The Seasons of Womanhood
UNDERSTANDING hormones, mental health, and the FEMININE archetypes
Note: This information is for educational purposes only and is based on my own lived experience and the research I have done along the way. I share my story to offer insight, understanding, and solidarity — not as medical advice. Please seek guidance from a qualified healthcare provider for your personal circumstances.
Even as conversations about mental health grow louder and stigma begins to lift, there’s still a silence — a taboo — around the truth that women’s mental health is not the same as men’s. We are cyclical beings. Our moods, energy, and emotional resilience are shaped not only by the four phases of our menstrual cycle each month, but also by the four seasons of womanhood we will all move through if we live long enough.
These hormonal changes are not just physical; they are deeply woven into our emotional landscape, influencing how we think, feel, connect, and show up in the world. And yet, too often, this truth is missing from medical care, workplace policies, and cultural conversations — leaving many women feeling like something is “wrong” with them, when in reality, their bodies are simply following an ancient, natural rhythm.
Every woman walks through four archetypal seasons in her lifetime — and each month, our menstrual cycle mirrors them back to us, offering a chance to remember, honor, and support each one:
🌒 The Virgin — menarche (puberty) season/follicular phase/possibility
🌕 The Mother — fertility season/ovulation phase/creation and expansion
🌘 The Wild Woman — perimenopause season/luteal phase/radical authenticity
🌑 The Crone — menopause/menstruation phase/wisdom, integration, and guidance
Each season has its own hormonal signature, mental health challenges, and spiritual gifts. When we understand them, we can walk through each one with more compassion — for ourselves and each other.
The Virgin: menarche Season/ follicular Phase
Archetype: The Virgin — not in the sexual sense, but as the whole, untouched self. Curious, alive, unshaped by the world’s expectations.
Hormonal Landscape:
Menarche Season, aka Puberty, begins when the hypothalamus signals the pituitary gland to release two key hormones — LH and FSH — which travel to the ovaries and trigger the release of estrogen and testosterone. These hormones drive the physical and emotional changes of puberty. While small amounts of progesterone are produced before puberty, its production becomes more significant once ovulation begins during menstrual cycles.
In the Follicular/Proliferative Phase (Post-Menstruation, Pre-Ovulation) of the menstrual cycle, estrogen steadily rises, preparing the body for ovulation.
Mental Health Impact:
The Menarche season is less about hormonal mood swings and more about the imprint of family, environment, and self-esteem. But the seeds of how we will handle stress, relationships, and our bodies are planted here.
During the follicular phase, we have increased energy, improved mood, and enhanced cognitive function due to rising estrogen levels, which support our mental health.
Spiritual Gifts:
Life Season (Puberty / Menarche): The gift of possibility. This is the dawn of womanhood, when the world has not yet placed its weight upon us, and we can dream with unfiltered clarity. It’s a time of awakening to who we might become — full of untapped potential, innocence, and curiosity. Spiritually, it invites us to trust the unknown and embrace the mystery of beginnings.
Follicular Phase (Post-Menstruation, Pre-Ovulation): the gift of renewal and inspired action. Just as the body replenishes and estrogen rises, our mind clears and energy blooms. This is the time to set intentions, map new ideas, and take the first courageous steps toward them. Spiritually, it’s a season of planting seeds — both literal and metaphorical — knowing that what we nurture now will grow in the cycles to come.
The Mother: Fertile Season/ Ovulation Phase
Archetype: The Mother — the creator and sustainer. Whether we give life to children, ideas, or communities, this is the season of building, holding, and carrying forward. While our fertile years embody the Mother archetype, each menstrual cycle invites us to move through all four: Follicular (Virgin), Ovulation (Mother), Luteal (Wild Woman), and Menstruation (Crone). Month after month, our cycle becomes a living guide — teaching us how to flow, adapt, and thrive in every phase of womanhood.
Hormonal Landscape:
During the fertile years, most women have stable monthly cycles of estrogen and progesterone. Dips before menstruation can cause PMS or PMDD symptoms. Testosterone blood levels in women tend to peak during their 20s. A gradual decline with age follows this.
The ovulation phase of your monthly menstrual cycle, estrogen peaks, and a sudden surge in luteinizing hormone (LH) trigger the release of the egg and support optimal fertility. Testosterone also rises briefly, enhancing libido and energy. Estrogen levels drop right after ovulation. Immediately after ovulation, progesterone begins to increase, preparing the uterine lining for a possible pregnancy and supporting early pregnancy if conception occurs.
Mental Health Impact:
These years can be vibrant and fulfilling — but also demanding. Pregnancy, postpartum recovery, contraceptives, PMS, PMDD, and chronic stress can all disrupt hormonal balance, impacting mood, energy, and resilience. For some, these shifts can bring depression or anxiety to the surface, often amplified by hormonal changes.
The hormonal high of estrogen and testosterone during ovulation each month can feel like a natural mood booster — many women experience greater confidence, clarity, and social ease during this phase. Emotional resilience tends to be stronger, making it easier to take on challenges and connect with others. However, for some, this heightened energy can also bring restlessness or a tendency to overcommit, which may lead to fatigue later in the cycle. For many women, the day after ovulation — due to the sudden drop in estrogen — can bring a noticeable shift: low mood, less energy, irritability, and a heightened sense of vulnerability or even disconnection, often without understanding why.
My Story:
In my Mother years, I was moving at full speed, always giving and rarely stopping — working onboard superyachts as a Chief Stewardess. Yes, just like Below Deck, but the real version: high-pressure, high-standard service with no pause button, long hours, and constant demand for perfection.
Beneath the polished surface, unhealed childhood trauma whispered through my nervous system. The relentless pace of work eventually tipped me into burnout, and depression arrived — heavy, numbing, and all-consuming.
It was in that darkness that I was forced to stop. Depression became a doorway, leading me inward to meet my inner child — the parts of me still carrying wounds from the past. I learned to listen to her fears, to tend to her needs, to offer her the safety and love she had longed for. That healing work became the foundation for the support I now offer others.
This was also the beginning of my spiritual awakening. Reclaiming my inner child was the first step onto my spiritual path — the moment my soul began to stir and remember.
Alongside inner child work, I was guided back to my womb — our inner oracle and keeper of ancient wisdom — and it was here that I remembered how to live cyclically. I began mapping and honoring the phases of my menstrual cycle as seasons, each with their own energy, mood, and needs. I planned my life around my natural rhythms: leaning into my high-energy days, resting more in my luteal phase, and treating my bleed as a sacred pause.
This wasn’t just a wellness practice — it was the first time I truly recognized that my mental health was directly connected to my hormones and my menstrual cycle. I also realized my menstrual cycle was a map — a way to live and work in flow, honoring womanhood instead of forcing myself into the patriarchal systems that expect women to perform the same every day, regardless of our biology.
Spiritual Gift:
Fertility Years: The gift of creation and expansion. This is when the power to bring life into the world — whether through children, visions, or purposeful work — is at its fullest. You learn the sacred art of nurturing: building something with love, tending to it with care, and watching it grow. Spiritually, the Mother invites you to anchor into compassion, lead with heart, and pour your creative energy into what matters most, while remembering to also mother yourself.
Ovulation Phase (Peak Fertility): The gift of connection and radiance. As estrogen and testosterone peak, confidence, vitality, and magnetism overflow. This is your season to say yes — to collaborations, conversations, and bold steps forward. It’s a time for problem-solving, deepening relationships, and stepping into spaces where your presence can inspire and influence. Spiritually, it’s about opening yourself fully — to joy, intimacy, and the creative force that flows through you — knowing this light will ripple outward long after this phase passes.
The Wild Woman: Perimenopause Season/ Lutheal Phase
Archetype: The Wild Woman — untamed, instinctual, unapologetic. She burns away what no longer serves, even if it makes others uncomfortable.
Hormonal Landscape:
Perimenopause is known as the zone of chaos because estrogen and progesterone fluctuate unpredictably — some days soaring, other days crashing. Progesterone decline can bring anxiety and insomnia. Estrogen drops affect serotonin and dopamine, impacting mood, motivation, and clarity. Testosterone falls too, lowering drive, vitality, brain cognition, motivation, stamina, desire, and libido. Sometimes, ovulation does not happen at all, which is called anovulation. Anovulation can also occur while breastfeeding or due to certain conditions, such as polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). You may still experience what seems like a regular period even if ovulation did not occur, and the reason for this can be unclear.
During the luteal phase of our monthly cycle, Progesterone (and, to a lesser extent, estrogen) rises and then falls if pregnancy does not occur. When progesterone and estrogen drop, menstruation begins again.
Mental Health Impact:
As Dr. Louise Newson emphasizes, Perimenopause doesn’t just bring hot flashes. It can bring depression, anxiety, brain fog, panic attacks, and exhaustion so deep that you feel unrecognizable to yourself. These are not character flaws — they are chemical changes in the brain.
The monthly luteal phase shift in hormones during the menstrual cycle contributes to typical premenstrual symptoms like mood changes, irritability, anxiety, and depression.
My Story:
In my late 30s, depression returned — but this time, it was different. Heavier. Thicker. This wasn’t the trauma-driven depression I had met in my Mother years; this was my body in the hormonal storm of perimenopause. I knew it was hormonal because it always worsened during my premenstrual (luteal) phase and bleeding phase. At that stage, it was still somewhat manageable because during the other two phases — follicular and ovulation — I felt better.
By the time I hit 40, the symptoms were relentless and unmanageable: depression, anxiety, mood swings, anger and crying spells that could come at any time without warning (no matter what phase of my cycle I was in), low libido, sleepless nights, burning-hot feet, afternoon crashes, brain fog, and an icy-hot temperature dance that seemed to own half my month — among so many other symptoms, like dry eyes.
The truth is, perimenopause had actually started in my late 30s, and my body was already giving me the signs. But I didn’t recognize them, because I wasn’t educated about it — and because, for far too long, this has been a taboo subject. Even among women, we rarely share this information openly. I didn’t understand what was happening to me until it became unmanageable. That’s when I knew, deep inside, that I not only needed to get help immediately, but also needed to educate myself so I could advocate for my own health — and eventually, for the health of other women walking this same path.
How I Found My Way Through:
Cyclical living — along with Bio-Identical Hormone Replacement Therapy (BHRT) — became the bridge that restored my hormonal balance, lifted the heaviness, and eased my symptoms. With this foundation, I was able to fine-tune my lifestyle: nourishing my body with supportive foods, building strength through movement, deepening self-care, regulating my nervous system, and tending to my gut health.
Even though BHRT eased my physical symptoms, its greatest gift is one we rarely talk about — it gave me my mental health back. Before treatment, depression was a constant fog, anxiety clamped around my chest, and mood swings hijacked my days. Balancing my hormones lifted the heaviness, quieted the anxiety, and freed me from the emotional whiplash I thought I’d have to live with forever. The clarity, emotional stability, and grounded sense of self I thought were gone were never truly lost — they were waiting for my body’s chemistry to come back into harmony.
Now, I wake up with a steadiness I can trust. My mind is clear, my heart is lighter, and my emotions flow instead of overwhelm. It’s not just symptom relief — it’s a return to myself.
Getting here wasn’t easy. To access BHRT and truly understand this season of womanhood, I immersed myself in learning — devouring books like Estrogen Matters, The New Menopause, and The Menopause Brain, completing an online perimenopause course, and working with health coach Claudia Petrilli so I could advocate for my own well-being. Even with knowledge and a deep connection to my body, I was dismissed by top doctors in my country who lacked education about this natural stage of life. It took eight long months to find a doctor who truly listened, believed me, and guided me through this transition. For that, I’m forever grateful to Dr. Heileen Torres Colberg, MD, DABFM, FAAFP, who practices in Puerto Rico and in several U.S. states.
Doing all of this has given me the grounding to navigate the wild terrain of perimenopause with grace, self-trust, and power. I don’t feel like a “new” version of myself — I feel like the most authentic version of me, stripped of illusions and free from the old stories that no longer define me.
Spiritual Gift:
Life Season (Perimenopause): The gift of radical authenticity. This is the season of awakening — when what no longer fits is stripped away, and the masks you’ve worn begin to fall. Your intuition becomes sharper, your senses deeper, and the truth impossible to ignore. You stop seeking approval and start living unapologetically by your own rhythm. The Wild Woman teaches that freedom comes from walking away from what is false and standing firmly in your own knowing.
Luteal Phase (Pre-Menstrual Cycle): The gift of inner truth and preparation. As progesterone rises and then begins to fall, your energy naturally turns inward. This is your body’s cue to slow down, protect your energy, and clear what’s unfinished. It’s a powerful time for self-reflection, boundary-setting, and emotional honesty — to feel without judgment and to honor every part of yourself, even the shadowy places. Spiritually, this phase invites you to prepare for your inner winter (Menstruation), wrap up loose ends, and do the deep inner work that makes space for renewal.
Menopause: The Crone
Archetype: The Crone — wisdom keeper, truth-teller, guide.
Hormonal Landscape:
Menopause means low estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone. The adrenals and the brain take over small hormone production. Remember: if you don’t have ovaries, you are not making any reproductive hormones except for the small amount produced in the adrenals and the brain, which means your levels will be even lower than those of women who still have their ovaries.
During menstruation, estrogen and progesterone levels are usually at their lowest. This causes the top layers of the lining to break down and leave the body, also known as your bleeding phase.
Physical decline due to low hormones:
When the hormones estradiol (a type of estrogen), progesterone, and testosterone are no longer at optimal levels, they can no longer support the thousands of cellular actions that help maintain the function of body systems and organs. In particular, they play a vital role in bone health, brain function, circulation, urinary health, genital tissue, and the nervous system. This is why using Bio-Identical Hormone Replacement Therapy (BHRT) can support not only our mental health but also our physical health for the next 40–50 years — however long we have left to live.
Note on early or induced menopause:
Menopause can occur earlier if you undergo certain medical treatments, such as the removal of your ovaries (oophorectomy), breast cancer treatment, chemotherapy, or radiotherapy. If you have a hysterectomy (removal of your womb), your ovaries are more likely to stop working earlier than they would naturally, which can trigger menopausal symptoms sooner.
Mental Health Impact:
Without support, low hormones can increase the risk for depression, anxiety, and cognitive decline. With support — whether through BHRT, lifestyle, or both — this can be one of the most grounded and clear-headed times of life.
Hormonal fluctuations during menstruation, particularly low estrogen and progesterone, can significantly impact mental health, potentially leading to mood swings, irritability, increased anxiety, and depression, particularly in individuals with PMS, PMDD, and going through perimenopause .
My Story:
Looking back, I can see how every season of womanhood is an initiation, preparing us for the next. When my own time comes to step fully into the Crone years, I know I will stand grounded — rooted in the wisdom of my lived experiences, unwavering in my boundaries, and deeply attuned to my body’s truth.
Menopause will not be the end of my cyclical nature — it will be its evolution. Without a monthly bleed to guide me, I will follow the subtler cycles of energy, intuition, creativity, and rest. The principles of cyclical living will remain my compass, aligned with the rhythms of the seasons, the moon, and my own inner tides.
My initiations have not only shaped me, but have also ignited something in the women around me — sisters, friends, clients — who have recognized themselves in my journey and awakened to their own inner wisdom. Even my mother, now in her Crone years, has found a deeper understanding of her archetype, learning to nurture it so she can thrive rather than merely survive.
For far too long, women have been told to endure perimenopause and menopause in silence. But we are in a new era — one of radical self-honoring, truth-telling, and coming home to ourselves. Perimenopause may be a season of hormonal chaos that can stretch over a decade, and menopause is not just the day after your final bleed — it is the rest of your life. It deserves to be lived with vitality, wisdom, and joy.
I choose to walk this path not only for myself, but in honor of the women who came before me — those who were not given the chance to thrive in their Wild Woman and Crone years.
Spiritual Gift:
Life Season (Menopause): The gift of wisdom and integration. This is the season when life’s lessons weave together into deep, embodied knowing. The Crone is not in a hurry — she has seen cycles come and go, and she trusts the rhythm of beginnings and endings. Her power is quiet yet undeniable, rooted in discernment, vision, and guidance. Spiritually, she invites you to share your wisdom generously, to live with intention, and to lead not from urgency, but from truth and experience.
Menstruation Phase: The gift of rest and renewal. As hormone levels reach their lowest, your body calls you inward. This is your winter — a sacred pause to reflect, release, and reset. Bleeding is not just a physical cleanse; it’s an emotional and energetic clearing that makes space for what’s next. Spiritually, the Crone phase in your cycle is an invitation to honor stillness, listen to your inner guidance, and let go of what is no longer aligned. In this surrender, your deepest clarity can rise.
Why This Matters for All of Us
Understanding the seasons of womanhood isn’t just about tracking cycles — it’s about rewriting the story of women’s mental health, reclaiming body literacy, breaking the silence around hormonal realities, and creating a framework for living, working, and relating in harmony with our natural rhythms.
Too often, women are left to navigate depression, anxiety, burnout, and emotional overwhelm without realizing that these struggles are deeply connected to the hormonal tides moving through their bodies.
When we leave this truth out of mental health conversations, women are misdiagnosed, overmedicated, or told to simply “cope better” — when what they really need is support that honors their cyclical nature.
For women, this knowledge is liberation. It’s the difference between blaming yourself for being “too sensitive” or “too tired” and instead recognizing that your energy, mood, and capacity are naturally designed to rise and fall. It’s learning how to work with those rhythms instead of pushing against them.
For men, this awareness is an invitation to meet the women in their lives with empathy and respect — to see them not as unpredictable, but as attuned to a different, profoundly intelligent biological rhythm.
And for all of us, it’s a call to create a culture — in our relationships, workplaces, and healthcare systems — that honors the reality of women’s cyclical nature in every aspect of life: physical, mental, and spiritual.
Because when women are supported in every season, we don’t just survive — we thrive. And when women thrive, everyone around them benefits.
I have met depression twice. The first time, it cracked me open, forcing me to face the wounds of my past and meet my inner child. The second time, it revealed with piercing clarity that women’s hormones and mental health are inseparable threads in the same tapestry — what happens in our bodies echoes through our minds, and what happens in our minds shapes our bodies in return. That realization became my turning point. I stopped seeing my struggles as flaws and started seeing them as messages — my body’s way of asking me to listen, to honor my cycles, and to reclaim my power.
Embracing each season of womanhood — Virgin, Mother, Wild Woman, Crone — transforms them from stages we endure into sacred thresholds we walk with intention. Each one is a gateway into deeper truth, greater power, and a life more fully lived.
If this speaks to you, I invite you to join me inside the Cyclical Living Masterclass. This is your compass for mapping your own cycles, understanding your unique hormonal rhythms, and aligning your life with your natural flow — so you can move through every season of womanhood with more ease, clarity, and power.
Reconnect to Your
BODY & INNER KNOWING
LEARN TO MASTER THE ART OF CYCLICAL LIVING
Understanding your womb and
cycle is the key to reclaiming your power.
