The Story You Need to Know About The Seasons Of A Woman

May we know them, may we allow them, may we cherish them

The alarm rings. It hurts my ears and my whole being to hear it. I hit stop as soon as I located the phone in the dark. My alarm is after sunrise, but I can’t open my eyes, therefore the darkness. Back to my even darker nightmare, I go.

When I wake up I’m covered in sweat, my head hurts, and I feel like someone has beaten me.

The sun is shining bright. I find my phone and check the time. It’s 9:23. I should have been at the office by nine.

Thank God I’m ten minutes away only, and we have flexible hours. But I have been going after 10 am for the past week. It doesn’t look flexible anymore.

I start my self-hate talk.

“You are such a loser. You can’t even control your sleep. You can’t even take care of your body. Do you feel how it’s hurting? That’s all your fault.”

I get ready like a sloth, skip breakfast and go to the office. I see my colleagues and force myself to chat and smile. It hurts to do that. I sit at my desk, and my lower back hurts so bad that I can hardly breathe.

I have a long list of tasks to do. But I can’t make myself start them. I’m thirsty and think of getting some water when I hear my thoughts again:

“Yes, go waste your time getting water because you are lazy and an imposter. If only your manager knew how little you have done this week. It doesn’t matter if you delivered the most critical project the week before. You are supposed to deliver every single day.”

I clench my teeth not to start crying from these thoughts, and I force myself to work. When I leave the office I feel a hundred times worse, and burst into tears the second I enter home.

What is wrong with me? I have no reason to feel like this, but I am miserable.

There was nothing wrong with me, and I had a million little reasons in the shape of hormones running around my body that made me miserable. But I will learn this only a few months later.

When I read a book called Period Power: Harness Your Hormones and Get Your Cycle Working For You by Maisie Hill three years ago. This book changed my relationship with my body, work, and life.

The mindset, the ideas, and the habits I learned from Maisie are still with me. It transformed me from the miserable Adele in the story above to the compassionate one at the end.

When I was a little girl, I learned about the periods and the couple of days before them. That was easy (ha, easy to understand, not experience). What took me longer to learn is that the menstrual cycle affects us more than just during the period.

It is a month-long chain of activities in the brain, ovaries, and uterus linked to hormones: chemical signals sent through the blood from one part of the body to another. And these hormones affect us from head to toe every second.

I won’t explain how the hormones work during a cycle because I am not a doctor or biologist. The book explains everything in detail, and it was easy to understand. But now, three years later, most of the scientific information has left my brain. Just like it left after I did this in the biology class in high school.

It’s something about high estrogen, low progesterone, and other hormones. Then we have an order from the brain: Everybody swap now! We get a dip here, a spike there. Aghh, we women are too complicated (I’m not the first person to say this, I know). I cannot remember all this science every day and then link it with how I feel.

But I remember a brilliant perspective in the form of a story. I love stories, and this one is special because it is the story of my body every month.

The Story of Seasons

To make it a bit more enjoyable, I have dramatized some parts. If you think it’s too much drama, blame me, not the book author. And I will blame the fact that I’m in Autumn as I write this. You will understand that reference in one minute.

This story is about the seasons a woman goes through in every monthly cycle. Like in all the best stories, we open the first act in spring.

Spring

The first day after the period marks the start of Spring for a woman. In Spring our body is happy, energetic, light, and begins to prepare for having a baby. But to have a baby we need to find a partner in crime.

And the way to do that is by being social, attractive, cheerful, and a risk-taker. Like the spring days, warm and light, with freshness and beauty and flower buds blooming.

Summer

Days before ovulation, we move to Summer. Our body assumes that everything it did for us during Spring worked. And now we are ready to become a mom. So we start being warm, loving, caring, compassionate, and generous.

All around us benefit from this just like real moms are amazing with everyone. Just like summer, we have an abundance of bright sun, delicious foods, long days, and fun.

Autumn

After ovulation is over, our body believes it is now holding a conceived egg and takes on the protective role. We must protect this egg by all means. Now we start to see the world as a dangerous place, and we shouldn’t trust it. We become critical, scared, and easily irritable. And most of the time the enemy is our own self.

Our mood swings from happy because we allegedly have a baby, to angry and defensive because others (including us) might harm this baby. Just like the days of Autumn, a mix of sun, blue skies, rains, winds, and storms. Sometimes, all in one day.

Winter

We go through this cycle every month, and no one ever has gotten pregnant every single month of their productive years. So, in the majority of cases, even for those who have many kids, our body will soon get a shocking message from the brain: There’s no baby.

All that work, energy, and ups and downs were for nothing. Our body is disappointed and now has to start the work of tearing down, literally, the home that they had built for the baby. That is a sad and tiring thing and that’s how we feel as well.

Our body is so “embarrassed” from this failure, that prefers staying alone, usually in the company of some tears. This is the last season, the winter, with hibernation, rain, cold, and darkness.

Get to Know the Seasons

The seasons are a metaphor but they are in line with the menstrual cycle phases and with how many of us feel in each of them. On average the scientific phases are defined: Menstruation (Days 1–5) The Follicular Phase (Days 6–14) Ovulation (Around Days 14–18) The Luteal Phase (Days 19–28).

They are too scientific for me to think in these terms on my daily life. And they don’t mean anything when it comes to how I feel during each. This is why I love the seasons.

When I say that I’m in the follicular phase, I just feel confused by it, but when I say that I’m in Spring, I know it means I’m bright as a spring day.

Also, it is much easier to share this information with the people in our life. I can say to a partner: I’m in my Autumn now and I will have mood swings like the weather. Please be patient with me because it has nothing to do with you.

Each woman is different and these phases and how we feel will vary, sometimes drastically. Just like different plants react differently to the seasons of the year.

We need to figure out what is the length of our phases and how we experience them. After tracking my symptoms for a few months, I have reached an estimation for my seasons and added those to my calendar. Here’s what it looks like:

These lines you see are multiple-day events, with the status free, to have no impact on the calendar availability. And I have used colors and icons to customize them, so they show the season but look fun and nice.

When planning, I always know in which season I will be. Even when having a full-time job, it’s surprising to realize how much control we have over our calendar. We can always ask to postpone something or plan to work on certain tasks in our preferred weeks.

Not always will be possible, but even when not, it is very helpful to know why we are feeling like we aren’t at our best. The weekly view helps me the most with this. Every day when I check my calendar, I can understand where I am in the cycle and why I feel how I feel.

And the idea that we can go slower or faster at different parts of the month has been liberating.

Something to highlight is the transition days. The days we move from one season to the next. In those days our hormones shift significantly. It’s when the brain calls: everybody swap now.

This sudden change affects significantly the body and transition days tend to be very hard. I feel the worst in transition days, and I am very grateful that I can somehow predict them now by looking at my calendar.

They shift sometimes, but just having a rough estimate helps to not feel like I was run by a truck. Well, I still feel like that, but at least I’m not surprised by it.

Allow The Seasons to Serve You

This was the hardest part for me. As an overachiever, I want to always be working hard and running fast towards my goals. And I hated Autumn and Winter because I couldn’t keep up on those weeks.

But there’s no point in fighting it. And hating it is a waste of energy, especially in those seasons where I’m short on energy.

What the book suggested but took me time to do is to allow each season to serve me with its unique qualities.

Spring is the best season to start something new. We have the best ideas during spring and the strongest motivation to go for them. We are willing to take risks and be brave even when we are not confident. Like trees are taking a risk in blooming.

Summer is the best time to get work done. We have the energy and the optimism to work on a large amount of projects and tasks. And we can follow through in implementing the new things we started in Spring. Like fruits on trees that grow into beautiful shapes and colors.

Autumn, is the best time to do editing or review work. We will have the sharpest eyes and the toughest feedback for our work and improve it to its best version. Like the trees that decide which fruits are weak and will drop on the ground, and which will keep to reach their peak sweetness, and make the best seeds.

And finally Winter, is the best time to rest and take care of ourselves. We have worked and delivered in different ways all month, so it won’t kill us to not be at our best for a few days. Like trees who drop their leaves and hibernate, while using the nutrition they have stored all year. They might look dead from the outside, but we all know they will bloom even more beautifully in spring. And so will we.

Three years later, as I close my day, I check the calendar. I see that I might start Autumn tomorrow, and it would be a transition day. And I have a meeting at 8:30.

There’s a high chance I will have a hard time waking up. Let me put two alarms just to be on the safe side. I schedule a 7:30 and an 8:20 alarm because thank God the morning meeting is online and I will be working from home.

I am in this weird dream, arguing with someone, when I hear the alarm. I try to open my eyes, but I can’t. Yes, Autumn has started and today is the transition day.

I turn off the alarm with my eyes closed and sleep until 8:20. I have no choice but to get up then, but it’s less hard than an hour ago.

I finish the meeting without embarrassing myself by falling asleep in front of them or saying something stupid. Although I struggle to explain the details of a project.

My self-hate talk tries to join the conversation:

“You don’t know how to do this job, look how confused you are. You…”

Stop there, my little devil. I know what you are trying to do, but it won’t work this time, because I have every right in the world to be confused. My hormones are all having a rollercoaster ride right now and my body feels that.

I know I was a little lost at the meeting but it’s okay. I am on top of everything most of the time, it’s okay if I’m not at my best in one meeting.

I drink some water and do a full self-assessment:

Everything hurts. I’m irritated. I don’t care about anything. I want to go back to sleep.

Welcome to Autumn! I think of making some breakfast to get some energy because it will be a tough day. But I’m too tired and I have no appetite.

Wait, I have boiled eggs in the fridge. They are small, quick, and easy to eat. But they are packed with nutrition. Thank you, summer Adele for being so caring and doing food prep for these days.

I eat two of them and move all my non-urgent tasks and meetings for later and if possible for spring Adele. She can handle a lot and is very generous, she won’t mind.

And for what is left, mostly review tasks, I will work from the couch today. Wrapped with the blanket, with some heart-soothing Quran on the background. After a while maybe I will get some energy to make a tea.

Today I will do things only when I have energy for them. Today I will just allow myself to be. Tomorrow is another day and I know I will feel a little better.

And before I know it, Spring will be here and I can take on the world again.