How Embracing the 4 Phases of Your Menstrual Cycle Can Expand Creative Potential
Your body has a secret, and it’s something writing instructors don’t teach, panels don’t cover, and even teachers don’t share in high school Sex Ed classes. Turns out, a monthly menstrual cycle holds the power to transform your creative life.
When I first started embracing cyclical living more than ten years ago, it was in the pursuit of starting a family, but during the two-year process I learned so much about cycle syncing, feminine energy, how to optimize my food and exercise, and rituals for each phase of my cycle that I started to wonder … what if I applied all this to my creative life?
After my son was born it was pretty clear there was no going back to how things used to be, and I’d need to establish a new relationship with my creativity if I wanted to make progress on my own terms. Many of the tools and practices that I relied on simply wouldn’t work in my sleep-deprived new parent reality, so I started over.
I was craving simplicity, ease, and clarity. Over time, I figured out how to leverage the four phases of my cycle to help me make meaningful progress in my writing life, at a pace that felt authentic to me and honoring where I was. In fact, this entire period birthed another kind of baby: my book, Wild Words, and the community that followed.
Here’s what I know: It’s possible to predict your creativity, but it involves changing your relationship to three things: your body, your energy, and your time.
Part 1: Your Body
Everything starts with the body. And more specifically, your reproductive organs, because they are the true secret keepers.
“Our ovarian wisdom represents our deepest creativity, that which waits to be born from within us, that which can be born only through us, our unique creative potential—especially as it relates to what we create in the world outside of ourselves.”
—Dr. Christianne Northrup’s book Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom
The Four Inner Seasons
Like nature, our bodies are cyclical. Every month (roughly 28 days, give or take) they go through four unique phases that I like to call inner seasons.
Season 1: SPRING / FOLLICULAR / PLANT
We’ll start with your follicular phase—or your inner spring. If you’re following the lunar calendar, this corresponds to the waxing moon.
I think of this season as your PLANTING phase. Your inner spring is really all about emergence. You’re coming out of your bleeding days, breaking through the soil so to speak, and it’s a great time to plan and initiate projects because whether you’re writing a book or a blog post, you need to lay the foundation for what’s to come, and your brain is really primed to brainstorm and start new things. It’s not unlike spring when we watch the leaves start to grow back and the weather warm up a bit, there’s just this sense of possibility in the air. That’s your inner spring.
Season 2: SUMMER / OVULATION / GROW
Next we have ovulation, which corresponds to the full moon in the lunar calendar. Ovulation is your inner summer, all about visibility and growth. Since this is your body’s peak fertility window, your energy tends to be high, which makes it feel easier to ride the wave from spring to summer and continue the projects you started. Connection and community are core themes of your inner summer. It’s really an ideal time to engage with others, have important conversations, and communicate ideas.
Season 3: FALL / LUTEAL PHASE / HARVEST
Now we’re turning the corner into your inner fall, which is the luteal phase. This corresponds to the waning moon. Fall is nature’s harvest season, and it’s the same for our bodies. Culmination energy is really strong here, because your body is preparing to enter the cave of menstruation. Your physical energy, which was really high and magnetic a few days ago is starting to wind down and you start feeling a strong pull to go inward. This is the time in your cycle to check stuff off your to-do list. It’s all about finishing—whether it’s getting all the laundry done or putting the finishing touches on an essay, you're primed to tie up loose ends during these days.
Season 4: WINTER / MENSTRUATION / REST
That brings us to menstruation, or your inner winter, which corresponds to the new moon. This is the season of rest and reflection. Your hormones are really low here, bringing you deeper into your inner world. Your brain’s capacity for self-analysis is really high, which makes it a great time for journaling and thinking and receiving insights and gut messages about all sorts of things.
The ebb and flow of creativity is real and visceral, and I’m sure you’ve had those moments you’ve felt your body just electrify when you’re working on something. The incredible thing is our monthly cycle is a metaphor for the creative process. As we went over, every month our bodies spend half the time expanding and the other half contracting. Our projects do this too.
—> Case Study 01: Writing a Book of Poetry
There are many examples to choose from, and no matter what kind of writing you do or what kind of project you’re working on, all of this information can be layered in. Right now I’ll give the example of writing a book of poetry. In order to complete this project and take it from a collection of pages spread out on your floor to a full-length book, or even just a bundle to submit to a journal, you need both the expansion and contraction energies. There will be times when you’re expanding and initiating: drafting, reading, doing research, typing up lines from a notebook and transferring them to a digital format. Eventually, when you have something finished, sharing your work draws on the energy of expansion and visibility. Then there are times of contraction and completion: You bust out the editing pen, you reorganize the table of contents, you write cover letters, you input edits into your digital files. You might even take some time to think, leave your poems aside for a time and let something simmer.
—> Case Study: 02: This Blog Post
Another example is this blog post. A lot of moving pieces were required to get to the point where you’re at home reading.
Outline
Draft
Editing
Creating social media images
Scheduling
Writing emails
Editing emails
Setting up my email sequence
Promotion
Before I even got started, I looked at this list and determined which phase of my cycle was the best time to do each task. Making an outline and writing the first draft was great to do in the first half of my cycle, while creating social media images, editing, and finalizing the post were all great for the second half.
In the end, our creative work requires both the expansion and contraction energies, and once you know how they work, and which of your creative tasks fall into which phase, your body really leads the way in terms of offering a blueprint that’s literally inside of you, to support your creativity.
I call it project management with a feminine twist.
It’s honestly the most sustainable thing in the world because it’s self-led. It’s body-driven, not some arbitrary timeline someone else tells you makes sense for your project, but actually tailored to you, from you.
Part 2: Your Energy
I used to believe creativity comes when it comes, it can’t be harnessed, and we’re essentially at its mercy and whims. That was my worldview when I first started writing seriously in high school, when it felt like if a day went by and I didn’t write, I might never be able to do it again. My relationship with creativity was just beginning and I didn’t know how to trust it, which ultimately left me feeling as though I had almost no agency in the process. I was only the vessel. I remember one afternoon walking to my locker between periods and I had an idea for a poem. This wasn’t unusual, except that it had been several days since I wrote my last one, and I was feeling fear. I was actually scared I wouldn’t be able to write again.
Today, I believe I’m in an intimate relationship with my creativity, and that over time, we work in partnership to bring forth my stories and ideas. And being creative isn’t just about the idea, of course, although that’s sometimes the most exciting part. To start and finish anything, and to make meaningful progress I believe we need a plan. We need the right idea, we need inspiration, and we need motivation, but we also need to look at our schedules, and project manage our work, we need time to focus and finish as well as time to ponder and dream.
We need both masculine and feminine energies to create.
The problem is, we live in a culture that favors the masculine over the feminine. And here’s what I mean by that.
Using Cycle Syncing to Embrace Feminine Project Management
One of the best ways to embrace both feminine and masculine energies—and harness it for our creativity—is through cycle syncing.
This is the foundational practice that allows your body and brain to connect, and empowers you to essentially create a customized strategy for bringing forth your work.
This isn’t about what works for someone else and the journey they’re on—this is about your energy and your rhythms.
The simple definition of cycle syncing is this: working in harmony with your own inner rhythms.
You might already be using an app to track your cycle, which is a great first step. This allows you to know your body more intimately, the length of your cycle, and to track symptoms you might experience month over month. But these apps are mostly designed to track the physical aspects of your cycle and how long they are month-over-month.
How Writers Can Use Their Monthly Periods for Greater Creativity
Cycle syncing for creativity takes things a step further than your standard period tracking app. In addition to noting your physical symptoms, you also regularly check in with your energy (which encompasses your emotional and mental states) and your creativity. You’ll pay attention to whether or not something feels particularly hard one day, or if you have too many ideas and don’t know which one to work on first.
Maybe you’re feeling content, hopeful, or frustrated with a work in progress. Combining all these clues with where you are in your cycle and looking at your inner seasons is where the magic starts to happen. After doing this for a few months, you’ll be able to go back and notice patterns.
Maybe on Day 6 of your cycle your energy feels really high coming out of menstruation, and you have all sorts of new ideas for your novel.
Maybe you were interviewed for a podcast on Day 15, during your ovulation window, and interacting with the host felt so effortless. Maybe you were interviewed for a podcast on Day 25, right before your period started, and it felt harder to come out of your shell.
Maybe on Day 21 your self-doubt is at an all-time high (FYI, this is very, very normal). Maybe editing feels really good on day 23, and not so great on Day 7.
These are all clues and insights you can use to customize your creative life so it flows instead of feeling stagnant.
Tips for Cycle Syncing With Your Creativity in Mind
When it comes to cycle syncing for creativity, you have a few options. I find notebook and journaling systems tend to be really personal for people—we each have our own way we like to do things, so all these recommendations can be tailored to what works for you.
You can track digitally, either on a Google or Word doc, or have a dedicated cycle syncing notebook. Personally, I do a bit of a hybrid. I have a dedicated, paper notebook. But all my entries start as a digital note on my phone. About once a month I copy what’s on my note app into my notebook, and look for any patterns or insights to consider. (And I usually do this while I’m on my period because that’s the time I’m most intuitive and reflective—that’s just one example of cycle syncing in action)
Regardless of your method, you’ll want to check in on a regular basis in the following areas:
Body
Mind
Creativity
Journaling Prompts for the Body:
This is pretty standard for period apps and if you’ve tracked your cycle in the past, you’re probably familiar with paying attention to how you’re feeling physically. If you have PMS symptoms that’s something to add here, as well as how your energy is. It’s not the same for everyone, but in general, you’ll tend to have higher energy levels in the spring and summer seasons of your cycle, and lower energy levels in your fall and winter seasons. Remember it’s all about that ebb and flow.
Journaling Prompts for the Mind:
This category encompasses your emotional and mental state. How’s your focus? Are you feeling overwhelmed? Did a certain emotion rise to the surface today. With this category, I find personally there’s some reliability month to month in terms of the days I have lots of energy to focus and days when I’m more scattered. There are also days I’m more emotional or have absolutely no patience. All good things to know for life, as well as your creativity too.
Journaling Prompts for Creativity:
As for your creative side, when you’re tracking your cycle, you can record generally how you’re feeling, like if doing a certain type of task felt more effortless or more challenging, and/or if you’re working on a specific project at the moment like an essay or a blog post or starting something new, see how your creativity is feeling related to that project. Maybe you did some research for your novel on Day 7 and that felt really enjoyable. Maybe you tried working on the first draft of an essay on Day 20 and it felt really hard.
As I mentioned, cycle syncing is a long-term strategy.
It doesn’t do much to try it for 30 days, other than to begin to form your habit. Where you’ll see the biggest results in terms of learning your own unique rhythms is a few months from now when you start to see those patterns we talked about, and knowing those patterns will help you refine when you work on certain tasks, as well as project manage anything you’re working on with complete clarity about how you function.
To sum up what we’ve reviewed so far, the way you predict your creativity is by:
Understanding how your body works
Being in tune with your own inner rhythms
Tracking various aspects of your cycle.
Knowing your unique patterns is ultimately what helps you predict how creativity works for YOU. Even though part of creativity is mysterious and ever-shifting and that’s one of the beautiful things about it, creativity can also be harnessed.
Our bodies know the secret, and have always known, and it’s up to us to bring that wisdom to light and use it to help our own words flourish in their right time.
Part 3 : Your Time
Speaking of time, it’s one of the biggest obstacles for most writers I speak with. Not having enough time to write, longing for more time to do XYZ, and constantly feeling like time is illusive are hallmarks of a modern writing life.
As someone who has published two books—not to mention hundreds of blog posts and newsletters—while working full-time, I’m well acquainted with the challenges that comes from birthing a project that’s deeply meaningful to you while feeling like you just can’t sit down and work for longer than 15 minutes at a time.
But what if we’re looking at time all wrong?
What if our body were our greatest asset when it comes to time management? I believe it is.
It’s not a matter of more time. Yes, more time would be helpful, but we can do a lot with a little, if we know how to use it.
If you know which time of the month is better for brainstorming and working on a first draft, and which time of the month is better for editing and finishing projects, you’re poised to actually make the most of the time you do have by again, working in partnership with your body.
