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- This topic has 10 replies, 9 voices, and was last updated 1 year, 8 months ago by
Bettina Rae.
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July 16, 2020 at 11:11 am #7876
Bettina Rae
KeymasterPlease share what reflections you have about your relationship with your menstrual cycle in the past and your journey in relation to fertility.
What has brought you to this work?
July 26, 2020 at 7:30 pm #7924Kaitlin Fletcher
ParticipantHi Bettina – I will be sharing a bit about myself in regards to the above tomorrow, when I have meditated and had time to reflect.
For now though, I just wanted to say thank you so much for being so vulnerable in sharing your story. Sitting here at my computer blubbering away and knowing with all my heart that I am in the right place. I have so much gratitude to be going through this training with you.
Namaste xxx
KaityJuly 27, 2020 at 5:05 am #7932Lisa
ParticipantHello
My relationship with my menstrual cycle has been a bumpy ride as it has always been wacky due to my PCOS. I always knew I had PCOS but only got checked for it two-three years ago. I worked really hard for six plus months to regulate my cycle to help try to convince which we were able to do. Now I have an almost 9 month old. Yoga has helped me in many ways in my life but I truly believe yoga and practicing fertility yoga really helped while trying to convince along with a healthy diet.
I want to help other women who may need help with fertility through yoga.July 27, 2020 at 8:26 pm #7933Bettina Rae
KeymasterKaity, I’m so glad you’re here as well and I know you feel my pain as you listen. Sending you so much love and take as much time as you need to process.
Lisa, Having had PCOS you’ll have so much to share on how to create a healthy cycle with your students. So glad you’re here. x
August 4, 2020 at 4:09 pm #7954Martina Bourloton
ParticipantHi Bettina,
I watched your video at least 2 times and I cried like a child, not because only of your story but mine. It’s been 5 years we keep up trying without having success. I sometimes felt alone on my journey Even I have a wonderful husband. I found your videos on YouTube while doing my yoga routine and since then a little light of hope shines on me.So I grateful as I start releasing all my feelings as I used to keep them locked inside. This is what I needed obviously;)
So thank you and I can’t wait for all the knowledge you have for us:)
MartinaAugust 6, 2020 at 8:04 am #7962Catherine Elderton
ParticipantHi All!
I’m Cat, thank you Bettina and everyone for sharing your stories.
My relationship with my cycle was pretty non existent really until I started trying to conceive and then it became obsessive. It was a rocky road! I discovered I had endometriosis through fertility investigations. I was older when my husband and I started trying, we ‘fell’ pregnant immediately and miscarried just as quickly and then didn’t become pregnant again. I experienced a lot of anxiety, disappointment and sadness during this time. I now have a wonderful 2 year old through IVF and am ever so grateful for her. I’m drawn to this work because of my own past fertility struggles and also because I have always turned to yoga to help me through difficult times, however, when I was struggling to get pregnant I worried about EVERYTHING. What I ate, what exercise I did, could I do that headstand? was it safe to do a fast practise, I mean everything! I didn’t know about fertility yoga then and nor did my yoga teacher so I want to be able to provide a safe, comforting space for women who perhaps felt like me. Where they can enjoy the benefits of yoga without worry.
The more I dive into cycle work, and I totally recommend others to read Period Power by Maisie Hill, the more I realise the potential this work has for all women and I want to be able to pass on a positive story around our menstrual cycle, creativity and fertility to my daughter.I’m so excited about this course and happy to be going on this journey with other women in this group.
August 11, 2020 at 4:50 am #7975Ella
ParticipantHello everyone I’ve just found my way to the forum! Really beautiful and inspiring stories.
My cycle started when I was living with my dad who didn’t have any idea how to react, one of my close friends mums bought me pads and gave me the rundown of what to do! But I didn’t really appreciated my cycle until I became a mother and amazed with what our bodies can do as women!
I tried for 3 years to conceive my daughter and was googling often to find a local fertility yoga class but their as nothing back then!
I found my fertility journey to be such a personal, lonely time. It would be wonderful to be able to offer support to other women who struggle with their journey to conceive.
And so inspired always by you Bettina and the work you do.
So gratefulAugust 28, 2020 at 4:54 am #8022Robin
ParticipantHi Everyone!
I am Robin, I am from Canada.
My relationship with my period has been varied, my mother is a registered Nurse so growing up me and my siblings were educated on the scientific facts of menstruation and puberty. I was very young when I first got my period, just nine years old. I remember my mother being very neutral about it, but later on in life she shared with me that it made her feel sad that I had to deal with it that early in life.
Some beliefs that have been passed down are regarding safety with using feminine protection (don’t wear tampons at night) and such. I was on birth control from a younger age. I have a seven year old son who I had in my teens.
Over the past year me and my partner have been having fertility struggles, including doing the hormones and painful tests and having those feelings of disappointment every time I would get my period. Lately it has made me feel sad, and since taking the fertility medications it has been more painful and just overall awful to deal with!February 12, 2021 at 11:35 pm #8390grisina
ParticipantHi Bettina, hi everyone,
I am Oana from Berlin and I’m 32. I’ll start with the beginning. I got my period when I was 10,5 years old. I had no idea about it, so it was damn scarry. I still have a bad connection with a specific smell of banana peel, because I was eating bananas that day. Crazy, right? (I still love bananas though, especially the greener ones.) My mom wanted to tell me all about it, but she didn’t think it’ll happen so soon for me, so it took her by surprise as well. My mom was a little scared, because that meant puberty was early for me and my body wouldn’t develop so much: as a result, I am not very tall (153 cm). Besides, I didn’t have a great relationship with my body back then. I didn’t like my period, but I wasn’t thinking so much about it. Like Cat said, I didn’t really have a relationship with my cycle up until I started trying to conceive. That was the point when I started to read a lot about it and realized I didn’t know anything about my cycle. Wow, after 30 years of my life I knew so little! I hadn’t even realize I can feel when I ovulate (not the exact moment, but the day +-1). Well, I still don’t know if this was because of my ignorance or my body was quieter back then. The words I use around my period are usually neutral, but there is one specific expression in my mother tongue that is actually not very positive: to be on stop (hard to translate, but I think you get the idea) or to be on red (which also means stop, so it sounds like something is forbidden during this time). When I get my period I feel disappointed. We’ve been trying to have a baby for almost two years and it hasn’t worked out. We don’t really know why. My cycle was a little irregular at the beginning, I was having my ovulation after 20 days (sometimes 21, sometimes 25), which was not normal for me since I was having ~28-29 days cycles back in the day. After no doctor could tell me why (except that my estrogen was low, but that’s not the cause, that’s just another symptom, right??), I started a quest for myself and realized I was actually a little underweight. I put a lot of effort into eating more, which I find quite hard. Now I’m eating quite normal I would say (I can’t eat more, but I feel like I eat enough, I am never hungry), but I only managed to put on around 2 kg. Still, this made a huge difference to my cycle and in a few months my ovulation was around day 18 and it stayed like this since (it’s almost an year now). But after trying accupuncture (stopped it because of my anxiety – I don’t like to stay alone in a room for 30 minutes with needles inside my body, it’s very vulnerable and incapacitating), hypnosis, meditation, still nothing… I have to confess that I stopped doing these nice things for me a few months ago, and I’ve been quite stressed these past months, but now I’m having some time for myself again and I want to do yoga every day and try to find again that inner peace. Meditation and yoga have really helped me not feel so sad anymore and to have more faith into my body. So now I’m looking for that faith and strength again and I’m trying to be optimistic. And some day I hope to help other women find their inner peace as well.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 9 months ago by
grisina.
March 18, 2022 at 8:09 pm #9750Charlotte
ParticipantHello everyone, hello Bettina.
I just finished the soul-searching work with the opening circle…. And I wanted to share my own thoughts with you.
First of all, thank you for sharing your story Bettina. Although we are through an interposed screen and thousands of miles away (I’m in France), I felt the warmth of a circle of women. Sharing your story can be so difficult because it is vulnerable yet so powerful. Thanks for that.
For my part, thinking back to my first period made me smile. I was at a friend’s house for the night and all evening we had talked about the fact that we didn’t have them yet. We were talking about what should be normal or not. As far back as I can remember I always wanted to be a mom. I must have been 13 and I was already worried about having a problem! My period arrived that night. With this friend. And when my mom came to pick me up, she told me that “that’s it, I was a woman” very gently. As far as I can remember, my periods have always been something positive in themselves. They have always given me confidence in my body. It makes me realize now, looking back, that I always had this fear in me. For several years now I have sought to remove the layers on me that prevent me from being myself. Coming off the pill was a fundamental process. I learned so much about my body, its functioning, about myself since I connected to my deep nature, to the phases of my cycle. I wish I could encourage women to reconnect with that trust, in their own wisdom. Especially in this time so distressing to want a child.
This is only the beginning of the work and I intend to work on it again to dig deeper into the “why” I have always chosen this path. It seems important to me to, as you say, come from a place of love in my classes.
Thank you all for sharing your stories. This virtual circle is very precious to me.
PS : I hope you understood everything !
March 23, 2022 at 12:28 pm #9756Bettina Rae
KeymasterI have made the decision to host the forum for this training over in my OYC slack community. I believe this is a more practical way for us to chat.
Click the link below to join.
https://join.slack.com/t/onlineyogacircle/shared_invite/zt-uvz13b1d-Z5ertliD_ulS2lyWBLdxDg
Navigate to the #teaching-fertility-yoga channel
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