Seasons Within || By Bre Smith, Affordable Counseling Intern
This article is for all menstruating bodies—and bodies that don’t menstruate too!
Quick refresher: not all women menstruate and not all who menstruate are women.
No matter your gender/gender expression, there are significant and serious risks with having a menstrual cycle. The menstrual cycle can have intense energetic, emotional, cognitive, spiritual, and physical impacts. The menstrual cycle can be a time of intense connection or intense pain, even despair.
As I share with you the wisdom I have been given, I want to name that so much of what I know about this topic, and the language I use, has come from a choir of voices and teachers. The particular work I share here is built from a psychoeducational and process group that my friend Nicole Julianne-White and I co-facilitate on the menstrual cycle. We built this work together, and Nicole contributed the bulk of the tangible material the group and psychoeducation aspects are built upon—massive gratitude for her contribution.
I want to offer a conceptualization of the menstrual cycle that helped me transform my relationship with my menstruating body. The more of a relationship I cultivate with my body, grounded in reality, the better I am able to address concerns, nourish, and tend to appropriately.
Before I continue I want to note two things. The first is that I am not a medical doctor and this is not medical advice. Please check with your primary care physician for your own unique blend of biology. The second is the impact and changes that birth control can have on the menstrual cycle. This is such a valid and important option for so many of us. If you do not have a bleed, you can follow these seasons in a more spiritual or somatic way.
The conceptualization that has helped me transform my relationship with my menstruating body and menstruating cycle (when I have it) is seeing it as the inner seasons. That is, think of the monthlong menstrual cycle as a condensed and monthly cycle of the four seasons.
Inner Winter (Menstruation, Bleed and/or Start of the Cycle)
- Theme: Rest, letting go, turning inward
Inner Spring (Follicular Phase, Pre-Ovulatory)
- Theme: Renewal, curiosity, playfulness
Inner Summer (Ovulation)
- Theme: Expansion, connection, vitality
Inner Fall (Luteal Phase)
- Theme – Boundaries, shadow work, discernment
I hope this gives you, lunar or solar or eclipse body, a deeper awareness of the intelligence that is within us.
About the Author: Hi, my name is Bre Smith (she/they)! I am a queer White woman from the South. In my current graduate studies in Clinical Mental Health Counseling at Saybrook University, I continue to explore new ways to merge my academic learning with my passion for wellness and mental health. This work builds on my M.A. in Humanistic & Existential Psychology from the University of West Georgia and experience in the mental health field in adolescent residential, adult case management, and foster care counseling. As the Vice President of my school’s Queer Alliance Collective club, I am particularly focused on creating spaces that are safe, inclusive, and affirming. I am an adjunct faculty at Chattanooga State Community College where I teach Introduction to Psychology courses.
When I’m not counseling, studying, or teaching, I enjoy moving my body, exploring the outdoors, traveling, playing music, laying on my couch, creating art, tending to my plants and garden, and spending time with loved ones.
