Gabriella Guglielminotti Trivel

Hello. Welcome to another episode of Politically Motivated here on the women's radio station. I'm Rosie MacLeod. This is the station that connects women all over the globe from our studio here in London. In this show, I take a look at the grassroots campaigners working to make the world a better place for women and girls. This episode looks at smallpolitics rather than the usual campaigns that seek to change laws and lobby governments. The changes that we want to see on a global scale usually start small, at home with a conversation or in a group with only a handful of members. This episode looks at a change that begins with an individual female body. In episode one, we looked at the campaign to abolish the tax on tampons and feminine hygiene products. One of the key reasons for removing the tax on sanitary products is so that everyone, regardless of biological sex, can be equally valued and equally productive at work. But one lady has gone one further. Turin, born Gabriela Gojibanotti Trevil is a menstrual coach and a female cycle consultant. She believes that women can achieve those goals precisely because of, and not in spite of, their monthly cycles. She describes the female cycle as women's bodies talking to them. These are important and beneficial messages, yet women overlook them, firstly because of the taboo and negativity surrounding menstruation, and secondly, because biology and sex education are taught from male perspectives. That mindset means we think of periods as being a time of the month and not a process lasting an entire month during which these important messages and indications of energy levels are trying to make themselves known. Here's Gabriella now explaining the varied spectrum of the monthly cycle and why it's important to pay attention to it. It's called scientifically as menstruation. But menstruation is actually just a week, or it can be from two to six days. It depends from woman to woman, when a woman bleeds. But that's not the whole journey because the whole journey is actually, generally speaking, four weeks. So I would like to go with you, walk you through this yearly journey. And I call it yearly because it's actually like a year in a month. Why? Because the four different phases that a woman goes through during the month are comparable to the season. And we are all familiar with the season, especially in this country. In UK we have four seasons. So let me start the walk through the season. So. So let's start from spring. It's just easier to start this way. And spring is comparable to the pre ovulatory week, which is the week when a woman has stopped Bleeding. So the week after, okay, so this week is a very empowering and very energetic week for a woman. And as a matter of fact has the similar energy of spring. And in spring we tend to be very energetic. We are waking up from winter, right? So we tend to start new courses, new things, maybe new interest that we keep them aside, we kind of, we remember them and we go, we decide, oh, well, this year I'm going to do this and that. So it's the same type of energy. It's like when, I don't know if you ever been surfing, but it's like getting your table, you know, you surf table and you see the wave coming and you go with it, right? It's the type of energy brings you up. It's a very powerful energy because you need less sleep and so and you become very outgoing. So it's really like in spring, you know, you wake up. So it's that type of energy. And this is the pre ovulatory phase. The following week is the ovulatory phase, which is when a woman biologically ovulates. So it's comparable to summer. And like we are now in UK and we are in summer at the moment. Beautiful summer, very hot. So in this week a woman is really powerful, it's really social, is really energetic. She does everything, she says everything to everybody. She can be something for everybody, really. And fertile at that time. Yes, of course, it's a way of nature, for nature to make us a pettible or a desirable, right? Because otherwise to have some kind of interaction with the opposite sex, we do have to be a bit social, right? So there you go, nature knows best. So in that week it's really, you know, the woman becomes a queen, right? So of course she's very appreciated, she's very effective, productive. So it's very appreciated by society, male partners or whoever, right? But then the following week, the third week, which is the premenstrual week, is comparable to autumn. And that's the week that normally, or the phase that normally get the bad press. Now let's look into this energy of autumn. When we go at the end of summer, we start feeling the chill in the air. We can feel it, you know, there's a change of energy, it is a change of interest, change of activities from the kind of rest period of the summer, the holidays, you know, we get back into motion, you know, work wise, socially, etc. Etc. Professionally. So it's a week when a woman starts to be something different. She's not that social anymore. Because now she's more focused on her interest, on the things she has to do, the time she has to manage. And so it's time to count all your sack of beans in the larder, because winter is coming, so it is time for the harvest. In nature it's a similar type of energy. You have less hours of light, so you need more sleep, you need more rest. So the focus is more inward. Okay? And this is the time when a woman starts saying no. Why? Because she doesn't have time for everybody anymore, and rightly so, she's more focused on herself. And then we arrive at the last week, which is the menstrual week, which is comparable to winter. And like in winter is an energy that takes us inwards even more and we need to rest more exhausted, so exactly. We recover. In winter, like nature, the trees sheds their leaves and they go in a dormant state. And so some animals and so do we. So it's a time though also very important to mention, it's not just a woman needs more rest and she's even more concerned about her own important things to do, but it's also a time to recover and to review stuff. So it's a time that is very important for a woman to have time alone because she becomes very naturally, very psychic. So her dreaming pattern changes and she works, but she works in a different way. And this is also a time that has a bad price because it's not that so called efficient socially, but we don't necessarily are very naturally savvy because we need to rest, otherwise we can't produce anything, don't we? The two seasons, the spring season, which is pre ovulatory and the summer season which is the olive tree phase, are very much energetic to energetic season and are more male energy. Okay, let's call it yang energy. If we consider yin and yang energy according to the Indian eastern way of considering energy in the cosmos, etc. So it's the part of the cycle of a woman, spring and summer, where a woman is in a male energy, young energy, so she's very active. Okay, then for obvious reason, nature knows best, so she needs to recover from these two seasons. So autumn and winter are the female energy part of the cycle. So the yin energy. So in these two seasons a woman goes through a time of yin energy. So it's more important to look inside, to rest more and develop more, or that is more an inward activity. But this is not to say that it's less important than the outward activity, because without the inner activity, no Outward activity can happen. So when a woman doesn't consciously follow this journey every month, what happens is she might be taken by all the chores and things she has to do in modern life, but which is not a little thing. Most women have family, they work, they possibly have social demands and also interest. And they might have old relatives to look after. So many things to do. And you can easily imagine that possibly it's not that easy for every woman to respect her inner rhythms every month, especially maybe during the winter season when she should really rest more. But maybe she has very important meetings for work or for the family, with the children, things that have to happen happen in school or whatever. And also she can reschedule. So you can understand that if we are so much taken and we undergo this imposed rhythm that is an external rhythm that doesn't always coincide with our inner rhythm, sooner or later our body is going to let us know there's something wrong with us. The female cycle is the system that in a woman's body is the most stress sensitive system. What does this mean? It means that any stress that happens to a woman in her life these days can be many, right? Either can be a physical stress or it can be an emotional, psychological stress. They go and impact her inner cycle. So menstruation, and so let's call it like I call it female cycle, okay? So what it can happen is that if a woman is undergoing a lot of things that she has to do for work, for instance, she doesn't sleep as much as she would like to, so she's deprived maybe of even good nutrition because she can't eat regularly and good food, etc. The body gets stressed because she doesn't get fed as it should, and all the rest have enough hours, sleep, etc. So it can happen that a woman then doesn't bleed, or it could be the opposite because she might have problems in her womb that she might be literally. So of course, as you can imagine, every woman has a different story. And so we can't generalize. But what I can say is all this effect, all these ailments are the results of a woman not being in sync with her own body and not following the rhythm that nature imposed to us. Nobody creates them for us, it's nature designed them, okay? The negativity associated with menstruation is damaging. It stops women from embracing the energy. It gives us energy that can help us be more productive at work and in family life. This shortcoming is something Gabriella seeks to address. Though not a doctor nor Gynaecologist, she advises women on their cycle in order to make the most of it. So how does she manage to coach women on something that varies so much from woman to woman? I've been following my cycle since I started. Actually. I wasn't actually. Instructed by my mother or anything. I just intuitively started writing down my cycle since the beginning. And that was an inner prompt. Call it whatever you want to call it. So I, like many, many women in this world still today, I went through life, stumbling through, discovering things by myself. But sometimes, not necessarily, you come across the stuff that is helpful to you until maybe you have a problem. So in my case I wasn't in pain, but obviously for me it was a wake up call because I thought, oh, my cycle is becoming so erratic and missing and what's the problem? And I knew that it was a way for my body to talk to me. And so I got interested into this subject and when I found out more about it, I realized, oh my gosh, if only I knew this when I was younger. And so I decided to do something about this. And since 2010, I've been trying my best every day to reach out to women, to educate them and to let them know about this wonderful journey that they go through every month. They know nothing about it because nobody possibly has educated them ever about this. Yes, there's more staff now going to the press, thanks God or thanks the goddess appearing. But we are still a long way to go. Since my 40s, I've been following my cycle closely every month. And what do I do, and that's what I invite women to do, is to track their cycle, which is a very simple thing to do, is simply every day pay attention to how you feel, but not just physically, but also taking notes. Notes, meaning can be just a couple of lines. Doesn't have to be a poem, okay. Of how is your energy level mentally, how you feel, your moods. And by doing this, which is very simple thing to do, and it can be as short as you want it, in the evening, before closing your eyes and going to bed, you will see, if you do this regularly, you will see, you start seeing patterns and you start obviously years of this obviously will give you more knowledge, it's obvious. But at least if you start doing that, you start seeing that actually they are seasoned, not because I said so. And that's what I invite women to do, to discover for themselves. Because if you just follow something because somebody has instructed you to do, it's not the same. Your inner knowledge of your own body Is not. You can't go to the supermarket and purchase it. You have to create it yourself. If you follow the natural rhythm of the four season, what I call the inner season, you tend to discover four different sides of yourself that otherwise they will remain undercover. Because we tend to. Because like in the different season, we tend to do different things, have different emotion, have different activities. So we have different qualities that come through aspect of our character. For instance, that our bodies bring to the surface in every week. So I think it's a very exciting adventure that a woman should be on for most of her life to discover all these different, four different parts of herself that otherwise she won't. So that's definitely a benefit. And also another benefit is that if we follow this natural rhythm of like day and night, because the cycle is like that, you know, you have two weeks of activity or more energy, and two weeks of less activity and less energy, you become very productive. Why? Because we all know we can't live healthily without sleeping, right? So we can skip the night's sleep of one day or two days maybe, but then we get grumpy, right? Either we are men or women. So for a woman to follow her natural rhythm will make her not just discovering herself much more, but also will make her much more productive. I mean, in normal terms, like social terms, productive at work, socially, for whatever she does, even with the family. And my message would be for every woman would be make your female cycle your best friend instead of being a curse. And I would say to men, really? Well, if you get to know your woman, you actually get. You realize you get full women in one. So I think it's a good deal, isn't it? Women's radio station can give a voice to your brand. With a wide range of sponsorship opportunities, including individual programs, we can tailor your experience to, to you. For more information on how you can sponsor a show, go to womensradiostation.com so by compiling a menstrual diary, menstruating women can track and predict their next energy burst and use it to their advantage at home and in the workplace. Now, this program is about campaigns that seek to effect change. And that word itself is often a synonym for the menopause, as well as showing that the female cycle is not the loss of temper, but the gain of energy. Gabriella teaches that the menopause is not the loss of youth, but the gain of wisdom. And it's wisdom that can be embellished from women having been attuned to the different phases of their bodies during the majority of their lives, a woman goes through menarche, which is the first bleed she has normally in the teens, years and then she menstruates. So she goes through the female cycle every month up to again. It can be obviously individual, but late 40s, 50s. So the best part would say of 35, 40 years, you know, some women do bleed longer, but so it's a long time that it's a pity to do, to miss. Right? And besides, they are the formating years, most important years of a woman to become a woman. Of course, in our society we are all about youth, motherhood, of course, because we give, we produce, you know, offsprings. But there is never really much talk or importance given to the best parts of woman's life, which are the mature years. Some people call them cronies. Okay, but again then I don't want to be negative or you can make your own new words for it, but actually that's the best part of a woman's life. And why? Because when a woman is aware of her menstrual cycle or the female cycle, she has 30 years or 40 even of it's almost like school, going to school if she knows what is happening in her body. So it's almost like kind of going from primary school to up to, you know, to have a bachelor degree to university, you know, in all those years. And then what you do, you got all your titles, you know, degrees, and you chuck them in a bin. Why? Because you are becoming old. No, you're not becoming old, you are becoming a mature, wonderful woman. So it's time to change this and start seeing in this way. So don't go for lifting, face lifting, whatever, have an inner lifting, because after the apprenticeship of the menstruating years, you're actually going to be sitting on your throne if you make the most of all the wisdom that you should have acquired during the decades of cycling years. Weight gain is one of those things related to women a lot, a lot in the press and possibly get a bad press as well, and sometimes can be mistakenly connected with the female cycle. Also another thing that I mentioned quickly is very much related, talked about in the press is gain weight also during the menopause, which is another thing that is so much talked, and maybe not always in the right way about women gaining weight and so feeling depressed. And then the culprit is of the menopause. But I would rather say the culprit is actually the fact of not knowing what is going on in your body for decades, having ignored it. And as a consequence of that it has a cascade effect on our psyche, on our emotional body, obviously is all related with our physical body. If you consider the cycling time of a woman, the period from basically her menarche, first menstruation, to the menopause, which is the last menstruation she has, that can be between three or four decades of time. If consider that like the apprenticeship time of a woman, if she is menstrually aware, of course, then I would consider the menopause the time of a woman graduation. So it means that all the wisdom she has accrued during those decades of cycling, let's call it a day, not with a bicycle, but cycling inside her body. What happens is that she should get the graduation day, so it should be compared to graduation day, so it means she can eventually become the power she has been practicing for all those years. So it should be really a time of celebration and a time for a woman to become a queen rather than an old woman. You can find out more about Gabriella's work at www.flyinginspiration.co.uk. i hope you'll be inspired to make a menstrual diary, track your changes and optimize your month around your peak energy. Do join me next time for another interview with grassroots campaigners improving the world for women and girls. And if you'd like to hear that episode again, or any of the previous episodes of Politically motivated, do visit www.womensradiostation. Welcome to women's radio station, the voice of women worldwide. So I do glitter for a living. 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