What is the Inner winter and why do you need to know about it? (even if you don't menstruate)

Welcome to part 2 of my series about the power of the female hormone cycle, before we dive deep into what on earth I mean by “Inner winter” I want to talk about:

What goes on in your 28-day cycle 

There are 3 main hormones we need to be aware of 

Estrogen - the female sex hormone 

Progesterone - another female sex hormone with a different function 

Testosterone - is traditionally known as the male sex hormone but women also have testosterone 

And I am going to circle back to those later. For now, I want to dive deep into our cycle itself: 

We can typically break our cycle down into 4 weeks or periods within it. This will differentiate entirely depending on your unique experience but for the purposes of this blog, I  am going to speak in terms of a 28-day cycle split into 4 categories:

Week 1 - Inner winter (menstruation) 

Week 2 - Inner spring (the path to ovulation) 

Week 3 - Inner summer (ovulation) 

Week 4 - Inner Autumn (the path to menstruation) 

Week 1 starts with day 1 of your bleed, this is the time where estrogen levels are the lowest and they start gradually increasing across this week, what that means for us in terms of impact is that we will likely feel less social, quite fatigued and feel more drawn to isolation, that slowly starts to pick up where that increase in Estrogen (As one of my students says - think of her like your Beyonce hormone) starts to make us feel more social, our verbal and memory skills start to improve and we may start to become more interested in sex. What also happens with an increase in estrogen is that our appetite becomes suppressed and we might find that as we emerge into week 2 - our innerspring- that we are less hungry. 

The type of menstrual cycle awareness that I practice during your bleed week is known as your inner winter. The time in your cycle when it’s important to cozy down, rest, and recoup just as you would as a result of less sunlight in wintertime in nature, this practice of rest due to fewer resources in your inner winter will set you up really well for the rest of your cycle. 

It takes a lot of energy and resources for your body to be able to bleed, think about times when people go through immense stress, or periods of malnutrition, where they don’t have those extra resources available to them and their period stops - this shows you just how much it takes to produce your period and how important it is to honor that with rest where you can. 

As I mentioned last week we don’t live in a cycle-friendly world and so you might be asking yourself “how the hell do I find rest in my busy life where I have all these responsibilities?” I hear you and that’s why I have written a course all about menstrual cycle awareness, how to practice it, make it work for you and how to use it to enhance your life experience - it hasn’t been released yet but you can show your interest here and be the first to access it when it is! 

What I really love about some more native accounts of menstruation is that typically in those cultures women would go away from the group or spend secluded time together whilst they bled. In our more colonial culture, we typically think this is because these cultures were so primitive and thought of women as dirty and in need of banishment but that’s not the case at all this idea that women are dirty or “useless” in their bleed week comes from white cultures, the native cultures approach of allowing women to remove themselves from the group whilst bleeding was in fact in honor and recognition of how much time and energy it takes to go through menstruation. In fact, tribes would also leave food to make sure that women who were bleeding were able to fully surrender and take time away from their normal duties. This is something I have taken into my own practice in preparation for my bleed I try to make sure that I have lots of food prepped and that my diary allows for minimal workload so that I can truly honor what my body, mind, and spirit need in order to bleed and set myself up well for the rest of my cycle. 

It’s not always easy to find the deep rest we need at this time in our cycle, unfortunately retreating to a red tent isn’t an option for many of us so how can we honor ourselves and our needs at this time? I always recommend 3 things 

1- Prep 

Prep is key and luckily mama nature sets us up well to intuitively want to prep for our bleed- our inner autumn often brings a desire to nest and as we start to feel that call to slow down I’d recommend making sure you have a fridge full of food, that your diary is as clear as it possibly can be and that your “extra” tasks like household ones are either delegated our, completed or set aside until your spring energy returns. This means that when you do begin to bleed you have less on your plate and less decisions to make = more time for what you need. 

2 - The 1% 

Life is unpredictable, especially if you’re not in charge of your own schedule for whatever reason. As much as we’d all love to be able to fully switch off for those first two days at least- for most of us it isn’t possible so what I do is ask myself how can I get even 1% of what I need? That might be 5 minutes standing barefoot in your garden, 2 minutes lying down and breathing or a hug with someone who grounds you. If it’s helpful we have some short grounding meditations that can help give you even 1% of the rest you need. If you’re reading this thinking “I don’t have time for even 1%” I would really encourage you to acknowledge how much time you spend scrolling your phone. This isn’t a call out, for some people that scrolling might offer them something but it’s my experience that most of us could get more of what we need if we set our phones aside more- be honest with yourself about how much of your you time is being wasted by being sucked into that black hole of social media. 

3- practice the art of surrender 

The energy of your inner winter is to rest or surrender. When I’m super wired and struggling to switch off I find it helpful to remind myself to surrender. This is not a week for “doing” it’s a week for “being” and I know that if I surrender and let things be I’ll have a much more positive “doing” phase in the weeks that follow. So get out your favorite books, line up yourself care and remember that everything else can wait. Your bleed cannot. 

I hope this has been a useful insight into your current or past bleed weeks. A last thought from me is please be kind to yourselves. I’ve said it a lot but we really don’t live in a cycle-friendly world so even if your bleeding days are over this work can be healing reflectively. I used to hate my bleed, I would dread it every month but now I can say with honesty that it’s such a powerful time for me. Each cycle offers me the opportunity to cleanse and renew, to reflect and learn and I no longer wish my cycle away but have begun to harness the power of it. 

I’d love to know if this brings anything up for you- hit “reply” below and share your thoughts with me and remembers this work is a journey, not a destination- it takes time to get to know yourself after years of being taught to suppress and ignore these needs. 

✌🏻☮️💫