Beyond the Cycle: Bleeding Without Identity

I’ve spent much of this life disconnected from my period.

Not in a surface-level way, I was aware of it, I tracked it sometimes, I knew when it was due. But there was always this subtle undercurrent of resistance. As if bleeding was something to “deal with,” something inconvenient, something to suppress or bypass, especially when life kept moving, and I was expected to keep moving too.

And on the flip side, there were the spaces that celebrated the menstrual cycle with deep reverence, the charts, the archetypes, the sacred feminine rituals. And yet… even those often felt like another performance. Another set of rules. Another identity I was supposed to wear.

I didn’t want to label myself as a “maiden” or a “wild woman” depending on the day of the month. I didn’t want to colour-code my life or live by a pre-written rhythm just because I had a womb. And I really didn’t want to pretend I loved bleeding when, deep down, I had never actually made peace with the body I was in.

And now, I see why.

Because even in those seemingly empowering frameworks, there was still identification. Still a sense of “I am this during this phase,” “I should feel this,” “This is how I honour my bleed.”

But what if there’s something deeper than all of that?

What if the body knows how to cycle, bleed, clear, and renew, without us needing to name, track, or analyse any of it?

What if the most sacred relationship we can have with our period is not about becoming a certain kind of woman, but about dropping the identity altogether?

This cycle, this month something shifted in me. I didn’t label where I was. I didn’t try to plan around it. I didn’t fight it, and I didn’t perform sacredness either. I just listened.

And what I found was not what I expected.

There was no craving. No emotional outburst. No angry warning signs. There was just movement, an inner shift I could feel in my hips, my womb, my breath. A sense of gentle descent. A body softening into release.

The moment I woke, I knew I was bleeding. Not with dread. Not with frustration. But with clarity. With ease.

Even the way I responded to food changed. In the past, I would crave pasta or chocolate, but that craving always came from a kind of disconnection, almost a desperation to feel something. This time, I felt the body’s wisdom asking for something lighter. A clearing. I brought leftovers with me for lunch, but could feel my body nudging me toward a salad instead. I felt the pull of a peppermint tea, not as a craving, but as a way to enhance the purification. It was as if the body was saying, “Let this be gentle.” And I listened.

And for the first time in my life, I felt in union with this body. Not fighting to feel feminine. Not needing to reject it either. Just being with it, as it is.

I don’t identify as a “woman” in the way society often presents it, someone who performs a certain way, dresses a certain way to signal femininity. That version never felt real to me. It felt more like a role to play, a set of expectations to meet. Even the more spiritual identities like ‘intuitive woman’ or ‘feminine leader’ often felt like another layer of performance. Another concept to wear rather than live.

But I do live in a female body. A vessel that bleeds. A form that births. And now, for the first time, I feel the truth of that, not as an identity, but as an expression of consciousness.

The curves, the glow, the softness that’s arriving in my form right now, it’s not something I’m creating. It’s what happens when I stop interfering. When I stop trying to be something, and simply let the body be.

I don’t need to track my cycle anymore. I don’t need to follow the rules of any phase. The body knows. It always has.

The period is not a punishment. It’s not a burden. It’s not a sign of weakness or something to hide.

It’s a purification. A reset. A monthly return to truth.

And for anyone reading who has experienced emotional intensity around your cycle, I invite you to gently inquire:

What arises for you in the days before bleeding?

What emotions move through you?

Is there anger? Irritability? Tears? Frustration? Numbness?

Could it be that your body is trying to show you something?

Because these emotions don’t appear randomly. They are not “just hormones” they are reflections. Mirrors. Invitations. The body, in its monthly clearing, is surfacing what may not have had space to be felt. What was buried, overridden, pushed down to keep things going.

I’ve come to see my own cycle this way, not as a hormonal curse, but as a truth serum. A magnifier of what hasn’t yet been met with awareness. There was surpressed anger and sadness.

And I wonder, if we had all been taught to listen instead of label, would our bodies still need to scream?

There’s a quiet truth here too: the rise of womb-related illnesses, endometriosis, PCOS, hormonal imbalances, may not just be medical issues. I can’t speak to them from personal experience, but from what I feel, they often carry a deeper message. A louder whisper. A body that hasn’t been listened to. A clearing that hasn’t been allowed. Not out of wrongdoing, but out of a cultural conditioning that told us to push through. That told us bleeding is shameful. That told us we had to keep going, even when the body needed to stop.

What if we didn’t need to track or prove or label anything?

What if we just needed to listen?

What I’ve come to see and to live is that presence dissolves the need for identity.

I don’t need to be “in my luteal phase” to listen to what’s true.

I don’t need to be a “wild woman” to feel rage or softness.

I don’t need to label the texture of my blood or write moon poems about my uterus (unless I truly want to).

What I need is to be with the body. Moment by moment. Breath by breath. Without script. Without structure. Without agenda.

Because in that space, the feminine doesn’t need to be performed.

She simply is.

And when I no longer try to “be” feminine, I become the rhythm itself.

This is what it feels like to bleed without identity.

And it’s the most whole I’ve ever felt.