Eve's Curse or Female Superpower? A Christian Gal's Guide to the Menstrual Cycle
POSTED BY
Chelsey Geisz
READ TIME
8 Minutes
Alchemizing the natural revelation of the female body with modern science and biblical wisdom, CycleWise helps women discover the spiritual significance of the menstrual cycle.
How do you view your monthly cycle? As a burden or a limitation?
Or maybe even… a curse?
Most women go through life oblivious to the significance of their monthly cycle. They don’t understand why their bodies bleed in the first place, and mood swings, cramps, and other unpleasant symptoms make the menstrual cycle seem like a design flaw.
However, you don’t have to accept this depressing reality. Not only do I believe that the menstrual cycle is not a curse, I see it as a source of profound insight for women. After all, God designed you purposefully, and God does not create broken things.
Therefore, this article is intended to radically expand your imagination of God’s design for female bodies. By the time you’re finished reading, I hope you feel awed by the brilliance with which God created you and on fire with the possibilities of embracing His design.
Let’s dive in!
The menstrual cycle impacts your life every day, not just when you're on your period.
Did you know your body experiences four distinct hormonal phases each cycle—much like the seasons of the year?
Because the fluctuating hormones that create these four phases impact both your brain and body, you feel and show up differently throughout your cycle. Different parts of your being come online, and you gain access to distinct strengths, emotions, and abilities as you journey through the four phases.
That means that you, my friend, are a cyclical being. You’re living in a body that experiences its own seasons—how cool is that?
Depending on your unique makeup, you likely experience these changes subtly, powerfully, or somewhere in between. You’re probably aware of them too; maybe you’ve described your changing inner experience as PMS or “feeling hormonal”.
If you’re starting to wonder why you’ve only ever thought of your hormonal changes as a bad thing, don’t blame yourself—no one ever taught you to think differently. In general, our Christian and mainstream cultures both tend to have a pretty limited imagination when it comes to female bodies.
Our culture's lack of awareness about the menstrual cycle hurts women.
However, when you’re unaware of your cyclical nature, it’s easy to feel like you don’t measure up. You may consider yourself unreliable, unpredictable, or flaky. You’re confused by changes in the way you show up in the world—sometimes you feel so energized, capable, and outgoing, and other days you wish you could sever all ties and head for the hills.
When you’re a cyclical being living in a linear world, it’s only natural to feel like you’re too much and not enough at the same time.
You’re untrained in how to prepare yourself for each phase’s vulnerabilities, so you beat yourself up for responding to stress differently than you did last week. Plus, no one ever taught you the specific strengths you can lean into in each phase, so many of your female superpowers are underutilized.
Adding to your difficulty is the fact that, despite being equally “hormonal” creatures, men don’t experience this cycle. Because businesses, schools, and relationships are still predominately organized around the male biological clock, you may feel like you have to work twice as hard to deliver a consistent performance throughout the month.
However, women weren’t created to be perfectly consistent day after day. Believe it or not, this is actually your superpower.
Being cyclical is a gift.
Being cyclical isn’t a curse; it’s a gift.
Over the course of the month, you have access to the full spectrum of your emotions, energy, and abilities—just not all at once. While this may initially sound restrictive, it actually creates more room for an expanded set of gifts.
After all, we’re inherently limited as humans; certain strengths contradict each other. Someone can’t claim to be analytical and super-efficient while simultaneously tapping into their emotional sensitivity and relational warmth.
However, as a woman, you get to access these mutually exclusive skill sets as you journey through the month. Your work and relationships benefit from your intense focus and problem-solving skills one week while lighting up from your love and laughter the next.
Once you understand the unique gifts of each hormonal phase, you’ll be able to unlock greater overall productivity while learning to skillfully care for your changing needs.
For instance, understanding your cycle helps you know when you’ll be most articulate, when you should plan that girls’ trip, and when you should schedule some introvert time. Pretty cool, right?
[Want to explore your unique inner seasons? Click here for a free guide.]
For these reasons, “biohacking” the menstrual cycle has become a rising trend among women who wish to maximize their productivity, creativity, energy, and wellbeing. And while it’s wonderful to see women embracing the unique strengths of their feminine nature, this biohacking approach misses the profound spiritual power of the female cycle.
The female cycle is spiritually significant.
As Christians, we believe God created our bodies with divine intention and pronounced them very good at the foundation of the world (Gen. 1:31). Furthermore, all of creation prophesies the truth of its Creator—including the human body (Rom. 1:20).
This means that there is absolutely nothing accidental about your female body. God is not surprised by the inner seasons you experience every month.
In fact, your embodied rhythm contains spiritual and theological meaning.
See, God designed female bodies to bring new life into the world. Regardless of whether you’re interested in having children now or ever, your female body undergoes an intricate physiological process each month that makes the creation of new life possible.
Just take a second to consider this fact: if all women stopped cycling today, humans would die out after a single generation. The female cycle is a profoundly creative process that allows women’s bodies to co-create with God to bring new human life into the world.
Even God chose to take on flesh within a woman’s womb. There is deep meaning in the secret places of our bodies.
Now, at this point, you may be rolling your eyes. Really? You’re saying God’s entire purpose for women boils down to bearing children? How original.
I hear you, but stick with me—that’s not where we’re headed.
Cycles make life possible and bring order to creation.
God uses cycles to bring order and balance to creation. From our cells to our organs to the seasons of the earth around us, creation is born, matures, and dies through cycles.
Furthermore, cycles make life possible. Think of a gardener: she starts her seeds in early spring, tends them in summer, harvests them in fall, and rests in winter. All four parts of the cycle are equally important parts of cultivating new life.
This same rhythm guides all creative processes: the seeds of a vision are planted, come to life, bear fruit, are pruned back, and then ultimately die away and are used to fertilize the beginnings of the next vision.
This creative cycle plays out every time you choose to bring something new into the world—whether it’s a household project, a new career, or a baby—and is the theme of King Solomon’s famous musings in Ecclesiastes 3:
“For everything there is a season,
A time for every activity under heaven.
A time to be born and a time to die.
A time to plant and a time to harvest.
A time to kill and a time to heal.
A time to tear down and a time to build up.”
This endlessly repeating pattern of life, death, and resurrection not only plays out across the entire universe, it’s also one of the chief ways creation tells and retells God’s story of redemption.
The female body is designed to participate in God's creative work in the world.
Now, here’s the incredible part: as a woman, your entire being is organized around this life-creating rhythm. During your reproductive years, your body is continually cycling through the four phases that make conceiving a child possible: preparing the womb and egg, blossoming into fertility, dying away if conception doesn’t occur, and then resting in wait for the next cycle.
However, because your body operates as an integrated whole, the menstrual cycle’s impact isn’t limited to your reproductive organs. In fact, the way you feel, think, and show up in the world corresponds with this four-part rhythm.
Ever wonder why you feel so energized and vivacious when you’re ovulating? Why you want to prune away all the irritating parts of your family members the week before your period? Or why you long to contract and retreat when you’re bleeding?
My friend, you are not unreliable, hypersensitive, or hysterical. No, you are a cyclical being who has been blessed with enormous potential to participate in God’s work as a ‘created co-creator’—whether that creation looks like a prophetic vision for your church, an art project that inspires you, or a new friendship.
What would it look like to live into the cyclical rhythm of your embodiment?
Each cycle you have the opportunity to embrace the creative potential of your embodied rhythm. To watch this process in action, let’s start in the premenstrual phase (also called Inner Fall).
During this season, a woman’s attention is drawn toward what is broken, unhelpful, or needs to be pruned away in her life or community. If she can take her insights seriously during Inner Fall without being reactive or jumping into fix-it mode, then she can bring them before God during the quiet retreat of menstruation (Inner Winter). In this time of stillness and heightened spiritual sensitivity, she may readily receive a creative vision that will help address her address what’s broken.
Then, as she emerges from menstruation into her Inner Spring, she’s filled with the playful optimism and rising energy necessary to plant the seeds of her new vision. The fruits of her efforts can ultimately blossom forth during Inner Summer (the ovulatory phase), when she’s at her most energetic, expressive, and relational.
Finally, she reenters Inner Fall, at which point she has the ability to make incisive judgments about what isn’t working and requires prayerful improvement. And thus the refining process of the cycle repeats over and over again throughout a woman’s bleeding years, drawing her ever closer to God’s heart and the work to which He calls her.
Far from being a curse or a limitation, your female embodiment offers you a special way to participate in God’s creative work in the world. By learning how to flow with your body’s seasons, you can create the life you’re being called to lead – all while honoring the rhythm of your embodiment.
It's time to embark on your cyclical journey.
Because the menstrual cycle is such a foundational aspect of the female reality, I believe that connecting with God in this embodied rhythm can be a powerful spiritual practice. In my own life, I’ve found that Christ-centered cycle awareness continually offers new opportunities for refinement, growth, and healing.
When you practice cycle awareness as a spiritual discipline, you open yourself to full-spectrum womanhood. You, after all, are a multi-faceted creation that has been fully redeemed by Christ. It’s time to bring all of who you are out into God’s healing light.
Ready to live into the full potential of your female embodiment?
At this point, you may be wondering how you can connect with your body’s beautiful rhythm.
One of the best ways to begin this practice is by jotting down three words that describe your experience (emotional, physical, and spiritual) each day of your cycle. Over time, this will help you familiarize yourself with your cyclical experience.
If you’d like access to a circular journal format that makes it easy to see your unique rhythm in action, download the free Guide to Your Inner Seasons or check out the Cycle Journal.
Although our female bodies make perfect sense when you understand their cyclical nature, there’s a bit of a learning curve in identifying your own inner seasons. If you’d like to deepen your understanding and learn how other women experience the four seasons, the free Guide to Your Inner Seasons will also provide more details to inform your journey.
Hungry for more about the menstrual cycle? This blog post is just the tip of the iceberg. For more information on the spiritual significance of the monthly cycle, download the free Introduction to CycleWise PDF.
HI, FRIEND!
I'm Chelsey.
I believe that you were fearfully and wonderfully created in the image of God, and therefore, your body reveals divine truth. My calling is to help you step into the full, electric power of your female design to discover who God created you to be.
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Eve's Curse or Female Superpower? A Christian Gal's Guide to the Menstrual Cycle
START YOUR CYCLE JOURNEY here.
Discover the spiritual significance of your monthly cycle with this free guide.
God didn’t create a single inch of your bleeding, cyclical body on accident. Read this and you’ll never think about your embodiment the same way again.
EXPLORE YOUR INNER SEASONS.
Stop working against your hormonal rhythm and start flowing with your inner seasons.
Ready to blossom into a new level of cycle awareness and self-understanding? Packed with inner seasons insight, this FREE guide will reveal how you show up differently throughout your cycle.
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