The Dark & Light Inner Seasons of your Menstrual Cycle
How your perspective on life can change through the different phases of your menstrual cycle
Have you noticed how differently you see the world when you’re in different phases of your menstrual cycle?
What I’ve learnt over my cycling years, and through tracking and witnessing the changes in my body, emotions, energy and mental state, is that life can look and feel very different when I’m viewing it from within the different phases of my whole cycle.
THE DARK & THE LIGHT
I experience my cycle as having a ‘dark half’ and a ‘light half’ which mirror the seasons of nature through a year. The dark half of the cycle contains autumn and winter – autumn being the luteal and pre-menstrual phase followed by the winter which is menstruation . The light half of the cycle contains spring and summer – spring being part of the follicular phase and summer, the ovulatory phase.
Each of these phases can be likened to the ‘outer’ seasons of nature and are called your ‘inner seasons’.1
Here's a quick overview of the different phases of your menstrual cycle and the seasons of nature they reflect:
WINTER: DAYS 1-5
SPRING: DAYS 6-12
SUMMER: DAYS 13-21
AUTUMN (FALL): DAYS 22-28
Your cycle may not fit the overview above; your inner winter (bleed) might be days 1-3, or 1-8, your inner spring, days 4-7 or 9-14, your inner summer, days 8-15 and your inner autumn, days 16-22. You can see how varied people’s cycles can be, so see this as a general example. (If you currently have no idea about the length of the different phases of your cycle and want to learn about them, check out my midi-course link at the end of this article).
Depending on other aspects of your personality, for example, if you’re more of an introvert, you may find the summer ‘outward’ phase more challenging and experience a sense of overwhelm, over-exposure and burn-out rather than what I describe in the examples below. And, if you’re more of an extrovert, you may find that the menstrual ‘winter’ phase is a difficult one for you as it calls for you to go inward, rest and be still when your natural tendency is to be very social and the centre of attention.
Explore the examples below to learn how your emotions, body, energy and mental state might change through the different seasons of your cycle.
And if the examples don’t resonate with you, get your journal and write your own experiences of each phase, omitting and exchanging some of the words to fit.
Menstrual (winter): your bleed time and part of the follicular phase, days 1-5 approx. Your inner winter mirrors the outer season of winter through the need to hibernate, rest, slow down and be still.
What you might experience:
Emotional: release of emotions, diffusion, rawness, relief, sensitive, introversion, protective, vulnerable, fragile.
Physical: first half of your period - exhaustion, depletion, release, relief, cramping, nausea, slowness, heavy limbs.
Second half of your period – rejuvenation, emergence of creative ideas, sexual spark slowly returning, stronger but still a little fragile.
Energetic: low to zero energy, slow movement, tiredness, - leading to gradual and slow rise in energy nearer the end of your bleed.
Thoughts: chaotic or messy during day 1 and/or 2 as you ‘release’ and compost the psychic accumulation followed by eventual mental relaxation, like the sun emerging, slowly more positive thoughts arising, insights landing, clarity in direction, inspired ideas.
Post-menstruation – pre-ovulation (spring): part of the follicular phase, days 6-13 approx. Your inner spring mirrors the outer season of spring as you begin to regenerate and regain energy, new buds of ideas can emerge as you feel renewed and spring into life again.
What you might experience:
Emotional: fairly positive feelings, sense of emergence, hope, stepping out into the world, tentativeness, more openness and curiosity, tenderness.
Physical: getting stronger, desire to move and exercise, sensual and sexual desire returning.
Energetic: good and rising energy, desire to ‘get going’, to start doing, to socialise after being in the menstrual ‘cave’ (this may be a very different experience if you haven’t had any rest or down time during your bleed).
Thoughts: creative ideas, abundance, possibility, sometimes timidity about emerging ‘out there’ again, focussed, tenderness for new buds of growth, insights about life, direction and choices and more clarity.
Ovulation (summer): The ‘high’ point of the cycle and part of the ovulatory phase, days 13-21 approx. (Ovulation occurs within the summer phase from days 13-16 approx.). Your inner summer mirrors the outer season of summer, the strong sun and long summer days through being bright and ‘out there’ in expression and communication, visibility and openness.
What you might experience:
Emotional: positivity, strong, ‘anything is possible’ feeling, happy to be more visible and open, joyful, hopeful, powerful, enthusiastic (maybe even a bit too much!).
Physical: strong, vibrant, sexually open, active, desire to be ‘doing’ in the world.
Energetic: lots of energy, ‘out there’ feeling, able to hold a lot and be social.
Thoughts: generally positive, able to deal with difficult situations in a more positive way, clearer communication skills, happy, visionary, ‘life is good’ kind of feeling.
Pre-Menstrual (autumn): Autumn is a part of the luteal phase and begins around day 22 and ends as your period begins around day 28 (using the general overview example). The pre-menstrual phase arrives within autumn around days 26-28. This phase is connected with the outer season of autumn because it mirrors the slow ‘letting go’ of leaves and foliage, just as we prepare to ‘let go’ of our uterine lining. For some women, including myself, we’ve already crossed into the inner winter phase with feelings that are more ‘wintery’, such as a strong call to slow right down, feeling very tired and a bit heavy-limbed, entering into a different state of consciousness with a desire to drift, retreat from the world, be in nature or curl up under the duvet. However, it can also be an intensely creative, sexual and wild time for some women. Read below and see if you recognise any of these experiences during your pre-menstrual phase:
What you might experience:
Emotional: fierce, no bullshit, raw, real, confusing/messy, intense, vast creative inspiration, desire for truth-speaking or ‘healthy’ trouble-making. As you get closer to your bleed; close to the surface emotions, highly sensitive, need to cry, irritable, angry.
Physical: swollen belly, bloating, heaviness in the limbs, ‘wired’ feeling, restless, slowing down and sleepiness a day or two before your bleed.
Energetic: frantic, possibly chaotic, wild, sexual, intense, creative, highly ‘tuned-in’ – closer to your period; tired, low energy.
Thoughts: chaos, darker, negative thoughts, manic, anger-rage, direct, blunt, dystopian, fearful, highly critical of yourself, inspiration, realisation, amazing creative downloads.
Understanding the ways that we change through any given month can be so helpful in how we organise our time. But most importantly, knowing that our perspectives on life will change through the changing inner seasons of our cycles, can help us to have hope in the dark times and be fully present in the great times.
As the Persian Sufi Poets once said, This too shall pass.
with love for your week,
Jane x
If you’d like to learn how to track your cycle through your different inner seasons, check out my online midi-course, The Magic of Your Menstrual Cycle.
the concept of cycle phases as ‘inner seasons’ mirroring the ‘outer seasons’ of nature originates from Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer of Red School.
Cycles, Psyche & Soul is an online publication sent to subscribers 2-3 Sundays per month.