Spirit Matters: A lesson on the potency of feminine grief and anger

Women’s bodies are a complex blend of matter and soul, spirit and emotion.

Beginning in adolescence, they bleed every month, enduring hormonal changes that ebb and flow along with the lunar phases. Accompanying mood swings are often the subject of ignorant mansplaining about pre-menstrual syndrome, “being on the rag,” and so on. Unless a young girl has an older female mentor in her life to teach her about the profundity of this gift, she begins to see her monthly flow as a curse, and tries to hide it from others.

During this time, their bodies change and develop to provide a nourishing and safe space for other life to grow and develop, should that be in the plan for any particular woman. I don’t know of any being stronger than a female – no matter her species – who gives birth to another life.

Some women develop issues with their reproductive systems – infertility and endometriosis being just a few – that can cause excruciating ongoing spiritual and physical pain, and result in the inability to bear children. A devastating consequence for women who dream of one day being a mother.

All of these things go on inside a woman’s body, every day, every month, every year of her life. And all of these things have an accompanying spiritual power, unbeknownst to those outside her body who put all manner of demands on her to hold herself, her emotions, and everyone else in her life together.

But that accompanying spiritual power is often untapped in women, who don’t realize just how profound the connection is between their physical symptoms and their souls. They aren’t taught, and often not allowed, to live each month in conjunction with their cycles, and their waxing and waning nature.

And so, the monthly bleeding and its accompanying symptoms become just another tidal wave of emotions and pain to endure until the following month. Fortunately, this is changing, as more and more resources become available to educate women when they are younger about this spiritual connection and how to harness it throughout their lives.

More experienced women are mentoring younger women, and it is a beautiful thing.

At the end of her reproductive years, a woman’s body changes again. This time, the monthly bleeding gradually grows more irregular until it stops altogether. She will likely have to endure years of mood swings, brain fog, night sweats, hot flashes and more due to the once again changing levels of hormones in her body. Once again, her experiences are minimized, misunderstood and shamed.

I have read menopause is the time in a woman’s life for an internal reckoning. This is the time when unexpressed and unresolved emotional issues rage inside of her and the degree to which they are unresolved can impact the severity of her physical symptoms.

This upheaval in a woman’s life can actually be a good opportunity to reconnect with her emotional body, and to allow herself to finally be real with herself and everyone around her.

She can give herself permission to feel the injustices of a lifetime – big and small – that went into her organs, muscles, cells for most of her life, and allow them to come out in righteous rage.

And, now, she knows in every bit of her being, she does not need anyone or anything outside of her body to tell her it is okay to do so, that she never needed anyone outside of her body to tell her it is okay to do so.

The injustices inflicted upon women’s bodies, minds and spirits by external sources have been going on for millennia, and they have built into a rightful rage.

Women are different from men. Different, but equally formed in the image of their Creator, and deserve and demand to be treated as such. This begins with basic respect for their autonomy and their right to make decisions about their lives that no one else outside of them, least of all the predominantly male legislative systems, could possibly fully understand.

If you are still reading this, and haven’t figured it out by now, that is just one of the reasons why women of all ages, shapes and sizes are experiencing deep levels of anger and grief this week, in the wake of the election.

Because for as many advances as we thought we had made, we live in a country where we will soon be governed once again by a conglomerate of toxic masculine individuals who have demonstrated nothing but contempt for the spiritual beauty and intricate splendor that is woman.

So don’t tell us to get over it or be at peace.

We are not at peace.

We are on fire.

SPIRIT MATTERS is a weekly column by Jerrilyn Zavada Novak that examines experiences common to the human spirit. Contact her at jzblue33@yahoo.com.