Why Menstrual Cycle Awareness Is Becoming Essential in Women’s Health & Coaching
Periods are having a moment, have you noticed? Honestly, it’s about time! After decades (centuries… millennia) of silence, menstrual health is finally inching its way from the margins into the mainstream.
Brands are talking about periods. Magazines are talking about periods. (Did you catch the latest cycle syncing article in Singapore Vogue?) And more and more of our alumni are now sharing menstrual cycle awareness in corporate wellbeing settings, too.
As periods move into the spotlight, the demand for skilled and embodied menstrual educators and coaches is only going to increase.
Women and all people who menstruate will increasingly expect menstrual awareness to be included in physical, emotional and therapeutic support.
It’s already happening. Women are looking to professionals, brands and products who understand that “women are not small men” and in fact, have very specific cyclic needs and experiences.
These understandings are no longer a “nice to have”, but essential knowledge for any practitioners working with female clients. This is the moment to up-skill and ground yourself in menstrual cycle awareness (MCA) not just as a personal practice, but as a professional tool that will elevate any modality you work with.
Over the last six years at Cycle Coach School we’re so proud to have trained over 250 practitioners, from coaches to psychologists, yoga and pilates teachers to trauma therapists, spiritual guides, fertility specialists, doulas and birth-workers, to corporate leaders and creatives, massage therapists and more, who are able to not only truly meet their clients in their authentic cyclic experience, but to support them to work with this inner power.
The problem with ignoring the menstrual cycle
Because if we’re honest with ourselves, we still very much live in a world that mostly expects women to be linear, steady, unchanging. Fit in. Keep up. Don’t mention your period. Don’t ask for rest. Don’t be “too sensitive.” Don’t show your cyclic nature. And definitely do not talk about blood or PMS or whether you think the full moon is impacting your emotions.
But as we’re sure you already know, the menstrual cycle can profoundly shape the physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual lives of those who bleed.
It’s like we’re circles trying to fit into a square hole.
And to this, Brené Brown says it best…
“The opposite of belonging is fitting in.”
…and women have been trying to “fit in” to a patriarchal template for thousands of years, with predictable consequences:
Shame around periods
Lack of menstrual education
Workplaces built for non-cyclical bodies
Rising menstrual disorders and burnout
A culture that asks women to override their needs
A loss of feminine rites of passage in our culture
Ignoring the menstrual cycle, and the cycles all around us, disconnects us from ourselves.
And your clients feel this every single day, even if they can’t articulate it.
Menstrual Cycle Awareness is a gift you can offer your clients
Menstrual Cycle Awareness (MCA), as articulated by Red School founders Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer, is the practice of noticing where you are in your menstrual cycle, understanding what’s happening hormonally and caring for your changing needs.
On the surface, it can look “simple.”
Charting. Pattern noticing. Tweaking lifestyle. Being curious. Learning to say “no” in the pre-menstruum (a common one!) and so on.
But underneath, MCA is a radical rebellion. It builds:
self-knowledge
emotional literacy
nervous-system regulation
better relationships
confidence and self-assuredness
permission to be who you actually are
sovereignty, agency and belonging
Now that periods are moving into the cultural spotlight, your clients will begin to expect you to understand the menstrual cycle, and to make space for it in the work you’re doing together.
It’s becoming as standard as knowing the basics of trauma-informed practice.
Not knowing the cycle is quickly becoming a professional limitation, and not just because sharing this work offers your clients a practice that helps them to track their periods (though that is great!), but because it can transform their understanding of themselves and help them live with more vitality, creativity and self confidence.
Join the period party
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