Our Sacred Cycle

A Workbook to Reclaim Your Period from PMS and PMDD

Your period doesn’t have to ruin your life! Sometimes our menstrual symptoms prevent us from showing up the way we want to, and there is not a lot of information about how to feel better. You may have had trouble finding resources that explain what’s happening in your body and mind. You may have even been disbelieved or blamed.

Our Sacred Cycle was created to help. Written by a therapist who specializes in premenstrual syndrome (PMS), premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD), and other forms of hormone imbalance, this workbook offers accessible information and reflective exercises to help you understand the physiology of the menstrual cycle and how it affects you, harness your power, and live in harmony with your body. Whether you want to heal from patriarchal trauma or connect with yourself in a new way, this is the empowering, gender-neutral feminist resource you need to reclaim your cycle, take control of your symptoms, and achieve a transformative mind-body connection. You can feel better!

Read on for an excerpt of Our Sacred Cycle: A Workbook to Reclaim Your Period from PMS and PMDD by Mary McDonald, available for preorder from our site or your local bookseller (officially hitting shelves 12/10/24)!

A Message from the Author

Being in our bodies doesn’t have to be a nightmare, but I didn’t always know that. Throughout my adolescence and twenties, I experienced major emotional episodes that occurred every month or so. Triggered by physical discomfort, I would become so irritable I’d scream at anyone near me. I would have episodes where everything felt so meaningless that I wouldn’t get out of bed for days. It hurt my relationships and self-esteem. No matter how much yoga and meditation I practiced, these dark days always returned.

I wanted help. My doctors consistently misdiagnosed me with bipolar disorder and major depressive disorder. They prescribed me medicine that didn’t help. There were times I felt so hopeless and confused about why I wasn’t getting better that I believed I didn’t want to live. Finally, when I was 28, someone told me about premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD). I had all the eleven symptoms listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5).1 It was relieving to know I wasn’t alone, but also frustrating to think that it took me a decade to realize that my emotional episodes only happened before my period.

I ended up dedicating my graduate school research towards better understanding PMDD and the therapeutic treatments of it. In the process, I listened to what my body and emotional symptoms were speaking to me, and I discovered that I was not mentally ill. I was experiencing valid emotional responses to having a body that had been shamed, misunderstood, and abused in the context of my culture.

After doing my own therapy where I explored the feelings I held in my body, I started having a consistent period for the first time in my life. My “mental illness” no longer felt like a mental illness, and I even began to appreciate being in my body. As I went on to speak and share about my experience and research, many other menstruators (i.e. people who have a period, regardless of their gender identity), reported how being educated on their cycle began to transform them too.

This education and wisdom should not be withheld. It should be passed on. So, I decided to combine my knowledge from research, a decade long teaching career, my own personal therapy, and my psychotherapy practice to create this workbook for you.

Introduction: Wisdom of the Womb

In a culture where the menstruating body is mistreated, misunderstood, and neglected, many menstruators have lost sight of their power. When a young menstruator first gets their period, there is no celebration of their remarkable new ability to create life. Parents and teachers rarely pass on the wisdom of the menstruating body. Menstruators aren’t taught how their body joins with the rhythm of the moon and the earth’s seasons.

Instead, menstruators learn how to hide their blood. They learn to feel shame around their bleeding body, their mood swings, and their accentuated breasts and hips. This shame is a result of a culture that constantly whispers, “Keep parts of yourself hidden.”

Many menstruators have become conditioned to sever the connection between their mind and body so that they can follow societal standards expected of them. Male-dominant, or patriarchal, society pressures the menstruating body to be kept under control, consistent, and predictable. These pressures contradict the needs of a menstruating body. And when the body’s needs are ignored, a menstruator cannot learn the wisdom that their body seeks to share.

Menstruators carry a sacred womb with a sacred cycle that helps to sustain life on this planet. Yet, the menstrual cycle is associated with frustration and pain, rather than gratitude and compassion. The emotions and sensations triggered by menstrual hormones, despite what patriarchal culture has communicated, are not “crazy” or something to ignore or be ashamed of. They can be embraced and channeled towards creative projects and personal discovery. The activities in this book are here to assist you in that process.

A Sacred Journey

There are four phases of the menstrual cycle that you will begin to track: the menstrual (bleeding out the uterine lining), follicular (egg development), ovulatory (egg release), and luteal (uterine lining buildup) phases. These phases correlate to four psychological experiences: Release (emotional catharsis), Renewal (emotional expansion), Call (emotional redirection), and Descent (emotional deepening).

In any movie you watch or book you read, the character that transforms into a hero or heroine always is called towards an adventure, descends into a period of trials and tribulations, sacrifices old parts of themselves, and comes out renewed. For thousands of years, myths and literature have told us about characters that go through a journey where they must descend into darkness and suffering so that they can emerge as an embodied and empowered version of themselves. The process of transformation is almost innate to human nature. It’s an archetypal pattern.

Ancient Mesopotamian mythology tells the story of Queen Inanna, who was called to descend into the underworld. There, she was stripped of everything she had. She sacrificed parts of herself that she had been attached to so that she could return as a wiser, humbled, and more conscious version of herself. The story of Inanna has been told for thousands of years, and stories today continue to follow this same cycle to depict a character’s transformation. More recently, characters like Elsa in Frozen or Katniss in Hunger Games were both called towards an inner descent that led them to become a more empowered, goddess-like version of themselves.

The menstruating body guides you through this archetypal journey towards self-expansion and transformation if you learn to catch and trust the flow. If you do, you will find that each cycle is your own mini-journey that guides you to descend inward and sacrifice what no longer serves you. This journey will lead you closer and closer to your authentic self.

Want to keep reading? Check out Our Sacred Cycle: A Workbook to Reclaim Your Period from PMS and PMDD by Mary McDonald, now available to preorder from our site or at an independent bookstore near you.