“I feel down today, but I don’t know why. I don’t really have anything to be sad about right now,” I said to my friend the other day, slightly ashamed.
Her response came swiftly: “Didn’t you say you were going to start your bleed soon?”
Oh, right.
I can’t tell you how many times this has happened to me. A day arrives in the month where I feel strangely different, like I’ve lost my footing. Emotional, worried, confused.
Then the red release comes. Ah, it all makes sense.
I remember learning that women and womb-bearers operate on a 28-day hormonal cycle, give or take. But men and penis-bearers? A 24 hour cycle. No wonder we’re expected to be the same everyday! We live in a man’s world. Ah, it all makes sense.
The pressure to uphold a strict daily routine, a 9-5 schedule, the same energy everyday, every week, every year? It kills us slowly.
Well, it killed me slowly anyways. I can’t even believe the amount of times I’ve judged myself for not being consistently the same: mood changes, hormonal imbalances, weight fluctuations, energy crashes, depressive episodes, creative droughts. Gnawing at my own bones, I hurt myself by resisting myself. I see now judging my pendulum swings made it worse. And that hurts me too. Pain compounds and hindsight is 20/20.
It goes even further than that though. The urge to stay the same, retain the status quo, reject and reverse aging? All symptoms of the same thing.
Resisting change.
As I wrote this, a song came on shuffle repeating, “It’s the same, it’s the same, it’s the same old lie” (Same Old Lie, Jim James). Even my Spotify algorithm agrees.
We resist change because we think change is painful. And it is difficult! Of course it is. Seeing a path in front of you then a single moment flips it upside down and you’re smacked in the face by the unknown? Absolutely terrifying.
But what’s even more terrifying, more painful, and more wounding? Resisting change.
The Moon is shaped like a plump banana right now, a waxing gibbous. Yesterday it was slightly less so. Tomorrow it’ll be slightly more so.
We have 13 Moon phases a year, each lasting around 28 days (remember that number?). From full to dark, from quarter to quarter, from waxing to waning, the Moon never looks the same. It changes position in the sky every moment of every day.
And you know why?
Because the Sun does too. Or so we think.
We have the 24 hour day (remember that number?) because the Sun rises and sets over a 24 hour period. It’s a cycle we’re used to. Our daily plans orbit the Sun.
But here’s where things get interesting.
While the Sun looks like it’s changing position in the sky, it’s really us on Earth that are moving.
And while we’re at it, the Moon doesn’t actually change shape, it just appears that way.
We have our 24 hour cycle, our 365 day year, and our four seasons because the Earth revolves and tilts. Not the Sun.
We witness the phases of the Moon, have our 28 day cycles, and experience the ebbs and flows of the tide because the Earth moves and shapeshifts with the Moon.
The Earth itself is what’s always, always changing.
And as earthlings ourselves, so are we. Ah, it all makes sense.
Just like plants, just like animals, just like the tides, just like the weather, just like the mushrooms, just like the insects. They are never the same.
We might strain ourselves to remain constant, but really, our only constant is change.
It goes against our very nature to stay the same. We actually can’t do the same exact thing everyday, show up in the same exact mood everytime, expect the same exact thing every week because we are never the same.
All of your cells change every 7 years. Even the makeup of your very body is never the same!
People have reflected to me the last few years that I embrace change really bravely. Even recently, I quit my job for a new opportunity and was told the way I was dealing with it was “brave.”
Sure, it might be brave, but to me it’s become natural.
I’ve slowly embraced my natural, everchanging state.
This has helped me in so many ways. I’ve learned to meet my body and mind more compassionately when my energy dips or my hormones run rampant. I’ve learned to greet change as a teacher, curiously questioning what each experience has to offer me. I’ve learned to appreciate what each season holds, grateful for nature’s shifting beauty and my shifting energy. I’ve learned to let the past go because I know that it can’t be changed but the future can. I’ve also learned that while the past itself can’t change, my feelings about it can.
When you learn to embrace the nature of your earthly shifting ways, you reclaim your freedom.
A daily routine might then become flexible. A 9-5 might then become working when you can, and resting when you can’t. Aging might become more about gaining wisdom instead of fearing wrinkles. A constant energy might then become boring, realizing it’s actually far more interesting when people show up in the full range of their energetic glory.
Our society’s ways aren’t working anymore. We can no longer afford to go against our Nature. Our earthen bodies and minds and souls can’t take it anymore.
Womb-bearers need to flow and fluctuate within their 28-day, 13-Moon cycle.
Penis-bearers need to shift and expand within their 24-hour, 4-season cycle.
You’re not only allowed to change, you must!
You will never, ever be the same. It’s both a terrifying and freeing thing, isn’t it?
But you’re not in it alone. The Earth, the Moon and the Sun are there to hold you in your changing! And so is every other living thing changing along with you.
We are changing, together. It’s a beautiful thing when you truly embrace it. And this is how our society will change too, when each of us plays our part in its changing.
Ah, it all makes sense.
I love this topic so, so, so much — so let’s chat about this in the comments! I’d love to know: What is your relationship with change, and how has that changed over time? How do you meet yourself in your own cyclical fluctuations? How have you shifted away from society’s expectations of “sameness”?
As always, here’s to Living Curiously.
Until next time…
Love,
Bry