Latest / Healing Her Story with Riva Jean-Paul / Moon Phases & Feminine Power: Your Weekly Cycle Sync | Follicular Phase Anxiety Is Real! Here’s Why It Happens & What Actually Helps

Transcript

Moon Phases & Feminine Power: Your Weekly Cycle Sync | Follicular Phase Anxiety Is Real! Here’s Why It Happens & What Actually Helps · Healing Her Story with Riva Jean-Paul

• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, and welcome to today's episode of the Healing Her Story Podcast.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: Today we are gathering for our weekly cycle sync episode.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: And today we're going to be starting a new mini-series on the shadow sides of the phases.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: I'm really excited to be exploring this topic deeper with you over the next several weeks as we are slowly making our way towards Scorpio season.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll talk a little bit more about how we're going to be moving through these episodes and I'll share, of course, more about what energy we're working with this week specifically.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: And before we do, I do want to take a moment to warmly welcome you.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: If this is your first time here, welcome.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: I trust that you have found your way to today's episode in your perfect right time and way.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: And if you are returning, welcome back.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: I am so grateful that you take the time to tune into these episodes week after week after week.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: Today I'm going to be starting off our Minute of Silence with a tool.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm going to share more about why I'm offering this tool as we get into the episode a little bit further.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: But for now, I do want to offer it to you.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: And if you happen to be driving, you can most definitely still do this mindfully and quietly inside.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: If you happen to be at home doing some chores or got something going on in the background, I'm going to invite you to really take this opportunity to slow down, to find some stillness during your busy day, and to come back to you.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: I know so many of the women who tune in here are creatives, their caretakers, their mothers, their wives, their sisters, their friends.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I've talked about this many times before.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: I think sometimes we get so used to giving to others that we forget to give back to ourselves.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: So what would it be like to give back to yourself for just a minute here?
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: So if you accept today's invitation and if you would like to settle into a more comfortable position, I'll invite you to do that now.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm going to offer you the tool, and then I'm going to start my timer, and I'll put my mic on mute, and I'll give you a little bit of time to see how that tool may or may not have landed for you.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: As you settle into your position, just taking a moment to notice what it is you're experiencing in this moment.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: Are you a little tired?
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: Are you a little overwhelmed?
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe you're feeling on top of the world right now.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: Wherever you are is okay.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: Once you have identified what you're experiencing in this moment, even if it's nothing, numbness, that is something.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: And noticing what, if anything at all, changes.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: I see you.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: I feel you.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm right here with you.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: I see you.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: I feel you.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: Taking a moment here to note anything that may have stood out to you.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: For me, I noticed after offering those words to myself, I had a nice yawn.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: I also noticed myself lean back in my chair a bit more.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: All of which are positive signs of settling and softening.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: And it's been a really long week.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's been a long couple of weeks.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so that was quite welcomed.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: This is a tool I use daily, sometimes multiple times a day, depending on what I'm moving through.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: And especially in those moments where I'm not feeling like I can get that sense of reassurance from anyone else around me.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: This allows me to really give it to myself.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: And as we get a little bit further into the episode, I'll share more about the context of this tool.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: This week we are attuning to the energy of the waxing moon.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: We just had the first quarter moon yesterday, at least for those of you who are tuning in on the day this episode airs.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: And the first quarter moon is an interesting phase in that the moon is perfectly split, half illuminated, half dark.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's a really brief phase that can go by really quickly if we're not paying attention to it.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: And that image of half-light, half dark is actually what's inspiring the conversation for this week.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: And for the next few weeks as we move deeper into autumn and closer to Scorpio season.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: Because of the days getting shorter and the light decreasing, we are naturally invited to work with the darker parts of ourselves.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: You might call this the shadow.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: And specifically today, I want to talk about the shadow side of the waxing moon and the follicular phase, because I don't think there is nearly enough information out there on this.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: The follicular phase and the waxing moon have this overarching reputation for being pure, uncomplicated, good energy, if you will.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: There's this sense of energy building, uh, sort of fresh energy, invigoration, forward movement, movement, excuse me, striving, retreating, networking, hit workouts, getting to all the social events.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: Do you see where I'm going with this?
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: Just honestly naming all of that to me sounds exhausting.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: When I started really tracking my cycle on a deeper level, I was quite disappointed to see that my experience of the inner spring looked nothing like what gets prescribed on Pinterest or Instagram.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: And if you've been here for a while, you know I've talked about this, how the inner spring and the inner summer are actually where I experience the most symptoms and the most discomfort.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: So this conversation is for that woman.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: The one who finds that maybe after having her bleed, she actually feels quite anxious, quite tender, or emotional.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: The one who doesn't recognize herself in the highlight real version of the follicular phase.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: And let me tell you, you are not broken, and you are not alone.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: Here's what's actually happening in the follicular phase.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: The first shadow aspect of the follicular phase is anxiety.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: Research has shown that women experienced increased levels of fear, anxiety, and sometimes even manic adjacent symptoms during this part of the cycle.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: And a significant number of those women here, excuse me, have what I've described as complicated childhoods.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: The HPA axis, this is our stress response system, is connected to the HPG axis, which governs our hormonal cycle.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: Our ability to regulate our nervous system and our ability to regulate our hormones are both impacted by trauma.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll just let that sink in there for a moment.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: So when estrogen begins to rise during the follicular phase, it can actually amplify unprocessed material that lives in the nervous system, particularly material from early childhood.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: I think about my own inner child a lot during this phase.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: I experienced a fair amount of emotional neglect and bullying growing up, and I find that those traumatic imprints tend to surface right during this phase in the inner spring.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: Anxiety at its core is a message from our system that we don't feel safe.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: And that sense of unsafety very often has its roots in what we experienced before we had the words or the resources to process it.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: On a psychospiritual level, the archetype associated with this phase is the maiden.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: And the maiden is that young childlike version of ourselves.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: So that connection kind of puts everything in perspective for me.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: The second shadow aspect is impatience and restlessness.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: As someone who is highly sensitive and quite sensitive to stress, I know that when there's too much demand on my system during this phase, that ovulation can be quite delayed.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: I experienced it this cycle actually.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't ovulate until almost cycle day 17.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: And that's because I was sick again.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my goodness.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: Another conversation for a different day.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, sick again in this part of my cycle.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: The body is so wise, and it may not move towards peak fertility if it doesn't feel safe enough to do so.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: And in the meantime, this is a period of being in the unknown, of waiting for things to build and take shape, not just internally in the lens of building towards ovulation, but I find that I experience this in my life as well.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: It can take time for things to really come into their physical form, and this can create that sense of restlessness and impatience.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: The third aspect is scattered energy and the tendency to burn out before the cycle even peaks.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: Without a real sense of grounding or direction during this phase, the rising energy can pull us in too many directions at once.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: We explore all the possibilities, we start a little of everything, and before we know it, we've scattered ourselves so thin that we hit exhaustion before we've even arrived at the full moon.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: I am so guilty of this myself as a multi-passionate, multi-dimensional woman.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: So if any of this is resonating, if you've been finding yourself anxious, restless, scattered, or tender after your bleed, here are three things that have helped me most.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: The first is naming and acknowledging.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: Specifically, naming and acknowledging the hurt from childhood that tends to surface here.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: For me, this looks like a somatic breath work session, time with my therapist, or using the inner child tools I've gathered over the years.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: One of the first tools I share with my clients is deceptively simple.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: And it's actually the tool that I offered you at the beginning of the episode today.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: I see you.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: I feel you.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: I'm right here with you.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: Offering this to the part of you that's hurting, to the part of you that is wounded or anxious or unsettled.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: I know it sounds simple, but I promise you it is profound and it works genuinely nine and a half out of ten times when you're using it with real presence and attention.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: I've experienced in myself and I've experienced in the work that I do with women as well.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: The second is slowing down.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, you knew I was gonna go there.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: Hear me out.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: What if you treated your inner spring more like your premenstrual phase?
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: Meaning a little less on the calendar, a little more space for self-care, more time in nature, or maybe asking support from the people in your household or in your circle.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: Decreasing your load during this time, even just a little bit, can make a significant difference.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: I invite you to get creative about what that might look like in your life specifically.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: The third is working with traditional Chinese medicine, specifically the element of wood.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: The follicular phase corresponds with the element of wood in traditional Chinese medicine, and working with that element has brought me so much more balance in this part of my cycle, almost more than anything else.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: This might look like a Qigong practice inspired by the wood element or a yin yoga practice with that same focus.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: But uh both of these practices work with the meridian lines in the body, these are the energy pathways in the body.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: And when energy gets stuck in those lines, it doesn't flow as freely or efficiently.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: Traditional Chinese medicine practices like qigong, acupuncture, and yin yoga can help that energy move and bring more balance during this time.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: If you're local here to Sacramento, I'll leave my acupuncture Zoe's information in the show notes.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: She is amazing.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I am well overdue for a visit, so I will be seeing you soon, Zoe.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're curious about movement practices, just search Qigong Wood Element or Yin Yoga Wood Element on YouTube.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I promise you, you will find many options.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: I also want to say that the trees themselves have been some of my greatest teachers when it comes to the wood element.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: Even just going on a walk and really meditating on the trees, putting my hand on one, being with them.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: It offers a kind of orientation and wisdom that I genuinely can't put into words.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: The trees teach their ways if we slow down enough to listen.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: If you've been enjoying these episodes and finding these practices and invitations helpful, this is the exact work I do with my clients in my menstrual cycle coaching practice.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: Right now I have a space for three more clients before the end of the year.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to go deeper with your menstrual cycle awareness and use it as a way to live a life that's more sustainable and more in alignment with your unique rhythm, you can find the link to book your intake call in the show notes.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: That's all for now this week.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: I look forward to seeing you in the next episode.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: Bye for now.