Simple Self-Care Tips for the 'Inner Summer' Season of your Menstrual Cycle
Exercise, Emotional Care and Food Energetics
Previously, we have explored the dark and light inner seasons1 of the menstrual cycle and how our perspective on life can drastically change when we’re in these different seasons. We’ve looked at Simple Self-Care Tips for the Inner Winter of your Cycle and Simple Self-Care Tips for the Inner Spring of your Cycle.
Today, we’re exploring…yes, you guessed it, Simple Self-Care Tips for the Inner Summer of your Cycle!
While spring gently beckons us out of our winter slumber, summer calls us boldly out into the world with the fullness of our presence.
We haven’t yet arrived at the full bloom of outer summer here in northern Scotland, although, the sun has been shining all week long and I’m in the inner summer of my cycle as I write this. But I’ve felt the promise of the summer yet to unfold, through the remembrance of heat from the sun sinking into my skin this week – a relieving balm after a long winter.
Just as nature’s season of summer is considered the ‘high’ point of the year when the sun is strong and high in the sky, inner summer is considered the ‘peak’ of the whole menstrual cycle because this is when ovulation happens. Ovulation signals the most fertile time in the whole cycle – when energy is abundant and strong.
Let’s explore how to work with the energies of inner summer through some simple self-care tips for the season.
EXERCISE
Inner summer is the season for heart-pumping, sweat-inducing types of exercise2 like power yoga, hiking, cycling, cardio workouts and anything generally that gets a sweat on and leaves you a little breathless. You're at the peak of your energy, meaning you have more energy now than in other seasons. You can push a little harder and stretch a little further as you work with the stronger summer energy and put it to good use.
Inner summer highlights your physicality in the world. You might feel more robust and able to cope with knocks and bumps, recover quickly and generally feel physically stronger. You may feel more aware of your tangible, physical relationship to the environment. More IN and OF the world, rather than separated from it, which can often be the case during inner autumn or winter. Ovulation is the natural time to want more physical intimacy as your hormones and body are ready for baby-making. Notice how the quality and energy of sex might change now. That physically robust, powerful feeling can translate to more adventurous love-making.
EMOTIONAL CARE
Emotional self-care during this phase is about developing relationships, socialising and connecting with people in nourishing ways. You’re likely to feel more open, with a greater need for connection and intimacy. Healthy relationships are, of course, very nourishing and necessary for our emotional wellness.
During menstruation, your inner winter, there’s a call to go inward. You may not want to connect with others as much or take in information from social media as it feels like too much coming into your nervous system. The inner summer season is the opposite of that; it’s a call to go outwards, out into the world. If you have work tasks, then great, you can organise work meetings, classes and social time. It’s the season of the cycle when you might feel most like a superwoman.
The potential challenge here, and the thing to be mindful of is, again, burnout. But this can arrive in a different way than the potential burnout we talked about in your inner spring season. With this ‘booster’ energy, you might want to say YES to everything and fill your entire schedule – and yes, you can handle a lot during this phase, however, it’s still easy to overdo it in this season. You may feel physically stronger, even an like the invincible Wonder Woman, but, of course, there’s no such thing as invincibility! (Note: this isn’t the case for everyone, or everyone every month as our energy in this season is informed by our experience in every other season).
As you move towards the inner autumn luteal phase of your cycle, this is where overdoing it in summer can be expressed through burnout. To avoid that, look for a balance in having that nourishing relationship time, but create space for pause and schedule downtime among the social connection and work events to allow for rest and integration.
FOOD ENERGETICS FOR YOUR INNER SUMMER
Inner summer is a time in your cycle when you can generally eat ALL the things. It’s possible to eat more complex, interesting and creative dishes, with lots of flavours and not feel the effects in the way you might in your inner winter season where I shared my thoughts on why eating more simply is better, (fewer complex flavours = less information coming in).
During inner summer I can drink more caffeine (in the form of green tea), eat more dark chocolate (yay!), and try a variety of food types.
Remember, food energetics means there's information coming into your system through the food you eat. The more complex the food, the more information there is coming into your system. In this space, the body can usually handle that. The intake of food can be like taking in inspiration that feeds your creative projects and ideas. The flavours and colours are informative and feed us on many levels.
Inner summer can be a very fun phase if we don’t overdo it. That includes overdoing it with food that is too rich because as most of us know, too many overly-rich, complex meals can leave us feeling rather glutenous and can also deplete or dampen some of the high inner summer energy.
Inner Summer is about:
being more visible
being out in the world
nurturing relationships
socialising
actualising direction
enjoying all kinds of food
adventurous sex and physical intimacy
your focus on your place in the world
getting your heart pumping through cardio exercise
scheduling public talks, presentations, meetings, etc
I hope you’ve been inspired by these simple self-care tips for your inner summer season. If you have some of your own, feel free to share them in the comments below.
with love
Jane x
the concept of cycle phases as ‘inner seasons’ mirroring the ‘outer seasons’ of nature originates from Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer.
I’m not a qualified nutritionist, doctor or exercise instructor, so the food and exercise suggestions I make are based on my own experience and are meant to inspire you to consider the food/exercise that supports you in different phases of your cycle.
A beautiful distillation of what the inner summer can be!