Luteal Phase: Change in Perspective

The Luteal Phase is usually regarded as a difficult time. It is during this second half of our cycle that a hormonal cocktail and its ups and downs will cause us to experience a variety of symptoms like:

• PMS

• Exhaustion

• Bloating

• Skin issues

• Lower immune system

• Headaches

• Going inward

• Feeling more antisocial

• Low patience

• Appetite for comfort food

You might read this list and think "all negative symptoms"! Or you might already know and refer to this period as disagreeable, and while it might be true that these are unpleasant experiences, let me try to change your perspective.

First, let's understand this time, biologically:

The Luteal Phase is the time between Ovulation and Menstruation, the second half of your cycle. This is the time when your body is not sure if it's pregnant or not, so just in case, it will act pregnant and do everything in its power to support the potential pregnancy with the help of the hormone Progesterone. This explains all the symptoms from the list above, if you were indeed pregnant your body would need to start to do all the things to support life!! It's a time of build up. The Uterine Lining thickens to build a cushion for a fertilized egg and nutrients and liquids are held in the body to nourish the fetus.

This is a lot of work!

It's exhausting and makes you want to stay in and rest.

Once the body finds out that you are not pregnant it begins to drop the levels of Progesterone, which signals the body to release everything it has been building up and holding on to. And that's how menstruation begins: the blood is the release, within this blood we also release the uterine wall that had been thickening, along with excess hormones produced by the body throughout the cycle: this includes stress hormones, so if you experienced a lot of stress or anxiety for whatever reason, menstruation helps you release it all!

In the first half of your cycle (the Follicular Phase), the overpowering hormone was Estrogen. While in the Luteal Phase we still see ups and downs of Estrogen, the overpowering hormone during this second half of the cycle is Progesterone.

In this graph you can see the ups and downs of the two gonadotropic hormone levels (the hormones created in the brain's Pituitary gland): Follicle-Stimulating and Luteinizing hormones, that travel to the ovaries to signal the creation of the two ovarian hormones: Estrogen and Progesterone.

You might think "why should I go through this every month if I'm not trying to conceive?" Whether you are trying to make a baby or not at all, having this natural cycle is incredibly healthy to your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual body! It helps keep our body functioning the way it's supposed to and remind us that life constantly goes through cycles and not a flat line. Instead of hating it or dreading it every month, I invite you to explore how it can help you to tap back into your intuition and allow you to rest and recover when you need to.

Do you think you would be able to allow yourself to enjoy this alone time, comfort foods and rest without guilt?

Why we feel guilt and use the word "procrastination"

Because of the culture that we live in, we believe: productivity = good.

So "unproductivity" makes us feel guilty, makes us feel like procrastinators.

But procrastination and true rest are two very different things.

In order to get rid of this guilt, which is a social construct, we need to work with our bodies, not against them. Push ourselves when our energy is high and retreat and relax when our energy is low.

I promise there will come a time when your motivations and energies come back!

Instead of trying to push yourself at a time when motivation and energy doesn't come naturally, allow yourself rest and trust that your energy will come back!

To know when to push yourself, read my article about the follicular phase. But now, during the luteal phase allow yourself to feel all those symptoms, don't try to push them away. Manage your expectations. During this time, ALLOW . YOURSELF . REST .

Be gentle with yourself.

In fact, don't just rest, try to enjoy this rest.

If there are things that you can leave for later, write yourself a list and get to them later on, during your follicular phase.

If there are things you have to do no matter what, do them, but lower your expectations of the result or speed.

What to do during the Luteal Phase

Once we make peace with this phase and accept rest, inwardness and introversion, we can tap into the magic of this time. This is the time to dream, to reflect, to connect with our intuition, to move slow. With this kind of energy, here is a list of wonderful activities to do right now:

Be creative

Journal

Reflect

Make puzzles

Clean meticulously

Clear your closet

Read a book

Track your cycle

I can give you data about hormones and generalities of what you can expect, but truly, every body is different and wants different things at different times. The best thing you can do here is to listen to your specific body and learn how it reacts to these hormonal ups and downs.

Tracking your cycle is one way to get to know your body. You can download an app, there are so many out there, however, I find that a single piece of paper with a couple columns of symptoms next to the bed is the most immediate way to keep this up. The symptoms can include energy level, mood, hunger (cravings), headaches and anything else that is relevant in your life: maybe you deal with stress, maybe you have nightmares, maybe you have skin issues that flare up on a seemingly random basis, all of these examples are worth tracking because you might find a correlation with your cycle and hormonal levels.

How does this help?

It's not that by tracking you will be able to improve painful symptoms or lower "annoying" feelings, but, understanding either where they are coming from or knowing that certain hormones can exacerbate symptoms helps manage our expectations as well as know that whatever we are feeling is temporary.

If you want to do a deeper dive into your own, unique way of living your menstrual cycle, check out my Womb Cycles Program.

To fully embody this phase of your cycle, listen to my free meditation on Insight Timer, Luteal Phase Guided Meditation.

*I am not a medical professional, I am a Transformational Coach interested in knowing and sharing how to connect with our deepest selves and use our menstrual cycles' energies in our daily lives.