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Transcript

Moon Phases & Feminine Power: Your Weekly Cycle Sync | Full Moon & Ovulation Rituals: Four Ways to Work With Peak Cycle Energy · Healing Her Story with Riva Jean-Paul

• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: Hello and welcome to today's episode of the Healing Her Story Podcast.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: I am delighted to be here with you today.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: We are gathering for our weekly cycle sync.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm gonna just go ahead and jump right in today.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: Before we do, let's begin with our minute of silence.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: In this minute of silence, you are invited to come into a place of more presence with yourself, whatever that may look like for you today, whether you're driving or doing some things around the home, or maybe you've got something going on in the background.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: Whatever you're doing, the invitation here is to either bring more awareness into what you're doing, or perhaps if it feels okay, maybe actually stopping what you're doing.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, keeping in mind safety, if you're driving, then perhaps this is not the right moment to stop driving.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: But I don't know, maybe there's a world where you could pull over into a parking lot for a moment and give yourself a minute, literally one minute to just be.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: And that story may not be something you can clearly understand or articulate just yet.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: I trust that with time it will all unfold, that the answers will become more clear.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: And so I invite you to hold with some of that same patience and grace.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: For me personally, this eclipse has been landing in my body.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: I've been, excuse me, experiencing some tension and constriction in my back, which is new and quite unusual for me.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: I've also been carrying a sense of tiredness and heaviness that goes a little beyond what I would expect to typically experience during this point of my cycle.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: Some of that I would guess is the luteal phase.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: And some of that I know is transitioning back into my part-time work.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: And there is this additional sort of weight that I've been listening to.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I encourage you to do the same, to really listen to what is arising in your body right now and to take care of yourself accordingly.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: Which brings me to something I want to remind us this week as we're learning and exploring and perhaps practicing some rituals.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: Inviting you to keep it simple, keep it enjoyable.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: This is less about adding more to your plate.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's more about asking ourselves, how can I use this energy to support me?
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: Physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: Especially during a time when you may be needing more of that support than usual.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: The full moon is the peak of the cycle.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's a time when things begin to culminate, take shape, and come together.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: There may be an amplified sense of endings with this particular full moon, as full moons are always times of completion, and that quality is deepened by the eclipse energy moving through.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: The full moon is associated with ovulation in the menstrual cycle.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: So the rituals I'm sharing today can be worked with at the full moon, or you can tuck them away for your ovulation time and revisit this episode then.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: And one more thing before we dive in, because the eclipses bring a particular quality of unpredictability and intensity.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: If this week doesn't feel like the right time to layer in new rituals, that is okay.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: What you can do again is save this episode and come back to it when the energy feels a bit more settled.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: Always using your own discernment to assess what would actually feel most supportive for you rather than just taking what I say as a prescription.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: If you haven't listened to last week's episode, our introduction to rituals and Virgo season, I do invite you to go back and give that a listen.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: It sets the tone for everything we're going to be exploring over the next several weeks.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: So let's get into the rituals for this week.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: The first ritual is tracking.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: I track throughout my entire cycle, whether it's symptoms, whether it's projects that I'm working on, whether it's things that I'm noticing in my life and in the world around me.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: However, I bring a more deliberate and intentional awareness to what's emerging around the period of the full moon.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: This period to me includes the three days leading up to the peak and then the one, two-ish days after.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: The tool that I use for this is my magic eye planner.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's something I use quite religiously and it supports me in many ways.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: Menstrual cycle tracking, intention setting.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: It also is incorporated into my manifestation practices.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: It additionally offers astrological information about the planets, the days of the week, the seasonal cycles.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: I still haven't even tapped into everything that's in it.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's a really rich resource and one that I look forward to every year.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm going to leave the link for that for you in the show notes.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: Within the planner, there is a dedicated page for both the new moon and the full moon each month.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: In the evenings during the full moon window, I'll sit with that page and write down what showed up for me that day, what I felt like came to a point of completion, what felt like a step towards something I'm desiring, what unexpected conversations, invitations, or moments arose.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: And what that does is it helps me to see, to really see all that is actually happening.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: When I can look down at the page and read back through the last few days, I often find myself softening, feeling like things are moving, even when I'd been frustrated that they weren't moving fast enough.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: It also helps me to build trust, trust in my process, trust in life.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: Research on gratitude and reflective journaling supports this.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: There have been many studies that have found that intentional reflection on positive events and forward movement actually activates the brain reward circuitry.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: And what this does is it increases our feelings of hope and supports emotional regulation.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: So for me, this is one of the most grounding things that I can do during this time.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: The second ritual is scripting.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: As I track and reflect, what usually begins to emerge is clarity around what I'm desiring.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: And from that clarity, I move into a practice called scripting.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: This is a manifestation practice I learned inside a creative container, and it's become something that's quite meaningful to me, and it's also become this sort of creative ritual.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: How it works is you write a sentence that begins with the words I am, followed by a feeling.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: This is a felt sense of what you are wanting to experience.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe that's connection.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: So if that was the case, the sentence would be I am connected.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe that's clarity, in which case the sentence would be I am clear.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: For me right now, something I'm exploring is devotion to my creative practice.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: So I might use I am devoted.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: The second half of the sentence becomes an action connected to what you're creating or desiring.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: So the full sentence might be I am devoted making art more frequently.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_01: The more simple and clear, the better.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: And if you know how to write in cursive, I love doing this in cursive.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: There's something to this beyond just a personal preference.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: There's research on handwriting that shows that writing by hand first engages the brain more deeply than typing, versus like typing something out on your phone, maybe.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: And what this does when we're writing by hand is it activates areas associated with memory, learning, and emotional processing.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: And then writing in cursive specifically has been shown to engage neural pathways in ways that just regular printing does not.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: So the act of scripting by hand, especially in cursive, makes this a truly embodied practice.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: The third ritual is working with the heart.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: In traditional Chinese medicine, the full moon is associated with the organ of the heart.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I notice this in my own ovulatory phase.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: I become quite sensitive, different from the sensitive that I experience in the luteal phase.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'm quite emotional.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: And rather than resisting that, I've come to really enjoy it.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: The emotions that arise during this time feel like deeper expressions of the heart.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: The heart loves to feel, and she loves to feel it all.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: So I really let her feel it here.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: What this looks like uh looks like practically is spending time with somatic holds around the heart.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: This involves placing hands on my chest, breathing, presencing, giving myself permission to feel what's there, welcoming what's there.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: I'll also incorporate heart-centered meditation practices.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: If you're familiar with Dr.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: Joe Dispend's work, he does a lot of beautiful work around love and the connection to the heart, and I'll often weave in his meditations during this time.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: I may also bring in some yoga practices that focus on opening the chest and the heart space.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: And always got to bring in a little bit of science here too.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: Research shows that positive emotions centered around the heart, including love, gratitude, and compassion, activate the ventrovagal system and shift the nervous system into a state of coherence.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: The Heart Math Institute, if you've never heard of the HeartMath Institute, I highly recommend checking them out, even just for open, non-attached exploration.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: They have done extensive research on what they call heart coherence.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: We talked a little bit about coherence in last week's episode.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: And what this does is, or rather, what the research is showing is that when we intentionally activate heart-centered feelings, our heart rate variability improves, our stress hormones decrease, and our capacity for connection and clarity expands.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: So this is your biology, your physiology, once again supporting you in feeling it all.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to give you a bonus ritual this week, too.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: I couldn't help myself.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: So here's a fourth ritual for you.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: And it's also a little seed that I'm going to plant for something that we're going to be going into much deeper in the coming weeks.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: Feng Shui has become a beautiful spiritual practice for me.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's rooted in working with the energy of the home, bringing balance and flow into the space we live in.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I believe it has deep connections to traditional Chinese medicine and ancient Eastern philosophy, both of which form a significant part of how I care for myself and for others.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: I've learned that Feng Shui was practiced by emperors in ancient China to cultivate wealth, health, and harmony.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: And they do this by working with the elements and the different areas of the home to direct and support the flow of energy or qi.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: Now, let me be clear, I am not a feng shui expert, but we are going to be bringing one onto the show in a couple of weeks.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm very excited for this conversation.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: What I can share is that the full moon is one of the most powerful times to work with the Qi because of the amplification and illumination that the peak of the cycle brings.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_01: One of the practices I do not every full moon, but every so often as I feel like it's needed, is cleaning my windows.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: It sounds simple and mundane, but again, it's all about the intention that we're bringing into it.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so I am holding this intention of clarity, being able to see clearly inside and out.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I will go outside, I will hose down my windows, and then I'll come back with some window cleaner and a cloth.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: And as I'm cleaning, I am quite literally inviting in clarity.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: I'm asking my home and the elements to support me in seeing what needs to be seen.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: My little kitties, I know you sometimes hear one every so often here on the show.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: Love them.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: And one of them, not the one you hear on the show, the one who's always sleeping somewhere, usually in a window, he is always getting the windows so dirty.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: I have no idea what he's doing to the windows when he's looking out the windows.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: But they need the cleaning quite often.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I feel like there's more opportunities for me to do this ritual.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: All that to say though, this simple, this munding act held with intention can become something else entirely.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: If Feng Shui is resonating for you, I invite you to stay close to the show over the coming week over the coming weeks because we have something really special coming for you.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: To support you this week, I've left the magic of the eye planner in the show notes along with a blog post from their website specifically around the full moon.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: So feel free to check those out.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: If you are truly ready to move beyond just receiving this information and you want that felt sense of actually living in an embodied way with your cycle, I want to mention that the pricing for Synchronize, my four-month mental cycle coaching program, is going up at the end of the month.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: So that's just in a few days here.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: This is one of your last opportunities to come in at this founding rate.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: The first step is to book your somatic assessment and care planning session.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: And you can find that link in the show notes.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_01: If you do move forward with a synchronized program,$75 of your somatic assessment and care planning session will go towards your package.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_01: So just a nice little bridge there for you into the program.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: Again, you can find all that linked for you in the show notes, and I look forward to connecting with you in the next episode.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: Bye for now.