Ep 19: Living Cyclically: Understanding Your Inner Seasons

This episode is a follow-on from last week's conversation about the womb as a compass and it goes even deeper.

Because once we understand that the womb is our energetic centre, the next step is learning how to actually work with it. And that begins with understanding our cycle: Not just the biology of it, but the energy, the wisdom and the rhythm that moves through each phase.

In this episode I walk you through the four phases of the menstrual cycle — inner winter, inner spring, inner summer and inner autumn — and what each one is really asking of you energetically. I share what these phases can feel like, what they are inviting you to release, create, express and act on and how to begin working with them rather than against them.

I also share honestly how my own cycle does not always follow the book because yours might not either. And that is exactly the point. No two cycles are the same, which is why the single most important thing you can do is start tracking your own. Not with an app. On paper. Every day. Because the patterns are there, you just need the data to see them.

If you have ever felt like your energy, your mood or your creativity makes no sense, it probably makes perfect sense. You just need the map. This episode is that map. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello and welcome to today's episode of Of Silk and Soil. I am so happy and grateful that you are here. Now, today is pretty much like a follow-on from last week, where I talked about the womb as a compass and really getting to know and listen to your womb space. And I've mentioned in that last week in the podcast that I'll be doing a separate podcast just about like the different phases and how to really work with them, which is what we're doing today. And before I like dive into all of these like different phases and like the average and what the book says, I just want to start off with number one, you understand and knowing that all of our cycles are different to start with. And number two, it's really important that you start tracking your cycle. And here maybe I've ovulated if that's not what I'm talking about. Um talking about pretty much absolutely everything. Like when if we think about like the womb going back to last week, think about it as like it your energetic center. So when I say tracking, um yes, by all means obviously track your bleed and your ovulation, but I'm really talking about tracking like your feelings, your emotions, all of the things like thoughts that come up, because all of these things form a pattern, and I say this all the time. We may think that oh, yeah, I remember I had a headache then, or I remember I had this thought then. I can guarantee you, you will not, unless you have a photographic memory, you will not remember that. Because I used to think that, and I still sometimes think that, even though I track, and then oh of course I forget, like life happens, right? So this is like really like the beginning of it all. It's just you simply taking a few minutes a day, like I do it at the end of the day. You can do it anytime during the day, and just sort of write down like your thoughts, how you felt emotionally, if there's anything like that happened. I write down all of the physical symptoms, especially now that I'm like in my perimenopause phase, just so that I can gather data essentially. That's what it's about. Once you have the data and have the data for like a few months, for a few cycles, you can then start seeing a pattern, and you can start working with that pattern, and it's gonna make things a lot easier, and you're gonna start understanding your cycle and yourself a lot better, and that's what I wanted to start off with. So, um the cycle itself, like if you go by the book, it's usually said to be like 28 to maybe 30 days long, and as I say, this is by the book, like my cycles are usually 24, sometimes 25 days, they average out at 24 days. I can pretty much guarantee if I have a um cycle that's 25 days long, either the next one or the one after that is gonna be 23 days just to even it out again to 24 days, it's just how my cycle works. Um so all of the sort of things that I tell you, like all of the phases, because they come with sort of like days attached to it, like the number of days. Number one, they're not equal, they're sort of I don't want to say fluctuate, but it's not equally divided into four. So my 24 days, not that you can divide that by four anyway, but some like my actual winter, so my menstruation um phase is shorter than some of the others phases, and that that's why you also it helps like really tracking and also your energy. Actually, when you're tracking, check your energy levels, like see how like how did you feel that you were were you low on energy, were you high on energy, were you just like blah, like yeah, however, you however it makes sense for you to track because that will give you an inkling of what phase you're at in, and so yes, that's what I sort of I guess forgot at the beginning, but as I say, like a normal buy-the book cycle is between 28 and 30 days long. If you don't know how long your cycle is or it fluctuates a lot, again just just track if it fluctuates, they're gonna be like reasons for that. I'm not a doctor, so I can't, or like I'm not a specialist in that sort of sense, so I would suggest to consult someone that it's their specialty, but I just really want to give you sort of like an overview of those four phases because even though for me I know all of them, and to me as I I know I I generally know what phase I'm in, I also know that for a lot of women that might not be like they might not know, which is why I I felt like this episode to be like really really important just to share, and even if you know the phases, there's gonna be a lot of like wisdom and like knowledge within this transmission itself, so even if you know it, just come and listen. Come just have your favorite drink. I'm currently having the end of a coffee. Yes, I do drink coffee, and it's actually one of my favorite drinks. If I could drink it all day, I probably would, but I want to sleep at night, so I don't. Okay, so let's let's really dive in. So let's forgetting almost like like the length of your cycle, let's start on day one, which is your menstruation, which is like your inner winter. So we have obviously what it's actually called, and then we have almost like it's like the seasons, like our seasons that we have in the year, and we've this your menstruation is like your inner winter, it's where you like really go like inward, like you reflect, you obviously bleed, so there's a lot of let letting go, and because of that, there is our body needs a lot of rest, and by that I don't mean like lay in bed all day and rest. If you can, great, do that, but it's this is one of the sentences that always really used to wind me up because I'm just like either I was working or I was then pregnant, not not pregnant because I wasn't bleeding, then that's a whole different scenario. Um I had my little daughter, and I was like, I can't. I was like, she's like four years old now, she's just like a little whirlwind. If you follow me on Instagram, you you will know she's I I should I share a lot, I think. Probably not not actually that much, but I share a lot like that. She has a lot of energy, and I can't just lay in bed all day, she should just she'd go up the walls. Um, so rest in in ways that works for you. So for me, a lot of times that means I have an early night or I make sure I don't have too many social engagements. I personally don't do any one-to-one calls, I try to like really pull back on work, and we all have like different lives and different priorities, so just see where you can give your body like a little bit more rest for for it just to release because it's going through a lot of things internally just by like releasing all of the blood, and it's all about also like a lot of people say like long sleeps like sleeping a lot more, but again, if you can't you can't so there is just like making it work really for you, and like your inner winter, your menstruation is like a really good time to like journal and journal deep and not um censor yourself. That's the word I was looking for. Don't censor yourself, just let it come out whatever needs to come out because your inner winter is all about shedding, it's like letting go of like the versions that doesn't serve you in this moment anymore, and like our menstrual cycle is our literally our monthly like mini death and rebirth cycle, and your inner wins winter, your menstruation, that's your death part of it, so you're letting go of absolutely everything. It is said, and I say that, um, that during your like your inner winter, yet like your intuition is like really high, and it's like your inner winter is really about like surrendering to what is, and again, just letting that go, letting the the death like death sounds always really horrible, but that's not what I mean. Like, letting all of those layers just die off and just surrender to what is it's also a really good time for self-care. And if you are checking in with your womb, this is a really good time. Number one, to actually ask your womb space to what it wants to release with this bleed, what needs to go, and it's just really good, just generally, just to connect, especially in this time during your bleed, connect to your womb space in whatever way you it works for you. I mean, I'd always say like connect to your womb space pretty much more or less every day, but again, like reality of things, right? And especially when when you're just starting out, that m might not really happen. But this is like your like little retreat into yourself, like where you pull almost like pull back from the world before you emerge, and you pull back to shed everything, like you shed the blood, you shed the different layers. I actually just forgot what all of those layers are called. I don't know it, but I forgot, so I'll just move on, and it's also really a good time just to have some self-care. I mean self-care is always a good time, right? But especially because your body is going through so much and you're energetic center, like energy-wise, you are releasing energy as well. So it is a really good point space for you just to check in and just see what wants to be released, what like conditioning, maybe what uh preconceptions, what stories, what limiting beliefs want to be like released here, and this phase is about one to seven days long, and it doesn't necessarily mean that you bleed all of those days either. But I think I'll do a I'll I'll definitely do a separate podcast on that considering I've already been talking about f for 15 minutes and we're only on phase one, and again, like just notice because you will notice when the energy starts to pick up. So on day one, like I can for me, I can actually feel it before it starts because my energy just drains, and I know okay, this is my point, like it's essentially I cross over time, so it's I can feel you feel you apparently I can't talk today. I can really feel like the energy draining, and this is why it's so important for us to also like journal down or note down our energy and how we feel. So that's the sort of first one to seven days, like for me, it's usually about four-ish days, but again, this is why you need to track it. That's why I'm all about tracking. We then go from our inner winter, we go into our inner spring, which is the follicular phase, which then technically is days eight to fourteen. So if you have like days one to seven, you don't go from day eight to fourteen to about halfway through, which is when your energy really starts picking up, and this is a time when we can quite often almost go too early, where it's where we can we feel like as women, like, oh yeah, my energy is starting to pick up, so let's just go, go, go, go, go, go, go. And this is where we all where we have to like hold ourselves almost back a little bit, and just really nurture the energy that's picking up, and it's you usually notice your creativity picking up, and your creativity, like your energy, and you just I can always feel like this, like a little bubbling, like you know that spring-like feeling that you get when you like almost like you like a long deep winter, and you get like that spring-like feeling. That's what I get, and again, this is this is like different for everyone. I'm just giving you like an overview of what it is and give you some insights to what how I feel it essentially, and like the spring phase, like the flicky phase is all about like awakening again, like like opening up, just noticing what wants to come through, and start to express yourself. So, in terms of like your energy center, start looking at or asking your womb space, like what now that we shed all of these things, like what wants to come through now, what wants to awaken with me, and just really like note that down. This is not necessarily a time to traditionally at least, not a time to take action. This is just like really just almost like getting it all out, just like planning it, writing it all down because like within springtime the energy is still like mellow, just like calm, is it just rising, but it's obviously not as like resting and as deep as winter, so we we're we're going into a lighter time within spring within the follicular phase, but we're not going like full pell jet by no means, so it's a lot of like writing down, like putting your ideas down, not necessarily even like plan it all out, but like just getting it all out and just really like connecting to yourself and just like what wants to come through right this moment, what what does this cycle how am I going to use this cycle almost to like build that next layer of me or just to like peel it back because what we shed within the winter time we then just need to not need to, but we then we shed that part that we haven't like that doesn't suit us anymore that doesn't it's not us anymore and now there is time to like really nurture what is actually us, so it's almost like peeling back the layer here of like who is the me that wants to emerge that wants to awaken here. Who is that person? And it's all of like this lovely like spring energy, and I very much like if as I said for me, it's very much like being like in our actual season energy of spring. It's like oh yeah, I can feel alive, again, I can feel all of that. I want to move, I want to be like playful, and all of these things, and I just wanna enjoy like the light days and all of those things, and then yeah, that is from day 8 to 14, and then we move into summer. So, summer is usually from day 15 to 21, and that is our ovulation phase. So, obviously, if you and I if you're trying to get pregnant, that is the time, that's when you get pregnant, and this is like generally speaking, and I do say that because it's not necessary for me, but it's generally speaking a time of high energy, like you are like wired, you're powerful, you feel strong, you feel sexy, you most likely have a high sex drive, you take action. It's like really if you think of summer again within the extra season of our year, you sort of think of like abundance, like sunshine. Um as I say, like powerful, you feel strong, you feel like full of action, and this is really where you start taking the action. So, all of the build-up from like your winter into your springtime, where you've shed it, you've written down, like you've explored who you what version or what wants to emerge, in summer it's the time to actually take the action, and like it can sometimes I guess feel really really overwhelming because you might think, Oh, there is just so much action to take. But what I encourage you to do is when you're connecting to your room space during this time, it's just checking in to see what action you actually should be taking. there is a is there's a huge difference between the action that my head is telling me to do and the action that my energetic center is telling me to do so it's always about checking in what your energetic centre your room space is really telling you rather than your head because yes yes your head is like it's giving you all of the strategies the things that you should be doing but the things that you should be doing might not be aligned with that version that is trying to emerge I hope that makes sense and yes with summer obviously like the long days and like lots of energy like for some reason I'll see like running around in a field like it's it's that kind of energy like that is really the the generally speaking the highest point of your energy within your cycle and as I just said like for me for example it's really not I feel like my cycle like the way that I feel within my cycle is almost back to front and I'll I'll actually I'll go through the last phase and then I actually go into that as a separate thing so from your summer which is 15 to 21 days we then go into your inner autumn your luthia phase which is generally speaking days 22 to 28 and this is where your energy starts to decline again because we're going towards winter we're going towards the shedding again so this is often a time when we are emotional we need a lot more grounding um it's especially after the high of the summer it can almost feel like a real come down and what a lot of like women sort of try to do is it's like oh I need to quickly get this done before I go into my winter phase so it's almost like they are jumping energetically the autumn all together and for me I like I personally I love I love the old autumn to be fair I love all of the different parts of the seasons but I love the autumn with like the crisp leaves and just like slowing down a little bit more and just like cooler and just like sort of snuggling up essentially and this is where we energetically also starting to release just like the leaves drop from the trees in our inner winter we start to release again we start to release it's almost like the pre-work or we release anything that is still lingering from this cycle so it's it can be either all depending on you know what you've almost like gone through in that within that cycle but like the if you sort of think of your of autumn of your inner autumn it is all about like slowing down again like warm foods like lovely walks outside like wrapped up not quite not not winter yet but like crunchy leaves under the foot that's the sort of energy that's that's literally what I feel what I imagine it to be and that's the energy that our body feels as well and that's the energy that we really should be working with so if you are checking in with your energetic center here it's it's really about asking like what is there anything lingering from this cycle that I need to release is there anything that wants to be released right this moment is there maybe any emotions that come up if you're feeling very emotional that want to be released and then from then you go back into your inner winter start at day one again with your menstruation and like as I just said when it was I think in summer like I feel like my like cycle is all is is a little bit back to front the way that I personally feel through it and I wouldn't have known that if I wouldn't have if I wouldn't be tracking everything so as I said in the beginning number one my cycle is 24 days long so it is roughly oh yeah 6 12 18 24 yeah so you can clearly tell how my brain works so roughly my the phases are about six days every phase though I know like my inner winter is slightly shorter but like my inner winter is like really I really retreat I really go inward I really I just if I could I would just lay for five six days on this freaking sofa and like just reflect and do nothing and just rest if I could I would probably why actually I say that um probably not because there probably would be too much thing I wouldn't even know what to do within my inner spring I can feel the energy rising I'm currently like in my follicular phase and I can feel like the energy rising I can see like I can feel like the creativity come back I think that is pretty much for me quote quote unquote by the book apart from obviously the number of days but in terms of the way that you almost like should feel all by the book that's pretty much how I feel it then gets like really interesting for me because the second half of my cycle is just so not so within your inner summer so when you ovulate you are almost meant to like really have like high energy and just like go go go go go and for me that's really not the case it's it's almost like within spring it just starts to plateau and as a matter of fact there is like on the day that I ovulate and the day after I feel crap I just feel absolute rubbish and I know without even checking anything that I've like that I've ovulated I was like oh yeah it's like I'm on day whatever I've yeah that makes perfect sense the same as like in the beginning of my cycle and I actually have to double check that might actually be on my crossover day I have like really doubtful days where I'm just I just want to like outsource my power essentially I just want to tell someone to tell me what to do like and all of the things and that's just like that's just how it is but I've recognized the pattern so I can work with that so I don't do that I don't invest on those days on and that day on that day I will not invest in anything because I know it's not coming like from from me it's more like my hormones and everything um but within my summer yeah as I said it's it's I'm not as high energy as I guess you would expect if you go buy the book and as I say I have like that almost like that drop afterwards like when I'm ovulating was like nah I can I can feel it I can feel it in my body I can feel it in my like energy like my mood and everything and then we've got like the lutile face the autumn face for me which I up until last month I absolutely loved I'm like really creative in that time like really creative like a lot of content gets created there I get a lot of ideas there and I guess it's because I'm I'm letting go and like releasing certain things and with like the hormones that they because the hormones we've got oestrogen and progesterone progesterone yeah that's the one um which rise in like your ovulation phase and then if you don't get pregnant they just dramatically drop in your luteal in your auto in the autumn if you're pregnant that they stay high in this whole chart like this whole phase is just nonsense anyway if you're pregnant um but if you're not pregnant that those hormones like dramatically drop and like last month like I could with my perimenopause I could really really feel I was really affected by it so last month I really hated the literal face I'm not gonna lie I I really struggled through that but again I very quickly because I I know my cycle so well I very quickly like realized it was because of that drop in the hormones because like once I hit like went towards my inner winter I was fine again it was like literally a week where I just like it was horrible go back to the episode of um perimperenopause is a mirror of your life a few episodes ago listen to that if you're interested in that I I'll I'll I'll shed all I'll share all of it in there but like my autumn my inner autumn phase generally speaking is like I I fully love it I'm just um it's almost like the for me like the best phase out of all of them I feel like the best almost so and and this I'm I'm sharing this because it's even though what I share today is like yes by the book you sh you know generally speaking you should be feeling XYZ your energy should be XYZ but it might not be and this is why it's so important to really track your own cycle your own symptoms your own feelings your own emotions your own energy levels and then as I say like after a few months you'll be able to see patterns and even if you can't someone else will be able to and this is why like when I work with my clients like regardless of where they are in the life I get them to track their cycle and then they can share it with me if they want to if they don't that's fine but I get them to track the cycles just so that we can really work with all of these things and go a lot lot deeper on certain areas of what needs to be released and really can work with that monthly monthly death and rebirth cycle that we all go through as women I feel like this transmission is complete now it's there's nothing there's honestly nothing else that wants to come through at this moment in time I hope you like enjoyed this you got some wisdom from it you got some insights from it and if there's only one one takeaway that I want you to have is track your cycle you're not gonna remember and I personally say track it on paper don't track it with apps I mean I track my act my like bleed with an app and that's it everything else is on paper and because there is just something different and that might be because um am I millennial I'm pretty sure I'm a millennial still I never know clearly that show that that says a lot um but I just love paper it does just something to it and especially if you're working with your cycle personally I'd say write it down on paper I'm a big fan of notebooks so maybe have a separate notebook for that if that feels right but yeah that's if you have one takeaway do that because all of our cycles are so so different yes what I've shared here today is like by the book is like the standard quote unquote what it meant what it what it's meant to be but you are human you are so unique and so is your cycle so if you like really want to connect to your truth to your body to your wisdom that's where we start and that's where I would like you to start today regardless of where you are in your cycle start today and what better excuse to buy a new notebook hey alright thank you so much for joining today I hope you enjoyed this episode I would be ever so grateful if you could share it with anyone that might need to know about this and I will talk to you next week until then bye