A calendar that knows when you bleed 🩸
A digital period tracker for you! Plus: the story of my endometriosis diagnosis.
Hi friends,
Happy full moon! 🌝
Yes, the digital period tracker is here!
But first, something more personal.
I recently shared two essays about my journey with endometriosis. You can read them here and here.
Sharing them felt big. Not just because they were personal, but because I wanted to name to some critiques I have of the wellness and spiritual worlds too, particularly the way they often treat female pain like a personal growth opportunity.
So if you’ve read them, or plan to, thank you! 🙏
The response has been kind, resonant, generous, emotional. I’m still catching up on the comments, DMs and emails, but so many of you said: me too.
I want to tell you how I actually managed to share it.
It wasn’t glamorous or strategic or even brave.
A few hours after my laparoscopy, still groggy AF, a nurse asked what I did for work. I told her I was a menstrual cycle coach and she smiled and said, Oh, how lovely, you’ll be able to share this experience with your community.
It made me furious.
Not at her, but at the idea that my pain could become a teaching point. In that moment, I had zero interest in raising awareness about endometriosis or transmuting my shock and heartbreak into content. I needed to feel my grief fully, not distract myself with the idea that my pain could be useful.
But I knew I needed to record what was happening! For me, not for anyone else.
The next day, I opened my journal and started jotting down bullet points of memories, dates, thoughts, questions. I pulled up my cycle charts and journaling entries (I have a lot of cycle data!) and traced the pelvic discomfort back. It was quite a process to see it laid out like that, with poems of menstrual bliss besides notes of lower back pain and bloating.
Getting it down helped. Writing has always been where I do my sense-making.
And then, about a month later, after some serious grieving, something shifted.
It was like a buzzing in my heart and down my arms and when I feel that, I know it’s time to write. I sat down at my laptop and 4000 words poured out in one go. It was cathartic and afterwards, I felt solid. Grounded. I knew that this was the moment to share. Not because I should, but because I actually could.
Pressing publish felt less like ripping my skin off for the world to see and more like quietly closing a door. You know when someone’s asleep and you don’t want to wake them? One hand pulls the door closed while the other slows it?
That’s how publishing personal stories feels for me, when I do it at the right time and in the right way. One hand says, this matters. The other says, yes Claire but go gently.
We need more stories from women. Told when we’re ready and told safely.
So I recorded a 50-minute audio about how I knew it was time to tell mine and how to share without the shame hangover. There are things I chose not to share in those essays and I speak to that in the audio. It’s up now for paid subscribers on Substack. You can listen here.
And if you’re feeling the pull to reconnect with your own cycle…
Watch my free 20-minute Start to Chart class and download my gorgeous printable cycle charts.
Take my six week course FLOW: Your Guide to Journaling Your Menstrual Cycle and use the code PERIODPAL20 to take 20% off enrolment — that’s $77.60 instead of $97. Enrol here.
Or try my brand new free digital period tracker. Drop your cycle details in here and get a link to add your upcoming periods to your digital calendar. Alongside my deeper cycle charting and journaling, this is the simple digital system I’ve been using for over a decade. It helps me see my bleeds at a glance and saves me a tonne of mental load!
It works best if your cycles are fairly regular, but they don’t need to run like clockwork. If your period shows up early or late, just adjust the start date and the calendar automatically updates future bleeds.
My very tech-savvy partner helped me build it, so I’d love to know what you think once you’ve tried it. Here are those links again:
As always, hit reply or leave a comment. I read and appreciate them all!
Biggest love,
Claire x
Ps. Here are those essays on endometriosis and a call to arms for my fellow wellness practitioners:
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