INSTINCTIVE FREE FLOW. What if managing our periods consciously and voluntarily was much more normal than living with incontinence?
Since I've been practicing instinctive free flow, it would be impossible for me to go back... Why? Because it would be like asking me to pee myself instead of going to the toilet: completely illogical and uncomfortable!
However, there are two opinions on FLI: those who support it and those who see it as just another means of control.
Personally, I think it comes from a profound lack of understanding on the subject. I've never experienced the pain of controlling my menstrual flow on my own, but on the contrary, it's been a real liberation, and it's given me enormous confidence in myself and my body.
So that's why I now believe that controlling your flow is much more normal than experiencing it involuntarily.
1TP5FeminineTibertons
1 - anatomy of the pelvis and its organs
As a physiotherapist specializing in perineal re-education, I have learned in great detail how urinary and anal continence work. In other words, medicine is aware and has studied that the two systems that frame the vagina-uterus system can contain and release their contents at the right moment.
And then I ask myself a question: why would the body have provided everything for the bladder-urethra system (in front), and rectum-anal canal (behind) and nothing for the one in between?
In my opinion, there's already a major inconsistency here.
Just look at the diagram and you'll see that the uterus and vagina are sandwiched between two systems capable of continence!
So why not the uterus and vagina?
Next, you may say that urinary continence is permitted by sphincters, etc., but this is not the case for the vagina and uterus. Are you quite sure of this?
Personally, my research has enabled me to explain instinctive free-flow physiologically in several ways. Unfortunately, no scientific study can objectively demonstrate these facts, but I'm convinced that once we've taken the time to ask ourselves the right questions, science will find the right answers.
(I explain the set of physiological factors that allow instinctive free flow within the the instinctive free-flow workshop here)
2 - Coat or no coat?
Ok Melissa, you're nice with your theories, but then why can't I control my period at all, or even have it take me by surprise every other time?!
Ah, the big question! If nature planned everything, then why have we all come to this?
Well, I'll give you a very simple example: potty training in children.
When does baby learn to pee in the potty? When Mum takes off the diaper, because now he's a "big boy". So baby misses at first, of course, but eventually finds his way to the potty when the urge to urinate takes him.
Well, it's the same for us girls, but we've never had our diapers removed!
Worse still, we're encouraged to wear them all the time: panty liner, day towel, night towel. At 60, we're sold urinary incontinence diapers!
Instead of reconnecting us with our perineum and our abilities, we are offered 1,000 glamorous and sexy solutions to manage our periods (tampons, cups, pads, sponges, etc.).
So don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we should ban all that, I'm just saying that we don't need it as much at all, believe me!
3 - Experience
The last clue in favor of controlling our periods is our experience of them. If it were so natural to let the blood flow between our legs without being able to do anything about it, how would we experience it?
Yet we've all been through traumatic experiences, and we're still often subjected to our periods. In some religions, they are even the object of our "impurity"...
I met a woman the other day who said to me:
"Today I had a carpool, I was so afraid that my period would arrive that day and that I would stain her seat that I wore tampons all day, changing at every break".
Can you imagine the state we can get ourselves into? The stress it generates, the fears that occupy and preoccupy us. We're so disconnected from our feelings that what should belong to us becomes a threatening stranger.
Imagine now that it was all completely over, and it really can be ....
A wonderful world where you feel your period a few hours before. You let the blood flow to the toilet naturally and effortlessly. You no longer have to worry about staining your clothes because you know exactly how to anticipate your body and its messages.
Today, each time I return from my period, I experience it as a gift, a profound reconnection with myself.
They don't cost me anything, they don't stop me from doing anything, even if I feel the need to slow down and welcome the idea.
Personally, I'm convinced that we're all capable of it. And each of us may have a different way of approaching the learning of Free Instinctive Flow.
I look forward to sharing more with you. Don't hesitate to ask me questions and give me your opinions under this article, which may be the subject of a new one.
For those who want to go further and learn Instinctive Free Flow, it's here !
