Last week the news in sport has been consumed by the reaction to Lydia Ko’s performance impacted by her period. Which seems to have come as a surprise, except to every single woman!
I remember playing soccer sometimes having a period would be the same as carrying an injury. Not to mention the mental impacts as well. Brain fog, tiredness and a reluctance to want to leave the house or speak to anyone! I’d often feel like I have the flu coming on but it was my period, or perhaps I was depressed, no just my period. Some kind of serious internal injury? No, again, just a period.
It hasn’t been talked about (like menopause and pretty much most issues that impact women) yet is a reality the causes real impacts. Impacts we’ve often been taught to ignore or push through, as if this shouldn’t be something that impacts us.
I often talk about seasons to our soul, times we feel at our best and times we retreat inwards and need to regroup. Whether that be morning vs evening for those who are owls or larks. Winter or summer depending on the impacts the weather has on your energy and the sluggishness dark mornings and short days bring about. Or simply just an introvert needing quiet space to focus and an extrovert feeling their best in an open plan office. We’re all different and we know what helps us perform at our best. We also know what stops us from being at our best and the things that take the shine off our brilliance. Periods for many women can certainly do this.
Periods are normal, so are the impacts they have and the way it can influence our performance. Yet talking about them and accepting they impact performance not so much.
Just because we’re capable of brilliance doesn’t mean we should expect it all the time. Part of being brilliant means embracing our humanness and performing in line with those seasons to our soul, the flow of our best whether that be the time of day, month or year. Of course the brilliance of periods is that they link to the human ability to reproduce and bring life into the world and yet they come with these side effects. Just like being human, we’re amazing yet also imperfect at the same time.
In order to be our best we need to meet ourselves where we’re at, know what we need and know when to pull back. There is a tendency in our busy modern lives to push through anyway, whether that be a bad period, a sleepless night or serious life events. Animals rest when they’re injured or tired, they change their rituals and routines with the seasons and live in harmony with nature – I think we could learn something from them.