Throughout your menstruating years, from menarche to menopause, there’s a deep process at work that’s unfolding your path to power.
We think of each decade of your menstruating years as having a particular tone, job or task that needs to be fulfilled. Each stage along the path is a necessary component, setting you up well for the final initiation at menopause.
Your menstruating years move through a seasonal round from your first bleed to your last in the following way:
The spring of your cycling years—your teens and 20s:
From your menarche (your first bleed) through your teenage years and into your 20s, you move through the spring of your life—full of vitality, experimentation, play and risk. You’re exploring and working out something about who you are, often largely unconsciously. Through your 20s and then more so through your 30s, it’s all about getting to know yourself, taking more responsibility and developing your capacity to care for yourself.
The summer of your cycling years—your 30s:
Your 30s are the summer of your menstruating years and are characterised by a sense of settling into things, into something more. Perhaps putting down roots, ‘growing’ a career, possibly a family. It’s about establishing a place in the material world, a foundation. This is the time of manifesting, establishing an identity, building a life. Of being able to say, ‘Yes, this is me.’
The autumn of your cycling years—your 40s:
In your 40s you hit the autumn of your menstruating years. It’s normal now to feel a restlessness kick in and an urgency to answer life’s deeper questions. Your 40s are about listening more strongly to that deeper pulse of you, beyond societal expectations and demands. It’s a shift of attention away from the mundane to a deeper nurturing of your Calling, what’s most important to you. In other words, your Calling is being amplified now. And it’s the time for doing the deeper inner work and healing.
Winter—the menopause transition (commonly in your 50s)
And then, in completion of this larger cycle, you enter the winter of your menstruating years at menopause—a time of retreat. Over 2 to 5 years you are going through a psycho-spiritual death and rebirth—drawing together all the elements of your life thus far in a time of digesting and composting so that you may be reborn into a fuller and freer expression of yourself and your creative contribution to Life – your Calling.
Second spring—postmenopause (approximately 55+)
After the winter of your menopause years comes a second spring—the spring of your postmenopause life. This is a time of stabilising in the new awareness of yourself and the power you’ve acquired and fulfilling the promise of your life.
We LOVE telling this new story of the menstrual cycle and menopause and reframing our cyclicity as a profound source of wisdom and power. And the highlight of our year is sharing these teachings on our Menstruality Leadership Programme, which is devoted to the embodiment of this wisdom and power, wherever you find yourself in your menstruality life arc.
In fact, one of the most beautiful aspects is having a diverse circle with participants navigating the full-on summer energy of their 30s and the challenges of autumn in their 40s. We also always have a few spring chickens in their 20s and deeply appreciate the post-menopause elders in their 50s, 60s and 70s who come to reclaim their own menstrual experience, and gather menstruality wisdom to teach others.
On the programme, we hold a focus on the evolutionary or initiatory power of the cycle—how that plays out in the menstrual cycle process each month and in the peak moments of initiation of the menstrual cycle life arc itself (menarche, menstruation, motherhood, menopause). These evolutionary moments within the cycle and within our life arc are doorways to life-affirming leadership, in which we also simultaneously acquire the very necessary skills needed to navigate these transitions and fulfil our leadership in the world.
If you’d like to immerse yourself in this menstruality wisdom field, we would love to have you with us. If you feel ready to dive in and take your place on the training, you can join our Menstruality Leadership programme here.
