Your Menstrual Cycle & Emotional Wellbeing:
A Reference Guide
Understanding your cycle is the foundation of cycle-aware work, and this guide aims to give you a place to start, acting as a reference guide to help break down what is likely happening hormonally across the five phases of a "typical" menstrual cycle, how each phase may show up in your daily life and emotional experience, and how this can inform the therapeutic process.
Please note: this is a starting point — not a diagnostic tool, and not a one-size-fits-all picture, because no two women will experience their cycle identically. You are a complex system shaped by far more than hormones alone, and no graph can capture that.
Which is why, in practice, your actual experience will always matter more than what any chart predicts.
This is an informational guide, and I hope it helps to provide you with just that: information. Because being informed helps women lead full, intentional, connected lives — and build communities that reflect that.
Here's to well-informed women near and far: may we support them; may we be them; may we raise them.
Maddy
The graph below depicts relative hormone levels across a 'typical' 28-day ovulatory cycle.
A Deeper Look at Each Phase
*Cycle length and hormone timing vary — this reflects a general, idealized pattern. Irregular cycles, hormonal birth control, PMDD, perimenopause, and other factors all affect how these phases are experienced. This is an educational reference only, not a diagnostic tool; your personal experience always takes precedence.
Menstrual Phase
Inner Winter
Days 1–5
Hormone Profile
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Estrogen and progesterone at their lowest
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Testosterone also low
How it may show up
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Low energy, pull toward rest
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Heightened sensitivity
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Some feel a sense of release or clarity as the previous cycle completes
In therapy
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Gentle reflection
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Somatic or mindfulness work
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Integrating recent insights
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*New material may feel like too much