Latest / Healing Her Story with Riva Jean-Paul / Moon Phases & Feminine Power: Your Weekly Cycle Sync | Spring Energy and the Waxing Moon: Moving Forward Without Burnout

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Moon Phases & Feminine Power: Your Weekly Cycle Sync | Spring Energy and the Waxing Moon: Moving Forward Without Burnout · 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: Today we are gathering again for one of our weekly cycle sync episodes.
1:51
SPEAKER_00: And this is the first cycle sync episode of a new cycle, of a new season, and of a new zodiac sign as well.
2:02
SPEAKER_00: So I'm really excited to explore this new fresh energy that's coming in with you today.
2:10
SPEAKER_00: And before we do, let's begin with a moment of silence.
2:16
SPEAKER_00: And in this moment of silence, you are invited to come into a place of more presence with yourself, whatever that looks like for you.
2:26
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're driving or doing something in the background, or perhaps you're doing some chores or transitioning from one thing to the next.
2:39
SPEAKER_00: Wherever you are in this moment, can you take some time to become more aware of how you're doing, of how your mind is, how your body is, how your heart is?
2:59
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you want to literally come into a place of stillness, or maybe you just want to slow down whatever it is that you're doing.
3:11
SPEAKER_00: And while you're in this minute of silence, I'll invite you to also become aware of where you might be in your unique rhythm.
3:23
SPEAKER_00: Are you really feeling all this fresh energy that's starting to come through?
3:29
SPEAKER_00: Or perhaps you internally are in a bit of a different space.
3:34
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're more kind of winding down and wanting to let go of things.
3:41
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe you're more in a fuller expression of yourself and of your life.
3:46
SPEAKER_00: So taking some time to note that now.
3:51
SPEAKER_00: And our one minute of silence will begin now.
5:11
SPEAKER_00: For today, I'm gonna share a little bit more about my own cyclical experience.
5:19
SPEAKER_00: And I'm one, just really excited to share.
5:22
SPEAKER_00: I kind of notice my excitement in that moment of silence building a bit more.
5:28
SPEAKER_00: And two, I always like to share a little bit about my own cyclical experience because I hope that it can give you more insight and understanding into your own cyclical experience.
5:41
SPEAKER_00: As I first started doing this work, once I began talking to other women about their cyclical experience, it really opened up a lot for me.
5:51
SPEAKER_00: It normalized a lot of things that I was noticing in my own cyclical experience.
5:55
SPEAKER_00: And it also helped to help me to see things in different ways.
6:03
SPEAKER_00: So I'll share and hope that you can take something from it, if anything at all, if it's helpful for you.
6:13
SPEAKER_00: Today I am cycle day seven, and I am recording a little bit ahead of time.
6:19
SPEAKER_00: But interestingly enough, as I'm cycle day seven, I can very much feel this fresh energy, this new momentum beginning to come through.
6:33
SPEAKER_00: And what's most exciting about being in this phase for me right now is that I can now confirm that I'm in this phase with a test.
6:45
SPEAKER_00: I briefly mentioned in one of my last episodes that I just purchased the Mira Hormone Tracking device.
6:56
SPEAKER_00: This is a kit that you can purchase, and in the kit you receive a hormone testing device along with several wands.
7:09
SPEAKER_00: You dip the wands into a urine sample that you fill into a small silicone cup on certain days at the start of each day, and within 17 minutes, the device tells you through an app that is downloaded onto your phone what your hormone levels are for that day.
7:36
SPEAKER_00: So, as you can maybe sense for someone like me who has been really wanting to understand the patterns a lot more deeply, this has been quite game-changing for me.
7:52
SPEAKER_00: I just started using it, so it's still a little early to have a full picture of the entire 28-day cycle.
8:04
SPEAKER_00: And I am starting to see patterns starting to emerge, and a lot of the things that I was sensing are now being confirmed with actual data, which has really allowed me to soften a bit because now my brain truly does understand and know what's happening.
8:25
SPEAKER_00: I'm not just guessing anymore.
8:29
SPEAKER_00: And it does highlight the areas in which I really need to support my body a bit more.
8:37
SPEAKER_00: So what I'm sensing are these drastic changes, and what the data is showing is that there are these drastic changes with my estrogen levels, huge spikes and huge drops, and that generally my estrogen is on the high side, which around this time of my cycle can cause a fogginess, a sense of being bogged down, a sense of just not really feeling quite right.
9:06
SPEAKER_00: I can have headaches and nausea.
9:09
SPEAKER_00: So now when I test and I can see that I have especially high hormone day, I can have an idea of what to expect for that day, which has been really, really helpful.
9:20
SPEAKER_00: And on a day like today, where my hormone, I had a drop today from yesterday, and so I am more in a uh optimal range, if you will.
9:30
SPEAKER_00: Today I knew, okay, I'm in the optimal range.
9:34
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna probably be feeling uh much better today than I did yesterday when I was way above the average.
9:41
SPEAKER_00: So let's really use today to take care of as many things as I can without pushing myself too much.
9:54
SPEAKER_00: Because yesterday I know that my estrogen will likely spike again, and I'll be back to that feeling of like bogged down, foggy, headaches, nausea, etc.
10:08
SPEAKER_00: So I'm very excited to continue sharing more as I continue to learn more.
10:14
SPEAKER_00: What I'm gonna do for today is insert the link to learn about the device in the show notes.
10:24
SPEAKER_00: And as of right now, I'm not an affiliate, would love to maybe be one day if anyone from here is listening.
10:32
SPEAKER_00: And you're free to check it out.
10:34
SPEAKER_00: And if you have any questions, I'm sure you can find more information on their website.
10:40
SPEAKER_00: But if you're wanting to know more about my experience, definitely keep tuning into these episodes.
10:47
SPEAKER_00: And while I'm here, really quickly, I am feeling inspired in the moment to answer a question that I received on my Instagram.
10:56
SPEAKER_00: I generally do not spend a lot of time on Instagram for reasons that I will not get into today.
11:04
SPEAKER_00: Every now and then I will pop in and see if there is an important message that I perhaps missed.
11:10
SPEAKER_00: And I did happen to see a message the other day.
11:15
SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna go ahead and answer it now because I feel like it ties in perfectly with what um I'm kind of talking about right now with the Mira device, and I'm just pulling up the question.
11:29
SPEAKER_00: This question is from Cherish.
11:32
SPEAKER_00: Cherish is a member in my community.
11:36
SPEAKER_00: She lives locally where I live and here in Sacramento, and Cherish has been involved in um many different versions and offerings of um the work that I do here um with Healing Her Story and before this when I was doing the loop work and also some of my creative work as well.
11:57
SPEAKER_00: So here is Cherish's question.
12:03
SPEAKER_00: Do you know if women go through a daily cycle that is connected to our circadian rhythm, like men do?
12:10
SPEAKER_00: For example, the daily rise and fall of testosterone each day.
12:16
SPEAKER_00: Do women have that as well, just on a lower level?
12:21
SPEAKER_00: This is a wonderful question, Cherish.
12:24
SPEAKER_00: And these are the exact things that I wish women knew and were explained.
12:29
SPEAKER_00: This is the things that we should have been learning in sex ed, but that's okay.
12:34
SPEAKER_00: That's why I'm here.
12:36
SPEAKER_00: That's well, it's not okay, actually.
12:38
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of issues wrong with it.
12:40
SPEAKER_00: And it has given us an opportunity here on the show to to educate and to offer clarity where there has been confusion.
12:49
SPEAKER_00: So to answer your question, Cherish, which ties in nicely with what I've been talking about here, my answer that my teacher always says, and one that always makes me laugh, is it depends.
13:02
SPEAKER_00: And I say it depends because our each of our cyclical experiences are so unique.
13:09
SPEAKER_00: So my cyclical experience is not going to be the same as your cyclical experience, Cherish.
13:16
SPEAKER_00: So if you've been kind of noting what I've been sharing about this hormone tracking device, mine right now is let's say not optimal with large surges and spikes, or rather, surges and drops over the course of a couple days, meaning one day my hormone, my estrogen specifically will go up, the next day it goes down, the next day it goes up, the next day it goes down.
13:47
SPEAKER_00: So in my case, there is kind of like a daily cycle happening because mine is spiking and then decreasing.
14:02
SPEAKER_00: However, an optimal, we'll say, sort of flow for hormones is that, and now specifically, we're just talking about estrogen, right?
14:14
SPEAKER_00: Because there are several different hormones at play.
14:17
SPEAKER_00: But generally speaking, with estrogen, it starts low and it rises over the course of let's say 10 days.
14:28
SPEAKER_00: It peaks, that's the ovulation, and then it will start to drop.
14:35
SPEAKER_00: I believe if I'm remembering correctly, there's one more spike, and then it drops again.
14:41
SPEAKER_00: And the other hormones, the reproductive hormones, they follow similar patterns in the sense that they build and they fall over the course of 28 days.
14:56
SPEAKER_00: So typically, if you have an optimal cycle where your hormones are doing their optimal things within their optimal ranges, no, women do not typically have a daily cycle that is connected to the circadian rhythm.
15:18
SPEAKER_00: We have the circadian rhythm, and that is the 24-hour cycle for the female body.
15:23
SPEAKER_00: But as far as reproductive organs, they are fluctuating, rising and falling over the course of 28 days.
15:31
SPEAKER_00: And that is why there is so much research lacking for women's reproductive health, because it's extremely difficult to track, because it's always changing.
15:43
SPEAKER_00: And that is the experience of being a woman.
15:47
SPEAKER_00: Am I right?
15:49
SPEAKER_00: She's always changing.
15:50
SPEAKER_00: You cannot pin her down.
15:52
SPEAKER_00: So I hope that uh answered your question, Cherish.
15:55
SPEAKER_00: I hope that was helpful for you.
15:56
SPEAKER_00: For anyone else, if you ever have questions that you'd like me to answer on the show, feel free to email them to me or to send them over on Instagram.
16:05
SPEAKER_00: Email is best, and you can find that information in the show notes.
16:10
SPEAKER_00: Let's get into today's theme.
16:13
SPEAKER_00: Because this week we are turning to the energy of the waxing moon.
16:18
SPEAKER_00: And interestingly enough, this also aligns with our transition into the season of spring here in the northern hemisphere.
16:27
SPEAKER_00: Mercury has officially gone direct.
16:30
SPEAKER_00: So there's a huge wave of fresh energy and forward momentum beginning to move through.
16:37
SPEAKER_00: And we're officially in airy seasoned.
16:40
SPEAKER_00: And if you listen to our guest episode on Friday, you might already have a sense of where I'm going to be taking these cycle sync episodes over the next few weeks.
16:51
SPEAKER_00: And if you didn't listen to Friday's episode yet, that's okay.
16:55
SPEAKER_00: I'll invite you to go back and give it a listen because it is especially important.
17:01
SPEAKER_00: But either way, I want to share a little bit about the intention behind these upcoming episodes because Aries season carries a very particular kind of energy.
17:12
SPEAKER_00: To me, Aries energy is fiery.
17:16
SPEAKER_00: It's associated with the warrior archetype.
17:20
SPEAKER_00: But when I think about the warrior, I'm not talking about violence or aggression or destruction.
17:26
SPEAKER_00: The warrior archetype to me is about something much deeper.
17:31
SPEAKER_00: It's about fighting for what's right, standing up for what is true, protecting what matters.
17:41
SPEAKER_00: And during airy season, I'm allowing my inner warrior to get a little fired up.
17:48
SPEAKER_00: So over these next several episodes, I'm bringing that fiery, courageous energy into the conversation.
17:56
SPEAKER_00: And that energy is present here as well in the waxing moon phase.
18:03
SPEAKER_00: The waxing moon is associated with growth and momentum.
18:08
SPEAKER_00: In traditional cyclical frameworks, the waxing moon mirrors the season of spring.
18:14
SPEAKER_00: It corresponds with the wood element in traditional Chinese medicine.
18:18
SPEAKER_00: And in the menstrual cycle, it aligns with the folicular phase.
18:23
SPEAKER_00: This is the part of the cycle where energy begins to build again after winter and menstruation.
18:30
SPEAKER_00: Ideas start forming, momentum starts returning.
18:35
SPEAKER_00: And I have to be honest with you.
18:38
SPEAKER_00: This phase has actually been one of my most challenging phases for me personally, both in my menstrual cycle and seasonally in spring.
18:49
SPEAKER_00: For someone like me, who I would say has a lot, who has had a lot of workaholic tendencies, and I still honestly have to keep an eye on those tendencies.
19:00
SPEAKER_00: This time of year can really bring up a lot.
19:04
SPEAKER_00: Earlier in my life, in my late teens to early 20s, I struggled with addiction.
19:13
SPEAKER_00: And my drug of choice was uppers, specifically Adderall.
19:19
SPEAKER_00: I love to go, go, go, do, do, do, to patch, to pack as much activity into my life as possible.
19:30
SPEAKER_00: And at the peak of that dysfunction, I was taking Adderall and working 30, 40, sometimes 50 plus hours a week.
19:38
SPEAKER_00: And on top of that, I was working out five or six days a week and partying two or three nights every weekend.
19:48
SPEAKER_00: So when I come to the energy of spring now, even after all of the work that I've done, I still notice something happening in my system.
19:59
SPEAKER_00: The tendency is to hit the ground running, to push, to pack as much as possible into my schedule, to get as much shit done as I possibly can.
20:09
SPEAKER_00: I can even feel it a little bit today.
20:13
SPEAKER_00: And over time, I've learned that these patterns don't actually serve me.
20:19
SPEAKER_00: Even after years of trauma-informed somatic therapy, somatic breath work, and menstrual psycho awareness, these patterns still show up.
20:30
SPEAKER_00: And maybe as I share this, you can sense some of your own experience in it too.
20:37
SPEAKER_00: Because we hear it all the time.
20:39
SPEAKER_00: Slow down, do less.
20:43
SPEAKER_00: But biologically, if you are a survivor of trauma or adverse childhood experiences, slowing down is not that simple.
20:52
SPEAKER_00: Research on trauma and nervous system shows that early stress can shape patterns in the brain that keep the body in states of hypervigilance and overdrive.
21:03
SPEAKER_00: The nervous system learns that safety comes from doing more, moving faster, staying alert.
21:11
SPEAKER_00: So if slowing down feels difficult, please hear this.
21:15
SPEAKER_00: That pattern is not a personal failure, it's information.
21:21
SPEAKER_00: It tells us something about the environments in which our nervous systems developed.
21:27
SPEAKER_00: And honestly, if you're not a survivor of maybe big T trauma, we honestly all carry some of these patterns because we live in a capitalistic and patriarchal society that rewards constant productivity.
21:43
SPEAKER_00: Everything around us reinforces the message that faster is better.
21:50
SPEAKER_00: You can literally go on Amazon and have almost anything delivered to your doorstep within a few hours.
21:56
SPEAKER_00: And trust me, I'm not immune to that either.
21:58
SPEAKER_00: I have definitely had my fair share of Amazon packages arriving on my doorstep.
22:05
SPEAKER_00: So we're all swimming in this culture.
22:09
SPEAKER_00: And that is exactly why the waxing moon offers such an interesting opportunity.
22:15
SPEAKER_00: This phase invites us to experiment with pacing, almost like an art.
22:22
SPEAKER_00: Because there really is an art to moving at the right pace.
22:27
SPEAKER_00: Not too fast, not too slow.
22:31
SPEAKER_00: You can think of it like the Goldilocks.
22:38
SPEAKER_00: Goldilocks goes into the home of three bears and she sits down to have a bowl of porridge.
22:44
SPEAKER_00: One bowl of porridge is too hot.
22:47
SPEAKER_00: One is too cold.
22:50
SPEAKER_00: But one is just right.
22:54
SPEAKER_00: And that's what we're looking for.
22:56
SPEAKER_00: A pace that is just right.
23:00
SPEAKER_00: Not pushing so hard that we overwhelm our system and burn ourselves out.
23:05
SPEAKER_00: But not moving so slowly that we prevent natural momentum from building.
23:13
SPEAKER_00: I'll be honest, I'm still learning this, the art of pacing.
23:18
SPEAKER_00: I haven't mastered it.
23:21
SPEAKER_00: I'm practicing.
23:27
SPEAKER_00: Because the truth is, most of us were never taught pacing.
23:32
SPEAKER_00: So this week, your invitation is simple.
23:36
SPEAKER_00: Practice pacing.
23:39
SPEAKER_00: Allow periods of forward momentum, followed by periods of pause and reflection.
23:51
SPEAKER_00: Make the phone call, book the appointment, show up for the appointment, then give yourself space afterward to notice.
23:58
SPEAKER_00: How did that affect me?
24:01
SPEAKER_00: How did that land on my body?
24:05
SPEAKER_00: Look, we don't have to rush through life.
24:08
SPEAKER_00: Life isn't a race.
24:12
SPEAKER_00: There's so much power in slowing down enough to truly enjoy the process.
24:21
SPEAKER_00: To just enjoy the journey.
24:26
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes I think the reason we're moving so fast is because we're afraid.
24:31
SPEAKER_00: Afraid that if we slow down, we'll fall behind, or we'll meet something uncomfortable that we don't want to feel inside.
24:40
SPEAKER_00: Afraid that if we don't achieve something quickly enough, it won't happen, or that if we don't do enough, then that means that we aren't enough.
24:50
SPEAKER_00: And I get it.
24:53
SPEAKER_00: And there is a lot of freedom in trusting a pace that is more true, more sustainable for you.
25:03
SPEAKER_00: A pace that isn't a constant go, go, go or a do-do-do.
25:10
SPEAKER_00: So that is your invitation this week to practice pacing.
25:15
SPEAKER_00: Notice where momentum feels supportive, and notice where slowing down is needed.
25:21
SPEAKER_00: If today's conversation resonated with you, especially this idea of learning how to pace yourself instead of pushing toward burnout, I created a simple tool for you.
25:35
SPEAKER_00: It's called the Cycle Support Map.
25:38
SPEAKER_00: This guide walks you through how to work with the four phases of the lunar cycle and the menstrual cycle and the seasons and the natural rhythms of your body so that you can begin to recognize when it's supportive to take action and build momentum, when your body may need reflection, rest, or integration, and how to stop fighting with your natural rhythms and start working with them.
26:10
SPEAKER_00: Instead of constantly asking yourself, what should I be doing right now?
26:15
SPEAKER_00: This map helps you understand what phase you're in and how to support yourself there.
26:21
SPEAKER_00: You can download the Cycle Support map using the link in the show notes for just$4.95.
26:29
SPEAKER_00: It's a simple starting place if you're ready to begin living and working in a way that is more sustainable, cyclical, and aligned with your unique rhythm.
26:43
SPEAKER_00: I'll be joining you again on Friday for another fiery solo episode.
26:51
SPEAKER_00: And I look forward to meeting with you then.