My son’s nursery is about to shut for six weeks. He’s pretty knackered and it feels like we could do with some solid connection time together, so I am looking forward to it. But as someone who has my own business and who has a couple of projects going on in the background at the moment, it’s not great timing, but these things never are.

Are you in a similar boat?

I’m trying to switch my mindset from feeling like I’m being held back to seeing it as an opportunity. We only get so many summer breaks with our kids and I want to make the most of it. And a big part of that is considering what’s going on with my cycle so I’m going to give you my favourite tips for using your cycle to make the most of the summer break.

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But the first thing I want to say, the biggest thing really, is that I’m dropping my expectations what I’m going to be able to get done. I have a tendency to want to be all things to everyone, particularly to myself, so I’m reducing my expectation of myself for the next six weeks. And I have to say, that feels like a relief but as a business owner, it’s also challenging. 

The next biggest thing is considering what I need to prioritise. My priority, as I sneakily mentioned on my insta stories over the weekend, is that I’m going to be launching a membership site at the end of September so everything has to revolve around that and I’m putting pretty much everything else off until October. 

Okay, let’s get on to using your cycle over the Summer break.

Admittedly, it really helps that I know my cycle inside out, but even if you’re completely new to working with your cycle, this is still going to be a helpful exercise for you to do. 

1. Look at the start date of your last period.

2. Estimate when your next period will start.

3. Get an idea of where your seasons lie (roughly speaking, Winter is when you’re on your period, Spring starts when your period ends, Summer starts a couple of days before ovulation, and Autumn starts a week before your period is due).

4. Plan adventures and day trips for when you’re most energetic and social (for me this is Spring and Summer).

5. Arrange help for the points in your cycle where you struggle or just want time alone (I have a deep desire for this on day 1, 6, 20, 21 and 26).

6. For the days when you can’t get help but know you could be having a hard time, get whatever else you can in place to make things easier – make a note to go food shopping before reaching that point in your cycle, ease up on drinking alcohol, don’t skip meals and for goodness sake DO NOT HAVE MORE KIDS IN YOUR HOUSEHOLD ON THOSE DAYS.

How I’m preparing for the Summer break.

I’m about to ovulate which means I’m possibly going to be in my Summer come Thursday when my son is off, but possibly heading into my Autumn. I have to say, it’s not a great time for me to be adjusting into the Summer break so I’m really thinking about the next couple of days and easing into it now so that by the time he’s off, I’m already in that zone. It’s a bit like when you go away on holiday and the first 24 – 48 hours you’re landing energetically and getting used to it. 

When I get into my Autumn, I find parenting a lot harder. It can be really challenging for me. I can be more short-tempered, less inclined to want to answer all his ‘why?’ questions, and I just want to retreat on my own. So I’m going to be speaking to my boyfriend about getting some time alone scheduled in and also prioritising spending time outside because I find that makes a massive difference in my Autumn and also makes a difference to my son’s mood and temperament as well. So that’s what my focus will be for the first week.

Looking at my calendar, I’m really relieved to see that my period is likely to start on a day when I actually have some childcare scheduled in. Throughout August I’ll have childcare for three hours,  two mornings a week and that’s hopefully going to be enough for me to keep up to date with my work projects. But when I’m in my Winter and I’m going to be bleeding, I am not going to be working. Those two days are absolutely going to be about resting.

Then when I get into the Spring and Summer seasons of my cycle, that’s when I’m going to be booking things in, going out, going to visit people – things that are social and fun for us. We’re really lucky to live very close to the beach so that’s going to be helpful, but I have to say sometimes that hot weather can agitate me a bit. So I’m also thinking about my diet and including cooling drinks and foods to help counteract the heat.

Creating opportunities.

I really love what I do, so I need to ensure that I have time to enjoy my work and what I love the most is connecting with you lovely lot.

I did an ask me anything on my insta stories over the weekend and received hundreds and hundreds of questions. I managed to answer 50 of them and it got me thinking about doing some one-off calls with you…

I don’t usually make these announcements publicly because I keep news like this just for people who are on my mailing list, but I’m going to create some blocks of time to do one-off coaching calls. They’ll be an hour-long and will be for you to delve deep into understanding and improving your experience of the seasons of your cycle.

This is something that I haven’t offered before and I’m feeling really excited. Usually, the work I do as much longer-term, but I know how powerful and transformative those one hour chats can be.

There’s going to be a small number of coaching calls available and I’ll be offering them to the people on my mailing list so you do need to be on my mailing list to get the invite. See you in your inbox 😉

P.S. There’s going to be some exciting things happening when I reach 20k followers on Instagram, so keep your eyes peeled!