The Cycle of Womanhood: Abundance Week vs F* You Week?

My moods and personality can currently be predicted by my menstrual cycle. They call it perimenopause. It means that my body, spirit and soul is going through a life-changing transformation, as every woman does.

Abundance Week: The real me is optimistic, powered, productive, ambitious, full of self esteem and self approval, and reacts to life like water—taking it as it comes. I’m enthusiastic, passionate and bright. I’m witty and fun. I think there are supposed to be two weeks a month of this, but I am being tragically robbed of the second week. I love the wonderful beingness of this phase in my cycle. The Universe appears to roll out generosity and abundance for me. I am my authentic self.

F* You Week

F* You Week: The PMS week is pretty much a big F* you. Because I feel like everything and everyone is saying F* You to me, I want to say F* You to everyone and everything. Especially those that trample all over my boundaries, like my children. I suck this week. My usual optimism turns into a sad frustration that the Universe isn’t moving on my behalf fast enough. I usually feel like I’m in poverty this week and struggle with time and the feeling that there is not enough of it. Not enough money and not enough time.

I Surrender Week: The week of my period is a relief. I’m not as annoyed and frustrated. I don’t hate the Universe. I’m introspective. I surrender to God with the acknowledgement that I’m not controlling this show. I take better care of myself. I still work, but I don’t fret about it. I get more rest. I am less social. I often get great ideas and inspiration. My Soul speaks to me. Things move without much effort on my part. This week I’ve pretty much run out of fight, so I just sit back and tell the Universe, I surrender, use me, do what you want with me. 

F*ing Bitch

I often feel pretty bad about F* You Week. I feel like this week shouldn’t happen if I really am who I think I am during Abundance Week.

But, there’s a deeper part of me that understands that during the rest of the month I tend to let things slide. I let things slide with my kids because I’m focused on other things. By the time F* You Week comes, they are getting away with way too much. I sometimes feel like a mother dog, a Bitch, if you will. She lets the pups bite and claw and wrestle and test her boundaries. When she’s had enough she gives them a hard enough nip to remind them that she’s Alpha Mother Bitch and they better get their ass back in line.

This applies to the Universe too. The Universe works in contrast. What I do want and what I don’t want. During F* You Week I often realize that what I have is not what I want to settle for. I want more. I choose more. I decide that I’m going in another direction. I decide that I’m calling forth something different. F* You Week is often the week when I take action on what I really want instead of just contemplating it. I get so fed up with the way things have been that I change.

Cycle of Femininity

This is the Cycle of Femininity. Christiane Northrup, OB/GYN and author of Women’s Bodies/Women’s Wisdom, says that perimenopause is the natural stage when a woman completes unfinished business, abandons old baggage, resets boundaries, walks away from relationships and careers that no longer serve her highest good, launches new endeavors, and literally changes her mind and the world right along with it. It can be rough waters and it can be liberating.

The Universe has been showering me with gift cards!

However, Northrup also promises that when we finally reach full menopause we are blessed with a continuous life of Abundance Week. It becomes us surrendering to Abundance Life.

If we do the work, that is. There is a caveat, she warns. If we refuse to clean up past shit, let go of people who are bad for us, set new healthy boundaries and follow our Soul’s Path then we’re screwed. We’ll suffer, we’ll be ill, we’ll be harried, we’ll be heavy with resentments, hurt and anger. We will not have done the spiritual and emotional work of the midlife change to become the outward manifestation of our Inner Wise Woman. In the end, we don’t have an Inner Wise Woman, we are the Inner Wise Woman.

The Year of Yes!

I’m knee-deep in perimenopause and I’m turning 40 this year.  I did a lot of the hard work of cleaning up my life in 2012. I’m taking the kind, gentle path through 2013 with my new spiritual travel column, Soul Trek. It’s allowing me to go on spiritual and personal growth retreats so I can delve deeply into the inner work of my Soul. I leave on Saturday for Sedona! I am commited to healing work this year: emotional, physical and spiritual healing. I’m doing it so that I may be of use to God in the second half of my life. If my soul and body are weary, I won’t be able to do the big work I’m being called to. As a life coach I’m answering the call of women: help me change my life.

Tracee Sioux is an Authentic Power Coach, author of Love Distortion: Belle, Battered Codependent and Other Love Stories.