One of the my most important discoveries from my life so far, is that if I (Sjanie) stay focused on pleasure - it becomes the source of my power. And for me, fully embracing the magic of inner summer - the ovulation phase - has been key to experiencing a deeply pleasurable, full expression of myself in the world.
However - as we explore in this article - this requires a profound reclamation of the true power of the inner summer, especially in a world which demands us to be in an endlessly productive summer-mode.
Why Our Linear Culture Keeps us Shadow-Boxing In Inner Summer
Our culture neglects our cyclicity. As a result, most of us face a barrage of societal projections created by hustle and beauty culture, which can block our access to the true power of inner summer. Through cycle awareness, we can free ourselves from the narrow band of experience within which we’re told to operate in the ovulatory cycle phase, so that our unique magnetism and authenticity can be fully inhabited.
Connecting the Dots Between Our Instinctual, Animal Aliveness and Our Power
One way to turn the whole productivity-obsessed culture thing on its head is to prioritize your pleasure. And the irony is that when you’re rooted in pleasure, you’re actually way more productive, and more effective, as well as more energised and joyful, because you’re moving from a resourced place.
A big shift happened in my inner summer when I began to deliberately work with the inner autumn practice of slowing down and tuning into my animal body. This act of dropping from my mind into my body in my inner autumn has helped me to come into a kind of embodied, instinctual aliveness or animal power, which helps me to be able to hold the charge of my calling and express it more fully in my inner summer.
Let Your Weirdness and Eccentricities be Seen
In inner summer the lights of the world get brighter and it can be easy to slip out of the groove of your own truth and into the armouring of a socialized self, and find yourself presenting an ‘approved’, glossy version of you, and stuffing much of who you are under the carpet. Showing only what you imagine is good about yourself is one of the biggest blocks to intimacy, and a potential breeding ground for shame. Your eccentricities and idiosyncratic ways are key to accessing your pleasure as well as expressing your magnetism. If you keep these parts of yourself shut off behind a social mask, you’ll be out of touch with the power that’s utterly unique to you.
Why Dropping Deeply at Menstruation Helps us to Claim the Pleasure of Inner Summer for Ourselves
Sometimes the natural, expansive flowering energy of the inner summer gets thwarted by our own challenges around self worth, and we find ourselves unconsciously putting our foot on the brakes, and not allowing ourselves to be seen in our fullness. This is why it’s vital to carve out time for deep rest in the inner winter, because it’s builds our own innate sense of worthiness, and is a natural antidote to shame.
In our Wild Power book, we offer these three simple practices to help you ride the flow of your inner summer:
Are you ready for the next level of understanding, claiming (and teaching) of the power of the menstrual cycle? The Menstruality Leadership Programme could be for you…
If you have a longing in your heart to find your voice, take up more space and step into your authentic power, and you sense that your menstrual cycle, matrescence and menopause holds the key, this apprenticeship with menstruality will initiate you into the three foundational menstruality maps as the gateway to understanding the menstrual cycle as your inner guidance system, so that you can be inspired, emboldened and skilled up to lead in your unique way.
