How do I honor my menstrual cycle days?

1. Learn what happens in a healthy menstrual cycle. Chart your fertility signals to help you form questions and research your situation.

2. Consider yourself a researcher and your primary health care provider.
(Doctors are consultants.) Get a notebook and write down your questions. For example, if a doctor gives you a prescription, go to your local hospital's medical library and research the drug. (In my town, help from the hospital's librarian is free.) Go to a pharmacy and ask for the package insert that the drug company prepares for pharmacists. This insert and the handout that the pharmacy gives to customers are also free. Read them before deciding whether the drug is right for you.

3. Consider herbalist Susun Weed's Six Steps of Healing: Step 0) Do nothing;
1) Collect information; 2) Engage the energy; 3) nourish & tonify; 4) Sedate and stimulate; 5a) Use supplements; 5b) Use Drugs; 6) Break and enter.

4. Consider that health and fertility are privileges and mysteries, rather than rights. What they require varies for each person and changes all the time. Get to know your thinking about your health. For example, if you find yourself thinking that menstrual cycles are just about pain, ask, "Is that true?" While washing dishes or writing in your notebook, that question is a fine meditation.

Resources:

The Garden of Fertility (comprehensive) by Katie Singer, Penguin 2004.
Honoring Our Cycles (short and sweet) by Katie Singer, New Trends 2006.
www.GardenofFertility.com
www.GardenofFertility.com/Family-Planning-Natural (my blog)

Susun Weed's Wise Woman's Herbal for the Childbearing Year and The NEW Menopausal Years. www.SusunWeed.com

Byron Katie's Loving What Is, I Need Your Approval--Is It True? I prefer the audio versions of these books. www.thework.com