Part 4: Seasons Change to Summer
Part 4: Seasons Change to Summer
What to know about your Inner Summer Phase and capture it every month
Cycle awareness or cycle syncing, provides a basic understanding of the inner workings of the menstrual cycle. As menstruating women, our monthly cycles are tightly connected to the actual seasons of the year. Our natural abilities and challenges change each week accordingly. Our hormones are on a constant flux, which dictates how we work, play, love, eat and sleep among other things as well.
Today, I am giving you some insight to the ovulation phase, or inner summer phase which happens every month around Day 14 in a 28 day cycle.
*My disclaimer remains: Every woman is different in how she experiences her cycle and cycle length. The time of ovulation is no different. This is why tracking is extremely important if you are in the “getting-to-know-me” phase of your life. By tracking your cycle, you will most definitely begin to understand yourself on a whole new level, my friend. And it is liberating, daunting, validating and healing.
How ovulation happens
Around Day 14 of the 28 day cycle, the orchestra of hormones all come together with exact timing. Estrogen has been rising since Day 1 followed by a tad of testosterone. Now Luteinizing hormone and Follicular stimulating hormones spike together and Estrogen rises sharply and drops. Progesterone begins to rise. All this action causes the follicle (sac that contains the egg) to rupture and release an egg (typically 1).
This is the fertile window.
Fertilization can take place for several days, anywhere from Day 11 to Day 16ish in a 28 day cycle. There are ways to test and check basal body temperature to narrow down the guessing but for todays purposes, just know that ovulation happens around Day 14.
Inner Summer
Day 14ish to Day 20/21ish is when the *magic of summer happens. All these happy hormones are swirling around. Estrogen causes the skin to glow and the hair to flow. And we think, finally, a good hair day! Hormones are working in our favor. Inner summer is characterized by the Outward, Full Moon, Mother and Summer energies. You may find that you are:
Expressive
Chatty
Social
Motherly
Domestic
Sexually aroused
Just feeling so good
Ready to go out
Empathic
Sassy
Playful
Flirty
Easy going
Agreeable
Naturally persuasive
*Some women may not feel so magically happy just after ovulation around Day 15/17ish if estrogen suddenly plummets too fast. This can cause migraines and moodiness and fatigue. And it can put a real damper on all the summer fun. I’ll address this in another post.
Make a Plan
When estrogen and progesterone find the sweet spot they create feelings of positivity, general wellbeing, and a readiness to get out and socialize. We are our most open selves literally as the cervix softens and opens. Whether aware or unaware we are giving all the “signals”. We also may find that we feel very at home in ourselves. We are naturally more open to other peoples ideas and our communication becomes more clear. We feel more care-free and ready for whatever; an adventure or just hanging out.
Knowing that we have this kind of energy available to us every month, we can plan fun things for it! If we skip out on what this phase has to offer, we may notice a subtle sadness at the end of our summer phase because we didn’t use it to it’s potential.
The momentum of Spring Phase supports this Summer Phase. Our Spring Phase (Day 6ish-13ish) is a great time to plan, its our natural Spring ability. We can definitely plan for our Summer Phase (day 14ish-20ish). We can get a little dose of summer in every month!
When we know summer is on the horizon, what can we plan?
Plan to say yes!
Play time
Work meetings to collaborate ideas
Going out to social gatherings and parties
Taking a vacation
Networking
Shopping
Meeting new people
Visiting family
Volunteering
Trying out a new recipe on the family
Sprucing up your workspace
Cardio and HIIT exercise
Romantic date or getaway
Plan a girls night
Do what you love!
The Mother Archetype
The archetype of the Summer Phase is the Season of the Mother. In this phase motherly energy wants to grow nurture and support. As a mother, I am more available mentally, emotionally and physically to my son during this phase. It comes natural to nurture my family and my friends. I am filled with gratitude and appreciation for my family. Taking care of them and their needs feels fulfilling.
This is the time to embrace whatever it is that makes you feel motherly.
If you are in the Mother Phase of your life (early 20’s to late 30’s) you may feel this as an over-riding filtered lens of all of your phases in your monthly cycle. There is a natural motherly creative energy that happily makes chocolate smiley pancakes and sand castles on the beach and cuts the crusts off sandwiches. This time is very unique to the rest of the life phases and can be a beautiful time of life. Even if you don’t have or can’t have children, find what nurtures your community. You may find that you want to bring in people, dogs, children, the lady down the street. This is a community building phase of life.
In my 20’s I had at one point, a family of five, and at different times five single people, a stray cat, and a rehabbed squirrel living in community with my husband and I in our home. This was before I became pregnant! The mother phase was alive and active in me that’s for sure!
Summer Challenges
As with every phase there are natural abilities and challenges and summer is no exception. However; Summer may not have as many challenges as other phases, and they may be more subtle. We’ll take the short list, right?!
Challenges:
Overcommitting
Not having social activities to do
Being sick during this phase
Being alone
Over-spending
Others taking advantage of your generosity
Not taking time to nurture yourself
Expecting the summer vibes all the time
There is Summer and then there is Late Summer
In Chinese medicine, summer is connected to the fire element and the heart organ. Late summer is connected to the earth element and digestive organs (spleen, stomach, and pancreas). These are two distinct parts of the summer phase.
As I have been researching Traditional Chinese Medicine(TCM) and it’s connection to the phases, I have found that there seems to be a connection between the organs and the emotions involved in each phase.
In the menstrual cycle there is a fiery-ness to the mood of this phase mixed with passion love and joy. Then in the second end of this phase there is a grounded-ness and a desire to be a bit domestic and expressive.
In the late summer phase we may realize that summer has an ending and we can become sullen at the idea that all this fun is ending. Or there’s an abrupt feeling, that our bodies cannot sustain the wildness of summer fun. Although the outward energy is still there, a shift can happen in late summer, and we may see a “leaf” turn and drop when we have an urge to get some space or lose interest in small talk. Or we may find ourselves making an offhand comment and immediately wonder, “what was that about?” This is a signal to check in with ourselves. If for 2 weeks we have been nurturing others, we may need to tend to ourselves. Late summer is a great time to practice small acts of self care.
Small acts of self care in Late Summer
Get out into nature
Get some time with a friend to chat
Eat supportive foods to eliminate excess estrogen (root veggies, cruciferous veggies like broccoli and cabbage)
Drink more water
Remember to do what you love (nurture your personal hobbies)
I love Summer season both actual in nature, and internal within my cycle. Since I have shifted into the Fall Phase of my life several years ago, summer has a bit of a Fall type filtered lens. I say yes readily but yet with some boundaries of Fall. I want the spontaneity of summer, yet I know that if not planned for, I can miss out on all that it can afford. I cherish my summer week more than I ever have. Deep down I know that it has an end coming, in menopause.
I hope that you will find yourself in summer every month of the year. Maybe even dance to your summer playlist in January and know your skin is glowing. Enjoy your inner summer every actual season of the year!
And remember, don’t forget to track your cycle to know your summer days!
Oh my goodness! I forgot to mention my cycle day! I feel this is important for anyone learning about how the phases affect us.
Day 26 is when I wrote it and Day 27 I edited and recorded.
I can hear Day 27 in my voice as this was the most energy I could muster for recording! Lol
Also every Day 26/27 I get an urgent feeling of wrapping things up before my winter phase. It's like a monthly deadline, and this post has been on my to-do list all week.
Taking this next week to hibernate for my winter phase and hopefully work on my next post when my brain energy returns! 😅