Not feeling it

I’m not feeling it this week. I just feel a bit meh.

Last week I felt so good. I have been experimenting with my routine and it seemed to be working. I was energetic, productive – happy even. To be honest, I was feeling a bit smug. Like I’d finally cracked life and if everyone else followed my lead then they could do the same. I caught myself pretty quickly and reeled the smugness in. Still, I think the universe is reminding me that, the moment I think I have it all figured out, is the moment I have lost it.

Oh, of course

Also, it’s that time of the month. I don’t know why, after 30-years of the same cycle, I’m still caught off guard when my mood shifts. Every month I question, why am I so tired? I feel low, what does that mean? Maybe my routine isn’t working after all? Then my period comes and I think, “oh, of course”.

It doesn’t help that, as women, we’re not taught to understand our bodies. Like folk law, stories are passed down from one woman to another, then we’re left to figure it out for ourselves. Worse still, historically, anything to do with women’s hormones has been the butt of misogynistic jokes, ridiculed or persecuted. We’re hysterical, we’re weak, we’re witches.

Excluded

Neither are we taught to listen to our bodies: if we are tired, we’re to push through; hungrier than usual, we’re just greedy. As women we have been taught to ignore our intuition, to trust that other people know what’s best for us. I realised that during my perimenopause journey when I was repeatedly told that what I intuitively knew to be true, was wrong.

I listened to Dr Rangan Chatterjee’s Feel Better, Live More podcast the other day. His guest, women’s health expert Dr Mindy Pelz, taught me things about my body that, as a now 44-year old woman, I should have known from puberty. The hormone cycle, how that affect our bodies and minds, just how much our bodies differ from mens. It should be mandatory listening for all girls and women.

It’s shocking to hear how scientific research has pretty much excluded women. How little those who seek to advise us on health matters (doctors, nutritionists, exercise professionals) understand about our bodies.

What’s the answer?

All this serves to remind me to trust myself. To listen to my body. To remember that we are all individuals, to avoid comparison. It also inspires me to do better for the next generation. To talk openly, to share my stories, to resist shame.

I find it hard to sit in the discomfort of meh. To ignore that conditioning of needing to feel good all the time. Actually, feeling meh isn’t so bad. It’s quiet and it’s calm and it encourages me to go inward. All things that are good for me. I feel a little bit better already.