Yoga in Fertile Years
Fertile Years – From Bud to Flower
Yoga Practice and the Menstrual Cycle
What is the connection between yoga and the menstrual cycle?
Like the ebb and flow of tides, a woman’s cycle moves through rhythms of emptiness and fullness, phases of purification and fertility.
For most of her life, every month, a woman is influenced not only by the moon but also by the hormones that shape her physical, energetic, emotional and mental states.
This natural rhythm, very frequently felt as discomfort by young women, can be transformed with the support of yoga into a powerful hidden source of inner exploration.
If she slows down through preparatory and static yoga positions by developing mindful breathing in āsana, she will create the conditions to honour what is going on in her psychophysical body.
During her fertile years, the practice of yoga helps to develop self-awareness, welcoming the lunar wisdom that is especially active a few days before her menstrual cycle. Through that intuition she will know what functions or doesn’t function in her life, and she will have the rest of the month to act accordingly.
Understanding our cyclical nature begins with tuning into the many subtle transformations of the body, mind, and spirit.
We are often conditioned to consider masculine, solar energy as inherently positive, characterized by a heightened state of activity, enthusiasm, optimism and availability towards others. In contrast, we are accustomed to considering the feminine, lunar energy as less valuable; it is quiet, introspective, receptive and centered on ‘being’ rather than ‘doing’ whereby she is less open towards others.
However, it is essential to fully and consciously embrace feminine energy, the ‘other side of the moon,’ to restore a deeper sense of inner balance, just as a bud cannot resist its becoming, nature calls it to flower.
In the process of restoring interior balance, yoga can serve as a powerful reminder that our perception of the cycle is often shaped by personal and cultural conditioning. Habits and prejudices can pollute our perspective, creating discomfort and pain. Instead, the aim of the yoga project is to liberate us from the constraints of personal and social conditioning.
So, just like when a computer begins to malfunction and we hit the reset button, yoga invites us to reset our incomplete, biased and wrong perception by letting go of outdated programming and opening to a more holistic and sacred experience of oneself.
This is where yoga, as the science of consciousness, offers a powerful path forward.
Yoga teaches us to understand, listen to, welcome and honor the feminine cycle of life in all its phases: from the solar phase of estrus and ovulation, marked by outward energy and vitality, to the lunar phase of menstruation, a time of purification and inward reflection. To embrace both is to move toward true inner balance.
