In her own words Kimberley Peters is many things: a daughter, a womb healing specialist, a wife, a Chinese medicine practitioner in the making and someone who assists women to heal their bodies and encourages them to remove the many layers of shame around bleeding. If she had a catch cry to represent who she is and what she does it would be “helping women to liberate themselves from menstrual and fertility disharmony”.
SpeakYoTruth is proud to elevate Kimberley’s voice in order to speak openly about breaking the taboo about periods, menstruation and what femininity represents in terms of reproductive challenges.
“This journey started for me when I was a teen. I struggled with body image issues, like many of us do and had a borderline eating disorder”.
Kimberley explained that as a teenager her expectations for what her body should look like drew on what she saw in the media. “I didn’t see anyone who looked like me, with thick thighs and hips”. A lack of representation left her feeling less than normal which led to a body dysmorphia that manifested itself in eating close to nothing to fit into the norm of the ‘thinness’. She recalled many moments of going into retail clothing stores, entering changerooms and feeling utterly devastated that none of the clothes fit in the way they did on the women she saw on TV or magazines. As the devastation set in, she found herself crying, mourning this loss inside these changerooms each and every time.
After continuing this dangerous cycle of near starvation in order to make her body look a certain way, she explains that one day this led to her fainting in her childhood home. When her Mum found her, fearing the future of her daughter’s fate, she was immediately taken to a nutritionist. Kimberley feels grateful for her Mother’s action and feels this is what changed her life and put her on the path towards beginning her health and wellness journey, and to healing her body, mind and spirit.
Ever since then she has been on this journey which has since become one in which she works with women to empower them to love their own bodies. A part of this has meant working with women on menstrual and reproductive health that has led her to where she is on her journey today.
In chatting with Kimberley, we touched on what motivates her to do what she does and why she thinks focusing on menstrual & reproductive health and womb healing has been shunned for such a long time. I’ll give you a hint, it’s all due to the patriarchy; what a surprise!
SpeakYoTruth: Why do you think the concept of periods and menstruation is such a taboo topic?
Kimberley: Women have not had the space to speak openly about menstruation and bleeding in general because of the patriarchy. Words like vagina, sex, orgasm and clitoris have been considered taboo terms because men have controlled the conversation for so long. Therefore the reason why speaking about menstrual health is uncomfortable for many people is because women’s voices have been silenced and the concept has not been allowed to be normalised as it should.
SpeakYoTruth: Coming from a South Asian migrant background, have you felt any cross-cultural pushback on your openness to promote menstrual and reproductive health and womb healing?
Kimberley: Mostly the engagement and feedback I have had has been relatively positive. However every now and then, I have had older family members tell me directly that the things I post are dirty and shameful. I attribute this to the fact that their generation didn’t allow for them to speak openly about their truths. They didn’t have the chance to hear other women bringing these issues to the forefront and therefore learnt to associate them as being taboo.
Personally, I am lucky enough now to be a product of different times and believe I have the responsibility to change the discourse here. Having our periods is a blessing, they’re a monthly detox for our bodies and as women, we are lucky for this.
SpeakYoTruth: You are in a long term relationship, which you have been for some time. How has your husband supported your journey towards your work assisting women with menstrual health and fertility?
Kimberley: My husband has been very supportive of this journey with me. There are cross-cultural elements relating to patriarchy and being from a male dominated culture, my husband also being from a South Asian background, which can sometimes bring in age-old taboos and a different mindset into the conversation. Whilst I have awakened into my femininity over time, I have understood that this can be quite triggering for a partner when established relationship norms are challenged due to an individual’s growth and evolving. The notion being “she’s changing, she’s different from when I met her; therefore what does this mean for us, and what does this mean for me?”. It can be considered as being a challenge to his masculinity, or at least the traditional, cultural preconceived concept of masculinity.
During this conversation Kimberley touched on the concept of Yin and Yang, the feminine and the masculine, balancing life through dualism and interconnectedness. She explained that her primary relationship through time, as she has awakened and embodied her femininity, has been able to re-balance due her husband redefining his own image of masculinity and vice versa. She was careful to also explain that this balance doesn’t mean that she solely stays in the feminine, Yin energy and her Husband the masculine Yang. More that they share and balance these states allowing the freedom to not pigeon hole each other based on the feminine or the masculine – embracing both in each other and in relating to each other long term.
SpeakYoTruth: What is next for you in your journey and what impact do you want to have through this?
Kimberley: I am a spiritual person and I believe that the purpose of my life, this time around is to raise the vibration of the planet, and help women to learn the power of harnessing our womb energy, learning to embrace our unique cyclical nature, by educating ourselves about our menstrual cycles and how this can deepen our connection to our bodies, mind and spirit.
“I want women to work through their own shame when they talk about bleeding or going through their own menstrual health or reproductive health challenges and I want that to be empowering for them”
This work is about empowering women to reclaim their health, take itback into their own hands, to assist their healing, their way and to provide them with the tools they need to live thriving lives, empowered lives and conscious lives.
Kimberley dives deep into her work with passion, sensitivity and empathy, walking with women on their fertility and menstrual health journeys. She understands that to ready our bodies for healing, conception and pregnancy, we need to connect into our innate womb wisdom, nurture our heart to womb connection and embody the Queen energy of the powerful feminine. Kimberley practices Reproductive Health Massage & Bodywork in Hampton, Melbourne and is completing her studies to become a Doctor of Chinese medicine.
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SpeakYoTruth. 