[Podcast] Inner Seasons, Inner Power – How Being a Woman Makes You Magical

Usha Anandi. 15 | May | 2025

Have you ever wondered why you can look into the mirror some days and just want to kiss your reflection… But other days have you curled up in the fetal position at the edge of your mattress, distraught and feeling like your life is over?

Yeah… It’s not just you. 50% of the population (aka everyone with a menstrual cycle) feels this way too.

And while these constant trials and tribulations can often feel like a curse, that perpetual sense of confusion when your body’s pendulum swings back and forth isn’t actually a bad thing.

You might be looking at your screen now thinking, “Usha, you’re full of crap.”. 12 years ago, before I first started exploring womb work and the inner seasons, I would’ve agreed with you.

But what if I told you that those highs and lows you feel every month are actually sacred? I promise you that your cycle isn’t a hormonal rollercoaster of cruel and unusual punishment – it’s a spiritual initiation, and a constant call to ceremony.

If that lands somewhere deep in your bones, I talk about all of this (and so much more) in one of my most heartfelt interviews to date. 🎧 Click the button below to listen to the full podcast episode on The Menstruality Podcast.

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For most of my life, I was taught that my body was the problem. I grew up Irish Catholic, where women were only appropriate if they fit perfectly into their small, quiet, easily digestible boxes. The world around me said that the Earth was something to dominate, and that bleeding was a burden.

But even as a little girl, I had this burning feeling that this was all a load of BS.

There was a fire in me, a knowing. When I got my first period at 14, the little witch hidden within me expected ceremony and celebration. I was finally A REAL WOMAN!

Instead, I got a shrug. “Welcome to the club,” my mom said, chucking a pack of pads at me.

And just like that, everything collapsed. My joy melted into shame.

That sacred moment of Becoming was met with dismissal. And I, like so many women, inherited the shame of my motherline. But our bodies never forget the truth. Even when we try to push it down, or power through while we’re stuck in systems that tell us to work, hustle, and bleed in dead silence.

When we stop to listen – really listen – we remember that we are not meant to be the same every day. We are cyclical, spiraling through the seasons into a deeper well of wisdom & understanding every single day, month, and year of our lives.

Each month, we move through four inner archetypes – Inner Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter – with each inner season corresponding to a phase of our menstrual cycle. Each phase carries its own medicine.

Inner Spring (the follicular phase) is wonder, innocence, and fresh possibility. It’s the frolic and flirt of maiden energy.

Inner Summer (the ovulation phase) is magnetic, generous, social. We bloom, we tend, and we mend.

Inner Autumn (the premenstrual or luteal phase) is truth-telling. She’s the witch, the wild woman who sees clearly and won’t take any shit.

Inner Winter (the menstrual phase) is stillness. It’s the descent, the void, the sacred death and rebirth. It’s when the veil thins and everything is finally as it should be.

This sacred mystery is known. Still, we’ve been taught to be like men, to operate on a 24-hour cycle like the sun. But women are lunar beings. We operate on the month-long rhythm of the moon 🌙

And when we live in alignment with our bodies, instead of against them – when we remember that we are nature, not machines – our cycles become more balanced, our health improves, and we can actually achieve our fullest potential with ease.

Unlike the Hero’s Journey, where man ventures out to conquer and claim, the Heroine turns inward. She discovers that the treasure was not somewhere out in the world… but inside her all along – buried beneath shame, silence, and conditioning. That treasure? It’s your womb. Your voice. Your rhythm. Your power to transform energy into form.

I learned this not because I wanted to teach it, but as the initiations of womanhood – my body, my bleed, my motherhood – kept bringing me to my knees. And finally, from that place of surrender, I began to remember who I was.

Even now, after all these years, when I bleed, it all makes sense again. The veil lifts, and I return to myself at the end of each cycle.

And in the moments when I forget?

It’s the women around me who sing the song of remembrance back to me.

This podcast is for every woman who is ready to understand the 4 distinct personas that live within her and begin to live in true alignment with both her light and shadow.

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