Latest / Healing Her Story with Riva Jean-Paul / Moon Phases & Feminine Power: Your Weekly Cycle Sync | Full Moon Check-In: Why You Don’t Need to Rush the New Year

Transcript

Moon Phases & Feminine Power: Your Weekly Cycle Sync | Full Moon Check-In: Why You Don’t Need to Rush the New Year · Healing Her Story with Riva Jean-Paul

• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, and welcome to today's episode of the Healing Her Story podcast.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: And happy new year, new calendar year specifically.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: This is our first episode of the year 2026.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: And it's been a couple weeks since I've shared an episode here.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I admittedly did not plan for an episode to let you know that I would be going on a two-week pause.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought about it after the pause had already started.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I was so deep in my winter cave and was just in deep need of rest and space.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I really wanted to honor that for myself.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I do apologize if that pause came a bit suddenly.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: I did mention it in some of my previous episodes.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: But we're slowly getting back into our regular episodes.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know that we'll be back to every single week quite yet, but we are here today for the first full moon of the new calendar year.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: If this is your first time here, welcome.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: I am so honored and delighted that you chose to press play on today's episode.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: And if you are returning, welcome back.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: And again, happy new calendar year.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: As we always do, we'll begin with a minute of silence.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: And if you are new here, this minute of silence is really an opportunity to come into a place of more presence with yourself.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: So whether you're driving or doing something in the background, the invitation here is to see what it would be like to slow down, even if it's just a little bit.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: If you're able to, maybe even coming into a place of stillness, maybe closing down the eyes, noticing the parts of the body that are making contact with that support underneath you.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Seeing if you can relax into those points of contact, even if it's just a little bit.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: And beginning to take some slow deep breaths here as you begin to tune in to yourself and where you're at today.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: Noticing how your heart is feeling, how your body is feeling, how your energy levels are feeling.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: And also maybe sensing into where you might be in your unique rhythm today.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: So taking some time to do that now.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: I know when I've got really busy full days, just those little micro moments can create such a difference in how I feel, how my nervous system feels.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I hope that you are able to get something out of that.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'll let you know a little bit about kind of where I'm at personally today.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: I am cycle day 20, which means I'm on the 20th day of my menstrual cycle.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: That puts me in my inner autumn, or what you might call the luteal phase or the pre-menstruum phase.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm just beginning to get into that.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm still kind of coming down off of my inner summer, my ovulation time.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: And if you've been here for a while, you'll know that this has been a bit of a hot spot for me.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I've been making some changes to create some more ease and harmony during my inner summer.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm on my way.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I've still got quite a bit of work to do today.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: As I'm kind of noticing a slight headache, um, a little bit of nausea today as I'm kind of trying to get back into the work, um, the workflow, if you will.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: And what that says to me is that um, you know, my hormones are beginning to fluctuate a bit.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so I do feel while I am kind of in this inner autumn, I'm still kind of transitioning to that from this ovulation time when hormones, estrogen specifically, is at its peak.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: Now, estrogen dominance is not something that I am an expert in by any means.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I won't speak to it very uh deeply, um, but it is something that I I feel like I am experiencing.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: So this year is really a year where I want to one stop guessing and start testing.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: And two, to really bring more love and more support to not just this phase specifically, but my cycle as a whole.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: I've been doing some deep reflection over the last few weeks, going through all of my journals and my calendar.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: And this past year, my cycle was kind of all over the place.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: Some months it would be 35 days, some days, some months, excuse me, it would be 26, some cycles it would be 30.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of my cycles had this degree of uncertainty of not knowing when it would come, not knowing exactly what was going on.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I think there is a degree of mystery in cyclical work.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: And for me, I would love to see a bit more consistency.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so for me, I know that's getting more consistent in all of my other rhythms as well, not just with my menstrual cycle, but with my sleep.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: Because our circadian rhythms are the daily cycle, and hormones love like they love, I want to say, um, like being boring.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: They like the predictability.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so if I'm going to bed at 11 o'clock last night, like I did last night, and then, you know, going to bed at, you know, 9:30 another night, how can I land in a time where I can get to bed at that time every night?
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, lots that I'll be playing with and exploring this year when it comes to my menstrual cycle.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: I just picked up a new book called Real Food for Fertility.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I forget the woman's name.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: I believe it's Lisa Hendridge Jackson.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'll put it for y'all in the show notes.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, she is incredible.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: She has a podcast called Fertility Friday that I really enjoy.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: So um, yeah, I'll let you know how the book goes and how my exploration of my cycle continues to go.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: But overall, I'm doing quite well.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, having this time off is it's essential for me.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: And it's been really lovely to just come back into my own energy, focus more on rest, um, taking care of some things that I just haven't had the time and the space to in the fullness of um other parts of the year.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, overall I'm I'm doing doing well.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: So that's a little bit about uh me today, where I am cyclically.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: I always share just to give you a little insight into my cyclical experience, because when we're tracking our menstrual cycle, it can be so isolated if we're not having conversations with other people.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: And we can think that what we're experiencing is maybe normal or um perhaps maybe abnormal.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think when we can connect with other women and hear more about their cyclical experiences, it can give us some insight and understanding and s as to how we relate to our own.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, sometimes we can find correlations and um connections to what we're experiencing that can hopefully maybe give insight and direction.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why I offer that um each week.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: This week, specifically, the week of January 5th, we are attuning to the energy of the full moon.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: And this is the first full moon of the calendar year.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: Full moons are all about culmination, illumination, celebration, and sometimes completion.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: They mark a halfway point through the lunar cycle, which makes them a powerful moment to pause and check in.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: So let's do that together.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: How were the holidays for you?
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: How are you landing into this new year?
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: Let those just percolate for a moment here.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: And as they continue to percolate, I want to gently remind you of something important here.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: In the northern hemisphere, we are still very much in the middle of winter.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: And while the new calendar year brings a lot of fresh energy and Capricorn season carries this motivating, building, forward, moving quality, there is also a very real yin inward winter energy present right now.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: If you feel tempted to fall into that new year, new me, new year's resolution energy, I would invite you to maybe pause and explore whether that feels aligned and true for you.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: Because what I found and what I truly believe is that a more nourishing use of this time is not rushing into goals or intentions, but rather reflecting, feeling into what actually matters to you this year, rather than setting intentions that aren't rooted in your deepest desires.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: This is one of the gifts of the full moon.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: It shines a spotlight on what is working and what isn't.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: It brings clarity, not so we can judge ourselves, but so we can see honestly.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: We have more potent beginnings ahead.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: As we move towards airy season, the lunar new year, and the spring equinox in March, the energy for starting something new becomes much stronger.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: Winter, on the other hand, is associated with the bleeding time of the menstrual cycle.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: And while bleeding is technically the beginning of the cycle, it is also very much an ending, a clearing, a release.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: There is often something that needs to be let go of before new ideas, intentions, and creative projects can really come through.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're not feeling the new year, new me energy right now, that is not a problem.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: And to me, it makes a lot of sense.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when I worked in the fitness industry for about five years as a group fitness instructor and a certified personal trainer, I saw this pattern every single year.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: In the first few weeks of January, people would rush into the gym after months, sometimes years of not going.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: And by February, most of them were gone.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: And more often than not, they ended up right back where they started.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't want that for you this year.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want that for anyone.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: There is real magic that happens when we begin to work with natural cycles instead of against them.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: Research on behavior change supports this too.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: When we set goals that are aligned with our nervous system capacity, our energy levels, and our environment, we're far more likely to sustain them.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: Pushing ourselves too hard too fast often activates stress responses rather than creating lasting change.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: And my own reflections over the past few weeks, I've noticed how differently I approached this past year, 2025.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: I took action and I also allowed more.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: I set deep intentions at the right time.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly, it felt like the unseen did most of the work this year.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: I took a much softer approach to my healing and growth.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so many beautiful moments happened, not through force or control, but through allowing, through listening, through pacing myself.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe I'll do another episode on this.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: So, as tempting as it is to run out of the gate at full speed this year, I want to ask you, what would it look like to move forward at 40%, 50%, or even 60% instead of 100 miles per hour?
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: Winter is a sacred time for rest and restoration.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: And with this full moon in Cancer that just passed on Saturday, that invitation is even stronger.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: Cancer energy invites us to nourish ourselves, to tend to our inner world and to fill up rather than push through.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: This is a moment to check in with who you are now.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: Chances are you're still integrating and catching up from all of the growth of the past year.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: So what does it look like to set intentions from this version of you?
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: Not the old one, not the one you think you should be, but who you actually are today.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: If you feel like you need support with that process, I've shared a few free somatic meditations on Insight Timer that you're welcome to explore.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: They're there to help you slow down, listen inward, and gently attune to what's ready to emerge when the timing is right.