Hi my love,

I had hoped to announce my graduation from The Well School of Body Literacy two weeks ago with joy and fanfare.

As it was, this major milestone was overshadowed by a stormcloud of grief, outrage and loss as my two-and-a-half-year engagement fell apart. I've been taking my own advice and withdrawn into hibernation where I can cry, dance, mediate, and heal myself as best I can. I'm still in the raw, but beginning to peek my head out of my cave.

I blamed myself at first. I blamed my cycle. I had been experiencing unusually bad PMS - which is not a 'normal' part of the cycle but a symptom of unmet needs. Christiane Northrup, the author of the renowned Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom teaches that the emotions, insights and needs a woman or menstruator experiences in this Deep Luteal phase of the cycle (or the life cycle, as in peri/menopause) hold deep, real meaning that requires exploration.

So I've been exploring.

And I'm being reminded:

The body doesn't lie.

Our bodies speak to us all the time, they tell us the truth of how we really feel. When we feel anger or disgust, it tells us where our boundaries are. When we feel sorrow, it speaks of a yearning for a need to be met. Bitterness speaks of feeling unrecognized. If ignored, these feelings can manifest as physical pain or injury, sometimes acute but more often chronic.

Those of us with wombs are blessed to hold this center of infinite intelligence, yet we are conditioned to shut off our connection to this deepest part of ourselves. We're told that things like pain, cramps, PMS, fibroids, digestive issues and other irregularities are 'normal' and we should ignore them.

What if the very symptoms you experience hold the key to healing?

I had been feeling like something wasn't working for a long time. I fought the inevitable with everything I had, and I suffered with chronic headaches for a year. The body doesn't lie.

Our bodies are intelligent. If we give ourselves the time they require, our bodies will tell us the whole truth. Body Literacy is the skill we develop to understand what truths our bodies are telling us, so that we can trust our instincts, understand our cycles and live in harmony with them. Our sovereignty lies in reclaiming our bodies' wisdom.

I hope to share with you the tools for cycle-centered living in my upcoming program, Body Sovereignty, which I am postponing until February (more on that later).

All my love,

Hadley