How we perceive menstruation can vary from a deep feeling of belonging within our matrilineal heritage and Mother Earth, to ‘the curse’. We can only wonder what the women of the past were thinking when they left their daughters to discover periods for themselves. Was the taboo so ingrained that even women could not discuss women’s business? These days the onset of our first period is not beset with fear of dying like Anne of Green Gables’ first ‘womanly flowering time’. Nor

The basic union of life-creation, the joining of the dragon and the phoenix, of yin and yang – it’s obvious that egg and sperm have equal importance in conception. It’s likely you spent years avoiding pregnancy. Then in a solid relationship, at a time of hope for the future of the family, trouble conceiving can be a massive shock to your identity, and distressing for everyone. When conception doesn’t happen or hold it’s likely that both egg and sperm are implicated. Recent s

Following on from Petra’s Fertility Fitness talk last week https://youtu.be/DHGYLSgqBZE containing lots of great tips on the why and how to of exercise, this article looks at the personal experience of one woman, Monique Murphy, and the intersection of exercise and reproductive system health. Monique is an athlete and Paralympic swimmer, but after having her lower leg amputated following a fall, experienced horrendous periods, and was only diagnosed with endometriosis after

Following last weeks FB Live session on mental health, Petra ran out of time to mention that the brain can grow new nueral pathways. This is so freeing and empowering because it can reduce the feeling of 'stuckness' that many feel in times of pain, grief, trauma and stress. It takes work, practice, just like training your body, but it's so worth it. Read on to find out more: Neuroplasticity refers to the emerging and revolutionary idea that our brains are not fixed unchangi