A future of work that honors female bodies
It wasn’t long ago that remote, hybrid, and flexible work schedules were the holy grail - a rare and privileged perk available to only the select few in very specific professions. Now it's become an expected benefit across many jobs (certainly not all, but many).
What’s next on the horizon for workplace habits? What’s the next “new” way of working that now seems unthinkable, but in the future will be so obvious, so basic, that we’ll wonder why we did it any other way?
I will tell you.
In the future, people in female bodies who menstruate do not work during their period.
Let me repeat that: We don’t work while bleeding.
If you’re bothered reading about menstruation on a professional blog , I’ll invite you to feel into the edges of that discomfort and explore what’s underneath it.
If you’re still with me, allow me to elaborate.
The steep price of contorting
We've been conditioned and trained to contort our body’s schedule to work schedules that have been dictated by others: by industries, organizations, governments, etc. Not just when we work, but how we work. The price we pay for this is high, and we see it in our various health crises, especially in the U.S.
In the future, we will adapt our work schedules to our body’s natural rhythm (and the earth’s rhythm). This is absolutely necessary if we want to have healthy bodies.
If you’re female, chances are you’re familiar with the price we pay: painful periods; intense PMS, perimenopause, and menopause symptoms; infertility; hormone imbalance; and other reproductive conditions. We’ve just been told these are normal ailments that ought to be addressed with medication and complicated treatments - often ones that disconnect us even further from our female flow (or, worse, we’re told nothing’s wrong and it’s all in our head). But these are not natural, inherent symptoms of womanhood; they are warning signs from our body indicating we’re misusing it.
The pain, exhaustion, and imbalances we’re experiencing in female bodies is what happens when you try to turn a river into a pipeline.
Honoring our bleed
During our female cycle, the menstrual phase is associated with the season of winter. (If you’re not familiar with the four seasons of the female cycle and their nuances, I encourage you to read this article or look into the Cycle Syncing Method® developed by Alissa Vitti.) Our bleed is when our hormones, physical energy, and mental capacity are at their lowest. We’re more likely to injure ourselves exercising, more inclined to experience brain fog. That’s because our body is working hard at releasing – not just physically, but energetically. What nourishes us is rest; hydration; and warm, mineral-rich foods to restore what the body is losing. In ye olden times women would gather in a red tent to experience their bleed together, and were protected by the men in their communities during this vulnerable time.
We’ve since been taught that our period is something to overcome, fight through, and endure. That it’s a weakness, an inconvenience, and unseemly to discuss in professional settings. But I’m hearing more and more stories of women announcing to their bosses and coworkers that they’re taking a day off for the first day of their period. Or changing their remote work schedule so they can bleed in the comfort of home. Or requesting additional time off for menstruation as part of their comp package.
This is not being “soft” or “high maintenance”. This is what it looks like to be in harmony with our bodies, not at war. Think about it: why do we force ourselves to create, produce, and assert when our bodies are in a state of shedding, letting go, and resting?
One day we’ll look back and wonder, “What were we thinking?”
What about “productivity”?
Don’t let yourself be convinced that working less makes you less productive. That's an obvious lie to anyone who has done the long and brutal work of female deprogramming. Women in harmony with their natural flow are not less productive, less powerful, or less creative – we just express our creativity in entirely different ways than what we see in the media.
In fact, when we are connected to our healthy, true feminine flow we have *more* creative power and potential than males. (Of course we do, we’re the ones who birth human life.)
Let’s be honest, women have been held back by current workplace norms when it comes to work schedules and creative flow. Even entrepreneurs who step out in the name of “making their own schedules” and breaking free from “the grind” find themselves working in almost identical paradigms to the ones they claimed to have escaped. That’s because the structures that hold us to these unrealistic standards are no longer just external, they’re internalized in our bodies. Even if we were given total freedom we’d still find ourselves in a cage of matching masculine ways of working.
But it’s not permanent, it’s shifting.
The improbable becomes a reality
If you think it’s impossible for females to have a level of freedom that allows us to work in harmony with the highs and lows of our natural rhythm, that's just because you’re still seeing the world through the lens of the past. This is not a good indication of what the future holds – especially now. This shift is already happening. I’m here to help it become a reality.
If it’s a reality you want to live in, why don’t we do it together?
What can you do now?
In order to work in harmony with our feminine flow we first have to feel it. Most women are so severely disconnected they might not even know which of the four parts of the cycle they’re in if you asked them, or how their cycle is aligning with the moon at a given moment.
Here are some very general tips for how to reconnect with and carve out space for your feminine energy to flow:
Take at least the first and/or second day of your period off to rest and nurture your body (i.e., don’t do other errands or house work!) – whether you feel like you need it or not, this will send the signal to your body that it can release safely.
Follow energy workers and other healing practitioners on social media (ideally ones who have done psychic work around female deprogramming) who promote a healthy and balanced approach to being in feminine flow – fill your head with ideas of what a truly female-friendly world looks like, and shifts like this one won’t seem radical, but attainable.
Practice intuitive movement by moving, stretching, or dancing without structure or judgment – being in flow physically helps us find flow in other areas; if this is hard for you a guided class like the one below can help you build your intuitive muscles.
If you want to go even deeper...
I work with women one-on-one and in groups to help them reinhabit their bodies and connect with their feminine flow. Check out my current offerings on my Work With Me page.
Click to work together
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