Hey, my name is Milina.  I’m a mum to two daughters and a son.  I was 40 when I started to really learn about my menstrual cycle and how it affected me.   The more I learnt, the more ripped off I felt.  I felt sad and angry that I was only just learning this, 28 years into this stage of my life.  Like the vast majority of us, this knowledge just wasn’t shared, mainly because it wasn’t known.

So I went through my teens wondering what was wrong with me.  Why did I have moods and energies that fluctuated so often, and why wasn’t I like all the other girls?  Little known to me, we all felt the same.

My 20’s saw me taking the pill for the most part.  Not entirely for birth control, but also to skip periods when I wanted.  It was kind of the done thing wasn’t it, even though I had no idea of the real and lasting side effects.  I didn’t even know that we only have 5-6 fertile days during your cycle.  I stopped taking the pill when my body and mind no longer felt like mine, and I fell pregnant 4 months later.

I went through my years of conception with no idea when I was and wasn’t fertile.  Subsequently, both of our daughters were happy little surprises.

I then went through my 30’s hiding this part of my life from all of my family. Unsure of how to acknowledge it to my daughters.  Not talking about it in front of my husband, to not cause him any discomfort.  And not thinking about how important it was for our son to know about.

Making Changes

When I learned at 40 all of the things that I’d not known before, I knew I wanted something different for my family.  So I continued to learn and started to make changes.  Subtle at first, with little things, like asking for alone time when I had my period, telling my family I needed more quiet and more space at this time, and bringing up conversations that had never been had.

This is just one part of what’s lead me to creating these workshops.  Over the next few weeks I’ll be sharing more. Some of them are personal and raw, but they’re also important. I know by sharing them will change the way for our girls and their future.

These workshops are about more than just periods for me.  They’re about women, young and old, taking the power back into our own hands.  For too long we’ve been told to be quiet and put up with things that we shouldn’t be putting up with.  We’ve been told the best way to heal is to numb our bodies with medication, rather than looking at causes.  Learning about our bodies and our cycles, in a community setting, is one of the most empowering things we can do.  And by doing so we are helping heal all of us.

Part two coming soon.