Latest / Healing Her Story with Riva Jean-Paul / Moon Phases & Feminine Power: Your Weekly Cycle Sync | Premenstrual Self-Care: How to Work With the Waning Moon & Your Nervous System

Transcript

Moon Phases & Feminine Power: Your Weekly Cycle Sync | Premenstrual Self-Care: How to Work With the Waning Moon & Your Nervous System · Healing Her Story with Riva Jean-Paul

• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to today's episode of the Healing Her Story Podcast.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: If this is your first time here, welcome.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: I trust that you have found this episode in your perfect, right time and way.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: And if you are returning, welcome back.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: I hope that you've been enjoying our mini-series that we've been sharing as we've been moving through cancer season.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Cancer is about care, it's about nurturing, it's about the home.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: And we've been discussing how we can use the learner rhythms as well as the rhythms of our menstrual cycle to inform the way in which we care for ourselves.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because chances are you've experienced this as women.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: What works one day may not work the next day, and how you feel and how you are one day is maybe not how you feel and how you are the next day.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so, how do we really care and nurture ourselves in a way that honors the cyclical rhythm?
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: If you haven't listened to any of the previous episodes, you may want to go back and give those a listen.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: But for today, we're going to be closing out the series with the last phase, and that is the waning moon.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: And we're going to get a little bit more into that.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Before we do, I want to invite you into a minute of silence, uh, a minute of stillness, perhaps.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: And this is how we start each episode, each of these cycle sync episodes.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: And my intention with this pause here is to one, give you a moment to catch your breath.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: Chances are you're a busy woman with lots of obligations and responsibilities, and I think sometimes we underestimate how profound and how effective just a minute of space, of stillness, of pause can really be for our systems.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm also inviting you to sense into where you are in your inner rhythm.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: Because yes, there is a lunar rhythm that is influencing us, there is a seasonal rhythm that is influencing us, and you also have your inner rhythm, which is influencing you.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll invite you to slow down, whatever that looks like for you today, to come into a place of more presence with yourself today, whatever that looks like.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're driving or you've got something going on in the background.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Can you see what it would be like to maybe stop doing something you have going on, or to maybe slow down, or to simply just be more aware of what you're doing as you're doing it?
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: I myself am gonna close my eyes and take this as an opportunity to ground and center before we move into this next part of the episode.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna give you a moment to do that now.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna go ahead and mute my mic, and our one minute will begin now.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: Taking a moment to notice what you may have noticed in that space.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: For me today, I was really enjoying the warmth on my thighs.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: I've got a heating pad here with me today, as I am cycle day one today, and it's an interesting cycle day one.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm in a different city, I'm in a different space.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: So much has shifted and changed over these last several weeks.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: So this is feeling like a different episode today.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm in Denver right now, recording from a hotel room that I've blocked out for myself for the two nights that I've arrived here.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: And what's really lovely about this time and the way everything aligned, although perhaps maybe not the most ideal to have some work lined up for this afternoon, but I was reflecting this morning, which I had a very spacious morning to really enjoy this time of my cycle.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: And as I was enjoying that space, I had this realization that I'm sort of on a big bleed.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, if you haven't heard the term big bleed, this is a term that I learned while I was in cycle coach school.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: And in in theory, uh, we create the most ideal experience that we possibly can for our bleeding time.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this might be a different episode for a different day because I went on an exploration with this for quite some time, and what I discovered was that it was actually quite challenging to align the stars perfectly, if you will, with the big bleed.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: And what I love so beautifully about this sort of big bleed experience that I'm on is that it was planned, but it wasn't planned with the big bleed in mind.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: It sort of just lined up that way.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: And my bleeding time has slowly slowly been changing.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: I was previously bleeding more in the waning moon time, and as of this cycle, I'm finding myself bleeding in the full moon time.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: And if you remember our episode from Jamie a while back about the moon and the menstrual cycle, this is a time for me as I'm bleeding with the full moon to share my gifts, and the experience of my bleed does change uh significantly when I'm bleeding with the full moon.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: So there's been lots of synchronicities, and I felt inspired to follow through with what I had planned today, which was to record this episode.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's gotta be recorded before Monday comes anyway, so here I am.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: And um yeah, as I was saying, I've got this hotel room for a couple nights by myself before I go and meet up with my family.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: I slept in today, I had some um room service delivered to me this morning.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: I had steak and eggs, and I took a bath, and I started reading Her Blood is Gold, and I went on a nice walk around downtown Denver, and I stumbled across the Contemporary Art Museum, and all female artists in there right now, by the way, three of them, and two of the installations specifically spoke to me in such deep and profound ways.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: There was such a deep resonance with the themes, and again, so many synchronicities.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: I can't possibly share them all in this episode because this would be uh an hour-long episode.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I'll do a separate one after I get home.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: But it's it's been a really lovely time, all of that to say.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm excited to be here with you today, and I'm gonna be bringing in some of this energy that I've been cultivating over the last uh day as I've been landing here in Denver.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: This week we are tuning to the energy of the waning moon, and we are coming off of a full moon in Capricorn, and with that full moon, there may have been some things illuminated for you.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps things came into your awareness, patterns, beliefs, relationships, or situations that are maybe feeling out of balance.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: The waning moon is such a wonderful time to begin integrating everything that was stirred up in that illumination.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: We are still in cancer season, and this is actually our final episode in the mini-series, and we've been moving through this theme of self-care, exploring how we can use the lunar cycles and the menstrual cycle to inform the way we care for ourselves.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because, as I mentioned, as you may know, being in a female body means our bodies are constantly changing.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: What works one week may not work the next.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: And instead of getting frustrated with ourselves about that, I believe we can take that in as really good information and we can begin to reorganize and recalibrate from there.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: We are also in a mercury retrograde right now, happening in the sign of cancer.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: And when I think about Mercury retrograde, I always come back to what I call the rule of rees: words that start with re rest, restoration, re-energize, reorganize, recalibrate, reassess, review.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: I find that these re-words apply beautifully to the waning moon as well.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: So that's a little orientation to where we are right now.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of things happening in the world and in the cosmos.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now, something I feel is really important to name here, and something that I always share with my clients when we begin working together, is that the female nervous system is different from the nervous system of the male body.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Its capacity actually changes depending on where we are in the cycle.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: I could almost guarantee you already feel this and already experience this.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: What you may not have had is the language for it.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to offer you some language here.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: Specifically during the pre-menstrual part of our cycle, which mirrors the waning moon, something called our window of presence gets smaller.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: This is the window in which we're able to be present with challenging, painful, or uncomfortable experiences without checking out.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: Our heart rate variability also decreases during this time, which means we have less capacity for stress, for activating experiences, and for stimulation.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to be clear, stimulation isn't always what we label as bad.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes stimulation is simply noise or conversation, screens, social media, lights, all of that is stimulation.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: And on a nervous system level, we genuinely aren't able to tolerate as much of it during this part of the cycle.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: And this is why you may find yourself feeling irritable or pissed off or on the verge of snapping at your husband or your boyfriend and or your partner.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I want you to hear that, hear this.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: That is really good information.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: That is your body telling you that perhaps you are reaching your capacity.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: I personally have come to love the pre-menstrual part of my cycle, and that love has carried over into my relationship for the waning moon as well.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: And little fun fact, I was actually born during a waning moon.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're curious about that, something that you can maybe look at for yourself, which moon phase you were born under, and that can sometimes give a lot of information about certain tendencies or patterns that we may have.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: I believe that so much of the friction that we experience during this time in both the moon cycle and the menstrual cycle comes from trying to resist what is actually happening.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: What is happening is that we are being invited to slow down.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: We're being asked to create space and to do less.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: And when we fight that physiological shift, that is where we create more friction, more dis-ease, and more of what leaves us feeling out of harmony and out of balance.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: The waning moon to me is such a lovely antidote to the busyness and the fullness of our lives.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: You can see it reflected in the light of the moon.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's decreasing.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: And as it is, it's inviting us to make that journey inward, to return to ourselves, and to shift into a more reflective state.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: So, what does self-care actually look like during this time?
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: For me, personally, I schedule a lot less during the waning moon.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: I've been working with a client who is just arriving at this realization herself.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: And she's really beginning to understand the importance of creating space during this time.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: And what I find is that sometimes simply doing less can alleviate so much of the friction we're experiencing when we try to carry on as if we're still in that full moon, Yang, summer, outwardly focused energy.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: I do want to say though, that that downshift, oh my gosh, can be so tricky.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's something that I've had to learn over and over again and am continuing to learn.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: And that there are uh rituals that I've created to help me make that transition.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: And there are also tools that I like to incorporate during this time that make that transition a little bit easier.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: Once I've cleared some things up from my schedule, maybe I don't make as many social plans, maybe I don't see as many clients.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: What I'll do instead is I'll book myself some sort of self-care treatment.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's a massage or an acupuncture puncture session.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh lately, cranial sacral therapy has been something I've really enjoyed.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: And um, yeah, I'm getting so much out of that.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I'll do another episode on that another day.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, sometimes I'll schedule a somatic breathwork session as well.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: That was actually what I just did right before I started this bleed, I had a cranial sacral therapy session one day and a somatic breath work session the next day.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I really do try to schedule those around my waning moon time and also during the waning time of the moon as well, because it really does help me to begin that process of slowing down and looking inward.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: I think so many of us know that feeling of being tired but wired.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know you need to rest, you're exhausted, but when you actually go to rest, you can't.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: And that's often because there's still so much activation and stimulation built up in the system.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: So downregulating through practices like the ones I've named, things that can help us really move into that parasympathetic state, into that rest, digest, and heal mode.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: That is what I have found to be most supportive during this time.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: The priority during the waning moon time is really care for self.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: In the first half of the cycle, we are outwardly focused, putting our energy towards our intentions, our desires, our projects, whatever it is that we're wanting to create or experience.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: And now, when we move into this part of the cycle, we have to reorient it, reorient, and we have to begin giving some of that care and attention back to ourselves.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I touched on this in our care episode.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: As women, we tend to be caretakers, and many of us know how to take care of others, but we don't always know how to take care of ourselves, or we're simply not making it a priority.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I invite you to get really curious about that if it resonates.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: Where does that come from?
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's from what you've witnessed in your home growing up, maybe it's from the overculture and all of the conditioning we received through media.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna guess that's a big portion of it.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: There is a real untangling to do here, and I will not pretend that it's easy.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: It might be simple, but it's not always easy, especially depending on your background and your history, because our childhood and our life experiences really do shape our physiology and our nervous system.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: So for some of us, it's not as easy, and we might have more hurdles that we have to overcome to get there.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, that's also part of the gift of this work because when we do, we really begin to reclaim this part of our cycle, this part of ourselves, and this part of life, really.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think anyone truly wants to be on going, doing, producing, performing all of the time.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: And if you do, I'd get really curious about why that might be.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because chances are your body is is giving you some sort of information, letting you know that something is not quite right.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because in general, we live in a really unsustainable way in our society, and we can see that reflected in how we care for the earth, in how more of us, women specifically, have anxiety, depression, loneliness, autoimmune disorders.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: So there is a real potency and a real opportunity for healing here when we really embrace this part of the cycle.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: One thing that really helped me is thinking about the season of autumn, which is associated with both the waning moon and the premenstrual phase.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: In autumn, we begin slipping into cozier clothes.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: We start hunkering down at home, we find things to be grateful for.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: We spend a little bit more time with people we love.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: If you can hold this part of your cycle in that frame as your inner autumn or even as the moon's autumn, maybe it can help you reorient this energy in a more gentle and natural way.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: On a more practical level, warming and nourishing meals are really important to me during this time.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: I do a lot of meal prepping during this time, both for the waning moon and for the cycle that's coming ahead.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: The waning moon is also a beautiful time to prepare and to make room for the bleeding time and to make room for the new moon that is on the way.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: The more we nourish ourselves during the waning moon, the more that can actually help alleviate symptoms during the pre-menstruum, maybe pain or cramping, headaches.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: You can think of menstruation as a built-in health report that women receive every month if you are still bleeding.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: Each phase really does feed into the next.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: So if you find yourself in cycles of burnout or overwhelm or having really strong symptoms during this time, I invite you to receive the invitation that this time is offering you.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're not low on energy, because sometimes that can happen here too, if you're feeling a bit wired or restless, nesting is one of my favorite things to channel that.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: For me, this can show up as racing thoughts, uh kind of uh antsiness, constantly checking my phone or my email, waiting for the next thing.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: And when I notice that, I love to channel that into the energy of my home.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: I reorganize, I declutter, I start to get rid of things that are no longer serving.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: And the act of like keeping my hands busy and actively moving energy in my home really does help to move some of that sympathetic, more active energy that can build up here.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: As always, I invite you to play with these and to discern what feels most right and true and supportive for you.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: I hope that you have truly enjoyed this mini-series through cancer season.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: I hope that you're walking away with some really beautiful ways you can begin caring for yourself in a more cyclical way.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: One that honors the constant ebb and flow and shift of your beautiful, wise, miraculous body.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: When we meet again, we will be welcoming in a new cycle and slowly making our way into Leo season.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm super excited to dive into all things Leo with you.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: If this episode or this mini-series has really resonated with you and you're wanting to go deeper with your menstrual cycle awareness, I have a four-month menstrual cycle coaching program called Synchronize.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's designed to help you do exactly this work: understanding your cycle, reclaiming each phase, and learning how to care for yourself in a way that is truly in rhythm with your body.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: The link to learn more is in the show notes.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe if it feels like something that you're wanting to take the next step for, I will see you in a somatic assessment and care planning session, or perhaps in a next episode.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: Either way, you take great care and I look forward to connecting with you soon.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: Bye for now.