The Feminine Cycles of Energy and Creation

When I learned about this, it blew my mind. As I’ve been learning more and more about how everything in life is cyclical, this amazing gem of information fell into my lap.

I was listening to a podcast hosted by Jenna Kutcher where her guest, Kate Northrup, bestselling author of Do Less: A Revolutionary Approach to Time and Energy Management for Busy Moms, shared a little known insight. She said that her gynecologist mother taught her that although men go through a 24-hour hormonal cycle, women go through a 28 (+/-) day cycle.

Feminine Energy Cycles

Because of this, a woman’s energy level and productivity will vary throughout her cycle:

• Follicular Phase (the week after your period): High energy; use this phase of the cycle to brainstorm, plan, ideate, and initiate projects. Get all of your ideas down here, map them out, and create your plan to execute.
• Ovulation Phase: At this time, your brain is most verbal (perhaps the 5th chakra or throat chakra is energized?) so this is a great time for writing (e.g. a blog post, a book, or a deck for work) and recording podcasts (e.g. podcasts, videos, etc.). This is the time to turn your ideas into reality. It's also when you become really energetically attractive (makes sense from an evolution standpoint since this is when we'd want to attract a mate for reproduction) so this is a great time for networking, making connections, pitching your ideas and generally connecting with others.
• Luteal Phase: The autumn of your cycle and is best used to go inward and self-reflect. This is the time to focus on analytics, do your finances or anything else that requires you to be detail-oriented. Use this phase for editing, to finish the projects you've started, and put the finishing touches on things.
• Menstrual Phase: This phase when your left and right brains are most connected which means it's also when you're most intuitive. During this time, you'll have the greatest sense of what needs to shift or change on your projects (i.e., what's working and what isn't). Use this time to connect with intuition and find out what adjustments need to be made or do research on a potential new path in preparation for the beginning of a new cycle.

To learn more about some of the science behind this theory, check out this article by the BBC: How the menstrual cycle changes women's brains - for the better.

Increased Productivity and Self-Love

With this new information, how might we use it to increase our productivity? Or better yet, how might be kinder to ourselves throughout each phase?

For those of us who get a great sense of accomplishment and/or joy from feeling productive, it can be really frustrating when we want to get things done but lack the energy to do so or find ourselves focusing on things that were not part of our plan for the day. We often blame ourselves and feel guilty for being "lazy" or "unfocused." I recently found myself doing this self-criticism.

What if instead, we evaluated our feelings and our energy based on our current cycle? If we honored the built-in guidance that Mother Nature provided us and went the flow (pardon the pun) instead of going against it? We'd be so much kinder to ourselves and aren't we all seeking a little bit more of that?

We can begin to harness each phase of our cycle to help us be our most productive at the times when energy is high, and when energy is lower, we can allow ourselves the time to be self-reflective and intuitive.

I'm definitely going to start paying attention to this as I move through each day and each month. Just as we honor the earth's four seasons, let's honor our cycles and discover how much more beautiful our lives could be.

➳ UPDATE ➳

I've created a free Feminine Cycle & Energy Tracker to help you fully understand and leverage the wisdom of your divine femininity! Click the image below to get more info and access the template for free!