Could the practice of Fertility Awareness change your life?
Imagine being raised with all of the wisdom you need to live in harmony with your cycling body. How would your life have been different?
I, like many young women growing up in todays society, was taught very little about how my hormones fluctuate after puberty. How these hormones paint a picture of our reality and emotions.
One might think that with both of my grandmothers having 8 children, and one of them having three daughters who became teen moms, there would be a strong desire to educate the youth to prevent this from happening in future generations. Unfortunately you can’t teach what you don’t know.
I remember being 14 and having an irregular cycle. I bled once and didn't bleed again for a full year. Looking back on virgin teenage me, with no mentors to talk to about this with, I surrendered to the belief that I had gotten pregnant from a toilet seat, and that I too was doomed to become a teen mom.
Luckily, that was not the case, but I was none the wiser for it, and still had no real idea how babies were made.
I didn’t have great luck with birth control and had very irregular cycles. I remember being told by a Dr that I would have a hard time getting pregnant, which sounded like great news to me as a 23 year old.
When I started working at a health food store in 2004, I began drinking Vitex Berry Tea to help balance my hormones. Before I even got a period, I was pregnant. If I had been taught about my fertile window or the presence of cervical fluid, that pregnancy may have been prevented. But being told I’d have a hard time getting pregnant, well that didn’t help me understand how my body worked.
I had 4 pregnancies over the span of 11 years and I could see that if I didn’t take action fast, I might also end up with 8 children.
A friend had given me the book Taking Charge of your Fertility and I kept it on my shelf for several years. I was so intimidated by the contents, that it just stayed there on the shelf. Every time I moved, I packed it and unpacked it, for 8 years before I finally read it.
When I first found this information, I was angry. Like many women, I wondered why this wisdom was not shared with me sooner.
I began getting comfortable with charting. I was taking my temperature each morning and checking my cervical fluid throughout the day. That first cycle when I saw my temperature increase after ovulation, I was in awe of my body. I learned a good bit on my own and soon hired a mentor to help me distinguish the subtitles of my fluids.
As I continued to read my body each day, a fire stirred in me. In the data I was collecting, I was able to notice myself falling into habits around the same time each cycle. It became easy to see that I was in fact making these decisions based not on what was best for me, but on my hormones. It was surprisingly easy to change limiting habits when I saw the pattern, and I’ve been leveling up each cycle for a few years now.
About a year into my journey it became clear to me that this wisdom was not just for me, that I needed to share it with as many women as possible. That’s when I started my journey to become a Fertility Awareness Educator.
I’ve seen the way that this information has changed the course of my life by deepening my sense of intuition and informing my needs for self care.
This wisdom is truly revolutionary and I hope that you will share it far and wide. Knowing the cycles of our bodies is every girls birth rite.
If you’re new to Fertility Awareness, check out my resources page for podcast and book recommendations., and please share if you chart your cycle, and how its changed your life!
With honey in the heart,
