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Moon Phases & Feminine Power: Your Weekly Cycle Sync - Honoring the The Dark Moon & Nervous System · Healing Her Story with Riva Jean-Paul

• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Healing Her Story Podcast.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Today we are gathering for our weekly moon phases and feminine power weekly cycle sync episode.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: And this week we're talking about the dark moon.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Before we begin, I invite you to take a moment to come into more presence with yourself, whatever that may look like for you today.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps you're driving or doing some chores around the house or working on some other things in the background.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're able to come to a place of stillness, especially since this is part of what we'll be exploring today, in today's episode.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe that is stopping whatever you might be doing if it's safe to do so, and taking a minute to just be.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe as you're checking in, you might want to notice how you're feeling and what you're bringing with you in today's episode.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe it's been a really full couple of weeks.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: I know it has been for me.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: And you just want to take this moment to just not do anything.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes those moments can be really nourishing and really supportive, I find, for myself.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: So taking whatever it is that you need out of this next minute of silence, and we will begin now.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: I know I quite enjoyed it myself as I'm right in the middle of a busy season of life and in the middle of traveling and getting ready to head back home next day, tomorrow.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and in all of that, I find it just feels so nice just to take these moments to just sit and be and breathe.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I hope that you found that helpful and supportive for your process today as well, wherever you might be.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: This week we are talking about the week of June 23rd, and we are attuning to the energy of the dark moon.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: The dark moon is a liminal space, and it's one of the most overlooked, and yet what I find to be one of the most essential phases of the cycle.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: This is the pause between what has been and what is yet to come.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: It only lasts two to three days, and if you're busy rushing around, you'll miss it.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: When you look up at the night sky during this time, it appears darker than usual.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: You may notice more stars.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's because the moon offers no light.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: This is the true dark moon.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Many confuse this with the new moon, but technically the new moon begins only when the first faint sliver of light returns.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: The dark moon is what comes before.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: A moment of deep exhale before the next inhale begins.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: In the menstrual cycle, this may correlate with the final day or two leading up to your bleed and the first couple of days into it when estrogen is at its lowest and the energy of your body is calling you inward.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: For me, this is when I'm at my absolute lowest.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm tired, crampy, tender.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: All I want to do is sleep, cry, eat nourishing food, and rest.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: When I try to push through, well, I can, and only with great effort, great effort, and it usually comes at a cost.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: This is the essence of the dark moon.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a time for effort, it's a time for stillness, reflection, maybe some shadow work, nourishment, and this is what we call in the trauma recovery journey the sacred pause.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: We live in a world that doesn't make much room for pausing.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: It tells us to keep going, keep producing, keep showing up.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: But your body has a different wisdom.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: Especially if you live with a nervous system that has been shaped by trauma, grief, or chronic stress, stillness can feel foreign or even threatening.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: But it's in these very pauses that the nervous system has the chance to settle, to integrate, and to actually heal.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I invite you to ask yourself this week, what is your relationship with the pause?
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: How do you transition from one task to another?
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Do you give yourself a moment to land between things?
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: Last year I would have filled these in-between moments with endless scrolling on social media.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: And now that I've stepped away from that noise, I find a richness and the quiet that I didn't even know I was missing.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: When I come home from a long day of sessions and classes, sometimes I'll just sit.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: And as I sit, I wait until the next right thing emerges.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: That is the wisdom of this phase.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: So instead of pushing through the next few days, can you soften?
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: Can you just be?
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's 30 seconds, maybe it's a minute, maybe it's lying down between tasks.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's closing your eyes before you eat.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's feeling your breath move through your belly for just three cycles.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever it is, start there.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because honoring the dark moon doesn't require a big ritual or spiritual performance.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: It simply asks for your presence.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: And that is enough.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: To support you in embodying this sacred pause this week, I've included a few trauma-informed somatic meditations in the show notes.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: The first one being rest and restoration, a trauma-informed somatic body skin.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: The second one, a short five-minute practice, which you might find helpful if pausing or simply being or sitting in stillness is difficult for you.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: This one's called sensing the support.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: And last again, if you find that slowing down and pausing can be difficult for you, you might find the creating your felt sense of safety meditation helpful.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: And as you do these practices continuously and consistently over time, slowing down, sitting in stillness, and simply being can become even just a little bit easier.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: That concludes our cycle check-in for today.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: On Friday, we'll be coming through with a new episode.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: Haven't decided if it's going to be a guest or a solo yet.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: But when we meet at that time, we will be in the new moon portal and we will begin a new focus for this cycle.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: And we're also going to be working with the energy of Cancer season.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm very much looking forward to shifting gears with you in this next cycle, and I'll share more about what we're going to be focusing on in the next episode.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: I look forward to connecting with you then.