The Sex Education You Didn’t Receive in School

Most of us were taught how to avoid pregnancy in school… but not how our bodies actually work

We were never taught about hormones, cycle phases, PMS, stress on the body, emotional shifts throughout the month, or what normal can actually feel like when it comes to our cycle

In this episode, we’re diving into the sex education we should’ve received, from understanding the basics of the menstrual cycle and hormone health, to the signs your body may be trying to communicate with you through symptoms, energy, mood and more

This is your beginner-friendly guide to reconnecting with your body, understanding your cycle, and finally learning the things so many women were never taught growing up

If you want a deep dive into your menstrual cycle, then make sure to check out my course, The Cyclica Method, which is designed to help you understand your body, reconnect with your natural rhythm, and learn how to live in a way that truly supports you - https://www.izabellemartucci.com/the-cyclica-method

Transcript

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I wish someone had have sat me down and explained how my cycle actually worked rather than using my precious hours in sex education to explain to me how a boy's wet dream worked. Anyone else? Does this infuriate anybody else? And if it does, this episode is for you because we are breaking down all of the crucial things that we should have been told about our cycle, but we weren't. We were too busy putting condoms on bananas. Hello and welcome to the Good Guy Rebellion Podcast. I'm your host, Izzy, and I am so grateful to have you here for another episode. The Good Guy Rebellion is all about reclaiming your rhythm in mind, body, and spirit. Each week we are unraveling years of conditioning to reclaim our wild, rebellious, and intuitive truth. So if you're ready to reclaim your power, reconnect with your wildest self and rise as the woman you were never taught to be, you are in the right place. Welcome to the rebellion. Why is it that majority of us at school were taught that your PMS is a problem, your periods are annoying, pain is just part of being a woman and you just have to push through. When that's not the reality, that is not how our cycle should be. This is just what has been normalized by society. But just because something is common and normalized doesn't mean it's normal. And why is it we are told that this is normal? Why is it so many women are told that because they have bad period cramps or because they have acne or because they have irregular cycles that they should go on contraception because it regulates regulates your hormones and sorts out all of these issues. When it does none of that, it mimics your natural hormones, therefore masking your issues, therefore allowing these issues to get pushed way into your future when you then decide that actually you don't want to be on hormone contraception anymore, you want to stop taking it, and then all these things bubble to the surface, meaning that we then have to deal with them, usually in our late 20s. We are taught that so many of our symptoms are wrong. When actually some of our symptoms are just normal, some of our symptoms are just the whole point of our cycle. The fact that we're not the same every day, the fact that we are cyclical, the fact that we ebb and flow with our seasons and with our cycles. So, yes, one day we might have bad skin, the next week we might have perfect skin, one week we might have cramps because, yes, even though an extreme amount of cramps is bad for you, subtle cramps is normal because you're bleeding, your uterus is contracting. You are going to feel that. We've been conditioned to think that any amount of symptom needs to be regulated, it needs to be normalized, it needs to be quieted. When it doesn't, it just needs to be felt, it needs to be held, it needs to be loved, as many of us women do. And yes, I'm not saying that your PMS symptoms that are debilitating, your cramps that are so bad you can't get out of bed are normal. They are not normal. They are usually signs that something is off balance within your cycle and needs to be addressed. However, I am here to teach you all the things that we wish we were taught about our cycle in sex education. Because I've come to realize that majority of women aren't struggling because their body is actually broken. Most women are struggling because they haven't actually been taught how to look after ourselves and how to allow ourselves to thrive alongside our cycle. So this episode is basically just all the things I wish I knew earlier, all the things that helped me reconnect to my body and mean that you can reconnect to your body straight away and not have to go through the frustration and the annoyance in figuring it all out yourself. First things first is your cycle is not just your period. Your period is just a small window of your cycle. Your cycle is usually 28 days, 32 days. It's a four kind of week period. And your period, your actual bleed, is just one small part of that. Whereas your whole cycle has four different distinct phases. So when we talk about our cycle, you have to understand that it is your four-week period. It's the whole thing that's happening throughout the month. And it's about understanding that this cycle has four distinct phases, and these four distinct phases bring with them four very different moods, energy levels, resilience, stress levels, endurance. It's just you are four completely different people, pretty much. And once I understood this, once I actually understood that my hormones change every day, every week, every month, and I'm never going to be the same day to day, week to week. Once I understood that, it meant I could reclaim my rest and it meant that I could show up differently. It meant that I could prioritize things that are going to be outgoing and push me out of my comfort zone and need a bit more resilience in my ovulation phase. And then I could schedule things that are more nourishing and more nurturing to my body and soul in my late Lucio or my bleed. Once you understand these distinct seasons, and once you understand that your cycle is not just your period, you can then start to work with it and work with its magic. So if you've never heard of your inner seasons before, I actually have a course which is a four-week self-led course called the Cyclica Method. I'll link it in the description for you, but it goes into each season in such amazing detail where it helps you figure out how to eat for your body, how to show up for your body, what to prioritize, what's actually happening, so that you can really understand how to work with each one of these seasons and use them as your superpower because they are your superpower. Once you understand how to live in flow and live with your cycle, everything will change. But to give you a brief understanding of what they are now, your menstrual phase, your period, your bleed, this is when your energy is at its lowest, your hormones are at their lowest. It's your inner winter, your body is resting, your body is rejuvenating, you are shedding quite literally, emotionally, physically, mentally. This is the time where you need to release everything, you need to let it go. Your body is releasing everything it needs to release during this bleed cycle, and you're going to want to welcome in more rest, more space, more reflection. This is the time to go inwards. It's the time you are most connected to your intuition. The veil between you and they say the spirit world is the thinnest. So if you have anything to ask your intuition, if you want to meditate on something, this is the time to do. And this season is not laziness. This rest, this inwards, this pull to withdraw from the world is not a sign of laziness. It is a sign of divine feminine rest. So you need to honor it. And then after your bleed, your menstrual phase comes your follicular phase. This is your inner spring. This is your energy is rising, the world is bubbling, everything is reawakening, you're curious, you're playful, it's your maiden energy, you're creative, open, motivated. This is the time to start something new. Put yourself out there, really come back to yourself. Allow yourself to reawaken to the world, but allow yourself to pace yourself because you're not quite at your inner summer ovulation, like your peak phase. You are gently re-emerging. So don't do everything all at once. Take your time, take it slow, and allow yourself to blossom with ease. The next phase is ovulation. This is your inner summer, your peak phase. This is when you are at your most confident, most social, most outgoing. You want to put yourself out there, you have the capacity to put yourself out there, you have the capacity to kind of deal with anything. Your resilience is at its highest, you're more outward, you're more social. This is the time to really push your comfort zone and take the big steps towards the future that really sets your soul on fire. This is also the time when you are naturally most fertile. So your body wants to be out there, your energy naturally peaks, and you are actually more physically attractive with things like symmetry in your face, a flushed complexion, and more of a sparkle in your eye as well. The next phase is your luteal phase, your inner autumn. This is your gentle reminder to slow your gentle invitation back gently to your inner winter cocoon, into your bleed phase. Because we could never go from peak summer to winter. We need this transition in the middle. We need this period of time to allow ourselves to collect our energy again, to tie up loose ends, to get things down off our to-do list, to allow ourselves to retreat back into ourselves slowly. This is an intuitive phase, it's inward focus. And this is also where PMS starts to show up in the body. The luteal phase is usually the phase that everybody has heard of because of PMS. Because you are hormonal, cranky, when actually, are you actually these things? Are you actually hormonal and cranky and moody? Or is it just a reflection of what is actually not aligned for you in your life? That is a question I always ask you to ask yourself. Are you actually out of balance? Or is it that your Lucial phase, your PMS, your cut through the bullshit phase is actually here to show you what is out of balance in your life? Because none of these phases are good and bad. All of these phases are crucial. You need the four phases of your cycle in order to be your best self and in order to go through this monthly cycle of death and rebirth, because this is the balance of nature. This is our invitation to be reborn, to start again, to have a fresh slate every single month. And if you can see it like that, it's such a beautiful opportunity to start afresh and be reborn every single month. But unfortunately, most of us were only ever taught that our inner summer or ovulation phase is the one that is meaningful or crucial or really accepted within the world, and it's bullshit. You in your peak inner summer, yes, okay, you're great, you're out there, you're doing all the things, you're beautiful, you're bold and brilliant and brave. But without your reflection, without your integration, without your rest and rejuvenation and your gentle connection to your intuition and your divine feminine wisdom, you're never going to have all these ideas that you can blossom in your inner summer. You need this inward time to understand where your body is calling you next, to understand what your intuition is actually guiding you towards. Because if you don't have this inward rest and reflection, this is why so many women are burnt out. This is why so many women are so disconnected from their bodies. Because we're living in a constant go, go, go when that is not how we are designed to live. And let me tell you, as a woman who has been through my fair share of contraception, I have done the pill, the implant, the coil, the hormonal coil, the copper coil. I've done most of it. And I am now completely contraception-free. I've been contraception-free for almost two years, and I tell you now, normal is the most incredible and empowering thing you can feel. A normal body with no influence from anything else, just you and your hormones, and when you learn to support yourself through nutrition, through movement, through nervous system regulation, through emotional support and spirituality and all the things that make you feel your best self, when you understand how to be your best self and you understand what a normal period actually feels like, it's wild that we are told that PMS and painful symptoms and acne and mood swings and all these horrible things that we have to go through that we are told are normal. It's wild that we are so widely accepting of them when you shouldn't even know your period is coming. Yes, okay, you might have slight cramping, or you might notice that you're more reserved, you're more inwards, you don't really want to put yourself out there in the world. But these should be your only signs. You shouldn't be bedbound for a week because you have such debilitating period pains or have massive rows with your partner because your mood swings are so intense. This isn't normal. And when you understand that, when you get a taste of normal, I tell you now, you cannot go back. You cannot go back. I will never go back on contraception. Because understanding how my body can feel without it is such an empowering thing that I wish every woman had the blessing and the space and the freedom to be able to feel. Because if you experience PMS, if you experience things like painful periods, mood swings, acne, missing periods, irregular cycles, insomnia, these are signs that your body is out of balance. These are signs that you need to pay attention to. For example, one of the things I went through is I noticed as I became more conscious and aware of my cycle and aware of my body that I would get really painful breasts every single month before my cycle, like non-negotiable. And I started to actually look at what I was eating and how I was looking after myself, and I realized that it was because I was eating a lot of processed food. And as soon as I took out this processed food, as soon as I paid more attention to my body, I did things like regulate my nervous system, I did breast massage, I obviously cut out the processed food, my painful breasts went away. And now I don't get painful breasts, and I know if I do, it's because I can reflect back on the cycle just gone, and I know I've been stressed, or I know I've been eating processed foods, or I know I haven't been looking after myself in the way that I should be. Your body and the signs it's giving you, the symptoms it's providing you, are a direct reflection of how you are treating it. It's a direct reflection of your outside environment. It's a direct reflection of what is going on internally. Something is out of balance. You wouldn't have a symptom if nothing was out of balance. But your cycle affects everything. It affects your energy levels, your mood, your confidence, your skin, your focus, your motivation, your emotional resilience, your stress levels, your nervous system. It affects everything. It is a direct reflection. If your life is out of balance and all of these things are being triggered, or some of them are being triggered, your recycle will be a direct reflection of that. And when I actually understood what my cycle affects and what my cycle has a knock-on effect of, I understood that actually I needed to stop forcing myself to be consistent. I needed to stop forcing myself to show up the same every single day. Because we're not little men, we can't show up the same every day, and we're not supposed to, and that's okay. We are supposed to be cyclical because that is our superpower. We are women, we are here to be the empathic, intuitive vessel that is connected to higher powers. And we can't do that if we go, go, go and burn ourselves out every day because we need this time to connect to the divine. We need this time to allow ourselves the slowness to receive the messages. For example, I wanted all these ideas last week about what to do on the podcast, what to do for my Instagram, what to do to this and that and that and this. And then the more I kind of forced myself to think up the ideas, the less they were coming to me. And then I thought, you know what? I'm gonna go sit out in the sun, it's out, I'm gonna take two hours. And as I was lying there in the sun, all these ideas came in because that's what happens when you quiet the mind, you drop into the body, you drop into the present moment, this is when you connect to the divine, and this is when magic happens. So if you feel like a different person every day, every week, every month, understand that there's nothing wrong with you. It's because you're cyclical and it's not random. It's your cycle, it's your nervous system, it's your hormones. It is not random. It is a direct reflection of the life you are living. So these are five main things that I wish we'd have all been taught in sex education. As I mentioned, rather than being taught about a boy's wet dream, I wish we'd have been told about these five main things. Number one is whilst pain is common, it is not always normal. Just because everybody feels it doesn't mean everybody should feel it. It doesn't mean that pain and agony and suffering has to become your new baseline. Allow yourself to look at your cycle, look how you're treating your body, look at what is showing up month after month after month, and actually bring the conscious awareness into your life so you can actually look at how you are treating your body, look at what you are doing month to month, and take ownership for how you are showing up and what you're doing. Because when you take ownership for it, when you will actually allow yourself to see how you're treating your body, instead of just acting like nothing's wrong, you can change it. It's such an empowering thing to know that you can make small tweaks and your cycle reflects the positive changes back to you. Number two is that your mood before your period is not random. Your PMS sensitivity, the messages that your mind wants you to hear are not random. They are not you being too hormonal, too much, too this, too that. They are your body's way of trying to communicate to you that something is wrong. Ask yourself, listen to it. Allow yourself to actually bring awareness to see if you are living in alignment with what truly sets your soul on fire, or if you are just living the way you've always lived and you've never actually asked whether it's what you want. Allow your luteophase, allow these PMS dark thoughts to come to you and allow yourself to actually shed the light on them and see if you can change them. Stress changes your cycle. Your nervous system is a direct reflection of your cycle and it directly impacts your hormones. When you understand if you are overtraining, under-eating, working too hard, stressing yourself out, regularly putting an overload of stress on your system, your cycle will reflect this. For example, earlier in the year, I was under a major period of stress where I was moving from one country to the other and I lost my cycle for the first time in my life. So your cycle is a direct reflection of your stress levels, of your lifestyle choices, and of how you're living. So if you are seriously stressed, your cycle will probably be reflecting this. So if you address your stress levels, it's most likely that your cycle will balance itself out as a reflection. Number four is that your cycle is feedback, not failure. Your cycle should be seen as a vital sign. Allow yourself to get intimate with it. Allow yourself to actually notice what your period blood looks like. Is it brown? Is it light pink? Is it really nice, juicy red? Is it painful? Is it light? Is it heavy? How many days did it last? Do you know roughly when you ovulated? Bringing this level of awareness to your cycle is one of the best things you can do for yourself as a woman. Understanding your body and its unique language unlocks a whole new level of information that you just wouldn't have had access to if you hadn't have asked yourself what is actually happening internally. Once you understand it, you can start to tweak things. And as I said, there's no greater gift than knowing you made these small tweaks and your cycle and your body reacts positively and reflects these positive changes back to you. Number five is that learning your cycle changes everything. Understanding how your temperature changes throughout the month, when you roughly ovulate, how your bleed feels, how your bleed looks, how long your cycle is, whether it's too long, too short, understanding how you show up each month in your cycle will just create such an abundance of information for you. So you can understand yourself. And understanding your female body is just one of the greatest gifts you can give to yourself. Understanding how it ebbs and flows, how it shows up, understanding what your stresses are, what your triggers are, what makes you feel good, what makes you feel bad, allowing yourself to curate your life in a way that makes you feel your very best is one of the most incredible things. Trust me, living truly aligned to your natural hormones, your natural cycle, understanding all of these things that we wish we were taught in school will change your life. As I mentioned, if you've never come across your inner seasons before and you've never come across how they work, then there is a course on my Instagram in my bio called the Cyclica Method. It's a four-week self-led course that goes into incredible detail about each one of your seasons and how to show up to feel your very best in all of them and use them as your superpower. Because ignoring our cycle, suppressing it, acting like it's not happening is not it anymore. That's not how we're gonna live. Us women, we deserve to feel our very fucking best. Thank you so much for listening. And I hope this gives you some motivation to understand your cycle at a more intimate level and understand what it is your body is trying to communicate to you. Because we all deserve to know the divine language of our female body. So if this episode resonated with you, make sure to share it with the women in your life who also need to hear this message. Because together we can reclaim our bodies, reclaim our cycles, and live as nature always intended. Thank you again so much for being here. If you haven't already, make sure to follow the podcast on Instagram at the Cyclica for all things menstrual cycle education, earth based spirituality, nervous system regulation. I will see you again on the podcast next week. All my love, as always.