Ashley Jeanne Ross - Holistic Women's Health
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A screenshot of your hormonal health

8/23/2014

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PictureJustisse Method Charts
Have I lost my marbles asking women to add one more thing to their crazy, busy days - in the interest of their health?  They’re having a hard enough time getting exercise and eating well.

Well, that’s just it.  It’s our lives that are out of whack - really. Thankfully, our bodies are remarkably resilient - adapting to the many fluctuations and stressors our modern lives present.  Until they don’t. 

What if I told you that the early warnings of depletion and too much borrowing from “Petra to give to Paula” can be seen visually long before the body sends us a message via ‘symptoms’ of distress.  (Hello, PMS, perimenopausal symptoms and more! ).  Im not talking about hormone tests or x-rays or MRI’s. Im talking about a low tech ‘visual aid’ that allows you to see and discern, on a daily basis, if your body is functioning just as it should. 

And here’s the kicker: in the process of learning to create this visual aid (yes, it’s self generated) you develop skills that support your health for the rest of your life.  You don't have to wait for your body to start malfunctioning to begin. 

So what is it, this ‘visual aid’? 
Simply put, it’s charting your body’s ‘events’ to get a remarkably accurate and detailed picture of your current (and future) health.  You do this by generating a visual of your hormonal profile (and thus overall reproductive and general health, too).  The beauty is that it’s not a one time snapshot (like hormone tests) but an ongoing, interactive, biofeedback tool that simultaneously deepens your relationship with and understanding of your body. 

This tool, aka body literacy*, is designed to grow with you as you move through the different stages of your hormonal life.  
In the ideal world, body literacy
So in the ideal world, body literacy would begin at puberty, support a young woman through the her first hormonal transition through adolescence, setting her up with an understanding and appreciation of her body.  As with all the hormonal phases of her life, she will learn what she can do to have ease in her monthly cycles (PMS needn’t be endured, and in fact is a distress signal from the body).  

In the reproductive years
Body literacy in the reproductive years (20-35) allows a woman to maintain optimum health as reflected in regular periods, smooth pre-menstruation and menstruation, healthy skin, stamina, restorative rest, balanced emotions and the like. 

It also gives her an intimate knowledge of her fertility - so she knows where she is in her cycle, when she ovulates, when her cycle deviates from her normal pattern, and why that’s happening.  In this way she tracks her health and fertility, so that she’s not surprised later to learn that she has been depleted hormonally without knowing it. 

In addition, and this is a HUGE one, she develops confidence in knowing at any time when she’s fertile and when she’s not.  She then has the option of using her body literacy to practice natural birth control, avoiding hormonal birth control options that suppress her endocrine system.  (At best they can make her feel crappy and lower her libido and at worst they can compromise her fertility and reproductive health). 

She’ll also have an embodied awareness of her fertility to make important career/family decisions, avoiding the regrets that so many modern women feel when they haven’t tended to their reproductive health and/or arrive at perimenopause without warning. 

A smooth perimenopause is possible
In our ideal scenario, a body literate woman notices she is perimenopausal somewhere between 35-45 - when her hormone profile begins to change, usually long before her period starts changing or skipping.  If she hasn’t already tended to her hormonal balance, her body will begin sending her messages in the form of symptoms. 

Our modern lives are stressful. I know this is ‘normal’ for many of us, and many of us feel there is no way around all these stresses.  We have demands on our time and energy from our families, our relationships, our jobs - we are ‘on’ all day until we collapse in front of the TV or in bed at night, only to start over the next day.  

From our hormones' perspective, as the stresses continue, our bodies need to produce more and more stress hormones to maintain this state of ‘chronic’ stress and it starts to ‘borrow’ from our sex hormone production, as well as overtaxes our thyroids and adrenals.  If we are ‘lucky’ enough to make it to perimenopause without visible signs of depletion, you can expect, as our hormones shift into non-reproductive mode, for these symptoms to call for your attention.

Body literacy at this time can mean the difference between enduring symptoms that can make us feel crazy and/or disrupt our lives and having a smooth transition through perimenopause into a healthy, sustaining menopause and beyond.  Charting our symptoms and what’s happening in our bodies shows us the dietary, lifestyle and stress management adjustments we need to make.  They also serve as a powerful biofeedback tool that inspire us to actually make these changes.

Having empowering choices
As we know, if a woman doesn't want to rely solely on consultations with her doctor but wants to take a more pro-active role with her health, she has to sort through a lot of confusing and often conflicting information.  

Charting and body literacy empower her to understand the causes of hormonal imbalance she finds, and give her non-invasive, restorative, sustaining and natural options that affect her physical, emotional and spiritual wellbeing.  

Here's what I find, with others and myself: charting is good, clean fun.  Staying attuned to your body as an investment in 
the future, hmm, it doesnt get better than that, right? 

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A Social Experiment: Welcome to AJR's world

5/15/2014

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Picture
Original art by Ian Herman
Here we go - 
A idea came to me in the shower, as they tend to do. 

It started with a question:  How would it be to have a community of women wear their hormones 'on their sleeves'?  And then I remembered I was going to two of my favorite summertime gatherings - the Northern California Women's Herbal Symposium and the Honeyroot Women's Embodiment Retreat - where there will be hundreds of women. Plus these are women who are interested in bodies and health and new realities and such.   I know they will be game to participate in this never-been-tried-before (as far as I know) collective experiment. 

The visual came next.  Women with different colored yarn on their arms - symbolizing where they are in their monthly cycle (left) and in their life cycle (right).  Some suggestions of ice-breakers to whet their appetites and the fun begins ...

Like - 
You see a woman is premenstrual (increased sensitivity) and you ask her to help you be more attuned. 
You see an elder (a wise woman whose blood is now being held within her) and you ask if there is anything she’s seeing that will be helpful for you to know.
You see a premenstrual (contemplative, reflective) woman, and you tell her about a wonderful quiet spot by the creek where no-one will bother her (ditto a perimenopausal woman).
You see a menstruating woman and ask if she needs a back rub with some delicious smelling oil.
You see an ovulating woman (lots of energy, willing to connect) and you have a new friend.
You see a perimenopause woman and ask her to show you how to stop worrying so much about what others think.  

Introducing ... The Cycles of Life Project 
Now that it's manifesting, I think this idea has been incubating for many, many years.  Possibly since my own struggle with PMS in my 30's, when my self-care took a nosedive - taking my self-esteem with it.  Perhaps while watching my daughters traverse the rough waters of menarche and adolescence without much support or compassion for their fluctuating emotions. Certainly as I sit with women learning to chart their cycles and I see the dots being connected before my eyes. (Ka-ching!) And now, in my late 40's, as my friends transform from sweet, accommodating self-sacrificing young women into boundaried, strong no-bullshit purveyors of Truth, it makes sense that now's the time to ask these questions out loud. 

If our hormones were transparent, out in the open, for all to see, would we relate to each other differently?  
Would we feel more at ease in our bodies, and with that, would some of our hormone related symptoms diminish? 
How would it be to live in a world where our hormonal/cyclic nature is regarded as an asset?  What if our hormones were not only respected, but actually honored for the variety, color and richness they possess?  

We're about to find out.  I've devised a questionnaire for the participants in this exciting experiment.  And I will use this blog to let you all know what happens ... 

Stay tuned ...
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    New Blog Collaboration!

    I've joined the inimitable Lynette Sheppard on her renowned, award winning Menopause Goddess Blog.  

    For the last 10 years, Lynette's been the voice of sanity through the storm of trends that have brought our menopause experience out of the dark and into common vernacular. With the depth of her holistic medical knowledge, her zero tolerance for B.S. and, most importantly, her seriously irreverent humor, she's helped literally 100's of 1000's of us navigate this often mystifying, downright frustrating and sometimes scary journey through midlife.  
    It's little wonder The Menopause Goddess Blog's been nominated for Best Menopause Health Blog for the last few years. 

    I'm honored and delighted. Join us there to get her take on post-menopausal joy!  
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    Author

    The vision of a world where women adore their bodies ignites Ashley’s fire.  And taking on our society’s deeply entrenched taboos is her path to this world.

    Ashley Ross is an author, teacher, counselor and speaker, as well as a loving mother of young adult triplets, two girls and a boy.  She's the author of The Cycles of Life: A Journal for Women. Understanding the physical, emotional and spiritual influences of our hormones.

    Ashley  is committed to using whatever means at her disposal to contribute to women-loving, holistic, real, accessible and inspiring information to women around the world.  

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           somatic therapy           |            conscious menopause            

Ashley Ross (AMFT # 102641, supervised by Chris Tickner, #42576)

                                                                      Pasadena and Pacific Palisades, CA                                                                         
​(818) 925-6432
 ashleyrosstherapy@gmail.com
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