Whether it’s the week before, or the week during, period skin can test our patience. Many of us experience so many other symptoms with our periods and a painful pimple or two in the mix doesn't help. Struggling with your skin on top of period stress each month is a lot. That’s 12 weeks a year. Absolutely rude if you ask us.
So what can we do about it? Well, plenty actually! Firstly, we can remember to forgive our bodies. We know acne and pimples can feel discouraging, but at the end of the day, our hormones are working hard for our bodies. Though it is frustrating, who are we to fight nature? Breathe.
Now let’s get into the actual tips, because let’s be honest, we are totally going to try to fight nature on these rude face invaders.
stop being so aggressive. You are only going to make the big red spot on your face angry, and he is only going to be more noticeable. Stop picking, stop over doing active acids, and stop touching it. The best way to treat this little guy is to keep him clean, and maybe invest in some invisible spot patches! You can press these on before bed, and the swelling will really go down. A great brand is Hero cosmetics “Mighty Patches”. It helps keep the spot clean through the night, and helps him go down in size.
drink extra water. Get hydrated my friend because a happy inside will make for a happy outside. Make sure you are getting all the water you need, and your skin will thank you for the glow. The water will also help support your cramping body, so don’t skip this step friend.
predict! Anticipate that pesky period and the week before try to support the skin with nutrient rich foods. Healthy fats will help with the cravings too. It’s a win win. We might experience cravings and we can indulge those cravings in ways that won't make our symptoms worse. Think dark chocolate, almond butter, avocados, and greek yogurt- all healthy and satisfying alternatives. Adding some lemon to your morning water will help you detox a bit too before the big event.
check out the ingredients in your makeup! We all spend so much time researching our skincare, but you know what else goes on your face? Your make up! Look for products with great, skin happy ingredients to protect your skin from drying or irritation. Clean skin can’t stop with skincare! It needs to extend to your make up. Try going lighter, or find a more breathable foundation to keep skin comfortable.
yoga. Now is a really good time to chill on the high intensity work outs. Those actually raise cortisol, the stress hormone! Which can lead to more troublesome skin. Yoga is calming and actually lowers cortisol in the body. Plus, during this time it can be so frustrating to be working out at half your usual strength. Give yourself a break and breathe. Like literally breathe. Take the time to relax and stretch and focus on some positives. This can really calm the skin and keep it happy and glowing.
fermented foods. Let’s support our skin by supporting our gut health. You can get your favourite Kombucha, grab some pickles or other fermented goods, and have yourself a happy tummy party! This can help lower inflammation and reduce the possibility of pesky zits!
hydrating masks. I know we discussed wanting to attack the face invaders, but truly, let’s just try to hydrate the skin. It will obviously get the skin glowing, but it also makes the skin relax and it helps treat pimples effectively through support instead of anger. Try the Evio Skin Rejuvenating Mask which will soothe and calm skin while adding a ton of moisture. We can obviously do our spot treatments with salicylic acid, or better yet, lactic acid, but over all focus on hydration.
CHUCK THE BEAUTY STANDARDS. Don’t let that annoying period skin get to you. Who ever said you couldn’t still be attractive with the odd spot, or 20 spots!?! You are beautiful no matter what. Focus on the fact that acne and pimples are human, and we can try as much as we can to make our skin glow through this rough patch each month, but at the end of the day nobody is perfect and it’s time we forgive ourselves for being a human with a period.
So let’s put on that moisturizing face mask, sip the Kombucha, and unfollow any instagram page that makes us feel worse. We have to survive a period every month. We can do anything. Let’s get glowing.
]]>My career path has definitely been shaped by my experience as a woman working in the cultural sector. Early in my career, the divide in roles between women and men in the sector was very evident. I was working as a production assistant for an animation studio, assisting the various production coordinators and producers who were mainly women. However, the other departments in the studio—particularly the creative departments with the directors, animators and technical experts—were roles mostly held by men.
Since my area of expertise and career growth has focused on arts administration, non-profit management, and event planning, my career opportunities have evolved in positions that would be deemed as “feminized roles” in the sector.
There is still the glass ceiling in larger institutions where men still mainly hold the positions of leadership.
Over the last three years, I believe we have made great strides in the sector with several talented and inspirational women appointed to CEO, Executive Director, and Artistic Director positions. However, more work has to be done to keep up this growth while also focusing our collective support to build career opportunities of BIPOC and LGBTQS2+ leaders, creatives, and artists concurrently.
Undoubtedly, Toronto has a world-renowned and innovative arts and culture scene. The city is bursting with creativity, is home to the most artists and cultural workers in Canada, and has many loyal patrons who support cultural events throughout the year.
Over the last 10 years, I feel that Toronto’s art scene has greatly improved because art access is no longer limited to the downtown core. Through intersectional partnerships, artistic visioning, political leadership, and community collaboration, Toronto has transformed into a “programming canvas” where all neighbourhoods are connecting and providing access to the arts for a wide range of diverse communities and residents. An example of this programming lens is the upcoming City of Toronto’s "Year of Public Art" celebration in 2021.
As the Founder of North York Arts (NYA), I have been fortunate to connect with and support the North York arts community over the last nine years. NYA is a registered charity and one of six Local Arts Service Organizations (LASOs) in Toronto whose purpose is to deliver on the city’s social, economic, and cultural goals, outside of the downtown core.
With such an expansive geographic reach, large population, and diverse community, there’s a rich and active arts scene within the varied communities of North York (whether it’s around world music, visual art, or performance).
Many artists based in North York are newcomers to Toronto who bring an international, storytelling-focused vision to their artistic practice.
Accessible programs and events produced by NYA cater to the residents, artists, businesses, families, seniors, and/or youth in all neighbourhoods within the region, including our newcomer populations. NYA has produced a number of localized programs to provide a welcoming experience for newcomer community members, as well as professional development experience for newcomer artists.
For our community members, NYA created the "Second Act Youth – ESL Theatre Program", a series of theatre-focused workshops to help newcomer youth feel more comfortable and confident speaking English. These workshops provide an anti-oppressive space for participants to practice English in innovative ways using improv, drama, and theatre exercises.
Additionally, the "Northbound Exhibition Program" gives priority to newcomer artists, along with new-generation and emerging artists. This program provides in-kind exhibition space, administrative assistance, and marketing to support the professional development of artists by showcasing their artwork in public spaces. All profits from sales go directly back to the artists.
Without question, the pandemic has been devastating to the arts and culture sector with live event cancellations, job losses for permanent staff, suspending contracts for artists, performers, musicians, and independent producers, reduced government, philanthropic. and sponsorship support and business closures—all within a very short period of time. Many arts organizations in Toronto are not sure if they will survive the impact of COVID-19, and, like most arts organizations, NYA has had to either cancel or redesign our community programming for an online audience.
As part of our advocacy efforts with partner LASOs, NYA presented a "Recovery, Rebuilding, Renewal in the Wake of COVID-19" proposal to the City of Toronto in June.
We've been re-imagining how the sector can operate during this period of recovery while recognizing that the LASOs’ community arts programs are an invaluable tool to facilitate healing, collaboration, and rebuilding.
We presented ideas for future programming and procedures to transform large community celebrations into micro-gatherings spread throughout a park, digital consultations and workshop formats including delivery of supplies to participants, establishing new evaluation models that include social and economic tracking, developing protocols for public art creation and integration, outdoor “traveling” concerts, and multi-disciplinary online live performances.
There are many ways for Torontonians to support the arts during the recovery and rebuilding phase. Here are some recommendations below:
Donate. Support an online fundraiser or crowd-sourcing campaign for a local artist, arts organization, or project. There are a number of different arts charities, groups, and projects you can find via Canada Helps or GoFundMe, where you can support the project vision or the organization’s mission.
Buy local. Consider purchasing artwork or merchandise from a local artist or artisan from their online stores.
Waive the refund. For patrons who have purchased a ticket to a theatre show, dance, or music performance that is now cancelled, consider offering the purchased ticket value as a donation to support a future event.
Volunteer. Consider donating your time, skills, and expertise to support a small arts organization as a volunteer board member or mentor. You can find volunteer postings in the sector on the Work in Culture website.
Advocate for the arts. Write to your local Councillor, MPP, and MP emphasizing the importance of continued support and investment of the arts within your community. Continued investment in the arts from all three levels of government is critical in the recovery and rebuilding process.
Working in the arts is truly an amazing, rewarding, and exciting career. My advice to young professionals who want to establish a career in the arts includes:
Build relationships and find a mentor: The arts is all about connecting with people, so be proactive to meet cultural workers, artists, and leaders in the sector, perhaps through an informational online chat first and work toward a mentor relationship with someone who can support your career growth. I have been very fortunate to have a number of mentors and advisors throughout my career.
Professional development: Never stop learning through free online programs and webinars or taking a specialized course. And be aware how the sector is changing with specific training and best practices regarding inclusivity, equity, and diversity. Professional development has been an ongoing aspect of my career.
Create a project or opportunity: Don’t hesitate to create and build a project idea or initiative that you have been developing. Find collaborators who support your vision and can help take your project to the next stage. Working in the arts is about being creative, innovative, and bold enough to try out new ideas or concepts.
Stay calm, focused, and thankful: Working in the arts is a privilege—keep perspective and always remain grateful.
Tell us a bit about your work as a foresight practitioner. How can this work, which is typically done in the corporate world, be applied to personal situations?
I’m a professional futurist, which means I help people imagine how the world might look different in 5, 10, or 15 years. The hope is that if people and organizations understand how the world is changing, they will make better decisions today.
This work is equal parts practical and dreamy. Everything I do is about understanding how and why the future might change. It’s then about guiding or encouraging people to start moving through the world differently–to embody the future they most hope for.
Honestly, foresight is just the practice of opening up to possibilities. As humans, we imagine our lives playing out in a certain way. Then, for better or for worse, our plans typically are disrupted and, in those moments, we feel defeated.
Sometimes we lose hope. We move forward by finding the space within us to re-imagine. We begin to start dreaming and planning and expecting things all over again.
Often, the early parts of this cycle feel horrible, especially when you’re in the in-between of expecting something to happen and then realizing it’s probably not going to happen that way. Foresight helps this cycle feel less charged and more supportive. That means challenging our life expectations to make room for different directions.
Where do you find inspiration and “signals” that inform your perspectives on the future?
Short answer: everywhere! There are clues about how the world might change all around us. To find these signals, you really just need to wake up every day and open yourself to strange and wonderful ideas.
Foresight is a practice. It’s active. I’m the person who has five browsers open, each with 40 tabs full of random articles. Books and magazines stacked everywhere. I re-curate my social feeds every few months to dive more deeply into the areas I’m interested in. This practice is messy but it also lets you try out the future for yourself.
How does it feel to move through the world in a new way? How does it feel to not just read about, but also test out new ideas and ways of living?
Right now my team and I are researching our relationship with death. We’re focused on collective wellbeing, and shifting how we relate to death and discomfort is a big part of that.
Our initial research involves what we call scanning or signal gathering. We infuse our inner worlds with new ideas. Our hope is to land someplace unexpected. So we stumble down a lot of different research paths. We look for what’s missing or what people aren’t paying enough attention to today. We need to find these ideas before we can build a new vision for the future.
A typical week of signal gathering involves reading an insane amount. Right now, we’re trying to understand how people across the world are talking about, preparing for, and thinking about death. There’s so much richness in moving past the edges of our culture. Yesterday I was reading Long Litt Woon’s The Way Through the Woods about mushroom foraging and grief, and finished Subject to Death, an ethnography about Hyolmo Buddhist death and mourning practices in Nepal. Both were so different and so beautifully constructed. They helped me see death and grief outside of a North American context.
I also listen to or watch as many interesting podcasts, shows, and documentaries as I can. A few days ago, I streamed a panel called Sayin' It Louder: A Conversation about "A Good Death" in a Racist Society, which explored the topic of racial equity in deathcare. At the start of this, I wouldn’t have known the specifics of how the deathcare industry is racialized. But, the research we do is about seeing how all of the major shifts we are seeing in society—in this case around equity and transformative justice—permeate the nuance of our everyday life. The most important part of foresight is to not recreate systems that are causing harm.
Oh! And a part of my scanning practice that I’ve re-prioritized is experimenting and testing out ideas. Our work can sometimes be too intellectual, and the future needs to be felt and experienced to be reimagined. For this project I just did a funeral planning virtual workshop with two women called The Deathwives. I was able to experience how some of my values—like sustainable living—could play a role in my afterlife wishes. This is not what I expected to be doing when we started this project, but incredibly valuable.
I imagine this may sound overwhelming to someone reading this [laughs], but I think sharing the many ways we scan is meant to be more of an invitation. The future isn’t hidden in some science fiction book or Black Mirror episode—it’s about taking the small risk to watch a new show, pick up a book about a topic that may feel random or unfamiliar, or attend a workshop that feels out of your comfort zone. Those are the real places the future is hidden. Look for the future in places where others aren’t.
How do you envision the skills you have as a foresight practitioner being increasingly useful given the current state of the world?
I hope the skills of a futurist will be more valued, but I’m not always hopeful, even now. As humans we have a tendency to discount what we’re not ready to hear. The pandemic, and this whole year, is an example of that.
My first job as a futurist was working for a consulting firm on the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) account. It was after Hurricane Katrina and the government wanted to use foresight to foster a culture of emergency preparedness, both for disasters like a hurricane and also for crises like a pandemic. I worked on one scenario called Treading Water. It was an imagined future where a global pandemic led to complete collapse. I kid you not. Everything we did during that project—and what the team did after—was to prevent this year from happening.
It’s really hard to look back on that time in my life. It brings up a lot, you know? Like what could we have done differently? Why wasn’t this work—our recommendations—taken more seriously?
I’m reminded of the Greek myth of Cassandra, the beautiful mortal Apollo granted the gift of prophecy to win her affections. He did this without her consent, of course. And, when she rejected his advances, he punished her. She would continue to see into the future with complete accuracy, but she was tortured by the fact that no one ever believed her.
I think about this myth a lot, especially right now. For humans, not believing is often easier than believing. Believing something we don’t want to be true or aren’t ready for takes up space in our already full lives. It’s easier to push things off into the distance than use our finite cognitive bandwidth to consider something painful or uncomfortable.
Opening to what could be ahead allows us to sit in discomfort and grief. In a world we can’t control, it gives us back our power by offering us the spaciousness to reflect and re-imagine. It’s an act of hope.
What does “wellness” mean to you and your practice and what shapes it? What might wellness look like post-COVID?
Great question. This is something I’m thinking a lot about right now. My team and I are working on a project focused on the future of collective wellbeing—because that’s where we imagine—and want—the future to move toward.
If we look at North America right now, we’re starting to see this breakdown of “wellness”—both the concept itself and the industry—as the dominant ideology. It represents a certain worldview, and I think people are realizing that we can’t actually be well without re-orientating our relationship to wellness.
The definition of wellness is the active pursuit of good health, and it’s very individually derived. It’s about me being the best self I can be to make the most out of my life and maximize my contribution to society. Ostensibly, it’s focused on self-betterment, but there’s a very limited scope to what betterment means. So, the pursuit of wellness is often at the expense of others or the natural world.
Wellbeing is more about the quality of feeling well. It’s less about meeting individual health metrics and more about nurturing a feeling within ourselves and to the people and world around us. Interestingly, the concept of wellbeing most often shows up in relationship to the collective.
We need all of us to be well.
Reaching a state of collective wellbeing will mean rethinking aspects of our everyday lives. One of the ideas that we’ve surfaced through this project is this feeling we are calling “wellness anxiety”. That there are so many things—so many boxes—we think we need to check to reach a state of wellness. The wellness industry makes us feel like there’s always more to be done. But, we can never be totally well, and our inability to control that feels really scary. The future means coming to terms with this reality. It’s going to mean changing our relationship to discomfort and death. Living in relation to the natural world again. Healing collective trauma. Re-prioritizing care and care work.
I say all of this as someone who’s been an active participant in the wellness industry. If there’s a book or class or crystal, I’ve probably tried it. This year has signalled a huge shift in my own practice. I’ve gone back to the basics, as I imagine many others have as well. I’ve been surprised at how meaningful these practices have been. The simplicity of enjoying a cup of tea after a meditation. Or taking a walk to see the seasons change. Or napping in the middle of the workday.
It’s also been about reflecting on what systems or structures I want to decouple myself from. Looking beyond myself to engage with the causes I care about. Growing my capacity to show up and make space for other people and our natural world. For example, one of my friends just started a community called Sister Seasons. It’s focused on reconnecting women to their hormonal cycles and the seasonal cycles of our planet. I’ve been doing something called “cycle syncing” for about four months and it’s been pretty transformative. I imagine that we are moving more toward this type of future. With radical ideas about what it means to move through this world differently in a way that helps heal us, our global community, and the planet.
How can we ensure our mental, physical, and spiritual wellness remains intact given all that’s happening right now?
Oof. This is a big question. I don’t think we can ensure anything right now, and that’s ok. This year and the pandemic invite us to build a new relationship to uncertainty, to discomfort, to our inner world and the world around us. We haven’t made space for those feelings before, both in our own lives, and especially culturally in the wellness space.
Wellness has been about being active and about taking action. This moment is asking us to be patient. To be still. To sit and wait for the call to serve.
It’s asking us to consider death, and the people around us. It’s asking us to grieve for whatever is happening in our own lives, for our neighbors, our global community, for the planet. It’s asked us to really think about why we are going through the process of becoming well, and who gets to be well in our world. How can we be part of the solution? The movement? This revolution?
There is a beautiful movement happening within the activist community. It’s been happening for a while but is gaining attention now. It’s coming from leaders like adrienne maree brown and her emphasis on pleasure activism. It’s coming from Tricia Hersey’s The Nap Ministry. These communities are our greatest teachers. They are inviting us to listen before we act. Then to rest. To listen again and rest again. We need to give ourselves the space to process and integrate before we can move toward creating our new world.
How do you infuse a feminine perspective into your foresight work?
I don’t know if I infuse a feminine perspective as much as I do a feminist one. Most of our views about the future have been and are informed by white men. That matters. It matters because the future that we see in popular culture—in the novels that we read, or shows that we watch, or CEOs and leaders we hear talk—that’s what informs our idea of what’s possible and what a “good” or “bad” future looks like. Those futures leave out a lot of people. Those futures replicate systems that are clearly broken and not working for most people.
When we apply a feminist perspective to the work of foresight—specifically one that’s intersectional—we take back power. We reimagine systems. We start to create visions of the future that take into account the hopes of a much broader group of people.
This is the harder work to do.
It takes a deep listening and relentless dreaming to envision a future that is plausible but also transformative.
There are people who are doing this incredibly well. This is the work of adrienne maree brown and Margaret Atwood. They’re using the future as a tool for critical analysis, as one that helps us reshape our worldviews. We actually interviewed adrienne maree brown for a project in 2016 called The Future According to Women. She said, “The more people who collaborate on creating a vision for the future, the more people will find a home in that future.” I guess that’s why I’m still doing this work. To help people imagine the future in a way that feels more like home.
In this video series we talk with Lisa O'Connor, integrated holistic nutritionist + skin coach and founder of A Radiant Life. I first met Lisa in September of 2017. We sat down for a coffee and listening to Lisa's story absolutely blew me away.
I knew immediately that I wanted to share her story of loss and rediscovery of self with our easy audience. Listen to her journey in the four part video series below.
Lisa talks about her journey that takes her from South Africa, to New York City and back to Canada. She explains how listening to her bodies symptoms and her intuition helped her work toward a diagnosis.
Lisa shares how losing her period for a number of years made her feel out of touch with her femininity and how she eventually began menstruating again through her healing journey.
Lisa discusses how healing from her illness has helped her get in tune with her menstrual cycle.
Lisa talks about finding the movement and nutrition that works for her.
Drinking enough water isn’t just “good for your health”, it’s absolutely essential.
People who menstruate undergo hormonal changes throughout the month. Usually, the first half of the cycle is dominated by estrogen and the second half dominated by progesterone. A period typically lasts 4-5 days. Of course, everyone has their own unique cycle. However, each person also has an “ideal” cycle. In fact, looking at your cycle length, symptoms, quality of blood, and length of period is extremely telling of your overall health. It's one of the vital signs that can indicate whether or not your health is in balance!
Our bodies want to be in balance, our hormones and period want to cycle regularly. But things can get in the way—nutrients may be lacking, stressors occur, or other health issues arise, and suddenly symptoms appear to tell us something is off balance.
It’s often difficult to identify the root cause of period irregularities. Many people spend years of their lives battling severe symptoms like migraines, acne, mood swings, severe pain, excess bleeding, lack of bleeding, mid-cycle bleeding, and other uncomfortable conditions. Menstruating people often need to take an array of medications, from birth control pills, to pain medication, anti-nausea medication, anti-migraine medication, and so on to treat their discomfort. However, medications typically dull the issues and do not address the root cause.
It is always important to do thorough investigation and tracking of your cycle and symptoms to ultimately get to the root issue of any condition or pain you may be experiencing, but there are a few fundamentals that our bodies require, such as water, sunlight, fresh air, movement, and nutrition, which benefit all people. As much as these seem obvious, 90% of the patients who I treat as a naturopath are not setting themselves up for success by focusing on the fundamentals that I listed above.
This brings us right back to where we started: hydration! Water is one of the most overlooked foundations of health. We are composed of 60-70% water. Our blood is made up of 50% plasma, of which 90% of that is water! If we don’t have enough water, the quality and volume of our blood is impacted and things are just not going to flow as they should.
Drinking enough water and having a good hydration status should be the first place to start when understanding your period and cycle. Before you try to find a complicated answer, start by drinking water. It may seem simple, but it’s unbelievable how much of an impact this can have. Drinking enough water can be part of the root issue of many period irregularities such as acne, cramps/pain, blood clots, low mood, low energy, constipation, migraines, irregular bleeding, insomnia, weight gain, and even fertility issues.
Dehydration may not be the only issue at hand, however it is an integral part of the picture and probably the easiest and one of the most important places to start.
In my naturopathic practice I discuss water intake with almost every patient. We look at whether people are drinking enough water, whether they are absorbing what they are drinking, and whether the water is from a non-plastic source (plastics are a source of something called xeno-estrogens which can contribute to hormone irregularities).
So drink up and don’t under-estimate the power of water!
To help our community in the pursuit of adequate hydration, we’ve teamed up with the eco obsessed team at lark - a closed loop, “minimalist milkman” style beverage company based out of Toronto.
Lark exclusively uses water sourced from an Ontario spring that is tested and government regulated. Their service uses zero single-use plastic EVER, and there are no micro plastics in their water. It comes to them from the spring in a stainless steel tanker, is stored in stainless steel and then goes into their glass bottles.
You order online, they deliver it in their Lark eco van and come pick up the empties next time you order.
This is an incredible system that allows you to up your hydration, support local business and reduce your carbon footprint!
Like so many that end up with an eventual diagnosis of endometriosis, it took many years for your condition to be accurately identified. Do you have any advice for women at the pre-diagnosis stage about navigating the medical system and advocating for themselves?
I think the most important advice I can offer is to trust yourself. Trust that you know your body best, and trust that what you are feeling is real. I also believe in arming yourself with as much information as possible. Unfortunately, many people living with endometriosis have found that they can't always rely on medical professionals to have the answers or diagnose things properly. I was criticized by many doctors for "Googling my symptoms" but those doctors never gave me a diagnosis and me Googling my symptoms did.
The silencing and minimizing of women's pain is a persistent theme for so many. How have you learned to effectively honour your pain and/or cope with the psychological impact of chronic pain?
It has taken a really long time, and I think what has been important for me to realize is that getting to a place of being able to be in sync with your body is not a straight path. And even when you arrive there the first time, it takes a lot of work to remain there.
"For me it was all about giving myself permission to feel whatever I was feeling—whether that is pain, anger, or sadness. I didn't have medical professionals or other people in my life giving me that permission and it took me a long time to realize that I could give permission to myself."
You talk about using cannabis daily as part of your pain management routine. Can you speak a little about the relief that cannabis provides and your thoughts on access to and privilege around cannabis use in America?
Discovering the pain relief that cannabis offers has been life-changing for me. It gives my body such a feeling of relaxation when so much of life makes it feel like it's part of utter chaos. It makes me feel happy, it gives me an appetite. It honestly makes me feel whole. I feel more like myself when I have cannabis. It feels like the only time in my life where I am able to peel back the layers of pain and trauma and really break free. The lack of access and criminalization of cannabis in America and many other places in the world makes me deeply, deeply sad. It's such a beautiful plant that has offered healing properties for so long, and because of racism it is treated like the enemy. I believe that cannabis should be accessible to anyone and everyone.
Vaginal physical therapy isn’t widely recommended by healthcare providers for pain management for vaginal issues. What has your experience been with the therapy?
Pelvic floor physical therapy is crucial for so many people with vaginas, and, unfortunately it's rarely recommended as a treatment option. I believe that everyone who gives birth should have pelvic floor PT. It's been really amazing for me in a lot of ways—even though it has not cured my pain. It has helped me to have a better understanding of what is going on with my body and has given me tools that I can use to fight back. It should be much more widely accessible. It's a crucial part of women's healthcare.
Your “When You Can’t Have Sex” video gives insight into what it’s like to date knowing that penetration causes you excruciating pain. For those out there who are coming to terms with this reality, what words of advice or reassurance can you share?
1) You are not alone.
2) You are not any less worth loving.
How has your chronic illness impacted your relationship with your body, your vagina, and your reproductive system? Do you think this impacts your views of your femininity and/or sensuality?
Of course my pain has impacted my feeling of sensuality and what I felt like was my identity as a woman for a really long time. I blame society for a lot of this. Straight women are made to feel as though we are just vessels for men to use for sex and then impregnate—and when you are told that you can't do either of those for various reasons, it's pretty fucking hard not to internalize that.
When did you first realize that your body (especially when naked) could be used as a means of self-expression and that hiding it just because society tells you to do so wasn’t serving you? What advice would you give others who want to create this shift for themselves?
I've always felt very comfortable being nude on my own. When I'm in my apartment, I spend a lot of time lounging around naked in just a robe or just under a blanket. But as I started developing vaginal pain, my self esteem plummeted. It was like I couldn't fucking stand to look at the body that I felt had betrayed me in such a way. So in order to take back the power, I started to experiment with posing and pictures and angles that made me feel fucking powerful. And for me, feeling powerful does tend to come out when I am posing naked and feeling myself. My advice for anyone looking to do the same would be to put on some of their favorite music, light some candles, put on some lipstick, and use that self-timer function.
Tell us more about your upcoming book, Vagina Problems. When/how did you decide to share your story and expand your reach beyond social/digital media into the literary world?
I think it felt natural to try and write a book about my experience because I wanted to write the book that I wished I had had when I first began experiencing my vagina problems.
]]>"I want the book to act like the ultimate friend to anyone living with any kind of vagina problems."
In partnership with Not Safe For Moms Group (NSFMG)
“I have a question for the group: [my] first postpartum period — it caught me totally off guard and I wasn’t ready! It felt like the end of a liminal period that I was very attached to. I floundered around thinking of any mention of it in literature or baby books so as to anchor myself to ways in which others had made meaning of it before me, but found nothing. Was it also a big deal for others?” – M.
Not so long ago, the Not Safe for Mom Group community received the above message from a member, underlining just how rarely we talk about postpartum periods. When (nsfmg) talks about the first postpartum period, we often hear moms speak about feeling caught off-guard or about how they didn’t know how it might feel. But why is something that occurs to nearly every postpartum body such a shock and surprise? Why are we not discussing the emotional changes, as well as the physical ones that accompany this drastic shift to our lives? The topic of what to expect when your period returns after pregnancy would be much less of a mystery if we had more open, honest conversations with one-another about it.
Exactly when your first menstrual cycle will happen after pregnancy varies from mother to mother. For non-breastfeeding mothers, it typically can return anywhere from six weeks to three months postpartum. It is normal for breastfeeding and formula moms to not get their period for weeks, or months. In fact, some exclusively breastfeeding moms do not get their periods for up to a year. For some women, the first postpartum period can affect milk supply (taste, texture, amount) and even cause discomfort during breastfeeding.
But even knowing the approximate timeline of when your first postpartum period will arrive (or other facts) does not take away the anxiety around the event. Some women talk about a feeling of not being “ready” for their first period after birth — and all that a period can imply: Does this mean I have to start planning for another baby? Am I ready for another baby? Do I even want to be pregnant again? Some women (especially those who fought hard to conceive, or who have experienced miscarriages) can feel triggered by their first periods.
If you feel puzzled by what to expect from your first postpartum period, and the periods that follow, you are not alone. Between waiting for your hormones to “balance out”, experiencing period cramps like never before, enduring much heavier flows, or a period that goes completely MIA every once and awhile; postpartum periods can feel Biblical compared to the ones we had before Baby.
And if you are done suffering in silence and confusion, you’ve come to the right place: (nsfmg) is partnering with Easy. to change the conversation around postpartum periods.
Easy. is a subscription service that delivers affordable, 100% organic menstrual hygiene products to your door every three months.
After you subscribe, you can choose to receive a supply of tampons, pads/liners, or a combination of tampons and pads/liners. A portion of each subscription goes towards supplying pads and health education to girls in Kenya via the ZanaAfrica Foundation.
Easy. is dedicated to educating and removing shame around periods. Their #NOSHAME campaign is helping to change the conversation around menstruation.
And now, Easy. and (nsfmg) are partnering to end the silence and stigma around postpartum periods with our #BreakTheCycle campaign.
We can remove postpartum period confusion and shame together by opening up frank conversations. We want to know your experiences with your cycles after baby: What was your first postpartum period like? What did you expect it to be like? How did your cycle change after pregnancy? What kinds of emotions did you feel about getting your first period since giving birth?
Check out the nsfmg Instagram this week, where we will be hosting this discussion.
Answer this question: What did you wish you had known about postpartum periods and cycles that no one told you?
"To Call Myself Beloved" What a title, can you walk us through what experiences birthed this particular book for you and why you landed on this powerful title?
The title of my book, the name of my podcast, and the first line of my second tattoo are from one of my favourite poems, that I found in a very difficult season of my life. It’s by Raymond Carver, and to me, it’s a reflection of a woman at the end of her life, a conversation between her and God, that goes like this:
And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.
I get the shivers every time I read it; I first read it when I was going through the single most painful experience of my life, divorce, and I got so much clarity from it: this is the point, this is the goal, simply to call myself beloved and feel myself beloved on the earth.
I had it inked on my right forearm using my own handwriting as the font as a “casual reminder” of the task I had in front of me, and how I would know when I got there.
Circling back to the book (and the podcast) and the why behind the title is exactly that: this is the book I wish I had had when I was starting over from scratch, going from a stay at home mom with a teaching degree and three kids to building an empire in my tiny corner of the world. It’s informed by my own experiences that have lead me to feel and heal from childhood trauma, divorce, and the trifecta of breast cancer…and it’s backed up by my relentless pursuit of education, through my formal training as a Neuro Linguistic Programming and Emotional Freedom Therapy coach…and otherwise keen observer of the human experience.
It’s a way to make all the things I’ve learned through my personal and professional expertise, and wrap it up with a beautiful bow, and deliver it with the intention of having a massive ripple effect - simply by giving people the permission to be themselves, and an example of the freedom and beauty that happens when you do.
I used to introduce myself as a professional human and real life adult - because I wear a lot of hats and play a lot of roles. I have built a private coaching practice in which I specialize in “Emotional Alchemy,” the term I use to describe the process of taking what has felt dark and heavy, and turning it into something beautiful and gold, uniquely your own.
In addition to private coaching I offer a group coaching mastermind, and just launched two self-study online courses.
Because I’ve built my business using Instagram as a platform, I do some social influencing with brands that have an intention for high impact positive change.
I host a top podcast, To Call Myself Beloved, am joining the season 2 cast of the upcoming docuseries The Social Movement (which is effectively intention-centred reality tv)…and I am raising my three daughters as a solo parent. They’re nine, seven and seven, and I am always incredibly grateful that I have managed to create a life that allows me to do the work I love while being a very present and nurturing mom.
In our initial email communication you said a sentence that gave me goosebumps "I wrote a fucking book - and wait for it, because I WROTE THE BOOK PROPOSAL DURING CHEMOTHERAPY" - talk to us about your diagnosis and navigating this in parallel with life!
That was a crazy experience, that simultaneously confirmed for me that this life is fleeting and yours to live freely, and that trusting the process with grace and deep faith is the only way through.
3 months and a couple of misdiagnoses later, I was in the thick of accepting that I did indeed have an aggressive cancer, that would demand equally aggressive treatment, including total hair loss and a double mastectomy.
It was in the process of coming to terms that my reality as a mid 30’s single mom now included being bald (temporarily) and completely flat (permanently).
I remember lying on my living room floor after an early diagnostic appointment, and just primal screaming “HOW THE F*** AM I GOING TO DO THIS??” And I pinky swear I was met with a very quiet answer, “You are going to make this beautiful.” I was like “Excuse me, what?” And I heard it again.
No joke, from that moment forward, I committed full on to doing exactly that: I immediately set up a consultation with Your Shop Girl (Toronto stylist) to learn to dress my new body, and I reached out to Mary Young Lingerie to be a part of their Muse series…and booked both before I even book my mastectomy date.
I had been “trying” to write a book for about two years, and knew the hardest part would be sitting down to write the proposal; knowing too that I was looking at four months of chemotherapy and a heck of a lot of downtime to follow each treatment, I decided to use that time to write the proposal (and launch my podcast). I pressed “send” on the 100 page document from the hospital waiting room, minutes before my final treatment. This was a very proud moment.
By the time my scars had healed, I had updated my closet with clothes that reflected the new me, done an intimate shoot with a prominent lingerie brand, laid the tracks for two large pillars of my business…and was invited to be the cover girl of the NOW magazine annual body positivity issue.
For the generation that follows you, what lighthouse in the dark ideas would you want them to be equipped with?
You alone are enough, and you have everything you need inside you. Everything else is just an invitation to get more clear on each of those, until it makes sense. Loving yourself first is foundational to your relationships, your work, your parenting, your life. And at the heart of self love? Unconditional self acceptance.
To appreciate how much agency we have over our own lives. I struggle with how quick we are to blame or to let ourselves off the hook when things don’t go as we want. There’s so much misinformation about being positive, and trusting the universe…inspiration memes and repeating what you heard on a podcast means literally nothing unless you are prepared to take action.
No. How to become that vision by taking inspired action.
The intention behind the book is to give a taste of what that looked like for me, and what it could look like as a transformative, forward healing experience for the reader. My passion is to offer “actionable therapy,” and the book aligns beautifully with that.
What have you been doing (big or small) to nurture yourself through our current times?I’ve been very lucky, and very intentional during these last couple months. For me, Life 2.0 meant doubling down on trusting the process, supporting my children and clients in weathering the transition, and investing more than ever before in my own business. I’ve been using this as an incubation period to level up my own business, life, and love, and I am incredibly grateful for what that looks and feels like already.
Also, Tiger King.
Emotional alchemy wins again.
To learn more about Leisse visit
Congratulations! You just had a baby! You have successfully brought new life into this world. Your body has performed one of the greatest feats humanly possible. You now have a new human to help learn and grow and that is exciting and challenging at the same time.
Having a baby can change your body in many ways, and often, women tend to notice a change in their reproductive organs. One change that they may notice almost immediately is in their periods.
For the 9 months that your baby was cooking inside of you, you did not have your period. As much as your period is a natural, monthly occurrence in some ways it was nice skipping out on it for a few months. One thing that you may have noticed, likely while you were in the hospital, is that you were bleeding after delivery. This is entirely normal. You probably noticed that for the first few weeks after delivery you were still bleeding. And that bleeding turned into discharge. This discharge is different from other discharge that you have had before. By this point, you might be thinking “Will I have this discharge for the rest of my life? When will my period start? Will I ever feel normal again?”
The first area of concern I’d like to address starts with bleeding after delivery. After a baby is born, delivered either vaginally or through a c-section, the fun doesn’t stop there. Although many of the people in the room are now focused on the baby that just entered the world, there is more to this story for mom, and that is called the placenta, also commonly referred to as the afterbirth. The placenta is what feeds the baby in utero and once the baby has transitioned to the outside world, a woman’s body doesn’t need it. It is expelled from the body after delivery.
After it leaves the body, the uterus that housed the baby and the placenta now has to shrink back to normal. This is one of the reasons why women don’t look pregnant for the rest of their lives after birth - the uterus shrinks back to its pre-pregancy size! Because the uterus is enlarged and does not have a baby inside, it bleeds because there are a lot of open blood vessels from where the placenta was attached to the uterus. The uterus is a muscle, so it contracts itself to get back down to a normal size. As it is contracting down, the open blood vessels start to close off. This causes the bleeding to slow down. Also, as the uterus tries to return itself to its non-pregnant glory, the lining of the uterus, the endometrium also needs to revamp itself.
The next big question I hear is when will your period start again after having a baby? The answer is that it depends. Your period is the end result of the complex bodily process of the ovulatory menstrual cycle. The ovulatory menstrual cycle relies on producing an egg that gets released by your ovaries. It also relies on you not getting pregnant which then causes the lining of your uterus to shed (the endometrium).
In the postpartum period, your body is under the control of many different hormones at levels that are different than before pregnancy. Due to these changes, it may take awhile for you to begin to ovulate (produce an egg) again and this can cause your period to be delayed. Also, if you are breastfeeding, this can also affect ovulation because there are hormones that your body makes while breastfeeding that can suppress ovulation.
Next, many postpartum moms ask why their period is heavier/lighter/more painful than before once it returns? The answers to those questions are not very straightforward also. There are so many factors as to why a woman would notice a change in her cycle. Sometimes, it could be because she was on birth control before she decided to start trying to conceive and she is currently not on birth control. Your periods can be different on and off of birth control. There could have been a change in your health during pregnancy that could change your period.
Lastly, a question that I often get is about menstrual products. When can I start using them again? Using menstrual products like pads and menstrual underwear, that do not go inside of the vagina, are recommended for the first 6 weeks after delivery. This is to reduce the chance of infection of the uterus, since it spends much of those first weeks after delivery, recovering. After six weeks, a woman may return to whatever menstrual products she used before and is comfortable with (including tampons, menstrual cups, and menstrual disks).
Being a new mom has its ups and downs for many reasons. There are so many changes that happen to your body and your life. It is an adjustment period, but know that you’re not in this alone! Your medical providers are here to help you through this time and address any questions or concerns you have!
Heather Irobunda, MD, FACOG
Email: heather@irobundamd.com
IG: @drheatherirobundamd
TikTok: drheatherirobundamd
Web: www.irobundamd.com
#drheathershealth
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Mine, yours, ours — it was always a topic I felt confident discussing openly, in an attempt to charge through the stigmas surrounding a more public discussion of menstruation. It’s in my nature to tell it like it is, and at times, this meant throwing a few unexpected curveballs in order to assert the tone that should be set. To assert what “normal” can be.
Despite how comfortable and confident I feel about my own experiences, I still feel the pressure to “fake it” in many environments and situations — like the workplace, for instance. For only one, brief example of female resilience, consider the women who manage to come into work and perform their duties without question or complaint, while their uterus is, in fact, holding court to a Black Friday stampede, with pain reaching comparable levels to that of a broken limb or labour contractions for some, Dr. Dasha Fielder, an Australia GP who specializes in women's health explains in the Daily Mail.
Before taking a year-long sabbatical from work to travel, I was a Marketing Director at several design focused companies, including Spacing magazine, a Toronto-based publication focused on creating healthier, more livable sustainable cities. Our office was predominantly male, so I was always grateful for any female counterparts, or allies who could understand — and partake in — menstrual-centred bathroom banter. At home, I’m fortunate that my partner, Dylan, has been a steadfast soundboard to my monthly period talk. We often joke that he gets his “period” when I get mine, as he often feels similarly sluggish and worn out during that time of the month — something like a Couvade syndrome effect.
That being said, when we sold off all our belongings (see above: year-long sabbatical), we were both very aware of the realities of the female experience. Your body doesn’t care if you have an amazing weekend planned on the coast of Portugal — if I didn’t feel like getting out of bed, or if I physically could not, my journal for the day would read:
What I wasn’t fully aware of at the time was how much travel itself could influence your body. My cycle flew off the charts, and for several months in a row, I happened to always get my period right when we had a plane to catch. The stress of planning, travel, and moving through time zones is bad enough, but now I had to contend with a lack of access to hygiene products, or if I was lucky enough to remember to pack them in my carry on, the painful insertion process in a tiny, cramped airplane bathroom during turbulence. In Australia I got my period early, in Portugal I experienced a huge scare where I missed my period. I learned that travel is in direct relation with stress, and because of this, your body’s hormones are greatly impacted. This change “can cause cortisol levels to fluctuate”, Dr. Klein explains in the Health article about travel and menstruation. "Changes in sleep schedules, like early flights and time zone changes, and added stress can have some effect on these hormone levels," he adds.
As I got into the thick of it (by which I mean my endometrium, naturally), the more I researched my experiences, hoping to understand and find connection from it. This led to talking about it with my friends, family, and really, anyone I came into contact with during that time. It was during this time that I first became aware of a number of brands under the menstrual umbrella that were looking to totally reimagine our collective experience, as they work to change the conversation. (My personal collection includes goods from Living Apothecary Co., Easy., FloLiving, THINX, DotCup, Tia, and Period Movement.) Without really realizing it at the time, I became a bit obsessed. An off-the-clock creative, my art began to directly reflect my life — watercolours and doodles resembling Period Art.
As I was doing all of this, I learned first-hand, with help from Alisa Vitta’s “proactive period scheduling”, just how little the world revolves around or responds to the average female’s cycle. Upon returning to work post-travel, I had the luxury of a self-made, flexible schedule. I could, quite literally, sync my cycle and my work hours to a routine that allowed me to be as proactive, and productive, as possible. And it got me thinking:
While change is, admittedly, slow and arduous, I urge you to create this structural change when and where possible in your own life — if only for your own sanity. As mentioned, the majority of how the world operates runs on a normal male cycle. Bedtime, office hours, even typical meal times, all reflect this same male renewal cycle - their entire hormonal cycle (yes, men have hormonal cycles too) lasts 24 hours, rinse and repeat. Women, on the other hand, typically have four phases and, depending on what’s going on in the body and at which phase she's in, she can perform at her most optimal and carry out her day according.
I’ve found it helps to think about your body cycle as one that mirrors nature’s seasons: winter, spring, summer, and autumn, taking on the activities that best correspond to these times:
Rest + Reflect
Hibernate: Time to reset, go inward, relax, conserve energy.
Activities: Slower schedule, cozy nights in, NETFLIX, NETFLIX, NETFLIX, rest for the upcoming season.
Planning + Goal Setting
Renewal: Time for growth, creativity, optimism, and this time you look into future and plan.
Activities: planning, try new things, take bold action, action steps to goals, great for learning - taking-up a skill.
Play + Adventure
Fun: social, making connections, going out, pleasure, and play, a time of feeling confident.
Activities: spending time with friends, family, and partners, hitting-up a new restaurant, etc.
Intense Productivity
Slow down: detail-oriented tasks rather than big-picture thinking, nesting and self-care.
Activities: Cut-back schedule, catch-up on paperwork/bills, sort your closet, get your meal prep organized.
In short: Get familiar with your body’s menstrual calendar for at least three months. That will help you get a better sense of when each phase of your cycle lands. It’s your cycle — own it.
We had the pleasure of interviewing Allison Asis creator of Cadette Jewelry. Allison hand makes each piece from her collection in her Toronto-based studio using traditional metalsmith techniques. From drafting initial sketches, to using a fabrication or wax casting approach – Allison’s meticulous process allows her to create handcrafted, quality pieces that women can feel proud to wear and cherish.
Cadette Jewelry features contemporary designs that are largely influenced by Allison's love for modern art & design, nature, and the journey of womanhood. She credits her entrepreneurial spirit to her mother, Fay, who passed from cancer when Allison was 18. It was from her mother that she gained an unwavering commitment to live each day with passion and purpose.
Allison values the importance of full transparency between maker & wearer. She shares ongoing clips of her work process, sources of inspiration, and more, through her YouTube videos, Cadette Journal and Instagram channel. It's her mission to inspire followers & clients to make conscious purchase decisions and constantly question how and where items are made.
We hope you enjoy our conversation with Allison.
Tell me a bit about yourself (name, where you’re from, what you do, what interests you etc.)
My name is Allison Asis, I was born and raised in Mississauga. As a teen, I longed to be in the bustling city, so as soon as I graduated from university, I moved downtown and lived there for several years. I currently live in Etobicoke and am enjoying being the ‘middle ground’ between the city and suburbia.
During university, where I majored in media & communications, as well as art history, I recognized a deep desire to still have a creative outlet. It was during those uni years that I kicked off a personal style blog (when blogs were on the rise), and ran my blog for several years, acquiring a great following. But soon after, I realized I had another calling – I wanted to create tangible items to put out into the world. Eventually, in 2013, I began making basic jewelry and quickly fell in love with it. Over the next few years, I took several metalsmithing classes on evenings & weekends, and gradually, Cadette Jewelry came to fruition.
Can you speak to how you got to where you are today? (Driving forces, mentors, gut feelings?)
The jewelry classes that I took were a huge factor to developing the technical skills & fundamentals I needed to become a metalsmith. But I definitely felt challenged during the early years – I had so many ideas but couldn’t bring them to life because my skill-set just wasn’t there yet.
I continuously crafted pieces, tweaking and refining my techniques along the way. I must say I’m proud of where I am today as a jeweler – the pieces you now see in the line are now aligned with my vision more than ever. None-the-less, I still am learning SO much everyday as I continue to make each piece, and there are still many other styles of jewelry-making that I’d love to learn.
It will forever be an ongoing process.. And I love that!
Truth be told, a lot of my mentorship has come from podcasts I’ve been obsessively listening to, or books I’m reading. They’ve collectively taught me SO much – from marketing, to researching, to techniques and more. It blows my mind how much information is readily available to us, online.
She passed from Cancer when I was 18 and didn’t get to see myjourney with Cadette when she was here, but I feel her guiding me now. She always wanted to open her own small business, but didn’t get the chance to, and I feel I’m doing it now for both of us.
My second greatest force is my calling. I’ve been listening to the voice in my heart more closely than ever, and it tells me that my calling is to create: to create pieces that empower women, and make them feel beautiful, confident and expressive. At the moment, those pieces are jewelry, but something tells me it may blossom into other forms of art in the future, as well.
What project past, present or future has been most meaningful to you?
I must say just seeing each piece of jewelry go from a mere idea to a wearable, tangible piece – that is undoubtedly the most meaningful experience that will always be surreal to me.
When women respond, wear, and fall in love with a given piece, I get a feeling that is truly indescribable, and it honestly brings me to tears when I really stop and think about it. I feel so honoured each & every time someone chooses a piece of Cadette Jewelry, especially when there are endless options at their fingertips.
If you had to collectively name the message you are trying to portray through your work, what would it be?
I share a lot of my handmade process on Instagram for that full transparency, to hopefully inspire the audience to question how and where things are made, more and more.
Every design within the Cadette Jewelry line has a sincere story or meaning behind it – drawing inspiration from the journey of womanhood, to the organic beauty of nature, to artwork that I connect with.
Cadette Jewelry equips the mindful woman with aesthetically beautiful pieces that also have a story, spirit & soul infused into them – ultimately, jewelry that women can feel great about wearing.
Are there any societal ideas about women you feel particularly need to be challenged?
Yes. I’ve become very passionate about the world of entrepreneurship in the past few years, as I push (as hard as I can) to continue to grow Cadette. And am aware that both societal perception and statistics indicate that male-run small businesses are more likely to possess the ‘gravitas’ to successfully remain in business for longer periods of time, than female-led businesses.
Who is one woman who inspires you?
My mother. As mentioned above, her entrepreneurial spirit, and her selfless acts of love & generosity to all those around her that I was so blessed to witness while she was here, that have influenced & inspired me to persevere and continue building Cadette, as well as to never lose sight of my calling, which is to create and share my art with the world.
As a creative finding your path, what words of advice do you have for the easy. Community?
Two critical pieces of advice that were given to me, and that I’d love to share, are:
1 - Life is short, do it now. It sounds simple, but many of us still get held back from achieving our FULL potential and dreams because of the pressures that society or other ‘forces’ put on us. We only have one life to live, and if a certain goal or dream that you want to pursue seems scary or risky, just start with baby steps – and watch those steps grow organically.
2 - You don’t get what you don’t ask for. In other words, be bold, have courage, go out and get what you want! I’ve had my struggles just idly sitting by, hoping & wishing things I wanted would come along. But that just doesn’t happen – you have to prove to yourself and the universe that, that ‘thing,’ that you seek, is MEANT to be yours – and you often have to make it happen yourself.
We were honoured to have our #NoShame poster featured and have the opportunity to add to this conversation. Below, find photos from this provocative and liberating exhibit, running at the museum until February 2019.
We're heading into the last few lazy weeks of summer. Some of us are feeling ready for the heat to break and the crisp autumn days ahead. Others, like me, aren't quite ready to release the long days of sunshine. Regardless, what feels true is that September can be a new start if we let it. Here are three ways to honour the end of summer and enter fall feeling refreshed.
How have you treated you this summer? Have you been gentle with you as you learned your lessons? Have you prioritized rest? Have you prioritized fun? Have you been in touch with the ones that light your fire?
What small action can you take today to make yourself feel good from the inside out? Whether it's picking up some groceries on the way home to cook a yummy meal, scheduling that yoga class or penning some thoughtful words to a friend you've missed. Trust that you know what you need and give it to yourself today.
September always feels like a new beginning even though back to school shopping days might be behind us. It's a nice time to look at the final four months of the year and set some intentions.
Without fear, where can you visualize yourself in January of 2019? How are you feeling? Who are you with? What are you doing? Lining up our thoughts and actions with our desires is the surest way to bring them into form.
As aware as we may be of what we want to see, we likely can also identify something we'd like to let go of. Whether it's splurging too often on door dash or lyft, the need to control things around us, or just how much time we spend online. Setting clear intentions about those things that aren't serving us and having a plan for how to avoid or reduce them feels empowering.
The bottom line is this: at the end of the day, it's all good. The confusion, the pain, the joy, all of it is simply another step on our journey. By staying present, by allowing it to be and making subtle shifts in our perception and our behaviour as we become ready, we move in the direction of our dreams. Thank yourself for every small piece of progress as we welcome sweet September.
]]>All photos by Helen Mak
It goes without saying that periods can suck. So, we spend a lot of time trying to make them suck less by packing precautions (a tampon at all times), taking birth control, and stocking our shelves with Advil or whatever else will save our period cramps. Not to mention, filling ourselves with comfort food, swearing off everything white, and trying to free our schedules so we can spend the worst parts in bed. This happens to us every month, that’s time consuming. And yet, we’re not supposed to talk about it? As if!
It’s a part of the mission at easy. to make periods a conversation that we're are not afraid to have, which is why it’s so important to share our period stories with each other. Not only does it help normalize the topic of menstrual health, but it reminds us how diverse our periods are. In particular, for individuals who already struggle with varying disabilities, ailments or disorders.
We spoke to Megan Marsiglio, the Founder of Bloomm Agency and the creator of The Omm Life and The Gut Gazette, about two topics in women’s health formerly considered taboo, menstruation and digestion. We discussed how Megan manages her period while dealing with two, chronic digestive conditions: Crohn's disease and IBS (irritable bowel syndrome).
Crohn’s is an auto-immune disease of the digestive tract and while it’s not curable, Megan is able to manage it and her IBS through managing stress and diet. However, when her period occurs, her IBS symptoms flare-up – causing increased bloating, gas, bowel movements, cramping and discomfort. On the first day of her period, Megan wakes up with terrible stomach cramps, sometimes so bad that she has to lie down with a heating pack until they start to ease up. “My stomach doesn’t feel good and I end up using the bathroom more than I usually do,” she said. “And I know that a lot of other women have similar gut-related issue with their periods, it’s just not talked about as much.”
Nowadays, Megan is really mindful of the things that trigger her Crohn’s and IBS flare-ups including gluten and anything related to her stress and anxiety. She practices a gluten-free diet and takes measures to reduce her stress where she can, through mind, body and space, as she’s divided it on her blog – The Omm Life. Next to The Omm Life, Megan manages her online digestive health platform, The Gut Gazette. Through these platforms, she’s been able to open up a conversation about digestive disorders that didn’t seem to exist before.
“I use The Gut Gazette as an outlet to help remove the “poo taboo” – it’s a space for people to visit when they’re looking for tips and advice for their digestion, are looking for tummy-friendly recipes and products, or are looking to relate to others who are going through similar gut health issues. It’s a platform for contributors to share their journey and a platform for readers to relate and interact.”
Megan spends her time writing for her wellness blogs and managing her company, Bloomm Agency, where she works to support businesses with their communication and branding strategies. On top of that, she’s also a patient representative on the Canadian Association of Gastroenterology’s IBS Steering Committee.
In order to juggle all this and live the stress-free lifestyle that she writes about on The Omm Life, Megan takes measures to listen to her body. “When I have my period or I’m feeling tired, I don’t push myself,” she explained.
“I feel very in tune with my body so I don’t workout or stay up late if I’m not feeling well. If I feel tired from my period, I’ll have a bath or sit and watch Netflix. I’ll just do something that makes me feel relaxed.”
“In a flare-up I find that heating packs help,” said Megan. “Breathing is huge so if I’m feeling anxious and my stomach is feeling anxious at the same time, I just sit and focus on my breathing.” “It’s funny”, she said, “when I was first diagnosed with IBS, I hated talking about it and didn’t even want to discuss it with my doctor or my family. It was embarrassing, like nobody wants to talk about having to poop all the time. But now, it feels really empowering to be able to represent other people with IBS and talk about it,” said Megan, who now talks about her digestive issues without any embarrassment.
“All my friends and family know they can talk to me about their digestion or their poop, I’m “that friend”.”
Megan continues to listen to her body to maintain a balance in her life, writing about the ways that one can enjoy things in moderation and still live a healthy, stress-free lifestyle. Easy period is a small incorporation to that, taking one more item off her list of things to manage with a quarterly subscription that Megan receives at her home.
All photos by Jacquline Ashton
Styled by Sammi Smith
Tell me a bit about yourself (name, where you’re from, what you do, what interests you etc.)
My name is Chelsea Russell, I was born in Barbados and raised in Jamaica and have been living in Toronto for the past six years. My interests… singing, writing, eating, sleeping, laughing, dogs.. Art. Food.
You have your hand in many bags right now so to speak, you’re a pretty multi-dimensional creative. Can you speak to how you got to where you are today? (Driving forces, mentors, gut feelings?)
Well my mother is a piano teacher and so music and that creative sense has always been around me since a young age. I was never really sure how I wanted to creatively express my ideas but I knew that doing it through art was very important to me. I always loved to sing and people always encouraged me to do it. So that was the first avenue, paired with my instrument being the piano music was definitely a medium of expression for me. I also trained in the Royal Academy of Dance’s syllabus in the Caribbean for about 10 years consistently and did a lot of modern dance, movement has always been very very important to me. Bodies are so beautiful. I moved to Toronto to get a Bachelor of Fine Arts at some University here, anyway I ended up going to York for their Acting Conservatory and have been pursuing a career in that as well. Separate from that that program helped me to understand the beauty of humans why their stories and experiences are so important for me to tell and thats what has motivated the majority of my projects, whether it’s writing, recording, acting or even a shoot !
What project past, present or future has been most meaningful to you?
Probably a culminating project I did towards the end of my time at York it was meant to be a short one woman show to depict an Archetype I had chosen. I paired up with a very talented choreographer and close friend of mine to tell the story of ignorance and a foreigner in a new place, being misunderstood through short vignettes and dance. It was interesting because I had been out of touch with dance for about 4 years and had been intensively studying acting every single day so I tried to portray the idea as clearly as possible just through movement and it was just me on the stage for the entire piece. It was received well and I would love to develop it into something more.
If you had to collectively name the message you are trying to portray through your work, what would it be?
At this point in my development as an artist I’m still open to direction through life experience. For me to define name a message might be limiting. I have so many ideas and they shift, morph and change depending … I would like to establish myself as a solo artist but currently I am pretty dependent on portraying other people’s ideas to the best of my ability. I don’t have a theme or specific goal. Perhaps it’s more about human experience specifically through acting, the reason I do it is because I love people I love humans. It’s more about understanding them and their motives. Having lived in such diversely different places I have a very wide understanding of human behaviour and would like to portray that kind of idea through my work. The lens is super wide right now.
Are there any societal ideas about women you feel particularly need to be challenged?
I’ve never worn a bra. And have always received unnecessary attention for it. I think the social media movement towards “freeing the nipple” is a very valid argument and I wish it were taken even more seriously. I said it before I think the human body is a wonderful thing and to censor it or pervert it in any way is ludicrous to me. Coming from the Caribbean we have always been very open minded to embracing all women’s body types and how they want to dress themselves. However I’ve found the conservative nature of some parts of North America to be so regressive and sad.
Who is one woman who inspires you?
Maxan Russell is a supremely powerful, successful, beautiful and inspiring artist in Jamaica to me.
As a creative finding your path, what words of advice do you have for the easy. community?
A friend of mine once said “ Be Happy, Do what you love, Have sex Get money … Repeat” - King Akstar.
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Magazines have often been criticized in Western culture for reinforcing unrealistic beauty standards and blatant consumerism. But what if this form of media could be used to represent young girls in empowering ways? Used to teach, to inspire and empower?
ZanaAfrica imagined and created a reproductive health magazine that would do just that. Nia Teen celebrates girls and fills a gap created by the lack of formal health education in Kenya. Nia Teen uses the medium to create "aspirational and transformative media."
Disability activist and model Rachel Romu, spoke with easy. about menstrual health and challenging ableism in society. All references to Rachel taken from interview with her consent. The opinions and quotes apparent in this piece are Rachel’ own.
One thought that rarely crosses the mind of an able bodied individual, is what if?
What if, you couldn’t use the regular synthetic tampons that they sell at your neighbourhood drug store? What if you couldn’t even make it out of the house to buy menstrual products? What if instead of throwing in a tampon quickly on your lunch break, you had to spend ‘triple the time’ balancing yourself over the toilet while already drained of energy? These obstacles, and the women who they affect are often left out of conversations about periods.
That’s where Rachel Romu comes in, a 24-year-old current disability activist and model with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS).
Rachel is a former team Canada track athlete and Youth Olympian who, diagnosed with EDS in the fall of 2016, is now challenging society to look beyond the disability or illness that layers a person’s life. She asked that easy. take the time to draw light to her period- one that simply doesn’t exist in mainstream media.
Rachel’s disability is a combination of a spinal tumour (diagnosed at age 18) for which she has now received two surgeries and a rare connective tissue disease caused by a defect in collagen production. The disease affects the connective tissues which support the skin, bones, blood vessels, and various organs. Since Rachel’s form of EDS is hyper mobile she said that she experiences both skin and uterus issues, as well as allergic reactions, skin tears, bruising and anemia spikes/ estrogen withdrawals which cause her joints to loosen.
During her period her back doesn’t just ache- her hands have an increased rate of dislocations and subluxations and her ribs and shoulders are ready to pop out.
Rachel usually has to wear compression gloves during her period to keep her hands from dislocating and often feels that the parts of her body affected by her surgeries’ illness are ‘misplaced and misshaped.’
Period education with a disability as a layer is one reason that Rachel voluntarily assists in running two intersectional feminist spaces; one being a ‘spoonie space’ for people with disabilities and chronic illness. The term ‘spoonie’ evolves from ‘spoon theory’, a theory that offers individuals with disabilities or chronic illnesses a method for budgeting their bodies’ energy for the day with respect to their disability. According to Rachel, the theory offers the user a ‘body budget’ so that they can measure how much energy a task will consume based on their body’s capabilities. Depending on the time and day Rachel’s period will decrease her body energy by at least 15- 25% (taking up a whole $2 of her already expendable $10 budget). She said that the first two days of her period are the most painful, experiencing nausea, an increased heart rate, and a lack of an appetite despite simultaneously feeling hungry.
Rachel said that Inserting a tampon with an applicator causes her excruciating pain and since her skin is so sensitive, her skin tears if it encounters too much force. “I am a grown up and I can’t wear a full size tampon, I can only use the kind without the applicator,” […] “sometimes I just wish I could turn my period off."
With an increased sensitivity to synthetic fibres, some of the gentlest and most hypoallergenic products are still not compatible with Rachel’s body. “I have an intolerance for scented [menstrual] products and synthetic materials.”
Wishing that she’d known about easy. in the winter, Rachel said the snowy season is a lot worse for her on top of daily challenges. Even though a drug store may only be within a kilometre of her house, she is unable to get there unless the sidewalk has been shovelled and still then is extremely challenged in the weather. If she is able to make it out, she then faces the issue of finding products she can use.
Though birth control might help to ease the impact of her period, Rachel said that her health insurance doesn’t allow her to utilize it to the same affect that she could when she was younger,
“I’m on ODSP so I don’t get to take the birth control that may actually work best for me, I have to take the one that the government thinks is cheapest.”
Unable to work a full time job, Rachel hasn’t had her own health insurance in nearly two years. Although she’s someone who would benefit from a more specific pill, she would have to apply to the extended access program in order to switch. Rachel said this would mean proving that her disability can only tolerate one specific medication, (noting that it’s an inherently ablest act to make someone prove their disability). And since EDS isn’t a reproductive based disability, proving that need is much more a mountain of a task than it is a hill.
Understanding this pain and exhaustion is another reason that Rachel continues to push against ableist perceptions in society. She carries the same message in her modelling work, which she began this past April:
“I started modelling in a response to not seeing anything that was helping me accept, understand and feel positive about my experience. I didn’t want to feel resentful about my body’s state and everything its gone through.”
In sharing her story with easy., Rachel hopes to start a larger conversation about ableism and its impact on the lives of disabled individuals. She addressed that the images that we currently see in magazines and on television are about convenience rather than accessibility and accommodation. “One of the problems is that campaigns about body diversity frequently forget to include disabled bodies […] Where is the girl in a wheel chair? Or the guy with an arm crutch?”
Conversations about disability need to be about acceptance and accommodations and accessibility and none of those things can be considered a favour or a courtesy, said Rachel, “It has to be about levelling the playing field."
Follow Rachel in Instagram here.
]]>A guide to unblocking your creativity which posits that we are all naturally creative.
This was a beautiful journey for me when I was working full time and yearning for a more creative life. She includes weekly work to reconnect with the parts of yourself that are naturally creative. I found it inspiring and super helpful for letting go of negative perceptions I had about myself as "not having a creative outlet." Turns out I love to write.
"we must remain ready to ask, open-minded enough to be led, and willing to believe despite our bouts of disbelief.
creativity is an act of faith, and we must be faithful to that faith, willing to share it to help others, and to be helped in return."
- Julia Cameron, the artists way
This book was really influential for me. I had people recommend it but the title deterred me for a long time. When I finally read it I was really surprised. It helped me reimagine what I wanted my career to look like, rethink the idea of waiting for retirement to be "free" or enjoy life. It has some great exercises about visualization which helped me to understand how much money I really wanted to make each day to do the things I truly want to do.
I think this book is worth giving a chance. It's a great way to envision something new for your career path and your life if you're looking for a change.
Bit of a Marianne groupie. I find she breaks down spiritual principles into a way that's really easy for me to digest. The first book I read was A Return to Love which truly changed my life. It teaches the difference between viewing our circumstances with love vs. fear. It's a really powerful book. A Woman's Worth is all about reclaiming the power of the feminine and finding your worth within. The Law of Divine Compensation is something I come back to time and time again. It talks about how our perception affects our ability to attract an abundant life which it says is our natural state.
I treat these books like guides that I can come back to as reminders of the ideal perception I want to hold in all of these various areas.
"Practice the energy that you want to receive from others. Make sure that you are a space, in the presence of which, other people are invited- they feel it viscerally- that in your space, they are invited to be better than they were yesterday because you have faith in them that where they are going carries infinite potential. We’re headed there and we are not slowing down."Marianne Williamson
Zadie is one of my favourite authors. She writes life like no other. This book like many of my favourites tells the honest and often hard truths about family, complex and ever changing.
"Howard, crying himself now, got up from where he lay and sat behind his wife. He stretched his arms around her solid nakedness. In a whisper he began begging for - and, as the sun set, received - the concession people always beg for: a little more time." Zadie Smith, On Beauty
Sometimes a book comes along at the right time and somehow as you read you find the words you've been longing to hear.
This book was that for me. I read it largely while on a very healing trip to LA, on various beaches, in different airbnb's. bell hooks' experience was like nothing I had ever read. She seemed to both know exactly what she wanted and be constantly discovering it but nonetheless was consistently willing to fight for the freedom to live the life she wanted to live.
"A world of women choosing and making life as they want to live. I make no connection between their choices and age. They are married and unmarried, some with lots of children and some with none, and they are all women with rooms of their own. "
- bell hooks, Wounds of Passion
Such an honest depiction of the sustaining of love over time. How two people grow, change, support and disappoint one another over the course of a life. The ways we learn to be in partnership and how love is an action to be constantly performed. So informative and beautifully written.
"Rabih and Kirsten have a new sense of how little is in truth required to form a bond with another human being. Anyone who urgently needs us deserves, in the true book of love, to be our friend." - The Course of Love, Alain De Botton
A goal setting book that puts how we want to feel at the forefront. For example, how do you want to feel when you walk into work in the morning? How do you want to feel at the end of the day? It guides you to find the feelings you are most searching for.
Often knowing this can help guide your actions in new ways. Maybe your goals aren't actually moving you closer to the way you desire to feel. Another beautiful journey of a book.
I read this book many years ago and still come back to it. It helps you shift your perception to see that despite the circumstances of your past you have the ability today to choose how you perceive your life and what comes next. I found this book very empowering and very healing. A great book to help address unresolved issues with parents and issues around self doubt.
This book helped me get through a really difficult time. You're intended to read one passage a day for a year long journey. I found it helped me to focus on gratitude and recognize and be grateful for the many small things in my life I had often overlooked. The book is calming and soothing as well as inspiring, encouraging you to rediscover the things that bring you joy.
Another daily reading book, this book is so healing. Melody having been through some serious trauma has wisdom and healing words that feel like an encouraging friend.
It would be wrong of me to do this list without including a Gabrielle Bernstein book. Gabby's book Add More ~Ing was one of the first books I read on my spiritual path. She's been so influential for me it's hard to say which book has had the biggest effect. She really seems to walk the talk and make spirituality a way of life.
I read this book just after high school. I was struggling heavily with anxiety and I was desperate to understand it. This was my introduction to the concept of the ego self and observing our thoughts as a means for living in the present moment. The concepts were difficult for me to grasp and I read this over and over again. Being mindful and living in the "now" is still a daily struggle but I think this was a welcome introduction.
There are so many books that have and continue to touch me. Sometimes just one line from an author is like a beacon, as if it was written just to help heal you. It's difficult to narrow it down into a list like this. What I know is that my soul yearns for books. To read about the experiences of others, to see my joy, my pain and my hopes reflected. I am so grateful to have the privilege to access books and I really believe that the act of writing is healing for the reader and the writer. On that note, thanks for reading :)
When I was approached by fortnight lingerie to do a blog feature and photo shoot, I said yes immediately. Collaborating with other women from the city is my thing. This is a Toronto based business started and run by a woman. I wanted to support it and to be affiliated with it.
I have to admit though that the idea of being photographed in lingerie absolutely terrified me.
Growing up I never thought about my ability to have a child or lack thereof. I was the last of my friends to get my period and as much as I wanted to fit in, I was happy that I didn’t have one more thing to worry about. But when that blessed day arrived, so did another set of struggles. From day one I always had cramps, something I thought was normal, but later on I learnt that no, cramps should not be that excruciating. At the age of 14 I experienced an ovarian cyst rupturing, and let me tell you that gave me an unwanted taste of the pain associated with childbirth. This was the beginning of a long journey of doctors, treatments and unanswered questions.
Fast forward 6 years, lots of pain and many doctors later and I was finally diagnosed with endometriosis, a disease where the tissue that lines the uterus grows outside of your uterus, normally on the ovaries, fallopian tubes and tissue in the pelvic area. This tissue continues to act normally; it thickens, breaks down and bleeds with each cycle but it has no way to leave the body which leads to scar tissue and needless to say, extreme pain.
Before I was diagnosed I was suffering from extreme bloating and cramping, roughly 20 days a month I was in pain. Over the counter painkillers weren’t able to manage what I was feeling, so I started taking prescription pain killers to keep my pain at bay so I could make it to work and school. And then all the appointments with specialists, weeks of tests, invasive tests and doctors thinking having a normal day to day conversation while their examining your cervix.
The biggest thing that stuck out to me wasn’t the years of pain I’ve suffered or would continue to suffer but rather the chance that the damage may have already or could cause infertility. I love children, not that I wanted to have children anytime soon, suddenly the idea of never carrying my own became too real.
As a woman we are raised to find a man, get married and of course, have children. Those are standard boxes we are told to check off our life to-do list while men aren’t pushed as hard down that path.
When I shared this news with my then boyfriend his response is something I’ll never forget. All while trying to be supportive and encouraging, he went on to say that I was everything he’d want in a wife and a mother to his children, but if I couldn’t give him children of his own, then he couldn’t marry me. Again, not that I was looking to get married but all of the sudden all these things I had planned to do where being ripped away.
Looking back I’m glad that my then boyfriend, clearly now ex, said those things. It took me years, and I mean that with no exaggeration, to realize that he was wrong and that my disease did not define my worth. Around the age of 25 I started sharing my disease with friends, something I was ashamed to admit before I started opening up about. Thanks to my amazing doctor who has found a way to treat endometriosis without surgery but rather medication, I now don’t get my period. While I make light of this situation, it still weighs on me. When I joke that I save so much money not having to buy tampons, I leave out the insane cost of my medication and that twinge of fear that I will never have my own children. Not to mention the fear of all the pain coming back when I stop my medication when I’m ready to have children.
Now at 26 I know whether I can have my own children or not, does not mean my value is less than the woman standing next to me on the streetcar. That the man I decide to spend my life with won't look at my disease as something that has tainted or devalued me, but as something that he loves. He will see the strength that it took to deal with pain on all levels, and want to celebrate how it’s made me who I am today. And most importantly, I know my value is not found in my uterus but in my heart, my mind and my character.
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What is your name and what do you do and/or what is your passion?
Hiiii, I’m Teaunna- I'm a recent graduate with a background in social service work and I have a passion for humans in marginalized communities. I aim to shed light on these groups with my varied creative ventures, which are largely based around sex and love!
Tell me about Sex & Love in Modern Times, what was the inspiration behind it? Why is this issue so close to home?
Sex & Love in Modern Times is a project of mine that I started at the end of 2016. Sex and love is all around us and what I believe is the root to basically everything in life. They’re topics that I use to explore myself and society’s views on gender roles, relationships, societal biases and the “standard’ of human’s physical beauty.
Where will the donations that you gathered be distributed?
In my art show, Sex and Love in Modern Times, I expanded on my previous bra drive by including menstruation hygiene products.
I’ve been a partner with an amazing organization called Free the Girls, an international non-profit organization who is devoted to the reintegration of sex trafficked women into their communities. By collecting bra donations (gently used or new) and delivering them to these communities, it gives the women an economic opportunity to start their own businesses. Selling bras in their local markets while they recover aid in building their new life.
I want to start programs in low-income housing apartments, drop-in centers and homeless shelters where women don’t have to worry about breaking their banks to buy menstrual products- something I strongly feel the government should fund 100% of. I’ll be personally delivering menstruation hygiene products to these places and hope to be a consistent face in these communities.
You also paint, can you talk a bit about your paintings and what drew you to painting vaginas in particular?
I grew up in a family where sex wasn’t a topic that was talked about at all. As I grew older, I realized that this was a way for my mom to protect my sister and I because of some traumas her family had experienced. Like all young girls, I was curious but also developed a sort of OCD, which impeached on the way I felt about my vagina. If I ever touched it “accidentally”, I would wash my hands forever because I was always told that it shouldn't be touched and that it is a private part of my body. There was a day in my life, I think it was like 12 or 13 where I decided to face my fears, so to speak; thus began a ritualistic “check-in” which consists of me squatting over a mirror, completely void of clothes! I laugh now because it’s normal for me, but I remember staring at my vagina in the mirror for the first time being amazed. I thought to myself- wow, this isn’t scary at all!!
All that to say, my self exploration started that day which led to me sketching my vagina at all the angles my body could bend, and then I began painting it. Furthering my vagina study, I incorporated all types of shapes, sizes and colors. I called this series Black Belt as a way to mock the media’s widely interpretation of black female’s sexuality. I wanted to show the delicacy and intricacies of a vagina. And also to show that all vaginas are the same color inside (where it counts) - and that color is pink ;).
What has the reception been like?
The first time I ever exhibited my vagina paintings, I stood in the background and found that females were very uncomfortable going physically near my work. A lot of them whispered to the person they were with asking if “that’s what I thought it is”. Alternatively, males would go up close and ask aloud what they thought the artist’s inspiration was and shouting things like , “cool!”, “that’s crazy!” etc… And isn't that interesting?!
In what moments in your life do you feel most powerful?
I truly love encouraging and empowering artists who may be holding back when it comes to their creativity. That is why I take care and time to choose artists for the shows I create. I also feel powerful when I’m listening- learning while actively listening and observing are some of the most important things to me. Taking the time to listen to a disadvantaged human on the street is something I do often as I become inspired but them. I truly do what I can to uplift them, to let them know I hear and see them as human being first. And that makes me feel powerful in a very honest way.
What women have been most influential to you and why?
I mean, it’s cliché to say “it’s cliché to say”… but my mom is an influential woman in my life. The things she went through as a teenage single mother is something I am so grateful for. Along with my aunts and Grandmas. They endured a lot of unfair struggles at my age and younger, but they came through. And we are able to be such a tight knit and supportive family because of it. I’m truly so thankful!
What advice would you give our easy community on their journeys to creative and fulfilling lives?
The advice I would give is the same advice I try to take every day! Don’t be afraid of your imagination and try everything your brain comes up with, creatively. Talking about ideas and goals can go on forever, so something I’ve been focused on is the execution.
Photographer: Kat Threlkeld
@kat.threlkeld
I met Christina at a business event and got to hear a little bit about her blog, FemEvolve which she began to combine her love of empowering women with her science background. In meeting with Christina she opened up about the pain of living with endometriosis and how it's changed the trajectory of her life.
What is your name and what do you do and/or what is your passion?
My name is Christina Paruag. I’m a fourth year university student studying Medical Physics. My passion is women’s health, it’s something that I hold close to my heart and want to make a difference in.
I want this magazine to have an authentic feel so the content will be written by real people facing real challenges.
Can you talk more about your inspiration to start FemEvolve?
For many years, I had horrible, excruciating periods from which I would vomit for days and roll around in pain. The only thing that helped was taking eight Tylenols for the first three days of my period. Other people in high school would joke that I was pregnant because I was constantly vomiting. Even during my gym classes, I would pass out from running while on my period because the cramps were so bad, they were out of this world. I would only wake up once someone had carried me inside and placed me on the cold gym floor.
I noticed that my period was getting worse and worse in the first few months of university. I would have to leave class halfway and limp to the bus station because the pain was so bad. In October of 2013, the day before my second midterm, I started feeling very sick. I felt like I wanted to vomit (and I was done my period), my lower stomach on the right side felt like 1000 knives were stabbing it and my skin was pale. My mom found me at home and urged me to go to the ER thinking it might be appendicitis. They ran tests and eventually found that I experienced a ruptured ovarian cyst. I had some abnormal bleeding which indicated it as well as it showed up on an ultrasound. I felt confused, but also a little relieved that it wasn’t appendicitis. The ER doctor asked if I had always had painful periods and I said yes. He recommended that I visit a gynaecologist. My periods after the cyst were even worse. The first day of my cycle, I thought I would die every time. I couldn’t help but scream at the top of my lungs, kick my legs around and beg for it all to stop as tears streamed down my face. The first few days of my cycle started becoming like this, leaving me feeling paralyzed, unable even to move to go to the bathroom.
A few months later I was finally able to see a gynaecologist. He assessed me and asked if I experienced ovulation pain, the week before my cycle. I told him that in the past few months I started noticing it. He started me on birth control to see if it would help my cramps but it only made me extremely moody and made my boobs hurt. I tried different pain medications, very strong ones. I was even given medications to help with the heavy bleeding. Nothing really helped, I only found bad side effects from the treatments.
At this point I was feeling very lost and scared. I looked for resources online, however most were about exercising more and changing my diet. I could barely move to be able to stand and cook, and exercising made my pain worse. I’ve created my own resources through time that I want to share with other women. Through the years, I’ve taken this lack of available information and resources, the fact that periods are still a big taboo topic, and turned it into FemEvolve. A magazine that women can read and rely on, with alternative approaches to healthcare rather than certain band-aid treatments such as medications.
You live with endometriosis, can you explain to our readers what it is and how it’s affected your life?
This tissue travels because of cells that move into these areas. This causes adhesions and binding of organs, as well as extreme pelvic pain. Endometriosis is most commonly found in the pelvic cavity (ovaries, fallopian tubes, etc.), however it can also be found on the appendix, intestines, colon, rectum, and in rare cases, the lung, eye and the brain.
Now this all sounds quite scary, I know. I’m quite lucky I was diagnosed so early on. After my laparoscopy, extensive tissue had been found all over my ovaries and fallopian tubes, however it didn’t spread to other areas because it was so early on.
Pain when urinating and with bowel movements. Pain when bending, lifting heavy objects, sitting or standing for too long. Constant nausea (which has made it tough for me to eat a lot and gain weight). Heavy periods are common too. I still experience extremely heavy periods that make me black out on the second day of my cycle.
Endometriosis can mean multiple hospital trips in a year (or month!). It affects your immune system so it’s common to have frequent colds, especially with your period. Brain fog occurs because of the chronic pain. One of the worst symptoms for me has been chronic fatigue, it happens no matter how much sleep I get.
Photographer: Kat Threlkeld
@kat.threlkeld
I never thought that night after the ruptured ovarian cyst that my life would change forever. School was the toughest change for me. I started missing 3 weeks of school at a time, 1 week before my period, 1 during and 1 right after. My grades dropped so much, I stopped feeling like myself. Some professors and school administration would give me a hard time. How could I explain that I was missing school because of a period?
Work has been affected. I still can’t hold a full-time job. The pain can be unpredictable and sometimes your boss and co-workers are not understanding of this.
I lost many friends along the way. Both friends in university and friends from high school who I couldn’t reconnect with. They didn’t understand why I would cancel on our plans. It was tough to get them to understand what this condition had done to my body- I couldn’t walk for many days or function in the same way others did.
I would constantly hear, “Oh, they’re just cramps, take a Midol” or “Well my period isn’t bad”. They failed to realize that every woman’s menstrual cycle is unique. And this wasn’t “just a period”, it was so much more. Certain family members didn’t understand. People thought I was making it up for attention.
I think that dating has been a really difficult and devastating part of it all. Not only does endometriosis affect your ability to keep plans for dates because the pain is unpredictable, intimacy can also be painful. Many women have described it as feeling as if a knife is inside of them. It’s not pleasant, and only pushes your partner away. Fertility is also a big thing, so you have to find someone who is understanding and willing to help you through it all. It makes me scared to date, like, “Will you actually love me despite all these flaws?” But I also believe the pain has made me stronger and that good, understanding men exist out there.
Endometriosis can be caused by a number of things. Finding exercise that works for you is important- whether that’s yoga, a light walk every day or resistance training. Changing your diet is important too. I now make simple meals with little to no dairy and small amounts of gluten (which makes the inflammation worse for me). I avoid all fried or oily foods and as much junk food as possible. A clean diet really helps eliminate flare-ups.
Thankfully I’m starting to do much better thanks to low-intensity laser therapy that targets the scar tissue directly. I’ll be posting more about in on my blog shortly!
How do you think your struggle with endometriosis has affected your path?
I used to tell my close friends and family that I feel like I’m living in a nightmare. That I hope the rest of my life won’t feel this way. Having this condition has caused me to be more grateful-just for the simple fact that I’m alive and breathing. I’ve become so positive throughout this journey. I’m grateful for the small, beautiful moments every day.
For the longest time I wanted to be a radiologist, however I now feel like I’ve discovered my true calling with FemEvolve. I loved writing in high school so this is a great way to combine my writing with my science background. It all happened because of the years of pain and loss. I believe that there are many beautiful moments waiting to happen, moments in which I can help other women, including my future daughter, so that they don’t have to face this horrible illness.
In what moments in your life do you feel most powerful?
I would say that I feel most powerful on the days when getting out of bed is so tough and I still do it. Many days have started with me waking up and feeling as if I got hit by a truck.
I keep track of it in my phone to look at when I feel down. I think, “Wow, if I can do that, I can do anything.”
What women have been most influential to you and why?
After my diagnosis I’ve completely admired Padma Lakshmi. She’s known for her work on Top Chef, but she also Co-Found The Endometriosis Network of America. She is constantly raising awareness to help women. I also love the fact that she models, shares amazing recipes and has a high value for education.
Another woman I’ve recently started following is Carrie Green. She has a business called the Female Entrepreneur Association (ladies in business, check her out!). I’ve learned a lot about business through her resources. It’s also inspiring to see a woman grow a successful business yet remain so humble in the way that she has.
Do you have any advice for our easy community?
In regard to health, if you have painful periods, consider speaking to your family doctor or gynaecologist.
Don’t let anyone stop you from achieving what you want. If you have a dream and a goal, stick to it and believe you can do it. Don’t let any friend, parent, boyfriend, etc. tell you that you’re not capable. Sometimes I’ve felt scared in starting FemEvolve and sharing my story, but I know that it’s something that needs to be talked about, and something that many can learn from. Believe in yourself and your abilities and keep working towards your goals. You can accomplish anything you put your mind to.
]]>Zana Africa Foundation supports the 80% of girls in Kenya who lack access to health education and menstrual supplies by delivering both.
Constantly looking for new ways to support the girls they serve, they recently launched Nia Teen, a comprehensive health magazine that reflects the experience of growing up for girls in Kenya.
The magazine was built based on questions asked by the many girls who have taken part in Zana Africa workshops.
Topics include menstrual and reproductive health, an embedded comic to promote healthy decision making, and discussion questions to help with the joys and challenges of growing up.
Distribution of the magazine along with sanitary pads will be part of a research product in 2017 funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
This study, called The Nia Project, will be the first study in Sub-Saharan Africa to rigorously measure the individual and combined effects of sanitary pads and reproductive health education on girls' educational, social, and health outcomes.
The results of this trial, which will be out in 2019, will be a seminal contribution to the global evidence base and will expand the definition of menstrual health to include sexual and reproductive health and rights.
5% of profits from easyperiod.ca are donated to supporting the work of Zana Africa Foundation.
To learn more visit:
http://www.zanaafrica.org/
It’s unclear how this whole Valentine’s Day thing got started.
According to some, the holiday was named after the patron saint, St. Valentine. Not much is really known about the origins of Valentine’s Day.
We do know that, at one point in history, February was regarded as the month of romance, and that St. Valentine (whoever he was) was most likely a martyr who died going against orders to outlaw marriage for young soldiers in third century Rome.
Kinda romantic, right?
Some argue that the date of Valentine’s Day – February 14th – is our best guess at the actual date of death of St. Valentine.
In other words, we’re commemorating a guy who literally died for love.
What started as an act of defiance turned into gestures of affection and handwritten notes by the mid 18th century, and now Valentine’s Day means showering our loved ones in chocolate, flowers, and candy wrapped in foil.
Artwork by @prcrstln
We do it every year.
We buy into the commercialized idea that showing extra love and affection to our supposed loved ones are gestures of how much we actually care about them.
We go out of our way to buy cupcakes and candies with “Will you be my Valentine?” engraved on the top, and don’t think twice about doing it.
But when you do think about it, Valentine’s Day is a great way to momentarily forget about the problems of a relationship.
It’s a giant sweep under the rug for a lot of couples who would rather gleefully look forward to a single day in February than acknowledge the hard work that goes into making their relationship last.
And it’s usually a last-ditch effort to buy anything red that smells good. It’s also a consumerist’s dream.
But perhaps one of the real reasons why Valentine’s Day is such a big deal is because it’s an escape for those who have trouble loving themselves enough to love others the other 364 days of the year.
It’s a feel good moment (or day) when we can forget about putting in the work on ourselves and pretend to cater to others. We often don’t think about how we can improve our relationships (with others and with ourselves) the days after.
But imagine if we were able to really express love, gratitude, affection, and care all throughout the year? Single or not, operating from a place of genuine love for self and one another brings about peace of mind, mental clarity, and emotional maturity.
Our ability to treat the ones around us with respect and love is a reflection of the respect and love with which we treat ourselves. When we do this, we’re allowing our cup to run over without forgetting that what’s in our cup is first for us, and that whatever spills over is for others.
This Valentine’s Day, I challenge you to start finding the love within yourself day in and day out.
]]>Did you know that 70% of women are unable to identify 5 major parts of their own vagina? For so many, their vagina is a source of embarrassment. There is shame & vulnerability about the way it looks or smells and many block themselves from true intimacy and loving this beautiful part of womanhood.
Let’s start opening up more conversations about vaginas. We need to learn about and love our vaginas!
In my practice I get endless questions about smell, discharge, lumps and bumps, hair, how often to wash, should you wash, and so on. AND with more and more “vaginal hygiene products” out there like vaginal washes, tightening sticks, “lip stick” vaginal scents—it can be hard to know what you should and shouldn’t be doing!
A more important question is what is YOUR normal? Everyone has their “own unique normal”. The first step is getting to know what your vagina normally looks like, feels like, smells like, and how all this changes with your cycle.
Discharge: Some discharge is healthy. Usually about mid-cycle (around day 14-16 of your cycle) you can have clear-white discharge. It should be egg-white consistency. It should not have a major odor, or need a pad or panty liner for the quantity of discharge. Colour that is brown, green, grey, red, yellow is worth a trip to the doctor/gynecologist’s office.
Smell: Ladies, no one’s vagina smells like rose petals. When it comes to smell, you have to trust your instincts on what your normal is. We all have unique scents and pheromones. What I would watch out for is sudden changes in strength, pungency, or type of odor (fishy, putrid, foul, or meaty). Later I’ll discuss some tips on how to improve the smell through diet and lifestyle!
Appearance: Most lumps and bumps are extremely difficult to diagnose. If you wax or shave your hair, a lot of lumps and bumps can be attributed to ingrown hairs. If it looks like a pimple and is acting like a pimple… it’s probably a pimple. So lumps and bumps don’t always need to be a massive source of anxiety. Some things to watch out for are clusters of sores, pain, tingling, excessive redness/tenderness, large lumps/bumps that don’t go away, and any lump/bump/sore that also has pelvic pain associated with it. If ever in doubt, it’s worth consulting a medical practitioner!
pH: The pH refers to how acidic or basic your vaginal environment is. The ideal pH is somewhat acidic, between 3.5-4.5. If your vagina is too acidic (closer to 0) or too basic (above 4.5) then this can lead to infections, irritation, redness, bleeding, bad smells, etc. The only way to really know your vaginal pH is by getting it tested.
More questions about vaginas? Book an appointment with me:
Dr. Kirsty Gaylor ND
drkirstygaylor@gmail.com
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