What Am I Even Doing?

On holding back and finding my way

So I’ve been holding back.

I meant to have one of my free, bi-weekly missives out this past Wednesday. That didn’t happen. It just didn’t feel right.¹ Every month, I intuitively pick an intention for myself and this month—April—it was “listening.” Seemed kind of basic but that’s what came up. So I’m trying my best. Last week, I kept to reading a few favorite newsletters here on Substack (like Lindsey Melden’s and DL Mayfield’s) and didn’t even comment. Just listened to what other folks were saying and my body.

Then today, I sat down at my desk to write for the first time since March and this essay came tumbling out.

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On the twenty-second of this month I’ll have been at this Substack thing for four months. I’m not trying to say that’s any kind of amazing milestone, but it is a milestone. As in, I’ve been doing this and that’s something—I just haven’t been doing it for very long. I’m still getting my sea legs, figuring out what I want to say here and how I say it.

Which is tough, because I think all writing that comes from a deep, meaningful place can open the writer up to vulnerability. Writing vulnerably on the internet, though, is a whole other beast.

I started this newsletter with a vague idea that I would write about the fertility awareness method, menstrual cycles and living cyclically. All of this would naturally include my own experience. I figured maybe then I wouldn’t talk my husband’s ear off about these topics nearly as much (I’m not sure that’s happened yet) and I hoped I could connect with other folks who want to marvel at all this too.

I also figured writing on Substack could help me move towards my larger, longer term goal of becoming a fertility awareness educator. That is, someone who is trained to teach people the fertility awareness method.² For a few months now I’ve been researching FAM training programs and reaching out to current practitioners to ask them about their experiences in various programs. I hoped a writing a newsletter would give me a way to practice how I speak about FAM publicly (while being careful of my language, since I’m not a practitioner) and maybe even give me a place to share my journey to becoming an educator.

Now, I find myself wondering if the world is even ready for more fertility awareness educators. Maybe there’s other work that needs to be done first. As I’ve started to talk about this subject in my personal life, it’s become clear how foreign the concept of fertility awareness is to most people, and how taboo menstrual cycles still are.

In the last few months, I’ve seen several FAM educators step back from teaching the method in the way they have been and move on to other work. This really gave me pause. I spoke with one of them directly and I am grateful for how candid they were.

It also continues to trouble me how little so many people of childbearing age or older know about their anatomy and hormones. I had a conversation about hormones with someone who has had multiple children and is out of her childbearing years now. She was particularly amazed to learn that progesterone is a thermogenic hormone and its role in pregnancy. We had a truly wonderful conversation. But it was stunning to realize how little she knew about her own body, through no fault of her own.

And I think many of us have heard about House Bill 1069 in Florida, which would prohibit children from talking about menstrual cycles in school, even if they have one. It was days ago that I heard about this and it still fills me with rage. Why is that even something anyone would ever consider? Why, when asked if that’s what the bill would do, did Representative Stan McClain blandly say, “It would”? He was so blasé. Yeah, it will prohibit kids from talking about a basic, essential, life giving bodily function that they may be experiencing themselves? Representative McClain appears he cannot even be bothered by this question. Or perhaps (as I saw someone comment on The Bird App) he’s uncomfortable talking about menstrual cycles. Either way, there’s a problem.

So while I love fertility awareness and all it can do for contraception, conception and beyond, I don’t know that the world—or at least the country I live in—is ready for it. There’s a bill in this country that says kids of a certain age can’t talk about menstrual cycles. It seems to me like if that’s possible then something else is needed before we get to talking about the finer points of the fertility awareness method. There’s a knowledge gap we need to bridge first. A fluency we need to develop. Everyone needs to be able to talk about menstrual cycles whenever and wherever they want to. Everyone needs to be able to talk about menstrual cycles and reproductive health intelligently. Everyone needs to understand what is happening and what can happen in their bodies and other people’s bodies.

No, I take it back. It’s not a knowledge gap. It’s an ugly, deep, man-made ravine which has been carefully preserved for a long time. Lives have been lost to that ravine. We need to fill it in with good soil, so that no one has to even traverse a bridge to the other side. They can just walk across. We need to heal it over so future generations can’t even tell there used to be a chasm there.

Maybe that seems dramatic but I stand by it. We are in desperate need of body literacy and harm will continue until we reach that point. Not talking about menstrual cycles is not benign.

In terms of how I write about all this, it’s hard to know how much of the scaffolding to show. I’m not a practitioner. I’m someone with a deep and abiding interest in the human body, human flourishing, and the more-than-human-world. But that’s not much in the way of credentials. I do sometimes feel like, Why would anyone listen to me??? But then I remind myself I don’t want to sit up on a stage with my credentials and talk down to people. I want to be with other people. I want to share back and forth. I want us all to grow.

I’d like gather folks around a table, real or virtual. But here’s a real one I set this past week. Sadly, we did not discuss menstrual cycles…this time.

So I’m feeling less and less attached to the plan I had of becoming a FAE (fertility awareness educator) or a practitioner of any kind.³ This shifts my relationship to this newsletter too.

What’s my plan now? I’m not sure. The typical pathways that I’m aware of don’t seem right. I don’t feel driven to get as many subscribers as I possibly can by whatever means necessary. I want to go at my own pace; I want to hear from other people when they’re ready. This place being a stepping stone as I become a FAE also doesn’t feel right, since I’m not even sure there’s a demand for FAEs. I also don’t want to write a book (as that seems to be a trajectory many folks on Substack are on). I spent the majority of my teenage and early adult years yearning to be a published author but that dream has quietly died, which I’m very grateful for.

I suppose I don’t want to strive so much. I definitely don’t want to hustle.

For now, I want to be here. I want to continue to connect with people. I want to share what I know and what I find fascinating and life giving. Maybe that’s in someone’s kitchen or my backyard. Maybe that’s on Substack. If I can be compensated for the time I put in here (because it is rather a bit of time) I’d be grateful…and also more able to continue doing this work.

I guess this is the part where I add the “subscribe now” button.

However, I’m skeptical of the internet. It does not feel like a welcoming place most of the time, and I’ve been here for half my life. The internet has given me some incredible opportunities, and it’s taken things from me as well. It’s done a number on my mental health and attention. Also as a whole the current vibe of the internet seems pretty dodgy. So I tread lightly here, or try to. I try to not put all my eggs in one basket and try to savor the present for what it is.

What I’ve appreciated about Substack is that the expectation has seemed to long form content in what appears to be a short form content world. Well, until yesterday, that is. I don’t welcome the arrival of Notes. I don’t want more short form, more chatter, more missing nuance, more FEEDS. I don’t want more links and little tidbits of content thrown at me. I want to sit down with people with a cup of whatever comforting beverages strike our fancy, take a deep breath together and go deeply. Have rich, intentional conversations. Share stories. Weave threads, take them apart, weave together them. I want to do that face to face with people more. But also in this strange time we live in, the internet is one way that we can maybe do that too and I’d like to see if I can make a go of it here.

To my earliest point though: I’ve been holding back. This became clear a few weeks ago and only keeps becoming clearer. There are things I want to write about that I’m not writing about. There are ways I want to speak and I’ve silenced myself. Why? Fear of rejection maybe? Fear of being unpopular or criticized? Fear of hurting my chances. Fear of getting my head bitten off on the internet, even if all I’m doing is sharing my own story.⁴ Fear too of seeming…unpolished, I guess. I want to seem like I have it all together, but that of course is a lie.

I’m sharing some vulnerable things here (though talking about menstruation is not what I’m referring to!), and I’ve wanted to share even more vulnerably. That feels risky. Even sharing my rage—like the rage I have for HB 1069, or for other cultural and political matters—makes me feel exposed. But as my husband likes to remind me, you can’t build relationships without vulnerability. And I’m tired of being lonely in this passion of mine.

So where do I go from here? I don’t know. But I know that I want to share more and more freely. Rage, sadness, good stuff—all of it. Grounding it all in the beauty and truth of living cyclically. My goals in terms of this work are shifting and I think I want to share that with you as it unfolds. Maybe there will be more of my own story, of how I got to the point where I want to talk about uteruses and periods all the time. I want to work on not feeling like I need to be impressive—like I can be myself. And I want to work to write more from my body and less from my head. This will take practice, and perhaps you’ll see it unfold here. Perhaps it will be a little less polished, a little more raw. Who knows?

Sometimes I want to be taken out of my own head too. I would like to hear what you have to say, even if it’s different from what I’m saying. Contrary even!

What I do know is that I’m grateful to you, every one of you who subscribes and reads Peace of the Whole. Thank you for being here in whatever way you are. If you have left comments, please know that means so much to me. If you have wanted to leave a comment and held back, that’s ok. I understand. If you ever want to jump in and leave your two cents (or more), please know I’d genuinely love to hear it. If you want only to listen right now, I respect that too.

Later this week or early next week, I’ll have an essay out about how I got here. My meandering, unfinished path where I’ve tried and failed a lot of different things. That essay will be for paid subscribers only. If you cannot afford a paid subscription and you would like to join in the conversation more deeply, please let me know.

✍🏻 Now I would love to hear from you!

Why are you here? Why did you click subscribe (if you have)?

What have you hoped to hear or what do you hope hear in this space?

Head to the comments and let me know!

1. I was prepping to host a major holiday for the first time and cleaning my house like I’ve never cleaned it before.

2. Maybe you’ve never heard of it, but this is a real job. In fact, the efficacy of FAM improves when people have formal instruction from a good, qualified instructor or educator. Is it a common job? No. It’s pretty rare, particularly in this country. You may have also heard about period coaches? This is not something I’m interested in personally but it’s a tangential occupation.

3. This is proving a difficult search because it isn’t a well trodden path yet. In the US, there are exactly two choices if you want to become a certified FAE from the AFAP (Association of Fertility Awareness Practitioners). Otherwise, you can’t say you’re an FAE. There are other training programs for specific FAM methods, some of which have ties to organization which are not my jam. I’ve come down to two options.

4. Like that one time I wrote an article about my eating disorder on Medium and a major figure within Pilates commented to tell me I was a stupid Millennial who had caused my own eating disorder. “You lack common sense or you have no palate,” she said, “You wellness dopes play with food.” Other people told me I was an idiot. And that was the mild stuff.