The four seasons of your cycle, Part 1: Inner Winter
Image: Nyana Stoica on Unsplash
Our wombs affect much more than just our fertility. The delicate balance of hormones also impact how we feel across the cycle, from our hunger levels, libido and energy, to our focus, creativity and intuition. Once you start tracking your cycle, you’ll start to notice that how you interact with the world will ebb and flow with some predictability. These ebbs and flows are called the Inner Seasons, and aligning to them can help to bring you in greater connection to yourself and give you space to work on vulnerable parts of your cycle, while highlighting the places where you feel best.
Just like the seasons of the year, they all have different characteristics and don’t just stop abruptly from one cycle phase to the next, so there is some fluidity to be expected as you move through the cycle. One of the fascinating things about menstrual cycle awareness, is that everyone’s experience is different. How I experience my inner winter might look totally different to how you experience yours. You know your body best, and what you know to be true for you, is true for you! It’s totally okay to have a different experience than what I’m sharing.
Over the next four weeks, I’ll be sharing information on each, along with ways to align yourself, self-care tips for each phase. For today, welcome to your inner winter.
Inner Winter
Your inner winter is the menstruation phase of your cycle (your period). You can count this as the day you start bleeding, but for some women, the feeling of being in Winter may start a day or two beforehand. Your inner winter continues until you emerge into spring, when your bleed stops.
Characteristics in nature
In nature, winter is usually a slow time of the year. The temperature drops, trees are bare, fields look barren and some animals hibernate. The nights are long and daylight is short. Socialising takes place mostly indoors and the food we eat is warming and nourishing. Winter is also usually depicted as a magical time in stories with snowy forests and winter wonderlands. And on the subject of snow, it’s also quiet. When the world around us is covered in a blanket of it, it’s a quiet that rarely happens at other times of the year. Social time is usually on a lesser scale than the warmer months (Christmas and New Year aside!) and tends to be indoors. When we think of winter, it’s cosy, snuggly and introspective.
Cycle characteristics
As your period arrives (or even before), you might start to notice yourself slowing down, physically, mentally and energetically. Your body might feel heavier with water retention or the weight of your womb. Many women say the only thing they want during their bleed is to cave in and rest, entering a hibernation of their own. You might automatically crave denser, nourishing foods like stews and soups and do not much more than sleep, read and watch TV. Just as in nature, the inner winter of menstruation is a reflective, introspective time, so dealing with other people might be your idea of a nightmare.
How to align yourself to Winter
As Red School founders Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo-Wurlitzer state, the only thing that’s required of you during your inner winter, is rest. Your body is doing a huge job of shedding the built up womb lining, blood, mucus and other bodily tissues, and that requires energy. Not to mention, you might be experiencing symptoms like cramps, headaches and fatigue. Most women I speak to and coach intuitively know that rest is what they need during their period, but it can be a BIG obstacle. How to rest when you have work/family/commitments?
My biggest tip? Make time for it. If your periods are fairly regular, or you use a tracking app, mark/block the predicted days of your upcoming period on your calendar. This will help you to:
Be aware of when your period should come
Allow you to think twice before putting in a date or work meeting that can happen at another time instead
Allow you to stop people from booking in for calls and meetings if you use an online scheduler
Create the conditions needed to help give you space to rest e.g. asking family to take the kids for a night
Taking just 1% extra rest can go a long way to help replenish your nervous system and give your body time to do what it needs to while you bleed. In my experience, that 1% usually leads to 5%, to 10% and so on as time goes by.
Self-care tips for Winter
Your inner winter is all about rest, reconnection to yourself and nourishing not just your body, but also your mind and soul. Tuning into yourself and asking, what do I need?, is a great place to start. You know yourself better than anybody else, but if you’re stuck for ideas, here are some self-care tips for your inner winter:
That 1% (or more!) of rest. It might be sleeping earlier and waking later, even if it’s just by five minutes. I also highly recommend naps
Putting on your favourite soothing music (I have a playlist just for my winter)
Watching your favourite films or TV shows - Guilt Free!
Lighting a scented candle or incense
Restorative yoga (I have a free 20-minute class for you, right here)
Taking a long bath with Epsom and/or pink Himalayan salt (tip - Epsom salts contain magnesium which can also help alleviate cramps)
Drinking cacao - also a source of magnesium and great alternative to coffee which can exacerbate pain. I source my cacao here (it’s an affiliate link)
Meditating (I adore yoga nidra during inner winter)
Taking slow walks in nature
Reducing social time to enjoy your own inner quiet and give your nervous system a complete rest
Eating nourishing foods like stews, bone broths and soups
Avoiding stimulants like alcohol and coffee
Inner winter can be a magical time for restoration and recuperation, gathering energy for the transition into spring. Some prompts for you to ponder on:
How do you experience your inner winter?
Do you feel at home here? Or is it a season you can’t wait to move on from?
How do you know when your winter is coming or going?
Next week, I’ll be going into the inner spring phase of pre-ovulation.
If you’re curious about applying menstrual cycle awareness to your life, you can schedule a free 30min call with me or check out my coaching space.