I literally jumped out of bed to write this post today! If you know me, you know that I don’t ever jump out of bed to write. But today was different because as I lay in bed scrolling through the Huffington Post (I know, I know I shouldn’t wake up and look at my phone…sigh, no one is perfect) I came across an article entitled:

“Lena Dunham Asks Why People Use Birth Control, World Learns Critical Lesson.” 

Naturally I clicked on it to have a read. It turns out that Lena Dunham has endometriosis, and in response to the government’s continued assault on a woman’s access to birth control (I’ll get to that in a minute), she tweeted this message:

I need birth control because I have endometriosis and it helps manage pain. Why do you?”

Within a short time there were nearly 1000 responses ranging from not wanting more kids to having PMS, PCOS, endometriosis and more. While I admire Lena’s advocacy for women’s healthcare rights, I strongly disagree with this message.

Women! We are not inherently broken and we do not need a birth control pill to fix us. What we need is a more comprehensive understanding of how our bodies actually work so we don’t live in constant fear of them. Do you know that 58% of American women who take the birth control pill also use it for reasons other than getting pregnant?? (1)

Let me translate this:

More than half of the women in this country have symptoms so bad every month that they need a powerful hormonal cocktail to make them feel better physically and emotionally. This implies that women’s bodies don’t work – that without a great deal of medical intervention we simply can’t be healthy.

And this pisses me off so fucking much!

Don’t get me wrong, the recent Hobby Lobby decision by the Supreme Court really pisses me off too. And the fact that the government continues to cater to these organizations is beyond my comprehension.

Women’s health in America today is truly under attack and I cannot fathom how the men making these decisions can’t see in the faces of their mothers, wives, sisters and daughters, the faces of every woman negatively impacted by their horrible abuse of power. I could go on and on about the lack of safe abortion clinics, the new rules on contraception, the chronic undermining of Roe vs Wade by state governments and myriad other issues.

But I won’t. No instead, I will just say this…

We don’t need to fear our bodies, we just need to understand them. The current women’s health care crisis is a perfect example of our lack of understanding, not only from these idiotic men who keep proposing and enacting these ridiculous laws but for every woman who is terrified of what her body will do every month because she has never been taught the basics.

We need a paradigm shift here ladies (and gentlemen – especially you!). Women today need to know that the pill or any method of hormonal contraception DOES NOT fix endometriosis, fibroids, painful and heavy periods, PMS, PMDD, depression, or any other condition related to our monthly menstrual cycle. All it does is mask an underlying hormonal imbalance that if not treated can and likely will cause a whole host of problems down the line.

I have been doing this work for four years and the stories I get from women every single day are completely gut-wrenching. We place our trust in our doctors and the medical system because we have collectively moved so far away from understanding the true nature of how our beautiful female bodies actually function. Essentially, we take our bodies to the doctor in the same manner we might take our cars to the mechanic – we have no idea what the hell is wrong and we pray that the doctor/mechanic will fix it because we have to get back to living life!

Unlike cars though, our bodies have cycles and systems that ebb and flow. When we slather ourselves in hormones to spot-treat individual issues, all we are doing is further hindering our ability to actually figure out what is going on!

Imagine how empowering it would be to know exactly when you were ovulating each month, the days you could have unprotected sex to either get pregnant or prevent pregnancy, knowing when your period will arrive, not living in fear of PMS or tons of physical pain, and finally, having an appreciation for all the hard work your body does every month for you.

This is possible for every woman. I know because I have helped thousands of women move from fear of their bodies to feeling at home in their bodies. The only way to stop this insane cycle of assault on women’s health is for women to START trusting their bodies and STOP giving their power away to doctors who don’t have the slightest clue about treating the root cause of anything.

Continually relying on a prescribed pill which by the way, has been classified as a Class 1 carcinogen by the World Health Organization, is completely disempowering for all women. Instead I show women how to be far less dependent on doctors for fundamental answers that should be a part of their own knowledge and understanding.(2)

If you want to learn more about how the pill and other hormonal birth control methods damage your amazing body, read this post and then this post.

If you’re really motivated to lose your hormonal birth control, you can check out my Birth Control Protocol: The Ultimate Solution to Ditching Your Hormonal Contraceptives.

I also recommend my signature program, Fix Your Period in which I teach you exactly how to get to the root of your hormonal imbalance, treat it holistically using a combination of food, supplements and easy stress management practices and finally be free from hormonal birth control.

I believe these fundamentals should be seen as part of every woman’s basic education. Period. By the way, Lena I think you’re beyond awesome and totally love you to pieces!!

Sources:

1. http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/Beyond-Birth-Control.pdf

2. http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancercauses/othercarcinogens/generalinformationaboutcarcinogens/known-and-probable-human-carcinogens

Scroll down to estrogen to take a look.