Hi Reader

Have you ever had one of those weeks where everything is suddenly... irritating?

Your clothes don't sit right, training feels harder, you look in the mirror and somehow decide you've aged approximately seven years since Tuesday, your workload, which you were happily managing a week ago, suddenly feels completely unreasonable and your partner chewing becomes an offence punishable by law.

You start wondering whether you need a new job, a new life and possibly to move into a cottage in the middle of nowhere where nobody can contact you!

Then your period arrives.

Ah. Welcome to the luteal uglies. If you experience noticeable changes in the second half of your menstrual cycle, you probably know exactly what I mean.

The luteal phase is the part of your cycle after ovulation and before your next period. Hormones are changing during this time and some women notice changes in things like mood, appetite, energy, sleep and physical symptoms as they move towards menstruation.

For some women, those changes are barely noticeable. For others, they're significant.

And something I've had to learn over the years is that the answer isn't necessarily to become better at pretending they're not happening.

I used to have a very different relationship with this part of my cycle. I loved the parts of the month where I felt energetic, confident, sociable and productive. Of course I did.

That version of Catherine was extremely convenient. She could work hard, train hard, get lots done, say yes to things and generally keep moving.

Then another version of me would appear who was more tired, more sensitive, more emotional, more easily overwhelmed and considerably less tolerant of things she didn't particularly want to do. And I didn't like her nearly as much.

My old response was essentially: How do we get rid of this version and get the productive one back?

Which, looking back, was quite an exhausting way to live in a body that was going to keep cycling regardless of whether I approved of it.

Over time, I've become much more curious about her instead. Because I've noticed something interesting.

Sometimes the things that bother me in my luteal phase aren't completely new problems. They're things I had more capacity to tolerate earlier in the month. That distinction has been incredibly useful for me.

It doesn't mean every thought you have before your period is a profound intuitive truth that requires immediate action. Hormonal changes can influence how we feel, and when we're tired, uncomfortable or emotionally heightened, things can naturally feel different.

So I don't think we need to blindly obey everything that comes up. But I don't think we need to automatically dismiss it either. Instead, I like to get curious.

Why is this bothering me so much?

Is there actually something here?

Have I taken on too much?

Am I tired?

Have I been eating enough?

Have I had any proper downtime?

Is this a boundary I've been ignoring?

Is there a conversation I've been avoiding?

Or am I simply having a difficult day and need to give myself a bit more grace?

Sometimes the answer is beautifully profound and other times the answer is a simple I need dinner and an early night. Both are useful information.

And I think this matters enormously for women with demanding careers because we're often very good at overriding ourselves.

You have a deadline, so you meet it.

Someone needs something, so you sort it.

Your diary is full, so you keep going.

You're tired, but you've been tired before.

Something is irritating you, but you tell yourself you're being dramatic.

There can be a lot of “I'll deal with myself later.”

Then our capacity drops slightly and suddenly all those things we've been carrying become much harder to ignore. That's why I no longer see the second half of my cycle as the annoying bit I need to endure before I can get back to being myself. She is myself too. She just sometimes needs different things from me.

Notice. Get curious. Adjust where you can. And crucially, don't use your menstrual cycle as another stick to beat yourself with.

If you planned to have a quiet evening and ended up working late, you haven't failed at cycle syncing.

If you had every intention of resting and then life happened, you're still fine.

If you don't know exactly when you ovulated or what phase you're in, you haven't failed Womanhood 101.

We're learning ourselves, not trying to pass another exam.

I also want to make an important distinction here. There's a difference between noticing that you feel a little more tired, hungry, sensitive or irritable at certain points in your cycle and experiencing symptoms that are significantly affecting your ability to live your life.

If you're regularly experiencing severe pain, very significant mood changes, unusually heavy bleeding, major disruption to your daily life or symptoms that concern you, please don't assume that you're simply supposed to tolerate them because you're a woman.

Your cycle can give you information, but sometimes that information is: I'd like some proper support with this.

That's something I wish I'd understood much earlier myself. When I look back at the relationship I used to have with my menstrual cycle, there was so much judgement.

Why can't I cope?

Why am I emotional?

Why am I tired?

Why can't I just feel like I did last week?

Now there's much more: “Oh, interesting. What do I need?”

And that tiny shift from judgement to curiosity has probably done more for my relationship with my body than trying to perfectly optimise every phase ever could. That's really what I've wanted this whole September series to leave you with.

Not a perfectly cycle-synced diary.

Not a new collection of rules.

Not the belief that your hormones control everything you do.

Just a little more understanding of the body you're living in.

So, as we finish this month's conversation about menstrual health, I'd really love to hear from you.

Do you notice a difference in yourself during the second half of your cycle? And if you do, what's something you've learned that helps you work with yourself rather than against yourself?

Or perhaps this series has made you notice something about your cycle that you'd never connected before.

Hit reply and tell me. These are exactly the conversations I want us to be having more openly.

With care and wellness,

Cat