I’m 36… and Just Now Learning How My Hormones Work
The Cycle Education We Should’ve Gotten at 16 (And My First 60 Days with the Fertility Awareness Method)
ICYMI: Earlier this month, I published part 1 of what will be a semi-recurring series about my experiences with tuning back into my body, intuition, and inner rhythm.
After 15 years on birth control, I’m finally learning how my hormones, energy, and menstrual cycle actually work. And I’m starting to play around with designing my life around a 28ish day rhythm instead of a 24 hour grind.
I spent most of my teens and twenties on the old school pill, then came off of it to have two babies. We aren’t sure about a third yet, so now I’m here wondering: okay… what birth control does a 36-year-old use?
But here’s the wild part.
For all those years, no one ever really explained what my cycle was doing.
Not in middle school. Not when I got my first period. Not through two pregnancies, postpartum, or at any OB-GYN appointment ever.
So here I am, in my mid-thirties, learning about cervical mucus, the luteal phase, and something called basal body temperature, and it feels like someone finally handed me the operating manual for a machine I’ve been driving blind for decades.
I wouldn’t know any of this without Whitney Price, a neighbor and guide who teaches something called the Fertility Awareness Method. She’s been helping me make sense of my body for the first time in my life.
I keep thinking: How did no one tell us this?
How many smart, capable women are out here white-knuckling their days, thinking they’re “inconsistent” or “too emotional” or “not disciplined enough,” when the truth is:
The modern workday, the 9 to 5, the back-to-back meetings, the expectation of the same output every day was designed around men’s hormonal cycles. Not women’s.
Men reset every 24 hours.
Women reset every 28-ish days.
And suddenly my resistance to back-to-back meetings, my Sunday scaries, and my rage against hustle culture all make a lot more sense.
In Today’s Issue
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🌙 Men Are the Sun. Women Are the Moon.
Let me break it down the way Whitney did, because once you hear this, you can’t un-hear it.
Men’s hormones run on a daily loop. They are wired for consistency.
Testosterone peaks in the morning, gradually declining throughout the day, and are lowest in the evening.
Every single day.
That is why your male partner can have a terrible day on Tuesday and wake up Wednesday feeling like a golden retriever puppy again. He resets with the sunrise.
Women? Oh, honey. That would be nice, wouldn’t it?
We move through a roughly 28 day rhythm (21-35 days is considered the normal range for the menstrual cycle).
Every week our hormones shift. Our bodies move through four very different phases:
Menstruation (Inner Winter) Energy low, intuition high. Your body wants rest, warmth, quiet. Cancel a few plans, eat soup, take the nap. This is a built-in time to review, process, and let go.
Follicular (Inner Spring) Energy starts coming back. Ideas pop. Motivation rises. You feel more social and optimistic. This is a great time to start new projects, brainstorm, and plan. Feel cute again.
Ovulation (Inner Summer) Peak confidence, peak communication, peak libido. You feel magnetic, clear, charismatic. Say yes to speaking, interviews, first dates, parties. Just don’t schedule plans for 12 days later based on this mood, because future-you might not agree.
Luteal (Inner Fall) Truth-telling mode. Lower patience. Higher cravings. You want cozy clothes, comfort food, fewer people. This is “organize the pantry, rage-clean the house, cry in the bathroom, burn your to do list” season. You are just shifting inward.
It’s not woo. It’s biology. We just never learned it.
Before working with Whitney, I did not have language for any of this. I just thought I was being dramatic some weeks and unstoppable other weeks.
But once you see the pattern, you cannot unsee it.
And yet the messages we hear sound like:
“Be consistent.” and “Show up the same every day.”
“Don’t be so emotional.” and “You’re fine.”
“Push through it.” and “Everyone’s tired.”
Everyone is not tired. Women are tired.
Women who are trying to live by a rhythm that was never designed for them are exhausted.
📓 My Real-Time Experiment
When Whitney explained this to me, I had a full-body YES reaction.
It suddenly made sense why I kept bumping up against my old corporate life.
The back-to-back Zooms. The endless Slack messages. The expectation to show up as the same polished version of myself every weekday, year round.
It was the exact opposite of how my body actually works.
No wonder I kept burning out. No wonder Sunday scaries were VERY real.
Years ago I hired a work-life coach, Darrah Brustein, who casually mentioned she builds her schedule around her rhythms—slow mornings, reading first, easing into work. I remember feeling jealous and thinking… ‘Wait. You can just do that?’
That was breadcrumb number one.
Breadcrumb number two came when we moved to Serenbe and I suddenly found myself surrounded by people living and working differently. Artists, healers, founders, parents, creators, all designing lives that did not look like a traditional climb-the-ladder script.
Breadcrumb number three has been this past season, learning that my hormones are not random at all. That they are rhythmic, intelligent, and trying to talk to me.
So for the last two months I have been tracking. Nothing dramatic. Just paying attention.
Here is what that looks like right now:
I take my temperature every morning before I get out of bed with a special sensitive thermometer. And I take note anything else I notice. Cervical mucus, mood, energy, cervix position, whether I had sex or a glass of wine or traveled. Logging it all in an app called Read Your Body.
Then, every few weeks, I meet with Whitney and she helps me understand what I am seeing.
Next, I am trying something new:
Working with my cycle instead of against it.
I am labeling weeks in my calendar as menstruation, follicular, ovulation, and luteal, and I am experimenting with matching my plans to my phase.
IE: More hibernating and low expectations during my period. More speaking and outward work during ovulation. More admin and finishing tasks when I’m luteal. More brainstorming in follicular.
I’ve already warned a few people: “I can’t, I’ll be luteal.”
🩸What Whitney Is Teaching Me
Meet Whitney Price, our neighbor (i’m in denial that she is moving) and a certified fertility awareness and reproductive health educator who teaches something called the Fertility Awareness Method.
Not the “predictive app that guesses a fertile window from a cartoon calendar” thing. The real thing. The kind where you actually learn what your body is doing, then make decisions from there.
I am very much a beginner, but here are a few things that shocked me:
1. Cervical mucus has types. Actual categories.
Clear, stretchy, sticky, watery… each one tells you where you are in your cycle.
I honestly thought it was just “wet” or “dry.”
2. Your cervix literally moves.
Higher, lower, softer, firmer, tilted. And you can feel the little slit opening where your babies came out! Yes, me and my cervix have gotten very familiar over the last two months. Hello, new friend.
3. Your temperature quietly tells you when ovulation already happened.
I had never heard the phrase “basal body temperature” in my life. So here is the jist:
Your basal body temperature is your lowest temperature of the day, the “just woke up, have not moved yet” temp.
You take it first thing in the morning with a sensitive thermometer.
After you ovulate, your temperature bumps up just a bit and stays higher for the rest of that cycle.
When it has stayed high for three days after your most fertile mucus day, that is your body saying, “Yes, ovulation already happened.”
That is it. Not a prediction. Not a fortune teller. Just a marker of where you are in the cycle.
4. Your fertile window is about six days.
Not one magical day. Not whatever your app picked. Six real, biological days. (I learned while trying to conceive, but in case you didn’t)
All of this made me realize: My body has never been random. It is rhythmic. Intelligent. Patterned. I just didn’t know the language.
Whitney does. She lives this stuff. She teaches cycle tracking in a way that feels both intuitive and deeply scientific.
And after going through this, I would never recommend a totally DIY approach. This stuff is nuanced, and the stakes can be high.
Whitney specifically teaches the Symptothermal Method, which is one of the most researched and effective approaches to natural birth control, up to 98–99% effective when practiced correctly. It’s real science, not vibes. And she’s used it herself for 13 years.
Even with her walking me through it, my personal plan right now is as conservative as it gets without adding hormones back into my body: condoms + skipping sex during my ovulation week.
(This feels aligned for where I am in life — married, probably done having kids, but also not devastated if a surprise third slipped through. If I were younger, single, or firmly in a “no babies ever” season, I might be layering protection differently but this is where I am at.)
Whitney offers one on one consults, group classes, and in person puberty education for girls, plus online support for adults. She also offers free intro calls if you are just dipping a toe in.
You can find her at whitneymileyprice.com and on Instagram at @whitneymileyprice.
ANNNND just for funzies. Here are two little Instagram videos for a new series Im playing around with: Snooping Around My Neighbor’s Houses: Whitney’s Home (which happens to be for sale/rent), Whitney’s Toiletry Drawer (where she shares some of her favorite menstrual supplies and cycle tracking products)
👀 A Little Note For The Men Reading This
Yes, you. The roughly 30 percent of you hanging out here.
If you have ever thought: “Why is she so sensitive this week?”, “Why does she suddenly want to be alone?” or “Why does she seem like two different people some months?”
This is why.
It does not excuse anyone being an asshole. (And sorry Greg - I was a pretty big asshole a couple times this last week during my luteal phase!)
But it does give you a superpower: understanding her rhythm.
The more you track her cycle with her (yes, really), the less personal anything feels. You stop colliding. You start coexisting. You become an actual team.
And please, from all of us, retire the sentence “Are you on your period?”
Asking “Hey, where are you in your cycle?” or “Is this a luteal week?” lands a lot softer.
You do not have to become an expert. You just have to be willing to pay attention.
📍 For the Locals
👀 In Case You Missed It
Quick hits of neighborhood news + updates, straight from the community.
Becoming a Lion — Book Launch Our neighbor, Liz Mannchen wrote a beautiful book. Buy it here.
New! Dance Class at Train with Amber’s Alice is teaching a cardio dance class on Tuesday’s at 6pm. Fun playlist, all levels welcome. Check it out.
New Owner at Hills & Hamlets Meet Shree Summerlin — she’s officially taken over the bookstore and is already adding her magic touch. Stop in and say hi (and tell her your favorite book).
Community Brickworks Holiday Gift Drive (Now–Dec 5) Sponsor a local child or a parent this year. They’ll send you a wish list + shopping guide. A really simple way to make a big difference. Sign up here.
New Ice Cream Flavors at The General Store Shawn Michelle’s just arrived — Strawberry Cheesecake, Jamaican Rum Raisin, and more. Real ingredients, slow churned.
Need a Holiday Reset? Emily (the new art teacher at Terra) is doing side-gig organizing jobs — garage clean-outs, pantries, kids’ toys, attic, party setup, Christmas décor, all of it. She’s lovely and local. Reach out on FB
Support for Jamaica Vanessa is gathering donations to support her nanny’s hometown after the hurricane. Homes are damaged and essentials are limited. Any amount helps. Donate here.
Tool Shed Project Update the ChattHills.ai crew are getting close to final approval. They’re building a shared tool-borrowing shed for the community. If you want to help with design, electrical, internet, or fundraising, reach out. Text Jeff.
Bear Creek Donations Needed They’re low on newspapers + old bath towels. Easy drop-off at 6300 Cochran Mill Rd.
Letters to the Mayor Mayor Tom Reed is retiring after 14 years. There’s a big mailbox at City Hall where you can drop notes + well-wishes until Dec 4.
$5 After-5pm & Loyalty cards at Halsa Every kid’s meal, every glass of organic wine, and every canned beverage is $5 after 5pm. Early dinner vibes encouraged.
📅 Local Events
The local events worth knowing about this month.
Fast Bananas Trail Race (This Weekend!) If you’re running, grab your packet Friday at Birdhouse Coffee between 12–6pm. Still time to sign up!
Selborne’s hosting Hamlet Day this Sunday — music, sips, shopping, giveaways, and a whole lot of neighborly fun. All the details (including the deals & events)
Pancakes with the Chatt Hills Police is this Sunday at Soul Barn — a sweet, family-friendly morning of connection with our local officers. More info
Adult Art Classes with Morgan B Studio botanical watercolor (11/16), pattern-making with Procreate (11/21), mixed media painting (12/6), and botanical composition (12/20). Small classes, all supplies included. Text Morgan to grab a spot: 404-387-2885.
Turkey Bowl Sign-Up A few football spots left for the 13th Annual Turkey Bowl. Tailgate prizes, four teams, lots of yelling. Nov 30 at 9:30am. All the Details.
The Nutcracker Suite by Art Farm Kid-friendly, one-hour, magical and immersive. Shows run Dec 13–21 and always sell out. Highly recommend sitting on the floor with your littles. (This always sells out). Learn More.
Browse or subscribe to the calendar anytime at lifeatplay.co/events
Add your own events if you’re hosting something worth sharing - submit here.
I don’t know exactly where this experiment will lead.
But I know this: My body has been trying to tell me something for years. I’m finally listening. And I think that’s the whole point.
When you understand your cycle, you stop being surprised by your hormonal outbursts.
If this resonates, just start noticing.
And one day you might wake up and find yourself ready to take a risk, shift gears, or step through a door you didn’t even realize was waiting.
See you on the trails,
xx, Gina
If you enjoyed this, forward it to a friend who is also questioning the hustle.
Feel seen by this? Tap the heart so I know what’s landing. Thank you for being here.
This made me laugh: “That is why your male partner can have a terrible day on Tuesday and wake up Wednesday feeling like a golden retriever puppy again. He resets with the sunrise.” So true. Isn’t it crazy we’re not taught this when we’re young?? Definitely raising my daughters with this awareness. Great post!
Yaaaassssss! Such a great read! And Whitney’s a dream ☺️