[Fertile Life Interview] Charting your cycle: a window into your fertility and your life

In today's episode of The Fertile Life Interview Series, I interview Katinka Locascio on the Fertility Awareness Method (FAM), a method that enables a woman to know which day she is potentially fertile each month by monitoring her primary fertility signals, temperature and cervical fluid.  

As FAM is becoming a more common method of birth control or to help conception, we'll talk about how the practice can enable you to predict your period, determine your fertile health, and discover potential hormonal imbalances. It is the best preparation for taking charge of your emotional and physical health.

(Just want to go straight to the interview, click here).

I’ve written before about the severe lack of ritual in our society. And I believe that the most important ritual for women to bring back into their own lives (as well as into the lives of our daughters and granddaughter!) is the one that celebrates the innate power and beauty of being a woman.

Our menstrual cycles must be a part of this celebration. 

We cannot neglect, or worse, separate ourselves, from such a vital part of our existence and expect ourselves to feel whole, complete, powerful, or accepted.

As we are diving into this topic of periods and menstruation, I'd like to ask you: When you hear about women’s periods, what’s the first thing that comes to your mind? 

Gross, disgusting, messy, yucky, annoying, painful, dreaded, embarrassing, shameful, dirty… these are just some of the terms that we often hear in association to the very thing that allows us to have babies, to create life, to keep humanity going.

I remember when I first got my period, I felt an overwhelming sense of shame and uneasiness. “Shit, what now?” was my major thought because I sure as heck was too embarrassed to go and buy tampons.

While, at the very least, I didn’t think that I was dying (I know some women have those stories), I also didn’t know who to talk to about my period or the transition from girlhood into womanhood that was knocking on my door.

My own avoidance of dealing with my cycle in a more informed way stuck around until I was 29 when the prolonged absence of my period after coming off of the birth control pill (also called amenorrhea), eventually convinced me that maybe I should actually learn about my body before I put more drugs into it. 

After all, these drugs weren't really doing me a service anyway because they were not actually healing my hormonal imbalances that kept my period -and my hopes for a baby one day- at a distance. They were merely overshadowing the real problem; and I was done with ignorance.

Learning how to chart my cycle through The Fertility Awareness Method (a method that allows you to know when you are fertile, shed light on your hormonal health, and discover potential imbalances… more on this in the interview below) remains one of the most powerful tools I have ever learned to take charge of my health.

Beyond that, it introduced to me a whole new way to experience, treasure, and celebrate my own body that really had my own femininity and my own fertility at its center. 

In today's episode, it is my absolute honor to introduce you to Katinka Locascio. Katinka is the founder of Earth & Sky Healing Arts in NYC, and a Licensed Massage Therapist, Herbalist, and Fertility Awareness advocate. 

In our interview we talk about "Charting your cycle: a window into your fertility and your life.” 

Some of the things you will learn in this 40-minute interview, include: 

1. What is the Fertility Awareness Method (FAM)?

2. What’s FAM helpful for other than trying to either avoid pregnancy or achieve pregnancy? 

3. How does FAM work in a nutshell and what are the efficacy rates?

Hop on over and listen to this interview now.

xx,

PS: Did you know that in the United States alone, 53 million people have autoimmune diseases, and an estimated 22 million of them have Hashimoto’s disease. If you are one of them, check out the Healing Hashimoto’s Summit, which is intended to bring people together in an effort to expand the Hashimoto’s community, gain access to support and discover new ways of healing. The Summit is from June 13-20, 2016, online and free!