the feminine cycles of seven
A while back I came across Dr. Christiane Northrup’s book, “Mother Daughter Wisdom.'“ This was the first time I’d had this idea set in front of me. As she explains it, us gals, we move through metaphorical “rooms in our house” throughout the span of our life. Spending about 7 years in each room, we move from the “basement” (age 0-7) into each “room” and “level” of our “home.”
We have a room for each phase from 7 to 13, 14 to 20, 21 to 27, and so on. But of course, room transitions don’t always happen exactly this way; because as life will do, we sometimes get ejected from a room too early, or something causes us to linger in a room (aka phase) for longer.
Ideally in our “room,” we learn every square inch of that space — we meet the lessons meant for us in that particular seven year span.
And then once we’ve done this, something shifts.
We’re ready to open our new door and be introduced to our new opportunities.
Traditional Chinese Medicine has a very similar view, teaching that women’s lives truly are divided into seven year stages. And alternately, men’s lives follow a pattern of 8 year cycles. This framework maps physiological and emotional developmental landmarks that correlate with the Five Elements and the seasons.
For example:
At age 7, a girl’s kidney energy becomes prosperous, her milk teeth are replaced, and her hair grows long.
Age 14 is the ideal timing for menarche (first menstrual bleed), as her liver blood is now in full strength.
Physical vitality is said to peak between ages 21 and 28, and this is considered the golden time span in her life for pregnancy.
35 is the marked time that we’re encouraged to be mindful of hydration and moisturizing as our kidney energy wanes.
At 42, a woman’s true nature surfaces and her life choices begin to show in her face in ways it didn’t before.
49 is characterized by depth, wisdom, surrender, and the beginning of the transition into menopause, the end of fertility as our blood energy now travels upward to our heart for us to gain insight from instead of outward from our womb to create in the world.
At 56 and beyond, the cyclical seasons come back around and we’re considered in our “Second Spring” of life. This is the opportunity for us to invest in our own cultivation instead of focusing primarily on the needs of others.
As I’ve sat with this concept for a few years, I’ve considered my life from the lens of these cycles of 7, as well as the lives of women around me. The perspective it’s given me has been incredibly encouraging and validating.
So in case this is new to any of you, here’s a story for ya.
In my 28th year, I felt I had been completely cracked open. I mean… aggressively, unexpectedly, and (unbeknownst to me at the time) so beautifully. It felt like my whole heart space had been shattered, was then left naked to the world around me, and so incredibly vulnerable. Every single thing felt like it hurt. Something fierce. My eyes flooded with tears daily — like a dam, with water droplets trickling through it’s fractures, ready to release the weight of the river at any moment. Whether in conversations with others, as a thought landed on my mind as I worked silently in the garden, as I lay at night trying to fall asleep, no matter. It was an ever-present feeling of deeply seeking and desiring protection.
I remember wondering to myself as I listened to the people around me as they talked with ease, “Can’t you see how fragile I am? Can’t you see how I hurt?” But it seemed… invisible to all outside myself.
Unnoticed.
Which of course makes it difficult for others to show their love and care for us, when they’re not able to recognize or relate if we aren’t able to articulate what we’re feeling. But the words wouldn’t come, no matter how hard I willed and wished for them to… There wasn’t a way to share what, how, or why.
And let me clarify, I say this all not from a place of “my people didn’t show up for me,” but ratherI was called, yet again, to learn to show up for myself in a deeper way than I previously knew how to.
It was an awakening in a very tangible way to the things that needed change — a bright spotlight on the fractures in my own self, relationships with people I love, faults in our environment, and my alignment to my own life mission.
It was the well intentioned kick in the ass that has brought me here. Literally here, as in on this page that I’ve created to share what feels most aligned to my life assignment right now, and in my real face-to-face life. I walk in a much different way, since I met myself in the fire of refinement that cleared out those parts of me that were less than pure love and truth.
It was intense.
But also upon stepping into my new “room” and having been exploring this chapter of my life for two years now, I’ve found in myself this insatiable hunger and desire to LEARN. As though I am here, in this new place, with so much yet to see and I wanna get my hands on all of it. As though I’m a crisp, fresh page of watercolor cardstock in a world full of paints just waiting for me to come and soak them in and create something magical. I literally have a growing list of things I want to study and have gotten so many used books from Amazon that I’ve had to build more book shelves to hold them all. I see no end to this in the near future. The more I learn, the more I have yet to learn.
I remember too a very similar hunger for knowledge and information when I turned 21. Interesting, yeah? Literally that buzzy feeling of walking into a classroom, being so eager to drink in the flowing opportunities. So receptive and open, there’s just not enough time in the day to accomplish it all fast enough.
And then homeschooling the kids.. Ha. I’m feeling like, “Actually you guys, I have my own things I want to study, so if you could do some of your independent practice…” I realize that’s such a nerd thing to say, but it’s the truth.
I am giddy about the opportunities of life in ways I haven’t been for years.
In all of this experience, I also felt like never before a need for real relationship with women. This is a whole separate journal entry, but in short — I now realize how guarded and rejected I had felt towards other women, for as long as I can remember. At 28, this shifted in big ways. And now at 30, my heart is continually expanding in relationship with my close gals and all women I get the opportunity to visit with.I’ve found a felt sense of safeness in vulnerability that was lacking so intensely before.
I want real, honest companionship with fellow feminine beings that desire to hold their entire self as sacred — their incredible strength, their tenderness, their intuition, the parts of them that needing caring for, the parts of them that are the caregiver. All of it.
Such a shift from my previous mindset.
And as I’ve pondered this intensity for myself (both the heavy and the giddy), and considered those times in my life where there was a similar intensity, maybe with various flavors or lessons learned, I’ve been in awe that truly they lingered around those transitional cycles of 7. The stories I could tell of my 14th year and my 21st year, and the times I either jumped out or was forced out of a room too early… The things that maybe would have made more sense for me then, had I known about this concept. The things I wished so fiercely I could have “fast forwarded”, though there was so much yet to be seen and done in that phase.
And then as I sat with this, I began to notice this pattern of 7s (note, pattern not “rule”) in the women around me.
I’ve witnessed women finding themselves in a complete life shift at age 28. At 33, feeling so much like something was about to shift soon as they rounded out their “room” before age 35 — in conversation noting that they could feel in their body this impending change that they couldn’t quite name or pinpoint. I’ve seen women jump careers “out of the blue” at age 42. Upon entering a new room, getting divorced. I’ve witnessed women at 49 feel such a similar shattering as to what I described for myself at 28 — like a self awakening that wasn’t asked for necessarily, but needed to happen.
I’ve heard women say things like, “It’s like she’s got the mentality of a catty teenage girl, but she’s literally a grandma.” And then with further exploration, coming to find out that something had happened to that woman in her teenage years that likely hadn’t had the opportunity to be processed. “Locking” her in that “room” (or at least parts of her), then unable to move into her next phases.
There are probably so many variations to how this can actually play out in women’s lives, but I find it to be a really helpful visual and explanation for why and how things happen that nothing else (that I’ve found thus far) really has the language for.
Getting hung up in one era of life, unable to embody the next.
Skipping rooms in order to meet the needs of now. “Maturing fast” for the sake of adapting to big life changes, maybe at a young age, and then maybe even needing to backtrack at some point to gather those pieces that had to wait.
Or even gracefully and fluidly embracing our “new room” as we send a kiss and a smile to our previous one, parting ways for now,
and knowing we can revisit the wisdom we gained from that time and space anytime it’s needed.
I’ve come to really love this concept.
I feel it offers a different perspective, some grace you might say, for those times in life when society is trying to urge or shame us that “we should be (fill in the blank) by now,” but we know inside that we are not ready for it.
The guilt, embarrassment, frustration, etc we can save ourselves from by just considering this and honoring our timing.
Life takes the time it takes.
And then in the context of the children.
Why are we pushing them to learn to read by age 5, if individually they are not ready for it? Do they gain anything by starting early, struggling and despising it, when they may be eager and excited to explore all that reading offers at a later age? Would age 7 for girls make more sense, and age 8 for boys be a more rhythmic and opportune time for them to use their “fresh room” energy to explore this new skill? What becomes of their inner voice (in either scenario — forcing for the sake of “being on time”, or allowing for the desire to learn and obtain skills to guide them), and how does that follow them into adulthood?
What a thing it is to mother children with this little pearl tucked into your pocket, witnessing when they’re shifting and giving them what they’re needing vs feeling overrun by change or an overriding feeling of “being behind.”
And how bizarre for us to suddenly become “adults” at age 18 — a multiple of neither 7 or 8, when both girls and boys are still in the middle of their room, nowhere in the vicinity of their next door.
Meaning that we may be pushing the birdie from the nest too soon, or holding them in too long.
When you pause to consider your own life, do the cycles of 7 line up with the shifts you’ve experienced?
Were there any rooms you felt catapulted from? Or maybe locked in?
How would things shift for us collectively if we were to embrace this way of thinking, anticipating the upcoming shifts and giving ourselves the time to adjust instead of being blindsided?
Dr. Lia Andrew’s, in her book “7 Times A Woman,” offers intentional practices for each cycle, helping us to age well, with strength and vitality.
We have within our reach ancient wisdom from the dawn of time, out-dating any modern medical practice, that helps us live in rhythm with our inner seasons, cycles, and empowers us with the lifestyle practices that prevent the hardships that have become “normal ailments of aging.”
How incredible.
If this has you feeling a little awe struck, or helped you to connect some dots in your own story, or your children’s stories and you’d like to banter about it — I’d love to hear from you.
If someone came to mind, share this with them.
As we remember these little wisdoms, we free ourselves more and more from the constraints that bind us from embodying our true self. And in such, we meet less resistance in the mission that is our life purpose.
May this be for you, that what you’re called to comes with ease and assuredness that you’re heading in the right direction.
And that you may do so confidently.
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