Seeing Magic | Menstrual Cycle Magic
When you align your daily life with the internal 'seasons' of your menstrual cycle, you can make magic.
Meet the 4 guardians of each phase of your monthly cycle and learn possibilities for how to work with their gifts and challenges.
Menstrual Cycle Magic
This episode is for anyone who menstruates, wants to explore their relationship with menstruation, knows or loves someone who menstruates, or is simply curious about learning how the human body works.
What I find so magical about the menstrual cycle is the incredible, diverse journey that the human body goes on in the course of one cycle. The body goes through emotional, physical, mental, relational, and archetypal journeys as a result of the unique cocktail of hormones traveling through the body.
What I share in this episode is based on areas of curiosity for me as a menstruator, as well as the magical things I’ve learned as I’ve explored this invisible topic that affects billions of people around the world. I am not a doctor, hormone expert, nutritionist, or gynecologist. This is an exploration of the archetypal energies that someone might experience as they move through their cycle.
Our cycles are as unique as we are, and there is no such thing as a perfect cycle. You may have a different relationship to your cycle than I do. You may have a long cycle, short cycle, endometriosis cycle, or PCOS cycle. Let's not forget that the menstrual cycle has an agenda and people of all genders can menstruate so there’s a lot of nuance and individualization needed here.
What I share in this episode comes from a place of possibility rather than absolute truth.
This is what I’ve learned from various experts that I admire and trust. This is what has made the greatest difference to my life as someone who menstruates and someone who wants to participate in society without burning out, shaming myself or finding myself wrong for my body's experience.
While it's great to live in a time where there is increasing awareness and destigmatization about menstruality (I love this word; it comes from Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer, founders of the Red School), there is now a new kind of stigma.
At one time, menstruating people were considered unclean and impure; menstrual blood was thought to poison wells and cause crops to fail.
Now we're shamed in a different way. We're shamed for being inconsistent and unproductive at certain times of the month, and for not fitting into the obedient, compliant, highly social, smiling, good girl archetype.
We do not live in a world that is designed to accommodate the menstruating population.
But we can decide to not participate in this collective shaming. By unhooking from shame and accepting ourselves, we can finally tap into the power that is available for us when we work with rather than against our bodies.
Shame is a powerful tool of social control. But here's the trick: it requires your participation. If you do not feel ashamed, it loses its grip over you. Shame requires you to feel the shame for it to work.
While we can't wait for society, institutions, and educational systems to change fast enough, we can start the change by refusing to participate in our own shaming.
For me, a great way to uncouple from shame is to celebrate and see the magic, beauty, and sheer potential that are in these cycles. The more we celebrate, share, and talk openly about the menstrual cycle, our inconsistency, and the changing seasons, the less we can be shamed.
Meet the Infradian Rhythm
The first thing I find truly magical about the menstrual cycle is that the reproductive system is just one part of hormonal rhythm called the infradian rhythm, which governs a menstruating person's key body systems. The infradian rhythm governs the brain, immune system, metabolism, stress response, and reproductive system or menstrual cycle.
The hormones that create the menstrual cycle also have a profound impact on mood, cognitive ability, appetite, sensitivity, libido, productivity, and even weight.
You have more cortisol in your system during the second half of your cycle (the luteal phase) then in the first half, so you will feel more stressed and more sensitive.
You will feel more hungry in the second half of your of your cycle because your body has a greater need for calories. It burns off more calories in the second half of your cycle.
Your cognitive ability is greater during the first half of your cycle than after ovulation.
Your immune system is more vigilant during the follicular phase (the first half of your cycle) than it is in the second half. Which is why you're more likely to fall ill in the second half of your cycle.
Let's not even get started on mood. All cyclical beings have shifting moods, but feelings can feel pronounced and regular if you're someone with a menstrual cycle.
Were you aware of this?
I wasn’t until I was 29 years old. I had zero idea that the infradian rhythm, the hormonal system that governs menstruation, had such far reaching impacts on our bodies. There really is a right time and a worse time to take on certain tasks, projects, or obligations, and our needs for exercise, rest, and food are different at different times of our cycle.
We are inconsistent and that is something to be celebrated. It is something to be worked with, not against.
Mainstream medical advice, fitness and exercise guidance, and nutrition, does not take the infradian rhythm into account. If you try to stick to a rigid diet plan or fitness routine, you may find yourself unwell and exhausted, exacerbating any mood or emotional issues that you chose this diet or fitness plan to alleviate in the first place.
Your body is magic.
It calibrates and changes how you experience yourself every day of your cycle, and that's so powerful if you're able to work with it.
If you have an infradian rhythm – if you're someone who has a menstrual cycle – you have to break up with the impossible expectation of consistency.
Consistency is not self care; it is not good for your well being.
Meet the Four Guardians of Your Inner Counsel
Each cycle you travel through four distinct hormonal patterns, or seasons. Each of these seasons, two in the follicular phase, two in the luteal phase, will bring different experiences, gifts, and challenges. Adjusting your self-care, expectations, and commitments where you can will supercharge your well being, how you feel about yourself, your productivity, and the magic of your life.
Your Inner Counsel has four guardians, each responsible for the archetypal energy of one of the seasons.
Your Inner Sage, or Inner Witch (whichever word resonates best for you), shows up in Winter.
Your Inner Child shows up in Spring.
Your Inner Superhero, or Inner Warrior, shows up in Summer.
Your Inner Editor shows up in Autumn.
Let's explore the gifts, challenges, and experiences that each of these seasons can bring us. We’ll start with winter because conventional period tracking begins the day your period arrives.
1. Winter, Your Inner Sage or Inner Witch
With winter comes a deep desire to pull away from the world and to rest. Feelings of fatigue and emotional vulnerability, perhaps accompanied by physical symptoms like pain or cramps. It can be hard to engage, concentrate, or do anything that we would describe as productive.
Winter Opportunities:
How you care for yourself when you're menstruating sets the tone for the rest of your cycle. Retreat and rest as much as you can, especially in your exercise routine. Postpone any massive physical obligations that require a lot of energy if possible.
Ask and receive help and support. Have someone tend for you, or take on some of your burdens.
Winter Challenges:
You may experience feelings of guilt. Feelings that you have to carry on or hide the fact that you are on your period and not reveal any weakness. It can be hard to reconcile with these feelings in a society that makes menstruation completely invisible.
For many, just giving themselves permission to rest more and have a lower expectation of themselves is what the menstrual season is about. But for some who are able to, it can be a powerful time to connect with your intuition, hear your inner wisdom and get clarity without forcing too much.
The Red School, an organization that promotes healthy menstruality, has a concept called the big bleed. The big bleed is an idea that you can treat menstruation once a year, once every few years, or every month, if you want to, as a self-care ritual to connect with yourself. To bleed on problems, issues, and challenges you're facing, and to allow your intuition to reveal suggestions that you might not be as receptive to during other seasons or phases of your cycle when you have a lot more energy.
2. Spring, Your Inner Child
Spring has the guardian of your Inner Child because it is often a time of reemergence; you will feel your energy rise as you move towards ovulation.
Spring Opportunities:
Spring feels like a fresh start. You may feel playful, optimistic, and childlike.
Explore new ideas, experiment, and take risks that you normally wouldn't. Break from a routine or start a new one.
If you feel this archetypal spring energy, use it to your advantage. If you're able to plan ahead and work with it, use your menstrual cycle to plan your life. Use the spring energy time to get ahead with new things. Start projects, get the ball rolling, and throw your energy into passions, relationships, or tasks that you really care about because you have the energy here to serve them.
Spring Challenges:
If you're really rolling with this Inner Child energy, you may find it hard to focus or get things done.
You may find yourself saying ‘yes’ to too many things, and that will catch up with you later in your cycle when it's time to follow through on the commitments you made but you don’t have the same amount of energy.
3. Summer, Your Inner Superhero or Inner Warrior
Summer is effectively around ovulation. That summer, high-energy magnetism and productivity is linked to all the hormones that are firing in preparation for ovulation.
Summer Opportunities:
This is a time when estrogen and testosterone peaks, so you feel more confident.
Take risks.
Do more with less.
Your communication feels more powerful. Your presentation skills are finely honed.
It feels easier to do hard things.
This is an action-focused time. People often feel unstoppable in this phase.
This is a great time to put in the hours on hard things, make big moves, have difficult conversations, and take action on some of the insights that you might have had in your winter time during menstruation. Your superhero can make good on those promises.
This is not just a season for work and doing hard things; this is a season for pleasure. Be social and schedule in as much pleasure as you can. Go out and explore the world and engage with others.
Summer Challenges:
There can be angst about wasting this energy. If you're not sure how you want to use this powerful energy, it can be a source of anxiety because you feel the resource running low and you haven't channeled it anywhere that you care about. A fix for this is that when you go into your autumn and winter, get calm and go within to hear desires or priorities that you would like to send your energy to in the next cycle.
We live in a culture that values us when we're in our spring and summer energy, so it’s a temptation to do all the things and people please. We end up being in an ‘endless summer’ where we overshoot our energy and crash into autumn and winter, which is a very unpleasant experience.
The secret to getting the best out of your Superhero is to know exactly why and where you want to put this powerful energy, make good on promises that your autumn and winter revealed were important, and don’t overdo it.
4. Autumn, Your Inner Editor – or if it resonates with you – Your Inner Bitch
After expansion comes contraction. After ovulation, usually between days 8-19 depending on your cycle, it's time to head into autumn.
The energy which was once outward-facing and expanded starts to call you home to yourself.
Autumn Challenges:
Autumn is the beginning of the luteal phase which is often accompanied by less energy, a sense of wanting to withdraw from the world, and negative thoughts, self-criticism or criticism of others. These are all changing parts of your emotional landscape. Remember that you're infradian rhythm affects your stress response, so as you go into autumn and winter, you have more cortisol in your system which will make any emotions or fears during this time more pronounced, and you will feel less resilient while dealing with them.
For some, autumn is really a struggle. You may feel like your own worst enemy and nothing seems to go right. If you're someone who suffers with very extreme PMS or PMDD, your autumn may be your least favorite time of your cycle and become very emotionally charged.
Two resources that I have found incredibly useful, but also provide advice and solace for those with difficult autumns, are Maisie Hill’s books, Period Power and Perimenopause Power, and Alyssa Vitti, who wrote In the Flow and Woman Code. I advise that you check out these books if you're looking for expert support on how to work with challenging seasons in your cycle.
The Guardian of our Inner Autumn is the Inner Editor, but if it resonates with you, you can also go ahead and call them your Inner Bitch.
Autumn Opportunities:
Sometimes the insights, feelings, or thoughts that arrive in autumn are challenging, critical, and harsh. But what if PMS isn't 100% problematic, but in some ways prophetic?
What if thoughts and criticisms that arise within us during our autumn are a great reveal where other parts of us are speaking their truth? Instead of rose-tinted glasses, which we wear in our spring and summer, we wear our X-ray specs in our autumn. It becomes clear what's not working in our lives, jobs, or relationships.
Rather than denying these feelings or gaslighting ourselves, perhaps those thoughts and insights require greater attention. Perhaps there are changes that we should make in our lives to be more purposeful, well, and more aligned with who we really are.
Take a note of any of these insights that arise, and address them with your spring and summer energy when you're in a different place.
Having less energy isn't always a bad thing, because it forces us to be more efficient about where we're spending it. Analyse and evaluate where you send your resources.
With each cycle, you can evolve yourself, your well-being, and your relationships. This beautiful fluidity is a natural prevention of stagnation in our lives. Anything that requires change will become highly visible to us when we're in our autumn if only we're brave enough to see it.
Why Live In Alignment With These Archetypes?
You don't need a menstrual cycle to experience and embody these four archetypes, but having an infradian rhythm and a menstrual cycle makes it difficult to ignore them.
When you live in alignment with your cycle, your Inner Superhero can make good on the promises you made to your Inner Editor and your Inner Sage when you were bleeding.
Your Inner Child can instigate the change and start hard things.
Your Inner Editor whips off the rose-tinted glasses and pops on the X-ray specs so that you can rid your life of BS and unnecessary obligations each month.
How beautiful and powerful is that?
When we work with our inner seasons and let go of the idea that we should be consistent, we can live more purposeful, productive, fulfilling, creative, and loving lives.
It starts with approving and accepting your body and understanding that you are perfectly right. If you honor your inner seasons, your timing will always be right.
I hope this has left you with some food for thought if this is new to you. If it’s not new, maybe it served as a gentle reminder of one or two ways in which you can shower yourself with more approval, tap into whatever season you're in now, or listen to your Inner Counsel.
What is that guardian trying to say to you right now? Can you listen?
Listen to the Full Episode:
Pin This Episode for Later:
