I want to talk about eight ways I support my menstrual health. So just to start this, I'm gonna talk about things I eat, things I use, things I don't use, and I want to be clear, I'm not a qualified nutritionist, and that's why I'm not putting it out as a post eight ways to support your menstrual health. I'm sharing what I do, what I've learned over the years, what I've found works for me, my experience working with lots of women. So I wanted to put this out specifically now. I tuned in and felt like what is it? What is it? What's a good episode right now? What's appropriate? And this is what came because I do have a few others stacked up ready. Healing the father wound, and another is an apology to men about periods. I'm looking forward to sharing that with you. I keep refining that one actually. I keep refining it down and down, doing different healing work. Uh so that is coming, I promise you. But uh, yeah, I like to refine that one because it's very, very important, and I'm hoping that will reach loads and loads and loads of people. So for today, I was thinking, what do I share now? What's October's podcast? Because I like to record them as close to the publishing date as possible so that they're relevant, they're current at the time they come out. Of course, they'll be useful at other times, but I really like to make it current as well. So, yeah, I'm sharing this now because I have had the old uh Rona as well. I had an antibody test a few weeks ago, and yeah, I've got a high count of developed antibodies. So I'm very pleased about that. So I I think I had it February March time, mid-March maybe, or I could have had it and and not even noticed, but yeah, I I was kind of felt a bit off for a couple of days, so did my partner. I felt a burning sensation up my nose like something's brewing, and yeah, it could have been then, but it went, I it went after a couple of days. I took a natural flu shot, which is orange juice, turmeric juice, garlic juice, and ginger juice, and that recipe, along with loads of others, fantastic protocols, recipes are available in Medical Medium's free downloadable virus protection booklet. So I've put the link in the show notes so that you can go there, have a look, and download it yourself. So, yeah, I at well took care of myself and it cleared up. Could have been then, could have been another time, and I got no symptoms, but anyway, I've been in contact with it and and it's gone. So, yeah, I wanted to share that, and really that I I experience my menstrual cycle as a barometer of my overall health, emotional, spiritual, physical, and that I utilize those signals, those signs of signals, to help point me in the right direction of what's needed for my body. So, yeah, I've got eight key elements of my menstrual health that I look at. There are more, but I I mean there's only so much I'm going to put uh on one podcast episode. Uh, I want to make this digestible as well because there's there is quite a lot of information, and I've put references in the show notes with links so that you can go to those references yourself, find out yourself, see if it works for you. Just to be clear, I'm not trying to get anyone to eat a certain way or buy into any certain belief system or a diet system. I'm simply sharing what works for me, and I thought it might be useful for you, and yeah, you can you can go and make up your own minds. So, yeah. Anyway, I send you lots of love. I imagine us all kind of getting comfy with blankets now, and the the chat is interactive and not me talking, and we we have a good old um chew over the information afterwards, which you can actually do by joining the Sacred Room private Facebook group. Links in the show notes again. Uh, there's over 2,000 women in there now having like supportive conversations, which I really enjoy seeing and being part of. So do come and join us. And really, if you enjoy the podcast, I'd really love to ask you a favourite. Would you leave a review on Apple Podcasts? I'd really appreciate it. It really helps women who are new to this to see that other women are benefiting, other women are enjoying it, and to to dip their toe in the water because I think all women should know about the power that's within them. Alright then. Well, let's pass the tea round and get uh get going with eight ways I support my menstrual health. Okay, so number one, I don't focus on hormones. So yeah, I've I've actually tried to learn about hormones very unenthusiastically, actually. I didn't try very hard. So I looked into it, and because I work in this area and I thought, oh, that must be interesting. I wasn't genuinely interested, but I thought maybe I should have a look. And yeah, I just couldn't hold my attention, it had no grist there. Partly because it's just not my thing, and partly because I think I think the information is really limited. Yes, this rises, and yes, this hormone does that, and it's oh god, all the way around the cycle, fair enough, but it seems very simplified, and I think I think in years to come we're gonna have much more information that shows how much more complex our cycle is and wondrous, and how amazing our womb centre is and our reproductive system as a whole. So yeah, I don't I I see the information, I take it into account, but I equally don't focus on ah, the cycle is there's too much bleeding, or there's not enough bleeding, or there's uh this happening within my cycle, and then look at my hormones or what that means hormonally, because for me, my cycle is a barometer of health, and it's the tip of the iceberg, really. So, hormones I'm aware have been blamed for a bloody long time, and I've seen this partly myself through seeing about women's history and the sort of pain that we've been through, to be honest. And yeah, I've also read a lot of Anthony Williams stuff, he's he's the medical medium, and this is where I get my information from uh, nutrition-wise, healing-wise for the body, because his information is just second to none. I really have not come across anything that's so comprehensive and original. I've seen a lot of stuff that's copied and claimed to be the new thing, but his isn't. It comes direct from spirit, and I know people are a bit sceptical about that, but my guides very clearly told me I was struggling with my health in about I was about 34, was having hot flashes and thinking, what the hell is this? Menopause, what's going on? It wasn't, it was an overburdened liver, it was the liver was working too hard and it was uh let enough heat to cool itself down. And that's when I really started looking into medical medium stuff because that's that's where I found that stuff, and it was early in the morning, and I heard my guide say medical medium. So I looked that up, and that's that's where this is coming from now. Uh, he's got plenty of books out, and I'm going to reference some of them and his podcast because he's got a new podcast out that is fantastic. I'm not a an affiliate, I don't got paid, I didn't train with him or anything. I've got no connection with him like that. I've simply read his stuff, listened to his podcast, and I think they're fantastic. So, yeah, he talks about the medical profession, the Western medical profession, blaming hormones. And it's starting in the the 50s, 60s when women started to get really quite sick, and hormones or crazy woman syndrome was blamed. Women were branded as either sort of lazy or bored or uncooperative, or it was just their fucking hormones. So, yeah, it's the fact that our hormones get blamed for a lot of things in the Western medical system just shows the limited amount of information in that system. I don't hate that system, I think we could work together well, and certainly if I broke my leg, I'd be the first one down the hospital asking for some anesthetic and working with the doctors there. So, yeah, I I don't I'm not of the um hating the medical system camp, but I do think it's very, very limited on women's reproductive health and has done a lot of damage actually. So, yeah, I don't focus on hormones, but I take that into account. What I do focus on, which is number two, I focus on the health of my liver, and I've both experienced this and looked at it from a Chinese medical perspective. So, from the Chinese medical perspective, the liver is considered the engine that runs the menstrual cycle. And I really found this out when I was having hot flashes at 34 and did some liver cleansing, and I'm still doing some liver cleansing intermittently now, so that I have a really bloody amazing menopause. I really want to be able to focus on the emotional, the spiritual aspect of that, and to take good care of myself, but to be struggling with all the symptoms that many women are struggling with, there's no freaking way I'm going through that. Maybe it's some of it is going to happen to me anyway, uh, and I'm gonna need to deal with that. But I certainly do not think suffering in that way is part of menopause at all, actually. I think it can be a very liberating experience if we've got the skills and tools to go through transformation that is uh very strong. So, yeah, I focus on liver health, and yeah, so I've been doing liver cleanses again, uh recommended by Medical Medium. He does a nine-day cleanse, he recommends, and that's not like anything weird standing in my head drinking olive oil or anything like that. It's actually really gentle. He talks about that the liver doesn't like to be pushed, it's got to be prepared, and even though I mean the cleanse is a bit difficult for me in parts, the first part is the most difficult to be honest, but um, yeah, it's a nine-day cleanse, and I've done it several times, and we'll go through that several times. So, yeah, I did one of the liver cleanses and it was through my moon time, and yeah, my liver was pretty busy cleansing, and I didn't realize it wasn't really a great time to do that over my moontime. So I kind of had cramps and uh my cycle was a little bit late, and I really felt the connection between liver and menstrual health, liver health and menstrual health then. So, yeah, since then I do the liver cleanse outside of my period, and that works out a lot better. I try and do it in the first half of my cycle, and then I see the results in my menstrual cycle or in other ways in my body, and I I really recommend taking a look at it. Several people I know have done it. There's lots of people on Instagram you can look up who do it, who are having really great results. But my skin is shining at the end of that, and I feel great, and I've got loads of energy, and yeah, I just feel fantastic. So I'm doing rounds of that every few months. And number three, I do not eat eggs, dairy, meat, soy, corn, or canola oil. So I will explain why, and really want to reiterate: I'm really not expecting anyone to do any of these things like me. We're all hugely attached to what we eat and how we eat, and food, and it means loads of different things for us. And I haven't ever met anyone that doesn't have any emotional attachment or association to food, that's not really possible. So, really take this as I'm sharing what works for me, and I've got some information that I think will be of use and inspiration to you. So, I do not eat eggs. I'll start off with eggs. Again, I've partly experienced this and then I've looked into Anthony's work and he says eggs are really, really not good if you're struggling with any health issue, and particularly if you're struggling with your reproductive system. I've put the link in the show notes to his latest podcast on why eating eggs just is not good for us at all. But for me, it happened about again, about 10 years ago. I was visiting uh a dear friend and I was on my moontime, and he said, Oh, can I make you an omelette? And my well, I can remember it now, my stomach just flipped, and I thought, oh no, I can't eat eggs. And I don't think I I've eaten a few eggs since to sort of test, did I really feel sick if I ate an egg? And yeah, I did not feel good. Basically, I don't want to eat another chick's period. That's for me, that's pretty gross, and yeah, also from a Chinese medical perspective, they say like, don't eat eggs on your period. Anyway, after that, I couldn't really eat eggs. I just my body does not want them. So, medical medium in his information says that they actually feed pathogens, they feed viruses, and viruses are partly what's causing PCOS and endometriosis that are sitting in the reproductive system. So he also says a lot of the information out there for women is advising to eat eggs, and that that's really the opposite. We should not be eating eggs at all. And so, yeah, I've put a link to his podcast. I encourage you to listen to that and make up your own mind. But I just do not eat them, period. Ha! Pun intended. Anyway, dairy. Okay, so I'll put my hands up. Occasionally I crack and I eat a bit of parmesan on my pasta. But 98% of the time I do not eat dairy. I was I grew up eating cheese, and um, yeah, it's a hard one to kick for me, so yeah, I'm still working on that. But the reason why I don't eat it most of the time is that it it just firstly, it just clogs up my sinuses, and you know, doing work where I need my voice, I need to have my voice nice and clear for this podcast. I I work online, my voice has got to be nice and clear, and I used to do a lot of acting as well, and yeah, I I like to be able to utilize my voice in a way that's nice and uh expressive and clear. So I know singers as well tend to cut out dairy because it quite it's quite mucusy in the throat, which in itself makes me want to vomit a bit. So, yeah, the other reason why I don't eat dairy is because of what happens to the animals. So I'm not gonna go on a vegan rant here. I don't want anyone to turn off and be like, oh my god, she's gone pots, but I do really want to get the point across that the way we treat female animals in particular, I think is a way that shows how we think about the female species. So cows are basically raped, they're forced to become pregnant. Uh, the farmer will stick his fist up their arse, supposedly to stimulate them. But yeah, wow, that is I wouldn't want to come back as a cow. And yeah, then they have a baby and it's ripped away from them straight away, and their milk is stolen, and they're pumped with hormones so that they keep producing and they drop dead after about five years and then are chopped up for meat. So a cow's normal life is up to 25 years, and I think it's actually disgusting the way we treat animals. I don't drink milk, I don't eat cheese, except for the odd shaving of parmesan, which are really trying hard to kick. Yeah, I don't want to be drinking that stuff that's got all that distress in and all that adrenaline and pus and blood and whatever else is in it and hormones. I don't want to be taking that into my body. I don't want another woman's distress and pain and trauma in my body. I'm focused on healing from childhood stuff, generational stuff, ancestral, past life. I'm trying to work with all of that. Uh, I don't want to be creating more. So I don't eat dairy and I don't eat meat. It's full of adrenaline. Uh even if it's treated nice and grass-fed and put under the sun and petted every day, it's still killed against its will. So it's going to have adrenaline and that's going to go into my body, which I don't want. Um, so yeah, that's why I don't eat those two. And of course, you know, if there's excess adrenaline in the body, that's not good for the cycle at all, because the womb center, the reproductive system, reads its environment. So it's going to read its immediate environment, which is our body, and it's going to read the surrounding environment as well. So if we're trying to get pregnant or we're trying to get pregnant with consciousness, then our womb knows if it's a good environment to bring new life into. So I want to create a good environment for that to come through. So yeah, I don't eat soy, there's hormones in it, there's stuff in it, I don't know what's in it, it's been genetically modified to stay well away from it. Medical medium has some great information on why soy is not good, on why corn is not good. Again, genetically modified, it's been messed with, and canola oil. Ooh, he says that's horrible. He says that really rots away in the reproductive system. So that's also called rapeseed oil. So I stay well away from that as well. Uh, I actually don't eat gluten very often, wheat, because it just bloats me like hell. Uh, so yeah, yeah, don't eat any of those things, but yeah, I'm not perfect. I slip with a I slip with the parmesan sometimes. So, yeah, I'm trying my best. Okay, so number four, I get the heavy metals out of my body. Again, information from medical medium that we have heavy metals, we have toxic heavy metals in our body, and the the mercury can get into our brain, it can get into our reproductive system, it can get into our liver, and this is from the industrial revolution, it's passed down from generation to generation, and pathogens and viruses eat those heavy metals. So, I've put a link in the show notes to his episode and his information about the heavy metals. And one thing he did say on a on a Facebook Live, actually, which I thought was really interesting, is that when we've got heavy metals in our system, it can make our periods heavier. So that's one of those things that you know my ears pricked up, and I thought, ah, okay, because then you know, looking at hormones doesn't give us any idea at all. It's it's what's disrupting. Those hormones that make a difference. So, yeah, uh, there is a heavy metal detox smoothie which is absolutely beautiful. I make it most mornings. It's banana, uh, Atlantic dulse, orange juice, cilantro, spirulina, barygrass juice powder, and wild blueberries. So, again, that recipe is in the show notes from Anthony, and it's really lovely, really lovely way to start the day, I think. So, I'm getting the heavy metals out because my grandmother had dementia, and part of Anthony's information is that heavy metals contribute and cause Alzheimer's dementia. So I'm aware that I've got probably heavy metals in my body and I want them out, so I just take that as a breakfast almost every day. It's really nice. It's got wild blueberries in which I love. I'm surprised my skin hasn't turned purple by now, but I eat so many. Anyway, okay, that's that's number four. Alright, then number five, I use natural skincare, uh, natural cleaning products, and natural perfumes and natural menstrual products. So basically, I've cut all the chemicals out of my life that I can. Yeah, I make my own body butters, I use a chemical-free face cream, I use the Mody Body Period pants, e cover cleaning products, sometimes I make my own cleaning products. I'm not so good at that, so I tend to buy them, but the chemical-free ones and perfumes, ah! I don't use those horrible perfumes, I use essential oils. Yeah, apparently, again from medical medium, those perfumes that are sold in the shops are just so, so toxic to us, and as are nail polishes as well, and yeah, they just get into our system and they really can mess up our bodies. One thing I read a while back was that the body can tag some of those as estrogens, they call them xenoestrogens, and so that makes our cycle estrogen dominant, and so that's not great, and it puts things out of whack. So I don't know the hormonal details, you'll have to look that up yourself. But basically, it's toxic to the body, and so I've cut out over the years any chemicals, so it's all natural stuff, and I really enjoy making my own body butters and sprays and spritzes and things like that. Uh, the Moddy Body Period pants, really, really nice, really enjoy them. There is a 15 pound off voucher in the link in the show notes if you want to try them. Yeah, cleaning products, just use ones I can find at the local refill store and uh health food stores, and then essential oils are just beautiful, they've got lovely properties as well. So, to summarize, I get the false hormones out and keep the chemicals away as much as I can. I'm not aiming for a pure clean life here because that's really not possible. I think my approach really is that I do as much as I can and that I've got uh an immune system that's strong and a res and responsive, so that's that's what I focus on. So, yeah, that brings me on to number six. I support my immune system and overall health. One way I do that is to rest at moontime because again, Anthony's information is 80% of the energy that runs the immune system is diverted towards the very act of menstruation at our moontime. So, rest enduring that gives me chance, gives my body chance to do what it needs to do without having any stress or strain. And of course, life happens and we need to adapt and we need to be responsive, but as much as possible, I rest, take care of myself so that I'm not leaving myself vulnerable to things while I'm on my moon time. So, yeah, I I generally support my overall health and and view that as the best way to take care of my menstrual health because that is I can't take care of it in isolation, it's not an isolated thing, it's uh it's a barometer, it's an overall whole, uh part of the whole. Sorry. So, yeah, I take supplements, vitamin C, good quality vitamin C, B12, and zinc, uh, and sometimes take like nettle tincture and raspberry leaf tea and nettle leaf tea and different things uh like that, uh chagger tea, that's very nice as well. So, yeah, I focus on overall health and do the liver cleanses and nourish my adrenals, and and that's that works well for my psychical health. I also, number seven, I know this is kind of I'm surprised this one is kind of controversial and people are doing this, but I eat loads of fruit, and from Anthony's work, I understand that there's a fruit fear out there. So he's just released a podcast on this again and and talks about where that comes from and why that's so terribly harmful, actually. Um, so I I eat loads of fruit. One of the things he says in his Liver Rescue book is eat fruit to bear fruit. So if you're trying to get pregnant, it's really important that we eat fruit actually for a for fertility, because it is the very fruits of a tree, the very fruits of life that we're trying to bear. And that really makes sense to me. And it feels good when I eat it. And uh yeah, it's it's bizarre that it's uh kind of got uh some fear around it now. But please do listen to Anthony's podcast, it's it's really good about the fear that's crept in intentionally. Okay, and last but not least, number eight, dung dung, dung. In fact, let's let's have a little piano loop. Number eight, heal emotional stress and trauma. Yeah, I've found this has a really profound effect on my menstrual cycle and overall health, is to heal childhood, ancestral, spiritual, past life trauma and stress because we hold that in the body, and the womb has a look at the environment that's surrounding it. And is that a stressful environment? Is that how is the nervous system? Is the nervous system in fight, flight, freeze where it's kind of going, oh, there's danger, there's danger, then it's really hard to get pregnant or be fertile in many ways because creating life is not a priority when we're in danger. Stress and trauma have a real physiological response in the body and affect us greatly. So I really focus on this because it not only frees me emotionally, frees me spiritually, it also frees my body up, and the increase in life force I can literally feel when I do my healing work. So, yeah, this is this is a really big one. Like the last podcast I spoke on healing our first blood, or really looking at what happened during our first period, when we've got stress and trauma there, it actually affects our pre-menstrual phase because we've got loads of bound-up energy that couldn't be expressed at the time, held in the body, held around in relation to our menstrual cycle, bleeding, fear, fear of being a woman, fear of being accepted, fear of being burnt, fear of all this stuff. It's huge, it's really huge, and that's just one of the things that's sitting there in the body when we've experienced that. So, yeah, this has a real physiological effect on us, and of course, it's going to affect our cycle, our menstrual cycle, our ability to produce hormones to distribute them because it's you know, when we're holding all this stuff, it becomes less of a priority to have a menstrual cycle. So it makes real sense to me, and I've experienced that throughout the years as well. Period pain has lessened, blood has flown more steadily, that's helped with the liver cleanse, it all comes together. So, what I've shared with you today is the culmination of years of work, really, and there's only so much as I said I can put in one podcast. There was actually a list of 24 things, which for those ladies in the Integrated Woman course, the We Medicine Woman Training, I've put that in the resource library for you because it's super important, and I really wanted to put it down on paper what I've been doing, and to reflect for myself as well. This is what's working, because there's no one answer with our cycle. We have to look at the whole environment, we have to look at the whole person, it's not something that's just disconnected that can be treated in a disconnected manner. So there we go. Woohoo! All right, well, I very much enjoyed talking to you in the little sacred womb yurt today. I hope you've been warm, I hope you've enjoyed your tea and the sound of the fire and the warmth of it, and I very much look forward to seeing you next time on the podcast, seeing you in the yurt. So I send you lots and lots of love wherever you are, and I'll see you next time.