THE INNER SEASON OF AUTUMN

Last night, I felt my body dip into the autumn season of my menstrual cycle; otherwise known as the luteal phase. I have known about the concept of our inner seasons for years, but this year have been further inspired by the Womb Wisdom Planner created by my dear sister and friend, Bec. This planner has helped me anchor in a deeper understanding. It’s inspired me to not only learn even more, but actually apply what I now understand from my experience.

The moment my body dips into this season, I feel a force pulling me inward. I feel less capacity to hold space for others. I feel less desire for high intensity exercise. I feel less energy for the house workings and the husband. 

I notice that I want to go in and spend more time alone.

Nearly my entire life as a bleeding woman, I have resisted this phase of my cycle. We have been taught that all these uncomfortable feelings, sensations and symptoms are PMS. And that it is “normal” - but our society calls things normal when really they are just common. Just because something is common, doesn’t mean that it is the true desired state of a woman.

Like what I teach about anxiety, PMS signals a body reaching for our attention. The autumn season is forcing us to drop all the extra things we’re holding, so we can hold ourselves. 

This process must happen, to prepare for the shedding that is to come, the death that is to come, the release that is to come. Our womb space is something particularly special. As I have written about before, womb stands for ‘wisdom of my body’. 

This afternoon, I desired a homemade almond flour chocolate cupcake for lunch, so I gave it to myself, and I enjoyed every morsel. So did my tummy.

I can feel myself wanting to clean my space, de-clutter and organize. I can feel myself wanting to clean up my socials and my emails and my energetic cords with others. I can feel myself desiring more boundaries and more space. It’s like this sense of descending down. Like in Spring, the flowers rise up and and bloom; and in Autumn, the leaves fall down to the ground. What a metaphor.

Autumn comes with a slowing down, a settling in, and a softening into the earth.

If we examine the luteal or autumn phase as it relates to those who are highly sensitive and/or who navigate anxiety disorders, this is often a time when the anxiety ramps up like no tomorrow. For one, it is a transition, pulling a woman towards her inner world. For two, it is pulling us towards the dark and towards the space of the void - the unknown. The unknown is the most triggering place for the anxious mind and heart.

I know - I have been there time and time again. 

What I have learned is, this phase calls for more nature, more slow walks, more women, more dark chocolate and more time at home. It feels like a time to prepare the space for where we will bleed. And if we live in modern society, without the red tent, we have to create our own tent and our own space that will hold us during the time we bleed.

I love to create spaces. I love aesthetics. I love beauty. Beautiful interior spaces have always uplifted my energy and helped me feel a greater sense of ease within the human experience. 

As I invite my clients to do, it’s important to set up or tend to and clean up our sacred space (where we do yoga, pull cards, meditate and journal) and buy ourselves some flowers. (Miley Cyrus has ruined this for me lol, only because I can’t get it out of my head!)

We might want to wash our bed sheets and blankets. Water the planets. Organize and prepare food for the time that we bleed. Put the folded laundry away. As we do this, we find the space to settle into the journey of autumn, which will lead us to our inner season of winter. 

We might like to prepare for our winter season the same way we might prepare for the earths winter season. Get the candles out. The poetry books and the teapot. The journals and the tissues. The cozy blankets and the puzzles. We make the space. For the space we create to stop is what allows us to stop. 

Create the space to stop….to allow the stop. 

To go in.

To bleed. 

To be.

And to receive, whatever will be, the next step…

in the journey of being a woman.  

With love,

Emiscah Rose