As I have mentioned before, so many women still struggle with painful, difficult periods each month – often with a good dose of PMS thrown in too! But there is absolutely NO reason that any woman should have to experience their moontime as anything other than positive – providing, as it does, the most amazing opportunity for us to go inward, process some old “stuff” and start the month ahead afresh and full of positive intentions.
But, obviously, achieving that isn’t going to be easy if your periods are painful or excessively heavy! So there is a roadmap we need to follow in order to support both the physical and emotional aspects that make up a healthy womb cleanse, so we can connect with and love our womb, just as it deserves.
Understanding Our Womb Cleanse
From when we experience our first period, our wombs go through this same womb cleanse every month – which often continue for about half our lifetime! So it would make sense for us to understand how we can have the most positive and enriching experience of them each month.
The other organs in our bodies are also self-cleansing too (provided they are not overloaded) – the liver, for instance, cleans out once a day as it releases the toxins and blood that pass through it).
The bladder also cleans out frequently – several times a day, in fact, when we pee. The colon also cleans out daily – or should do – with bowel movements happening at least once or twice per day.
So yeah, every organ in the body has a way to stay healthy and clean by self-cleansing and the womb’s way of self-cleansing is the period, where, if that month’s egg has not been fertilised and implanted, we shed the uterine lining and the egg/egg follicle.
So our periods are actually very natural womb cleanses, designed to keep our wombs healthy and ready to grow and birth a baby, should we so choose.
The Six Components Of A Healthy, Happy Moontime
There are 6 fundamental, essential components for creating a healthy, pain-free period and we need to implement these if we are to turn our monthly womb cleanse experience into a healthy and happy time of the month for us. These 6 components are:-
- Rest
- Warmth
- No Plugs!
- Nourishment
- Hydration
- Avoid Inversions
When we don’t take care of these components, our body talks to us – we can expect brown blood, clots and cramps, as well as possibly excessively heavy bleeding too, instead of an easy, effective cleanse.
Let’s briefly look at those components, one by one.
A Happy Moontime Requires Rest
Our wombs and bodies require some special care during womb cleansing. First of all, in order for the body to have a successful womb cleanse, it needs to be able to produce sufficient blood in order to flush the womb clean. This means that, during the period, a woman is having to produce a lot of extra blood – which takes significant energy, resources and nutrients from the body to do. This translates as the woman needing more rest during this time and is simply a much milder version of when a woman is pregnant and growing a whole new human being – and needs sufficient regular rest in order to do so. If enough rest is not taken in either case, this can then lead to anaemia/lack of blood (which is highly fatiguing).
As an additional note to this – this need for extra rest is also why only very gentle exercise should be undertaken during a womb cleanse as, if a woman is too active during this time, her body will need to allocate its resources and energy to these other activities instead of making enough blood for a successful and effective womb cleanse.
So rest and avoiding over-activity helps the womb recharge itself so it can naturally perform its womb-cleansing function, as well as staying energetically clear for the creation of new life or new projects. As I mentioned earlier, all of our creative endeavours are birthed via the uterus – it is a vital organ and deserves our love and care!
A Happy Moontime Requires Warmth
During a womb cleanse, blood flushes the uterus out – which is its way of shedding the uterine lining, along with the unfertilised egg follicle. The uterus has arteries that open to send the blood in in order to flush out the lining and follicle. But in order for the blood to flow nicely into the uterus, we need good circulation – and for good circulation we need to be warm. Blood is made up mostly of water, so when we get cold, blood moves more slowly – just as water does as it gets cooler. Hypothermia – brought on by exposure to cold conditions – occurs when the flow of blood to the vital organs is just not sufficient to keep the organs going – and this is caused by the body and blood temperature dropping and the circulation slowing as a result.
With a womb cleanse, we need the blood to be flowing freely and easily so that it can send blood via the uterine arteries in order to clean out the womb. If we have a build-up of excess cold in the body, therefore, this creates stagnation, which in turn creates old residue build up and can lead to cramping and an ineffective womb cleanse as a result.
So, naturally, one very simple thing that is required when it comes to proper period care is that we need to stay warm. We need to dress warmly – or at least keep our lower back and belly warm during our bleed. Avoiding going out into really cold weather – or dressing up very warmly if we do need to go into the cold – is advisable.
Avoiding the cold doesn’t stop with the weather or our external environment, however. Sometimes we eat or drink foods/fluids that are cold. Avoiding raw foods, salads, ice cream, iced drinks, etc during our womb cleanse is also important. If you do happen to eat/drink cold items, then watch out for signs of stagnation in your menstrual blood – ie the period blood colour changing from red to brown. As we have already seen, red blood indicates flowing, healthy blood – whereas brown blood indicates stagnant, old blood that cannot flow out so easily. Eating and drinking warm foods and herbal teas over the womb cleanse is a much better idea and will maintain healthy circulation, resulting in a healthy flow of blood and effective, pain-free womb cleanse.
A Happy Moontime Requires No Plugs!
Another super-important thing to remember during a womb cleanse, when the whole point of the process is to drain the menstrual material out of the body, is not to plug up the flow in any way!! This is majorly counter-productive – and does, I’m sorry to say for any of you who use them – very much include the use of tampons, whether organic or otherwise. Even a reusable sea sponge tampon will block the flow. And it simply doesn’t make sense to block the menstrual flow all the way up to the cervix as this makes it so much harder for the womb to clean out.
So this will generally lead to the uterus not being able to clean out properly, which leads to residue build-up. And that is a problem, because if the uterus has old residue build-up, it is already going to be flushing so hard to try and get it out – and, if it’s not shifting, the uterine arteries will then flush more blood in order to try and shift it. This can create far heavier periods and greater blood loss than usual, which comes with the risk of energy loss and fatigue. Or, the uterus may start to contract to try and get rid of the old residue – and this can lead to unnecessarily painful periods as a result.
Tampons simply do not allow the blood to flow out fast enough and this will always cause some degree of old residue build-up. Personally, it was such a joyful revelation to realise that as soon as I stopped using tampons and switched to pads instead, that my period pain stopped immediately. And I haven’t used a tampon since. I did consider trying to use a moon cup when they first came out – but again I just didn’t fancy the idea of plugging up my flow with a silicone cup inside me for 4 days of bleeding. I do feel that mooncups have their place – they definitely help put women back in touch with their menstrual blood and how that looks and feels and smells – and some women are able to use a mooncup without any negative effects like cramping and heavy bleeding. But for others, mooncups create exactly the same issues as tampons.
So, if you currently use a mooncup or tampons and experience painful periods, try a month using pads or period panties – the best options for soaking up our menstrual flow – and see if that makes a difference.
I would also not recommend using yoni eggs during the period. Again, doing so plugs up the flow and is counter-intuitive.
Some teachers even recommend not having sex during the period – but I would disagree here. Period sex can be amazing – there’s no chance of pregnancy, we are well-lubricated and the sharing of a woman’s heightened sense of connection to her inner knowing/universal consciousness at this time can make for a very powerful experience indeed for both partners.
As well as this, period sex can be incredibly healing and therapeutic. The increase in blood flow to the pelvis, the pelvic floor muscles moving and the stimulation on the cervix & uterine walls, plus a burst of hormones all help to naturally relieve period pain. So this is something else you can recommend to clients if they are experiencing cramps – forget taking pain killers and instead try having slow, sensual sex with your partner or with yourself.
A Happy Moontime Requires Nourishment
A proper period cleanse also requires a woman to eat well too, as, again, her body is producing extra blood and needs enough nutrients in order to do so. So whilst fasts and detoxes are a wonderful reset for the body, doing them over our monthly womb cleanse is definitely not a good idea. We need to honour our cycle first and foremost – and more (of the right kind of) food, rather than less, it is indicated at this time. If we go a long time without eating over this time, we simply won’t have the energy nor the nutrients to make more blood for our womb cleanse.
Three meals a day, with a couple of snacks in between, are what is recommended – and the type of foods that we should be eating should be warm and nourishing foods, that are really easy to digest. So veggie or lentil or bean soups, stews, mashed root veggies or steamed veggies are all good choices, as are chicken soup and bone broths too. Warm oats or oatmeal are also great slow-release comfort food options – and drinking herbal teas is highly recommended. Warm almond milk or coconut milk with coconut oil, turmeric and honey makes the most amazing turmeric lattes and is particularly good to drink before bed.
A Happy Moontime Requires Hydration
It is also very necessary to hydrate well whilst bleeding as the body also needs additional fluids during a womb cleanse. Blood is made up mainly of water, so when we are bleeding, the body needs to replace this blood and needs water to do so.
Drinking plenty of good quality water (that is at room temperature or warm – not chilled!) is first choice. Herbal tea also provides fluids as well as having beneficial medicinal properties as well – with herbs like red raspberry leaf, nettle, dandelion, motherwort and moringa being particularly useful in bringing about a healthy, happy womb cleanse.
A Happy Moontime Requires Avoiding Inversions!
Inversions are contraindicated during a womb cleanse! In other words, no yoga or handstands; no using an inversion bed; no adrenal replenishment (legs up against wall, hips higher than heart). The reason for this is pretty obvious – inversions send the flow in the wrong direction – in other words they are working against the cleanse and, obviously, we want to avoid that.
Emotional Components Of A Healthy, Happy Moontime
But what about the emotional components that need taking into consideration here too?
This is a much bigger subject – one that, amongst other things, involves learning how to take notice and follow our monthly infradian rhythm or “seasons” of the menstrual cycle – in order to work with our body’s rhythms and changes in brain and body chemistry, rather than against it.
To make the most of this rhythm and to create a truly happy monthly moontime, requires careful planning and a commitment to slowing down and showing ourselves extra love and compassion over this time.
Our monthly womb cleanse is an amazing opportunity for us to take extra special care of ourselves – and is also a great time to journal, read a book or to enjoy some gentle home-based creative activities like painting or knitting or crochet or baking… anything that we really enjoy doing. And hopefully it goes without saying that staying off social media or any devices in general is highly recommended!
We need to treat this time as a kind of mini-break for ourselves – an opportunity for us to focus on ourselves as much as possible and explore our own desires and needs, regardless of how busy the rest of our lives may be.
New Month Resolutions
Our monthly moontime is also a time to go inward and take stock. Because, just as we make New Year’s resolutions, we can also make New Month’s resolutions as well. Because this is what our womb cleanse is really about on an energetic and emotional level. It’s all about letting go and renewal. It’s a fantastic time for us to give up any habitual negative thoughts, beliefs or patterns of behaviour that don’t serve us anymore – and to replace them with positive ones instead.
I personally LOVE New Year energy – it is usually when my energy is at its highest and the limitless potential of possibility feels so tangible. So when I learned about New Month resolutions, this really got me excited – and it is something that I really love tapping into now! Because waiting a whole year for this new, fresh energy to come around or to change an outdated habit is just too long to wait! Taking stock like this on a monthly basis is a great mental and emotional health practice – it stops negative patterns from running for too long or from getting too embedded. And keeping a Moontime Journal around such processing can be super helpful and enlightening and something I would really recommend.
In this wonderful blog, Dr Christiane Northrup talks about our old emotional “stuff” being the cause of PMS – and I would agree with her on this. So a bit of monthly “housekeeping” can really go such a long way in alleviating this super common condition that has so many women suffering on an ongoing monthly basis.
We can set new monthly goals over this time too – maybe exercise goals (less daunting to set these for a month, rather than a whole year!). As I said, our moontime is supposed to be about letting go and renewal and working with it in this way brings untold mental and emotional benefit – and the better physical health that goes along with it.
Our wombs are responsible for growing and birthing new life, as well as birthing all of our other creative endeavours. They are just too important to ignore – and, when we do, the results speak for themselves – painful periods, heavy bleeding, PMS and reproductive health issues, the statistics for which are off the charts.
Let’s turn that around and instead create many Happy Moontimes for ourselves – each and every month 🙂
If you are interested in exploring your moontime further and creating a healthier, happier monthly womb cleanse experience for yourself, then be sure to sign up to my mailing list – using the pink or purple form to the right of this page – and you will be the first to know when my new online programme, Happy Moontime, opens for registration.
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