This entry is a little raw for anyone squeamish, as it discusses the reality of a woman’s menstrual experience. I acknowledge if it offends you with this warning. I also do not apologize. As it is our TRUTH and we all know and love at least one woman. So why not try to be a little more compassionate  that this is something she may live through. And needs support and love through. Or a loving reminder, to “just breathe”. 

Last night I awoke in the middle of the night twisted in my bed sheets, still sleepy, half awake and realizing I had bled through my several safety precautions (tampon and pad) into my underwear, pants and possibly the sheets I laid on. This is a moment that happens in EVERY woman’s life, at least a few times. Thankfully I had just returned from a weekend Bhakti yoga retreat hosted by the Twisted Monkey yoga studio in Philly. We didn’t only do yoga, but we meditated, practiced breathing, learned about yoga, doshas, chakras, had deep discussions about our inner most thoughts, fears and struggles, but most of all, we learned about ourselves, others and love, also known as Bhakti. 

Back in my room, under my sheets, finally home for a night in my own bed, I lie awake in a moment of frustration and suddenly for the first time cognitively in my life I say to myself, “just breathe”. We breathe all the time without thinking about it, but when we focus on the breathing its-self, it can be a completely different experience as I learned while pushing my body with breath instead of strength this weekend. 

With every twist and turn to remove my self from the Chinese finger trap of sheets and blankets, I breathed. As I moved my legs from the bed down to the floor, I breathed. On my careful walk from the bed to the door in the dark with possible unknown obstacles, I breathed. As I entered the abrasively bright lit hall that shocked me into being awake, I breathed. When I got to the bathroom and realized all my security precautions for containing my menstrual cycle had failed, I breathed. 

I sat for a moment and felt the breath move from my nasal passages, down my body into my lungs and belly, and arrive at my groin. I followed that motion for a few breaths in and out. I imagined tiny crystals at each chakra expanding on the breaths in and contracting on the breaths out. I stayed here in peace, and in all of my messiness I had yet to clean up. I allowed myself a moment to know that while I was messy, I was still okay. Typically for me this is the part where the disappointment  starts to boil. Thoughts like “why me?”, “this isn’t fair!”, and “I HATE being a woman!” surface and start to deteriorate the experience with a nagging shit storm attitude. This is also the point where I give myself permission to be a complete bitch for the rest of the day because if you bled all over yourself in the middle of your first night, after several nights of sleep, in your own bed, you’d be pissed off too. You’d be pissed off if you ever bled on your sheets. I along with most women I know, have got a few chances every month to do so. But tonight, I just breathe. 

As I start to clean myself up, trying to gather supplies, (yes, this is a job, and we need several supplies!) I realize the only thing I have that’s actually in place, is toilet paper. So I breathe. I manage to get to the hall closet for my feminine products, my still unpacked overnight bag which has the specific underwear I need in it,  under the sink to refill the wet wipes someone left empty while I was gone, and during it all, I am bleeding, but I am breathing. Again, typically when I got to the empty wet wipes, I would’ve given myself permission to curse silently under my breath, at the bastard that I live with, son or husband, they’re both cursed the same, for leaving the wipes unrefilled. It’s really a simple task. There are studies and signs that it doesn’t cause brain damage. But instead today, I breathe. I am actually slightly shocked that I am being compassionate in this moment and considering that maybe they were in a rush. Or maybe they just forgot. But I am certain they didn’t know I would end up here in the middle of the night bloody, defeated and already struggling with my womanly responsibilities, which is something I swore they somehow knew before and would do these things “on purpose”. <~ Who thinks like this? 

Me. 

When I have my period. 

And I’m bleeding all over in what seems to me like “to death”. 

But not today. Today, those thoughts are gone. No where to surface to, because I just breathe. 

When I get myself together, I’m all cleaned up and ready to attempt to clean all of the clothing, sheets and surfaces I’ve now bled on, I stop to take a moment and realize this was a privilege I was given in order to have my child. That this is the privilege my husband’s ex wife was given to have my bonus kids. That this is the privilege my mother was given so I could be here. Granted, it’s a little excessive, at an average of 456 menstrual cycles in a woman’s lifetime, I don’t really think I needed that many chances, but in this moment, I know some women do. So I breathe. For them, for their strength, for their perseverance, and for my gratefulness that I’ve already got the use out of mine, I breathe. I also calculate that I only have approximately 150 more to go before I’m finished. I won’t miss these moments. But when I look at my children and eventually my grandchildren, I will not be angry or frustrated that this happens, but grateful for this blessing. I think of this while I clean all the linens in the middle of the night. And I breathe. 

While on retreat one of the young ladies that also happens to be an instructor, talked to us about “the red tent”, a place in some cultures where women would go to bleed together. While there, they would care for one another, talking to one another, holding and touching each other for comfort, and braiding one another’s hair. I said I was going to set one up in my back yard. This whole incident wouldn’t have happened this way, had I been in the red tent. But I was handling it the way we would’ve handled it in there. I was in a red tent in my mind. Just breathing through it. 

As a woman, this time of the month can get rather messy, literally and figuratively. We aren’t our best selves because we are handling something that is not always contained despite our best efforts. It comes with a bunch of “other” things that are going on simultaneously and cannot always be controlled or contained as well. Today, thanks to this retreat and my yogi breathing and behaviors, I was able to breathe through parts of it. I can’t say if that will last or not, but it was an accomplishment in itself. 

What I can tell others handling a bleeding woman in their lives, is that many moments in a day, during a series of days, that come every month, could cause her to not be her best self. Just breathe with her, for her, and remind her to breathe herself and be gentle. While this gift is a privilege to some, to others it’s a curse and a reminder of what is not.

 Ladies, I encourage you to breathe, for yourself and your sisters. Men, I encourage you to breathe, for yourselves, and for the woman who went through this to bring you or your child, friend, cousin or spouse here. Support one another in a “red tent” way. But most of all, just breathe. 

I promise, you’ll get though it.