Why Listening to Your Cycle Is the Most Radical Thing You Can Do

Most women were never taught how to track their cycle — let alone listen to it.

But your menstrual cycle is more than just a bleed. It’s your fifth vital sign. It’s a built-in monthly report card on your physical, emotional, and energetic health.

Each phase of your cycle — from menstruation to ovulation and everything in between — comes with its own strengths and sensitivities:

• Menstruation is a time for rest and reflection
  
• The follicular phase is for energy and creativity
  
• Ovulation is for connection and clarity
  
• The luteal phase is for truth-telling and letting go
  

When you start tracking how you feel in each phase (physically, emotionally, mentally), patterns emerge. You begin to anticipate the shifts, not fear them. You also begin to understand what symptoms are telling you — whether it’s PMS, heavy periods, or rage that appears before your bleed. These aren’t flaws. They’re feedback.

Your cycle is a portal into self-awareness. And when you listen? You gain the power to shift how you move through life, set boundaries, create, and rest — all with more ease.

In Episode #27 of What’s My Body Telling Me?, I sat down with Jane Hardwicke Collings to dive deeper into this wisdom. We spoke about how the menstrual cycle reflects our inner truth, how it's been pathologised by the system, and why reclaiming it is the first step in reclaiming your power.