
Women’s wellness: Take the heroine's journey towards a balanced life

Summary
Tired of the busy life, people today are embracing workshops that explore an alternate idea of living anchored in feminine wisdomModern workplaces and social systems we have in place today reflect a deep-rooted misalignment with natural feminine cycles and energies. Perhaps, the most significant indicator of this is the global shift in the way time is perceived. Indigenous cultures around the world followed the lunar calendar which honored natural rhythms. Lunar time is cyclical in nature and emphasizes the patterns of death and rebirth captured metaphorically in the phenomena of the waxing and waning moon.
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Modern-day Gregorian calendar, first introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in October 1582, is a solar calendar. Solar calendar emphasizes linear time over cyclical patterns and standardizes months into artificial lengths that do not correspond to natural cycles. The design and intent behind this view of time was primarily to cater to the industrial and commercial needs of the time rather than serve one’s biological rhythms.
This fundamental shift has led to a loss of connection of daily routine with the rhythms of nature. Companies and governments follow systems of artificial division of time into business quarters and fiscal years rather than natural seasons. What has got lost in this reasoning is the knowledge that our bodies respond differently to each season. Our energy levels and sleep and dietary requirements among others tend to vary with the seasons. This suppression of natural cycles has a grave impact on mental health. Stress induced from the efforts to fit into artificial rhythms, for instance, affects digestive and reproductive health.
The impact of misaligned structures on health is felt more acutely by women. Often, their peak career-building years coincide with peak fertility years, and the biological rhythm of motherhood is seen as a “career setback". Even the natural need for rest during menstruation is considered a weakness, and career women are expected to maintain high energy and engagement regardless of their physical and emotional state in corporate and social spaces. The recent debate and controversy in India around the necessity for a menstrual day leave in organizations bear testimony to this reality.
“The menstrual woman lives in a male-oriented society which influences her perception of the world and herself. In the industrialized western culture, which likes to think of itself as ‘enlightened’, the menstrual cycle is still rarely talked about except in medical terms. Menstruation is still viewed today as a biological disadvantage to women, making them emotional, unreasoning, and unreliable workers," Miranda Gray, author and mentor of a women’s cycle-based life-coaching course, wrote in her 1994 book, Red Moon.
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While it may seem interminable, there’s a quiet yet profound shift unfolding that questions the current paradigms. Globally, there is a growing interest about the ancient wisdom of the divine feminine and its contemporary applications in daily life for healthy living. An extremely current illustration of this interest is the trend of cycle syncing that got popular last year among millennials and Gen Z. The practice encourages women to align their diet and lifestyle with the menstrual cycle. The menstrual phase, for instance, is a time to do low-impact exercises like yoga or walking while the follicular phase when estrogen levels are rising is a time to go for high intensity exercises.
In Red Moon, Gray treats the whole of the cycle as the menstrual experience rather than the time of bleeding alone. And she sounds prescient when she says, “If women become aware that they are cyclic beings during their menstrual lives, then they begin to recognize that they are part of the greater rhythms of the universe and come closer to accepting their true nature and finding harmony in their lives."
In addition to trends fuelled by social media apps, there are women facilitators today who are extending these conversations offline by designing workshops that seek to explore an alternate idea of power and way of living anchored in common feminine archetypes such as the Maiden, the Mother and the Crone. “Working with archetypes is universal and women can easily connect to them," says Kolkata-based Sukhvinder Sircar . A senior facilitator with Indian Society for Applied Behavioural Sciences (ISABS), Sircar hosts the Joyous Women community, which offers programmes that teach men and women to get in touch with their feminine energies for a balanced life.
“Working with feminine archetypes and the menstrual mandala (a visual period tracker) have brought me in tune with my body’s natural rhythm and cycles, creating much ease in my being," says Akanksha Thakore, a well-being facilitator based in Mumbai and a member of the Joyous Women community.
Sylwia Savitā, a practitioner of Sensual Somatic Healing in Bali, organises workshops based on the Heroine’s Journey. Designed by Maureen Murdock, a family therapist and writer based in California, the Heroine’s Journey framework draws inspiration from Joseph Campbell’s model of the heroic quest. Here, the heroine’s journey begins with “separation from the feminine" and ends with “integration of masculine and feminine". This framework, overall, offers a map of the feminine healing process.
“Reconnecting, reclaiming, and rewriting your sexual narrative is a big part of the Heroine’s Journey," explains Savitā. As for why such communal retreats are beneficial, she says, “When you sit in a women’s circle and engage fully, you will find stories that resonate with you. Also, sharing an experience together instills a sense of belonging in each person in the circle."
Hariprasad Varma is an executive coach & yoga therapist based out of Hyderabad. He posts on X at @ZenseiHari.
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