By women’s author and teacher Miranda Gray.
Read also the introductory article.
Our way of life has a direct impact on the energies of our cycle archetypes – our inner Maiden, Mother, Enchantress and Crone. With the current pandemic crisis, our way of life has suddenly changed – and this means that the energies of our menstrual cycle phases will also change in response to our lifestyle change and the added stresses we are experiencing. So, for mental and physical wellbeing, we need to listen to our body and to our archetypes and find new ways to embrace them and express them to bring harmony and balance. We may even find that as we listen more to what they need and how we wish to express ourselves we start to live more in alignment with our cyclic nature, and our cycle responds positively!
Below are some simple ideas based on the information in my books ‘Female Energy Awakening’ and ‘The Optimized Woman’. These ideas follow common experiences of each of the archetypes, but your own experiences may be different. Listen to your body – and learn! 😊
So let’s look at what we can do to meet the needs of our Maiden and Mother Archetypes in their phases while we are living restricted lives and in self-isolation, so that we can maintain balance in the phase rather than respond from a stressed ‘fight or flight’ approach when this stress approach is not always needed or beneficial.
Balancing the Maiden in self-isolation
The Maiden Archetype in ‘fight or flight’ mode becomes more ego-focused, more direct and more domineering, and she finds security in things being done in exactly the way she wants with logic, rules and structure. She doesn’t trust anyone except herself to do things correctly, and she expects everyone to follow the precise rules. But the insecurity of constantly changing guidelines and restrictions means that she becomes more rigid in her attempt to control things and to create structured meaning. The chaos of the lack of predictability of everyday life, the lack of work threatening a lack of self-growth and personal achievement, the lack of self-determination and the lack of personal freedom to travel, to exercise and to explore the world, all create a stressful environment for the Maiden.
How can we help ourselves in our pre-ovulation phase to express the Maiden so that we are responding to the crisis in a balanced way?
The core energies and gifts of the Maiden are high energy levels, active intellect, self-development, achievement and being physically active.
To help the Maiden we can:
- Exercise the intellect by researching and fact-checking information on the Coronavirus and on keeping safe. Perhaps print out posters to remind ourselves about handwashing, create routines and lists of activities for ourselves and our family, and research suppliers of the things that we need.
- Try not to get angry when people do not follow the rules or do things in a different way to us – simply be the role model of good behaviour for them to follow.
- Understand that we cannot control everything rigidly, and that the situation will probably change more quickly than we can imagine.
- Record our feelings and energies every day of our cycle. Our cycle may change over this time of stress, so in this phase we can start the routine of recording our cycle experiences. (You can use the dial in the book ‘Red Moon’ or the summary tables in the book ‘The Optimized Woman’ for this.)
- Use this time to learn something new to help the Maiden feel that she is still growing and achieving. (Read a self-development book – perhaps ‘The Optimized Woman’ – to help you to understand your cyclic skills and abilities. Read ‘Red Moon’ to help you to understand the archetypes so that you can recognise when you change phase, especially if stress has made your cycle longer or shorter or irregular.)
- Write lots of lists and plans. When we are allowed out, we can list the essential foods we need. We can also list everything we have in our home to calculate how long it will last.
- Go online to find exercise videos to do indoors so that we can feel physically active even when restricted.
- Try to get outside in a garden, on a balcony – or simply once a day open the window and see the sky and the world.
- Set goals for everything and make task lists, because reaching the goal and crossing off tasks when they are done will give the Maiden a feeling of achievement.
Lean more about balancing the other female archetypes of Mother, Enchantress and Crone, and read the article ‘Introduction to Covid-19 self-isolation and mental and physical wellbeing in your menstrual cycle’
