Latest / Healing Her Story with Riva Jean-Paul / Moon Phases & Feminine Power: Your Weekly Cycle Sync - Why Do I Feel So Inspired (and a little anxious) After My Period?

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Moon Phases & Feminine Power: Your Weekly Cycle Sync - Why Do I Feel So Inspired (and a little anxious) After My Period? · Healing Her Story with Riva Jean-Paul

• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, and welcome to today's episode of the Healing Her Story podcast.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: As always, so honored and delighted to spend a little bit of time with you today.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: I truly do not take for granted the time that you spend listening to this show, coming back every week if you are returning here.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's such an intimate experience, podcasting, to be in literally someone's ears, spending really big amounts of time in close connection.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I think as we live in this busy modern world, that all of us, many of us, are craving this deeper connection.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's why sometimes we turn to things like these, where we can be in space with people who are like-hearted, who are like-minded, who are walking a similar path that can offer not only connection, but insight and inspiration and maybe a little bit of motivation that can support us along our path of healing, of transforming, of becoming, because I know from my experience that that can be a really isolating path, especially if you're the first one in your family to start doing things in a different way, especially if you've been a different version of yourself that lived a different life, and now you're wanting to create a different kind of life.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: Or if you are literally breaking ancestral cycles in your lineage.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: Incredibly hard work.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: And not in the sense like, oh, I'm pushing and working myself so hard, but it's it's uncomfortable.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: And it takes a certain fortitude to continue walking the path, even in the times that maybe do feel isolating or frustrating.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm really seeing you in that, and I'm so warmly welcoming here, warmly welcoming you here today as we meet for another one of our weekly feminine power moon phases and cycle sync episodes.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: If this is your first time here, welcome.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: As you might be able to sense, the work that we are doing here is about so much more than just working with the new moon or the full moon or cycle syncing.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's really about embodying a different way of being in our patriarchal world that has conditioned us to fit in a box, to be easy, to be the same, to be nicely packaged up with a pretty bow.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: When as women, we know, as messy humans, as messy, authentic, vulnerable humans, we know that it's not the case because we are so much more.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: We are complex, we are complicated, we are ever changing and shifting.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: And that I find to be so beautiful.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: And wow, what a world when we can really honor and accept the things that aren't so nicely packaged up with a pretty bow.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're returning, welcome back.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: So nice to be here again with you today to continue tapping in.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: And in um, I don't know if attempt is the right word, but you know, we gather every week to explore these cycles and we explore them same phases over and over again.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so as a creative, I'm always trying to, not trying, but staying open to new ways of approaching these episodes so that I can continue bringing insights that are fresh, that are new, that uh while I there is a lot of repeating, because that is the nature of the work, too, it's um coming back to things over and over and over and over and over again.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I really wanted to offer a fresh perspective today.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: So today's will be uh a little different than usual if you've been here before.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: We will be starting with our one minute of silence, as we always do.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: And in this minute of silence, you are invited to come into a place of more presence with yourself, whatever that looks like today, whether you're driving or doing some chores, doing something in the background, seeing if you can slow down, even if it's just a little bit.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe you want to take some breaths, maybe you want to do some sort of self-soothing, maybe with some humming or some gentle touch.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: But as you do that, you are invited to begin sensing into your rhythm, where you are cyclically, maybe how you're relating to the seasons and not just the the inner seasons as we explore so much, and but the outer seasons too, because we are in a really potent time as far as like the the larger cycles that are happening too.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe inviting that into your reflection here and noticing how you're feeling, noticing what the body is feeling like today, your energy, your mood.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll give you a moment to do that, a minute exactly.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll give you a moment to do that, one minute exactly, and that minute will begin now.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like I was just getting settled and then the minute ended.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm not sure if that's something that you experienced as well, which really speaks to where I'm at cyclically, which I'm gonna be sharing a lot more of today.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: Let's first start with my cycle day.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: I am cycle day eight.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: I am in my follicular phase, or you might call the inner spring phase.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm just coming out of my birthday celebration that I had last weekend, and I admittedly was a little bit under the weather on the second day of my cycle, which also was my actual birthday.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I felt like I had this moment of, was I sick last year too?
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm wondering if this is a new theme around my birthday, which I'm not mad at.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: I think with the nature of the path that I walk, where I'm constantly changing and shifting and shedding and evolving, it doesn't surprise me that after I make a year-round rotation around the sun, my body kind of goes through this internal process of of clearing out and and shedding.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: And when I do get under the weather, especially when conjoined with my bleed, I really can't do much but rest.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so I did a lot of that over the weekend.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: It was very needed.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: I stayed home all day Saturday and enjoyed some of my favorite local restaurants in the form of takeout at home.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, spent some time with my husband and got lots of sleep, nothing really too exciting, answered a lot of um, or rather received a lot of messages and calls wishing me happy birthday.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I chose to lay very low that day also because I went to go see one of my favorite musicians, uh, favorite musicians the next day in a very small town tucked away here in the foothills of Northern California called Woodacre.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: And it was an incredible experience.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: I won't go into it too depth, um, too in depth today, but uh wow.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like I'm still kind of floating from the experience.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I had a really lovely weekend.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: I, for the most part, had a really nourishing, restful, bleeding time.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: Would I have liked more rest?
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I would have, would I have liked a little bit more quiet alone time?
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I would have.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm gonna allow myself that um this week.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: I have been allowing myself that this past week.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm recording on a Friday today, the Friday before this Monday episode comes out.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, that's kind of where I'm I'm at today.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: And again, I'm gonna share a lot more today about my cycle, and I'll get into that a little bit more here in a moment.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: Before we do, let's speak to where we are with the moon.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: This week we're tuning to the waxing moon, the wax-on phase.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: The light of the moon is slowly building, and the energy behind any intentions we've set begin to build too with this last Libra new moon we had last week.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: This is a time, the waxing moon, for taking action, researching, and making small, sustainable steps towards our visions and dreams.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: We're also officially in Scorpio season, and fun fact, I'm a Scorpio rising.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: While I deeply connect with the Libra energy because I am a Libra son, just on my birthday.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: Scorpio season always feels like a returning to me, a deep exhale into truth.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: Here in the northern hemisphere, this week also brings Halloween and Sawin, the time when the veil between the physical and the unseen world is thin.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: We'll explore that mystical energy more in Friday's episode, but for today, in the spirit of Scorpio season, which rules the reproductive origins, I want to turn our attention from the moon to the menstrual cycle itself.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: So for the next four episodes, which will all air during Scorpio seasons, we'll explore each phase of the menstrual cycle, and we will speak to briefly how it mirrors the lunar cycle, but I'm really going to be sharing a lot of what I do to support myself during each phase.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: So you might want to take some notes on these episodes.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't currently bleed, that's totally okay.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: You can follow along with the moon as your guide.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: And my cycle just so happens to be closely aligned with the lunar phases right now.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll be sharing these practices.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: And as I'm sharing them, you can also apply them to the moon phase that we're in.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now, as we get into some of the more specifics and the biology, it may or may not be as relevant.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: But as always, take what you need and leave the rest behind.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: This work is so personal, and I'm gonna share a little bit more here in a moment about how just defaulting to what I was finding in research was not helpful for me.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna invite you to notice what you feel inspired by, notice how your body might respond to some of the things I'm sharing.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: I, for me, have this sort of like spidey sense where I get goosebumps and tingles anytime I'm like, ooh, yeah, there's something there for me.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll invite you to listen in that way.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: And if there is anything that sparks your interest or invites you to explore it in a deeper way, experiment.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: Take it and experiment because you're going to have to discern what is actually best for you and your body, and you are the only one that knows what's best for you, in spite of what the world tries to tell you otherwise.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: Only you know what's best for you.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: So let's talk a little bit more about the follicular phase, which aligns with the waxing moon phase.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: As I've named, it's called the inner spring phase, and so it aligns with the season of spring.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: The follicular phase begins right after menstruation, so once your bleeding stops, you are now in the follicular phase and it lasts until ovulation.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: I won't say cycle days because that's going to vary specifically to each individual, but generally we're looking at I'd say maybe days six-ish to twelve-ish.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's named for the follicles developing in the ovaries, tiny sacs that hold immature eggs.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: Under the influence of follicular stimulating hormone, that's F H F S H, excuse me.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: A few follicles start to grow and one becomes dominant, the one that will eventually release an egg.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: At the same time, estrogen levels begin to rise, rebuilding the uterine lining and boosting energy, mood, and mental clarity.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's the body's way of saying, we're preparing for creation.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: Let's grow.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because your body is literally preparing to create life.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: I like to think of this phase through the lens of tending, nourishing, and protecting.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: In Cycle Coach School, where I did my training, we talk about supporting or rather tracking the four bodies, and that is the physical body, the mental body, the emotional body, and the spiritual body.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: So today I'm gonna walk you through how I support each of my four bodies during this phase.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: And again, remember, this is what works for me.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: Your body might have different needs, and the key is to stay curious and to experiment and then to discern what is best for you.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: Let's start with physically.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: Physically, I focus on movement, movement, excuse me, that feels joyful and sustainable.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: Early on, I followed advice that high-intensity workouts are best during the follicular phase.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: And while that can be great for some, they weren't right for me.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: I found that HIIT workouts and running left me inflamed, exhausted, and sore.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: So now I choose movement that feels gentle and enlivening, like dancing, walking, swimming, Pilates, yin yoga, all of these things that help me to build energy rather than deplete it.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: Nourishment-wise, I focus on gut health because in the next phase, which is ovulation, my body will need to efficiently metabolize and clear estrogen.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: I add fermented foods like kimchi, low sugar kombucha, and yogurt.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: My appetite is usually lighter here, so I go for fresh, simple meals.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: But I skip the raw salads, which you also will probably find a lot of online.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: If you're like, how do I eat for my follicular phase?
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna probably find salads.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I did that for so long, and I finally had to come to terms with that.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: Raw salads are very hard on my digestion.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: It does not do well for my gut health.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I just recently in the past few months, I just swore off raw salad.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: I will, if I go to a nice dinner and I'm having like a nice meal and I'm wanting a salad, I will do that.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: But as far as like a salad is like my lunch every day, no, it's not enough food for me either for the amount of energy that I'm putting out.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: So instead, now I lightly steam kale, is what I usually do, and I use that as the lettuce, and I pair that with protein and healthy fats to help me stay grounded and nourished.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: So that's physically.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: Mentally during this phase, I often feel optimistic and inspired.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: My mental health feels stable, my creativity returns, and my ideas flow easily.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe you can sense that this episode is flowing super easily for me right now.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really enjoying it.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm in a complete flow state, and it's it's no problem.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's all just coming so easily.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes that rising estrogen brings a spike of anxious or manic energy.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: I can get real excited about projects, and I start pushing harder and harder, and it can feel like I'm literally being pulled by life's momentum.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: To balance that, I spend at least 15 minutes each morning in stillness and silence, or as much stillness as I can.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: No phone, no agenda.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: And this simple ritual that I do most days, but it's like especially important for me during this phase because it really helps me to stay connected to myself before the day begins to pull me outward.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: Spiritually, I start to sense into what I want to dedicate my egg to.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: This is both metaphorical and energetic, although there literally is going to be a physical egg that drops inside of me.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: I do begin to sense into what creative seed am I nurturing this month.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: Just this past week, as part of my birthday celebration, I bought a crystal egg to represent this intention, something I've been wanting to do for a long time.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm really excited to see how this tangible symbol begins to really deepen my focus.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: The follicular phase can scatter my energy in all directions.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: So focusing on one egg, one devotion really helps me to channel my power.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: Haven't not mastered that yet.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really hoping that the egg is going to help me with that.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: I also love doing a flower bath or a spring style home cleanse during this phase.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: Lately, I've been exploring Feng Shui as a spiritual practice, noticing how clearing my physical space also clears my mind, too.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: Emotionally, this is my lightest phase, full of joy, playfulness, and connection.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: I try to just soak it all in, letting myself laugh more, saying yes to life, and following what feels good and alive.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: And when tender parts arise, as they always do, I protect and tend to them so lovingly.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: And that might mean preparing to set a boundary, carving out alone time, or journaling through what's surfacing.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that is the follicular phase.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: And there's so much more to share.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: This is just a little tiny piece of what wanted to come through today.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: Again, I invite you to find a couple things that feel alive for you from this episode and play with them over the next couple of days or over your next follicular phase, which again ends right after your bleeding, which excuse me, begins right after your bleeding ends.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: This phase is a time of building energy, new beginnings, and joyful momentum.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a wonderful time to begin exploring cyclical awareness and self-care practices and deepening into the power that is the female reproductive system, especially during Scorpio season.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'll be back on Friday for a solo episode to dive deeper into the energy of Sawin.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: And next week we'll explore the ovulation phase as the art of shining without burning out, which I am still still still working on, y'all.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: Getting a little bit better each day, though.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: If you need somatic or nervous system support this week, you can find my free somatic meditations on Insight Timer.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: The link is in the show notes.