Latest / Healing Her Story with Riva Jean-Paul / Moon Phases & Feminine Power | Full Moon & Fire Element | Passion, Anger & Heart-Led Expression

Transcript

Moon Phases & Feminine Power | Full Moon & Fire Element | Passion, Anger & Heart-Led Expression · 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: If this is your first time here, welcome.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: Such a joy and a delight to be able to share this time and this space with you today.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: And if you are returning, welcome back.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Also, a joy and a delight to spend a little bit of time with you today.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Today I'm coming to you with a bonus cycle sink episode.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll share a little bit more about why in a moment.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: And you can also know if you've been following along for the past two cycle check-ins, that this is the third episode in our mini-series on the elements that we're exploring as we move through Taurus season.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: So lots of really juicy stuff to share as we tune into a phase that just started today, as this episode is airing.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: And again, I'll share a little bit more about the alignment of all of that in a moment.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Before we would do before we do, excuse me, in honor of how we always begin on our Monday Cycle Sync episodes, I'm gonna invite us to also start this episode in the same way.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: And in these cycle sync episodes, we always begin with a minute of silence.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: And 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.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: You may be driving, you may have things going on in the background, you may be trying to do two or three things at once, and there's no judgment here.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: What there is, though, is an invitation to soften and to slow down, especially if you've had a busy week.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: What would it look like to press pause on life for just one minute?
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: And if you choose to accept that invitation, getting really curious about what the experience of that pause is like.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: And if you just want to continue doing whatever you're doing and allowing the minute of silence to still play, seeing what it would be like to maybe track that silence, because that's something that can be really interesting too.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: Tracking the silence, noticing the silence and bringing your attention to the silence.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: So we'll begin our moment of stillness and silence now.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll offer just a brief share on what I've noticed today within myself.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: If you've been following for the past few cycle sync episodes, I've also been sharing about my own personal experience of where I'm at in my healing journey right now.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: And something that I've been really focused on is presence.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I've been reading The Power of Now, and I started reading it on my last Hot Springs adventure.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I was just reading a chapter yesterday that talked about portals into the present moment and how silence is one of those portals, and how if we bring our awareness to the silence, that our mind also becomes very silent when we do that.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's especially quiet.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: It was especially quiet in that silence, in that minute of silence.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so I did bring my awareness to that, and I noticed it did settle my mind quite a bit.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll offer that to you as a practice which sort of segues us into our focus for today's episode.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: Today, and for the next, I would say two or three days over the weekend, we'll be to uh tuning to the energy of the full moon.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: And this is also a full moon in Aries, if I'm getting that correct.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully I am.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I also mentioned in Monday's episode that there are a lot of planets in Aries right now, and so there is this go, go, go energy, this fiery current that is moving through the collective.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: So never mind the additional Aries energy, however, it's still definitely um moving through the collective right now.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I think with the energy of spring as well, although it's not connected to the fire element, there is this initiatory energy.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so with all of that, I felt inspired to create this bonus bonus episode for you today.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: Because again, this full moon lands on a Friday, and by the time we reach our next cycle check-in, we'll be moving into what I call a more subtle or a hidden phase of the cycle that I pretty much never see anyone talk about.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: And that particular phase, we're in a relationship with an element that I don't I think we don't always consciously work with.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: So I really want to honor the fire today and give you some time to explore it and to play with it over the next few days before we move into that next element, that next phase, which we'll explore on Monday.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: When I was tuning into today's episode, I had this moment of where of not feeling connected to the element of fire.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then I realized that it's not that I don't feel connected to it, it's that I'm maybe not consciously feeling so connected to it like I am with wood, for example, which I talked about in last week's cycle chink sink episode.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then as I sat with the wisdom of fire, the very first word that came to me was passion.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: And when I think about fire in that way, I realized that this is something that I feel very deeply connected to.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: Fire in traditional Chinese medicine is also associated with the heart.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: And the heart is not only seen as a physical organ, but it's also seen as a center of consciousness, a center of joy and connection.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: And passion is one of the ways that the energy of the heart expresses itself.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: The full moon is associated with the season of summer and the ovulation of the menstrual cycle.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: And all of those are connected to and associated with the element of fire.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: And if you pause to feel into those phases, the full moon, summer, and ovulation, when I do, I definitely sense this quality of aliveness, of expression, of radiance, of blooming, this sort of fullness and this sort of idea of something wanting to be seen or illuminated or expressed in an outward way.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes I think, especially in women, our passion can be misunderstood.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: What I've noticed is that passion in women often gets labeled differently.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: You might be called too much or bossy or controlling, or perhaps that you maybe only care about work.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas when we see that same energy in men, it's more often labeled as ambition or drive or passion.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think over time that many of us learn to dim that part of ourselves.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: We question it or we sometimes just disconnect from it.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: And over time, as we do that, we begin to lose access to our inner fire.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: And passion doesn't have to just live inside your work.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, you might feel passionate about your work.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: I know I 1000% do.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: I hope that you can feel that.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: I hope that comes across here in the things I offer.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I would say that it's not the only place it belongs.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because in a culture that values productivity so highly, sometimes we can start to believe that if something doesn't move the needle or generate income, that it's not valuable, it's not important.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I think we see that a lot in our society.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: However, when we look at it from a different perspective, creative expression, joy, passion, they are essential.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: Research in somatic psychology shows that states of play, creativity, and authentic expression really do support our nervous system recalibration.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: And they also help to increase our resilience.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: And this is something I talk a lot about with my clients as well: that we can't always be in the hurt, in the pain, in the grief, and the sadness.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: 100% yes, let's give them space, let's be with them, and we do that in order to experience more connection, joy, passion.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: I know that I've really felt that in my healing journey is that as I have gone to the depths of my hurt, of my pain, and as I have given space to them and really felt them and been with them and continue to be with them as they come up, because they still do, I have been able to experience levels of true joy, one that isn't generated through like drugs or alcohol like it was previously in my life, in a different period of my life, but through actual joy building up from inside of me and overwhelming me.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like I didn't have access to that before.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: I really did the deeper trauma, inner child work.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so we have to remember how important our joy, our passion, our creative expression really is.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: And in this way, fire can be such a powerful teacher.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: When I feel into fire, I think of warmth, I think of comfort, I think of life-giving, and it can also be destructive when it is intended to.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: Living here in Northern California, we know this intimately.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: We've seen how fire can grow beyond containment, burning fast and strong and wide.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I think there's something here for us because when our inner fire is intended, it can show up in similar ways.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe as I named this, you might have a moment of, ah, yes, that that would be me.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: We can react, we can be overwhelmed, and we can find ourselves in these patterns that maybe aren't serving us anymore.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I would say specifically, if and when do you find yourself getting triggered?
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: And if not tended to, if not managed, these reactions can become very destructive.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: They can hurt our relationship.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes they can get us in trouble at work or in social situations.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: And something else that I think is important to name here is that our anger, our reactivity, I would say most of the time there's something deeper underneath it.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: And there's research in neuroscience that supports this, and it tells us that anger is often a secondary emotion, which is protecting more vulnerable states like grief or sadness or hurt.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: And when we remember that fire is also connected to the heart, we can ask ourselves a different question.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe that is what is my heart asking for right now?
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: Does my heart need more space, more support, more connection?
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: This has been really real for me around ovulation over the past year.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: This phase hasn't really been easy.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: Haven't really felt great around this time of my cycle.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like I've been in a journey of learning how to manage my inner fire in this way.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: And as I have been learning, I've discovered that what I need during this time, the full moon, the ovulation time, is more space.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: And as I've continued to explore the elements, I learned that the heart really does require space.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: There was a time in my life when the full moon was more about gathering, being in community, maybe going to women's circles or like a dance night or a concert, being really outwardly expressed.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I still value those things very deeply.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I've come to accept that in this current season, I need more intentional space because I am really sensitive.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: My system is really sensitive, and the full moon amplifies everything.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: There's more energy, more stimulation, more intensity.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so now for me, during this time of around the full moon and also around during my ovulation, and I'm going to explore this during the summer season as well, is creating space for both connection and solitude, expression and stillness.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: Because in order to really feel what is alive and present in the heart, we need to give ourselves space.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: So as we are moving through this full moon, I invite you to maybe notice where your fire feels alive and where it might feel overwhelming or where your inner fire maybe needs some more tending and really exploring coming into a relationship with your inner fire.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: If you are wanting to connect more deeply with this heart-centered energy, I've left a trauma-informed somatic meditation for you in the show notes.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: This is something very gentle to support you in really feeling into these qualities of the heart and exploring them in a somatic way.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to leave that link for you in the show notes.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I look forward to sharing some time with you in our next CycleSync episode on Monday, where we'll explore the next phase together.