# Inner Seasons ##### Menstrual Cycle Awareness for Perimenopause --- ![[Pasted image 20261024192036.png]] --- ## TL;DR - The inner seasons help us understand more than the biological side of the menstrual cycle. - Inner winter is where I want to shut myself away and rest. Inner spring brings more energy, motivation and a more positive outlook. - In inner summer I can feel like superwoman, but I can’t keep going that way all the time. - Inner autumn is a time to turn inwards, stay closer to home and look after ourselves. - This is a rough guide, not set in stone. How you experience each season is unique to you. --- ## Transcript From there, we’re going to go into inner seasons. OK, so we’ve looked at the phases of the menstrual cycle, the more scientific terms. Now we’re going to look at the inner seasons of the menstrual cycle. OK, so why then, if we’ve got the scientific terms already, do we use the inner seasons? The idea of inner seasons was developed by Red School and especially Alexandra Pope. And she explained the menstrual cycle in terms of these inner seasons. And I thought it was brilliant when I came across these. It was just absolutely brilliant. I still use the scientific terms, but the inner seasons are really handy for explaining things to family, friends and partners. The other thing is that it helps to bring the menstrual cycle away from just being the biological side, because one thing I have learned is that our menstrual cycle impacts everything in our lives. Absolutely everything. So, yes, that includes the biological side, which is why we mentioned the more scientific terms. But it also includes the psychological side, you know, our thoughts, our feelings. It affects our behaviours. It includes the social side: our relationships, work, careers and how sociable we are. And it also includes the more sort of spiritual side. So the authentic version of us, that aligned version of us. I like to think of the menstrual cycle in terms of inner seasons, because I think it helps to bring all those into play. It’s important to know the scientific terms for the phases of the menstrual cycle, especially if we have symptoms. But I think there’s something very special about understanding the inner seasons this way. It can become a spiritual practice, you know, this deep, authentic, aligned connection to ourselves. How do we identify the inner seasons? By how you feel. OK, so whereas the phases of the menstrual cycle, the scientific phases, they are more defined. We know when they start and stop. The seasons themselves go by how you feel. So I’ve written a blog about this before, which you can find on my website. But I’m going to go through a very quick overview now to help you understand a little bit more. OK, but before I do, again, know that this is a rough guide, not set in stone. Your cycle might be slightly different. You know, we all have our own sort of sensitivities to hormones and how they affect us. That’s why you need to know your own cycle and menstrual cycle blueprint. First, we have inner winter. This is usually the first day of your period for many of us, although you might actually find that you drop into your inner winter maybe a few days before you’re due on. That is what happens with me. OK, so a few days before I’m due on, our hormones are low. Our motivation is low, our moods are low. It’s where I just want to shut myself away from the world. I want to be alone. I want to watch Netflix. I want to eat chocolate. That’s generally how I feel in the external winter, at least here in the UK. So I drop into my inner winter about two days before my period. It’s when I want to start shutting myself away and taking the time to just rest and be with me. It’s not a time to look after anybody else. It is all about me during this time. And I need this time for me. So that’s inner winter. Yours might be slightly different. From working with other women over the years, I’ve found that many feel much the same. The difference is often when it happens: the moment your period starts, or a few days before. Then we have inner spring. Inner spring is when oestrogen is rising. So oestrogen is the hormone that is wanting to get us out, looking for a mate, because at the end of the day, that’s the point of these hormones. From an evolutionary perspective, the menstrual cycle is about procreation. OK, whether we like it or not, that’s what these hormones are designed to do. So oestrogen is designed to get us out looking for a mate. I’ve heard oestrogen called the Beyoncé hormone. Personally, I am old enough to prefer it to be called or referred to as the Madonna hormone. So, yeah, oestrogen is your Madonna hormone. OK, like a virgin, right? It is all about having more energy, more motivation, having a more positive outlook on life. It’s about wanting us to socialise more in order to find our mate, socialise more away from our usual crowd. Moving away from our usual gene pool, if you like. That’s why we might want to network more. We want to get out, we want to party. We might just want to even just go to the coffee shop a bit more. Just move away from our normal surroundings. And that’s why inner spring can feel a bit like the spring outside. You know, everything is new and shiny. Everything looks positive. The world looks like a fun place. And there’s so much we can go out and do. So, yeah, there’s something new in spring. You know, we are new. We’re coming out of winter and the world looks so much more new and shiny. Inner summer is a continuation of spring. OK, so this is where oestrogen is still rising. She wants us looking for a mate, especially now because time’s running out. We’re going to be ovulating soon. There’s an urgency there. We need to get shit done. Hurry up. Let’s get this done. So again, we’ve got more motivation, more energy. Things just become more urgent. And literally, this is where we can become like superwoman. You know, we can literally do it all. We can do it all during this time. So we’re looking after everybody. We’re sorting our own shit out. We’re just like planning. Oh, oh my God. We are so awesome during this time. We are superwoman. And it feels amazing when we’re in that zone, you know, when we feel like we’ve got this grip on life. It’s brilliant. Obviously, we can’t be this way all the time. Even if we want to be this way all the time, it is exhausting, it really is exhausting. This is why we might struggle when we don’t ovulate, or ovulate later. We can end up trying to maintain that inner spring and summer feeling continuously. It’s go, go, go, go. We can burn out if we do not ovulate. Think back to the chart I showed you. That continuous energy might seem amazing. You know, we could be this superwoman all the time if we don’t ovulate. That’s not actually the case. We just get burned out. And that is why our inner autumn is actually really, really, really important. So after we have ovulated, oestrogen drops and then progesterone slowly builds. Now, whereas oestrogen is the Beyonce or the Madonna hormone, progesterone is more of a mothering hormone. OK, so this is where our body assumes that we have conceived during ovulation. Whether we have or not, it doesn’t make a difference to the body. It is preparing to grow a baby regardless. OK. Remember, this is an evolutionary process, not a choice. This is just the way that your body works. So this is what our body assumes again and is preparing for. So progesterone is the mothering hormone. And she’s preparing the uterus for a baby. OK, so the uterus starts to thicken and prepares for a baby. Progesterone affects more than just the biological side. So we are preparing to have a baby, in theory, which means our immune system self-regulates and suppresses itself. And it does this in order to not attack this theoretical baby. OK. So, again, I hope you can understand that. So, if we have conceived, in theory, our immune system would attack this entity. But the body suppresses the immune system so that doesn’t happen. OK, so if our immune system is suppressed, then this is potentially where we can be more prone to flare ups. For example, if we have an autoimmune condition. So we can be more prone to flare ups. And it’s also where, because we have a suppressed immune system, how we show up in the world also changes. So we are less likely to want to go out. We might choose to stay in and become a little more introverted. So, again, trying to protect ourselves from any infections, any germs, anything that might cause harm to the baby. You know, we might start to clean more. So OCD, if we suffer with OCD, this is going to heighten a little bit more during this time. We’re going to tidy and organise and get ready for this little one to arrive. You know, we’re also going to start to look at our social groups. So instead of going out into the world and networking and meeting new people, we’re going to start focusing on those around us, you know, choosing instead to spend time with family and friends and those who would support us because, you know, it takes a village to raise a baby. Right. So that’s what we are doing. Again, whether we realise it or not, that’s what’s happening. So, again, unlike during spring and summer where we might want to go further afield and meet new people, in autumn we’re looking at staying closer to home. So in a way, again, this very much mimics the outer seasons, because, especially in the UK, autumn is a time when we start to hunker down and look after ourselves more, you know, choosing to stay in and hibernate a little or at least get ready to hibernate in our winter. So that is a very, very, very quick overview of the inner seasons. And I hope when you start to look at your own menstrual cycle, you can start to see these patterns as well. So it might not be exact, but you will see changes. You will be a different woman from one season to the next. I can guarantee it. How you’re different is entirely unique to you. Chances are you will be different. So on that note.