Have you ever noticed how much noisier your environment seems during your inner autumn, or how pungent stuff smells?
During your inner autumn your senses are heightened and you feel increasingly sensitive to what’s going on around and inside you. It’s as though the anaesthesia that buffered you during your inner summer wears off to reveal a fuller picture of what’s going on.
Your animal nature is enlivened and your instincts are sharper: you have heightened intuition and just ‘know’ stuff. And what previously seemed perfectly acceptable may now appear riddled with problems!
You’re the truth-speaker now and what you have to say probably isn’t going to go down well. Who was ever loved for pointing out flaws, lies and hypocrisies? But you’ve got the power now to catalyse deep change, both in yourself and in the world around you. And it’s a power to behold if you use it wisely.
How do we hold our troublemaker wisely?
Inner autumn invites you to face yourself, meet your shadow side, and clean up all that just isn’t you anymore. But while you will come face to face with your personal history and unhealthy patterns of behaviour, you’re also called to be fully embodied and present with the truth of who you are.
You’re asked to face your shadow and claim your light.
These two tasks underscore the kind of contradiction that you’re asked to bear during the premenstruum. Can you tolerate feeling the truth of two opposing positions? You’re faced with this fundamental human challenge on some level each time you traverse your inner autumn.
Essentially, your task is to know and feel yourself as simply human and profoundly divine. To acknowledge your shortcomings, limitations and screw-ups, while at the same time sensing the perfection of you – the rightness of your history and the limitless potential you can leverage.
Your ongoing cycle awareness practice is your best ally here.
By their nature, these premenstrual tasks are more challenging. But conveniently, you have many cycles to practise and master them. With each conscious cycle you develop your capacity to be with paradox. And many of us find this gives us access to a new, wild kind of creativity.
We can become a kind of channel, calling down inspiration, insight and knowing that seeks to be born into the world. We can become midwifes for the unspoken and unmanifest.
The power here is one of deep embodiment, using the aliveness of your own presence to sense and feel what’s beyond everyday awareness; to be a tuning fork for the subtle forces that shape the material world and to ‘see’ the energetic precursors and past patterning that underpin everything.
Three practices to help you manage your premenstrual power
Here are some practices to help you channel your inner troublemaker with compassion, for yourself and others:
One: As you enter the inner autumn, deliberately pause and find things to acknowledge and celebrate about yourself and what you’re doing.
Two: Go about your life a little more slowly and mindfully.
Three: Say ‘no’ more often.
