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Welcome to the She Who Leads podcast. I'm your host Marit, a somatic coach for women ready to design and create lives, careers, and relationships, and businesses that they love.
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Hey, everyone. I'm sitting here with an incredible woman. Her name is Nicole. and I'm really fired up to have a chat with her about a topic that honestly has been shrouded in secrecy and shame, but is in fact a fundamental part of our shared human experience. We're here to clear up some stigma around menstruation and to explore a new perspective that actually celebrates this power that we have and the uniqueness of our natural cycles that people who menstruate go through monthly.
So I personally, I want to mention here for us to stop seeing it as a burden or inconvenience or something to be hidden away, but actually something that fires us up and is the power and supports us in leading aligned lives. So, Nicole, I can't wait to dive in with you and to, yeah, to hear how this fire came in your life and how you bring this to.
To your communities. No, thank you for having me. I can't wait. Yeah, wait. So excited. Thank you. Let's uh, and some of the stingrays. Yes. Let's talk about it. So to start, can you give us a short introduction on yourself and your life's work? Yeah. So my name is Nicole Fredrickson and I am a holistic women's health educator and health coach as well.
Oh my gosh. Doing a short one on a life's work is always hard, but really, I'm on a mission to change the world one period at a time. and yeah, so that's really what I'm here to do is just help. I'm really passionate about connecting women with. Reconnecting women with our bodies and with our cycles and then uncovering, well, healing, whatever challenges we may be facing, and then also uncovering the power that it really holds and the advantage that it brings to us in our world as women, be that in our careers or in our, Just in our day to day lives.
Yeah. So yeah. So that's a little bit about my fire. I love that mission more into it. Yeah, we need it. Thank you. So I feel let's start the conversation kind of broader on a macro level. So I saw you wrote some somewhere cyclical living is the antidote to hustle culture. What do you mean by that? It's a great question.
So I've been thinking about this a lot lately and just thinking about my own personal journey, which of course is how I got into this work as I think a lot of us in the holistic health space, you know, comes usually from a personal journey or someone close to us. It was all of the above in my case. But the more I thought about it, you know, I had about a 15 year career before I started my own business in both the corporate and nonprofit spaces, and I always have this kind of like deeper feeling within me that there was a better way to work, and I was always in the cycle of.
Kind of like hustling and burning out and crashing because I'm a very passion driven person, and have always worked for organizations that I have a lot of passion for. So I don't, I never really knew like when to put on the brakes myself because I would just kind of go, go. Go because of the passion was driving me and inevitably I would burn out and I would crash.
And I definitely have noticed in my time since starting my own business when I first started it, it was a slightly different format and I burnt myself out with that first go at it because I really approached it like I with the same structures and understanding of when I was working in an organization or and within like our system and the cultural norms of the workplace.
And I just kind of transfer those over to my Business that I was starting and, you know, got things going and then really ended up in the same cycle that I had been before. Not ironically, not ironically. Again, like my passion was to work with women and help them heal, and we don't always. take our own medicine, so to speak.
And so out of that, I was really starting to just notice that a lot of, uh, pretty much every client that I had, via, if we were working on, you know, their painful periods or their PMS and mood swings, you know, whatever it was, the underlying thing, They were all entrepreneurs. They were all really passionate women and really, driven themselves.
And, I kind of just started putting these pieces together and looking at my own life. And all of a sudden, yeah, it kind of clicked and I was like, wait, this cyclical living that I practice in my daily life for my health. If I bring this into my business, maybe this is going to help kind of put those pieces together and bring that.
Different way of working to the forefront that I felt like I had been looking for my entire career and I feel like a lot of us are looking for, right now I definitely have a lot of conversations with women who want to do things. A different way that feels more in line. And so that's, Oh yeah, you're here at the right time.
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Like we're very, we're all put on the earth. Right. Right. Really. And if you dare to live your fire. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. So tell me a little bit about that new way of doing things. Yeah. So, yeah, as far as looking at like how, and my belief that our menstrual cycle can be kind of this antidote to hustle culture, or I love, I also really feel like it's, It's kind of this answer to this work life balance question or call that I think it's just always been out there in the world.
because I think a lot of times we look at balance. It's like an either or. So if you think about like how hard it is to keep a teeter totter balanced anyways, like how exhausting is that many ways, right? and so if we start to look at things a little more from a cyclical standpoint, meaning. And it could be your menstrual cycle could also be the seasons in nature, it could be the astrological seasons, whatever really resonates and really like you feel most embodied in, if we kind of follow what blueprint is there.
Which is a lot of ebb and flows and especially for us as women and our menstruating years with our hormones We are actually ebbing and flowing in like our energy levels The foods that are gonna be most nourishing to support us the type of exercise that maybe is gonna like give us the most Like the results were designed in any part of our face.
So that's all ebbing and flowing and so if we're going kind of like We've, it's kind of always been expected. I was like doing the same thing day in and day out. Inevitably, as we see time and time again, and I experienced in my life, it's going to lead to depletion and exhaustion and burnout most of the time, but burnout's not inevitable and like a really amazing tool that we can use to guide ourselves.
And it is looking at these cyclical systems in nature. And I love to just give this example. If you think of like a tree or a rose bush, And you think about everything it takes, I mean, it basically takes a year for a rose to blossom. Right. And if you think of all of the work that's unseen at the rosebush is doing, then you realize that there's There's a value that comes from each stage of that rosebush and then a lot of culture, like the action stage, the doing or the blossoming is what's really, prioritized and emphasized and that the other phases aren't, ones that we maybe are familiar with or know how to do in our lives or in our business or just like running.
Just our day to day life, any part of it. And so by using our menstrual cycle, it gives us a guide when we start to actually like tune into our own cycle and what's happening in our hormones each month and how that's making us feel and how it's kind of playing out on the stage of our life. And so the information's all there.
It's just that we've really been disconnected from it. yeah, pretty purposefully, honestly, a lot in history. and then also just some of it is right. Like this is also just. The modern world, but you know, there have, that's a very long tangent. I'm not going to go on, but there we have been purposely disconnected from it as well.
that was the whole fire in and of itself burns. Yeah. I mean, this is, this is one of the things that fires me up so much too, is that we were born into a world where we celebrate the 24 hour circadian circadian rhythm. Right and traditional 5 day work weeks. and those were designed around. Societal norms.
Mm-hmm. that revolve around men's experience. Yeah. Male biology. Yeah. . Men's. Yeah. . That's like, it really were It's so true. Yeah. And if you think about it, yeah. Oh, go ahead. Yeah. The structure just doesn't align with what naturally wants to happen Yeah. In our bodies. and I know for myself too, just like you, and that's also.
One of the biggest reasons I did not fully thrive, I thrived in corporate, say, two weeks a month, , , and then the rest I just, I, I could get my work done, but I, if I would do it in a very different way, I wanted to be alone, couldn't go into the office, right? I didn't wanna have noisy trains when I was in New York.
Like I needed a very different kind of life. And then two weeks of the month I was like, oh, I can't wait to get to work Fun. Be surrounded by everyone. And that really, and I was in a, in a position where, where I had some space to experiment with that, to stay at home whenever I felt I needed it. And it just helped me so much in the end, actually, to be more productive, but my way when I wanted to, right.
And that looked, just looked different. Every day of the month, and from that experience, I realized that 1, wow, why didn't no one ever tell me that that I'm working against myself. And when we do that, I have so much self judgment so much. Really didn't understand why am I feeling so down and I let that really influence probably every area of my life, not just in work.
Also relationship, relationship with myself, my health. Right? and now, now I started, uh, 3 years ago, I started really educating myself on the different phases of the cycle that we go through typically and, Understanding what happens for me. So there's like, in general, this is what happens, , and then this is what actually happens for me, and I really like clockwork.
Every month there's this one day where I wake up and I'm G Grudgey, I'm down, and everything's horrible, nothing's working out. Why am I this person? , why am I here? And then also, so I, I track it in my calendar, and I always look and it's like the day that I drop into my little face. I don't even know how to say it.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's when our hormones drop. Right. Yeah. And now I'm like, oh, it just means that I have a hormone drop. My body's getting. Ready, preparing for my moon. So my body has stuff to do right now. And really just that realization, knowing where I am in my cycle, like, Oh, it's not me, yes, my mind is making things up right now because I have certain emotions.
So it attaches certain thoughts and, uh, realizations to that, that are not even true, right? It just gives me the space to approach myself different, differently, in a way that actually soothes me. And the world around me too, so I can really lead from when my body is telling me, Hey, this is actually what I need.
And that's, that's the first thing is to recognize, Oh, what is my body telling me I need. And then I started to, which is another journey to make sure that actually get what I need. Right. Yeah. You want to eat that chocolate bar. Oh, yeah. Like, I, I love it now. Like Lusciously, right? Yes. Because I know that, yeah.
A week later I don't have that craving anymore. And allowing for it. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Being Oh, a gift to myself, right? Yeah. Thank you. Body. Here you go. . Yeah. Or, oh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna tell my friend I can't come to this thing today. Yeah. I just can't. Yeah. I, my body, my body says, no, sorry. , right. I know.
Right. And it's really a, a receiving game from. Body, what do you need? What do you desire? Mm-hmm. and really finding your ways to fulfill those desires has given me so much peace. And, and this, and this is actually a question I have for you. Since I'm doing that, I almost have no pains anymore. No. P m ss, it's, it's gone.
Yeah. Is that, is that a thing? Like I never Yeah, I love hearing that. Yeah. So like, yes. I, I say this time and time and again to my clients, and this is so much of the work I do actually with women, it's because. We experienced PMS and this comes back to the cyclical living like a lot of PMS symptoms. we experienced because of like a dissonance in our bodies.
And so it's exactly what you're saying. Our bodies, because they're changing throughout the month. Hormonally, as they're asking for different. Things it's asking for different things. It's it speaks a language of its own that we can learn and is like innate within us. And once you learn, you're like, Oh, my gosh, I know this language.
I can see I speak this language. Yeah, but in that second half of your cycle and your hormones are shifting and lowering their what's happening is they're, they're lowering, they're getting to the estrogen and progesterone are going to lower levels. So you may feel shifts in energy and all that. Our body is asking for different things.
And when we're not aware of what is asking for how to honor it, like you had said, and what that looks like for us, right, it's gonna look very different for everybody. And we're just pushing through it. That's when that like, dissonance starts to happen. And that's where a lot of PMS symptoms and painful periods and things like that can come about, right.
It's really your body telling me, telling you, Hey, you're going against what I need. What I'm trying to I'm going to tell you even louder. Exactly. So that was, yeah, that, that was my story. It was screaming, right. And I was just pushing through cause that's what we've been told our whole lives to do. Thank you.
Yeah. And there, but that is definitely like such a beautiful observation that there's such a correlation there and with stress, you know, that's like a physical and energetic stress that we're, we're putting on our bodies by living out of alignment with our cyclical nature. And over time it's like anything, it becomes kind of chronic and it builds.
And then that's when our body starts to give us larger and larger hints that something is off. And there could be other hints. yeah. So like painful periods, extreme mood swings. I mean, moon swings of any kind. So like those were really disruptive for my life and my relationship. And that's one of the things that really, again, like brought me to this work is was, it was really disruptive in my relationships.
There's other things though like absence of certain things that we might like anticipate I don't like to use the word normal but we may expect to arise like a spike in libido around ovulation is a very natural thing to be occurring. All of us caveat it if you're not on hormonal birth control, because that suppresses ovulation and, and you're not actually experiencing this hormonal ebbs and flows, but you can use the lunar cycle to do the same work.
If you are currently on that but yeah yeah around ovulation, you would. It's very natural to experience that. Boost in libido and whatever that means for you, it might not mean like, you're like whipping all your clothes off every time and I'll be lesion, but it's, it can be really, it might be more subtle in some than others, but a change in libido, for example, if that, or if you kind of feel flatlined your whole cycle and there's an absence of that, that can also be your body telling you something.
So it could be the, like arising of things like stress. fatigue, anxiety, you know, it's a lot of things that can this, there's a lot of things that can be masked or just or written off pretty easily as Oh, you're just stressed or Oh, you're just, you know, experiencing anxiety. And as someone who As experienced anxiety from like a mental health standpoint, I'm not brushing that off by any means, what's really important to look at is our, what are you experiencing on a cyclical basis? So what is ebbing and flowing and what are you experiencing consistently? And that's how we can tell if maybe it's tied to our hormonal cycle or our menstrual cycle versus if it's kind of a larger thing in your life.
And so that way, you know, too, like with your medical. Team and providers kind of who to take it to if it's something that's more general and you're going to be wanting to work with like a therapist because it is anxiety that's like spread across or is it something that's very specific to a certain part of your phase and is it something that you can talk to somebody about who's like works with menstrual cycles women's health and hormones.
So then. Those are some of the most common ones that I definitely see are, you know, PMS and painful periods, but I like to also just draw attention to the fact that sometimes it's a lack of these superpowers. I will, But until you know what those are supposed to be, which again, to your point, no one really ever teaches us.
So until you, you don't even really know they're missing, until you start to learn that. Yeah. And then once you do, you're like, well, at least for me, I was like, well, I, I want those back. Right. Like I want to reconnect with that, really innate feminine flow and energy and how do I do that? Yeah. Yeah.
Hmm. And one thing that's coming up for me now is that there's really. I think, and, and I'm talking about myself too, but I think many of us really see our menstruation as a burden, inconvenience, right? And energetically, what can we do there to shift our thoughts around that and see like, wow, this is actually something really special and awesome that our bodies can do this for us.
Like, how do you, how do you see that? I love that question. And it's, you used the word journey earlier, and I think that's the perfect. That's the perfect description for it. And I often refer to it. It's definitely like the heroines journey right of where when it's not a perfect circle that we go and it's complete.
It's a spiral that, you know, we get there and then there's deeper layers. And for myself personally, I actually have endometriosis. And so for me to get to a point where I. Except my cycle is something not life ruining, like, like it would take, you know, take me out of family vacation, like memories for me to get to that point, has been a journey and that's why I feel so passionate about sharing this because I still have, you know, flare ups of my endometriosis and, and so I can be in a lot of pain sometimes still during my period, but I now have you know like a toolkit to care for that and I have the awareness of the other opportunities that exist there and so some of those, it's a very intuitive time.
If you're familiar with working with the new moon with intention setting and just because of the darkness in the sky, how much is available to us, it's really the same and. When we're on our period, we have the same ability to really connect with ourselves on a deeper level if we rest. So to answer your initial question of like, what can we do is really one, one practice to start with is to allow yourself to rest during.
Your period. And I don't mean take the days off work and lay in your bed all day. Although by all means, if you have the flexibility to do that and it feels right, you, you go for it. I did that sometimes. Yeah. Like sometimes I do it too. Right. Or I'll like, listen to podcasts or do things that really.
Make me feel really good. but rest looks is so unique to each of us as well. And yeah, and the difference is between old me and new me is that old me would also lay in bed, but hate myself for it. Yeah. Self judgment. And they would actually, I would not be resting because I would be in stress. And now new me, it's like, Oh yes, I'm just going to name battle day.
I'm going to receive that from myself because I'll feel so much better tomorrow and the day after. Right. So worth it. It's so worth it. And it carries through our whole cycle. so again, you'll see the impact of that when you come back around to the more difficult parts of your cycle, whatever those might be.
I feel that. Yes. Yeah. yeah. And one, one other thing also that I read the other day was how our menstrual cycle is really a reminder of our ability to birth, to create life. Right. And not just in a physical sense, but also creativity, intuition, spiritual growth, connection. Right. and that was really a beautiful I kind of hooked that reminder to my menstrual cycle.
But every time I'm like, Oh yeah, I'm here to, you know, in our feminine power, I am here to birth. I am here to create, not necessarily a human, but here to create love. Newness. and I remember last time we spoke, you also spoke about how it's not just a physical experience, also like energetic and spiritual.
What comes up there for you? Yeah, I feel like it's so there's so much depth to be had when we start the journey. I think a lot of us start with the physical because maybe we're in pain, we're experiencing symptoms, and then it unfolds in. These depths, as you start to see the synchronicities between nature and your own body and really realize that you're like a living embodiment of nature and everything around like for me it really made me feel that feeling of, yeah, like, we are part of nature and nature is going through this cycle and I'm going through this cycle.
And then it goes, there's, yeah, there's just so much energy, it's so subtle to there so it's It's all such subtle, but it's like, it's transforming. Like it's, you just explained how you now know that day where your hormones drop and you're dropping into a new phase. And then you're able, you have the tools, right?
You know how to adjust your day. So actually I've experienced that day this morning, it took me three hours to get here and it was. Me just saying, yeah, I have my spiritual practices and tools and guides. And I just focused on those this morning because I woke up in such like a funky place. And I looked at my cycle chart and I was like, Oh, yeah, that happened like a few days earlier than I, thought it might.
So that would, in the past, just throw me off for like a whole day, right? I would go into a spiral. It's, it's the mind, body, spirit would all just kind of come like tumbling down for me. And now I have like, yeah, these, these practices in place to support myself, both physically, but also energetically and spiritually.
And I really think it's just such a beautiful spiritual practice to observe our own shifts and energy every day and then see how they're connecting to the world around us in nature. Also in this, I do a lot with astrology and my cycle. So it really connects a lot. I see a lot of connection to what's happening in the stars as well in my Cycle. And so there's, and I've studied with the most amazing women and have the most amazing mentors and this journey for each of them has taken them to different depths than it's taking me. So it's just like individual journey that's available for each of us and how it's going to unfold. There's like so much magic in and figuring that out.
Yeah. So much magic and life changing. Yeah. I really, if you walk through that portal for me, it was because it's, it's, it's a reality of our existence of so many of us. And every month cycle happens the same things arise. So once you really gain awareness around that and understand, how can I start to flow with this river that happens every month.
Kind of similar every month, instead of rowing against it, right? You start to go pretty fast. Yeah, I just flow with the universe, I really do. It lightens up. It lightens so much up, yes. And it's one of those things, and I say it's in like the most beautiful way, that once you've seen it, there's no unseeing it.
Once you start to understand it, yeah. And again, like we just talked about and then it just starts to unfold in this kind of like spontaneous and beautiful and really magical way. Yeah. I love you mentioned astrology, because I realized. Maybe a year ago that my cycle shifted from full moon to new moon and now it's back to full moon, and I forgot what it means. Do you know what it means when you cycle in one of those? I love it. Okay. So there's a, there's a, so like before, artificial light, actually most women would ovulate like together around the full moon and we would all bleed together around the new moon, and so if you, but then with artificial light, it, it does things with messes with our hormones.
So, so unavoidable. I love how you said that so politely I have lots of, my daughter came home the other night and I had like my blue light block being glasses on and my night shift on my computer and my like red hormone light on my computer. And I was like, Because I really was just like, I don't want to mess with my hormones as part of my cycle anyways, you know, there's a lot of like on female biohacking and hormone biohacking things that you can get into.
But I love this imagery of the like all of us kind of bleeding around the same time. And you've probably noticed you sync with other women. I lived with a lot of other women in college. and we would sync up with our cycle, you know, it is a thing that happens, but I just also love this imagery of, and if you think about it, when the moon is fully illuminated, it's still associated with this time of fertility, right?
And abundance. And that was when ovulation would occur. So there's always been this connection between the moon and the menstrual cycle. I mean, there's like, It's an ancient thing and actually the menstrual cycles of the women in the communities used to be used to tell time. Because if you think about it, we didn't have like all the calendars and tools we have now.
So when the women would kind of like, they were all had similar cycles and then they were looking and people would look at the moons and those two things together would tell and like keep time. We are basically the kind of the timekeepers in our communities. well, yeah, which I just think is so beautiful, but we can still see that today.
And there was, there is significance. women who were healers and who would support other women, say like medicine women or doulas, you know, people who would support other women would actually bleed on the full moon because the women would I mean, this is, this is kind of like what the research has shown that it's, so that they can support the women who are bleeding.
Right. So they would have an opposite cycle and then they would have like the energy of their ovulation when the other women were bleeding. So you would have that. And it's really interesting when I started doing the work I do now, my cycle shifted to that. wow. Yes. Yeah. And I'm still in it. But it rotates too.
So like you were saying, because our, because our menstrual cycles are about the same number of days. So on average, a menstrual cycle is 28 to 29 days and the lunar cycle is 28 to 29 days. So. You will notice like, shifts. And so I do a lot of work with my clients. I'm looking at like where you're at in your menstrual cycle and what you're experiencing physically and energetically and where the moon is at, because if those don't align, there's, Again, it's just fun to play with the different layers and depths of how we can care for ourselves every day, essentially, so that we are thriving, and, and that is there for us.
Yeah. It's just here. Yeah. Or here. Yeah. We're just so connected to somehow everything that's around and that we might never be able to explain how. But undeniably it is, and it's just, I don't know, call it magic. Yes, very practical magic. You may start to notice after this, like if you start to pay attention, the moon can almost be a magnet.
It'll kind of, it'll change your cycle sometimes, the length of it. If you get close to it, mine, it's almost, it's like, it's getting close. So it'll lengthen my cycle or shorten it a couple of days here or there. Based on the, if there's a, especially if it's like a super moon or something like that. And then my, it's very interesting.
Yeah. The layers of things that you start to find that connect. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, it's so magical. It's beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. And I love how it's also something that really connects so many of us. Yeah. We really sync up. We do sync up. Yeah. And just like I'm, I love having this conversation, and just Being in conversation with women on this because like you said at the beginning, it is a very, it's still considered pretty taboo.
And a lot of this information feels kind of hidden. And then once you start looking for it. Yeah, you realize it's there, but we're not taught it right so and there's not a lot of spaces where it's normal to talk about it. Yeah, Matt. Exactly. Or to lead from it, right? To lead from it is such an amazing, it's so, that's so powerful to be able to.
Yeah. Because you always lead from your truth. Like it's like for me, it's really, once I started allowing my cycle to lead, I started leading from my truth in every moment. Yeah. I'm becoming very aware. This is what my body needs and desires right now. This is what. My edges are right now, right? And really leading from that and how I communicate.
Yeah, being able to communicate it to others. I, I had the honor of guiding a retreat of a group of women who do work throughout my community. I'm Alaska native in Southeast Alaska this last year. Their community catalysts doing amazing and really big work throughout the region, and I got to facilitate a multi day retreat where they all came together and we worked.
Through a cyclical framework on leadership and what that meant for them and what that looked like and they created this common shared language that has been this really beautiful way for them to like break down barriers between like their organizations and the sometimes really like con kind of can be.
Have conflict in it because of the different kind of spaces that they're working in the region. So it was just such an amazing thing to be able to facilitate and witness the power of them, not only understanding, like, how they can lead cyclically, but then having the space, it's like sacred space to be able to communicate to the women that they work with on a regular basis.
Their needs. Now, in the workplace, so they're on a daily basis now able to have this shared language. And if someone says, like, I'm, I'd love it if you could lead this meeting, for example, because I'm in, you know, the my luteal phase. And then my menstrual void, which is when your hormones like drop fully out right and they're kind of like the morning I was having this morning right and being able to just ask someone Hey, would you mind starting this meeting.
I just need to a little more time to listen and absorb in today's meeting versus. Speaking in today's meeting and and being there's so much right empowerment and being able to first like understand our own needs and then being able to communicate them to other women who also understand those. I think this is where so much like transformation.
There's so much opportunity in, like the businesses if we're building businesses that reflect this. Yeah. Throughout the world, things like menstrual leave, not in the U. S., but in other countries, menstrual leave is starting to become, like government mandated and, and, and working its way into companies.
I think the U. S. will hopefully get there at some point, but if, right, if we as entrepreneurs and business owners are able to build that into our businesses, because we have the flexibility to do that, right, right. how amazing. And then hopefully the larger systems will start to. To follow suit. So we have, you know, we have those like our needs.
Yeah, recognized and validated. Yeah, because We are different every day as women who are menstruating and we experience the world different every day. Yeah. And to have some acknowledgement for that. Yeah. Yeah. And I really want, you know, businesses sometimes are scared to give, give women that space to do something their way, but.
I really feel, or I know, we know if you allow us to do it our way, wow, we're going to show up, we're going to deliver just our way, just a little different. Right. And that might be feel scary in the beginning because it's new and we don't know exactly at how it's going to be and go. But if you allow us to figure it out, we're going to deliver because we want it.
We have that fire, which is suppressing the fire because we're going against ourselves. Yeah. And I love that. The fear of it being different is really what's gotten us to where we are now. There was a lot of fear of how connected and powerful women were and the power we held to be able to like physically create life.
But also to your point, like that power of creation has scared so many throughout history. And so we've been. Yeah. Or, yeah, so we're in a time where it's all becoming re awoken re it's slowly being, it's reawaken rewritten to how it always was. Yeah. and, yeah. There's so much. yeah. Okay. Nicole. It's my fire.
Keep burning. Oh, yeah. We'll keep going. No, no, no. We're already embodying it differently, right? So just by doing that, others will also be like, Oh, how do you do that? That seems fun and chill. And they will follow. Yeah, they will. It's actually really interesting. And after I ran this retreat, they. I was asked to come back and run a session for the whole team, men and women, because the men couldn't figure out what language the women were, they were starting to work with each other in a new way.
And they were like, wait, we don't know this language. So I actually, got to teach them as well, which was incredible. That is so cool. Yes. Really creating that shared language around it will really help us already release some of the fear. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. So 1 last topic I want to chat about with you, which is so you work with women leaders, founders and leaders and.
I was curious how you support them in learning the language of their body. What does that actually mean? Like, if someone's listening, it's like, how do I, yeah, that's such a great question. so one of my, the number one thing that I start with, with everyone that I work with, again, no matter what we're working on, you know, like everybody comes to me wanting for a ton of a different outcome, but the underlying is that we first need to understand the language of our own body and our own unique cycle. and so everybody I start with when we work with, oh my gosh, and we work on first, beginning to chart their cycle. That is really, that's the thing. Like if there's one place I can tell people to start, that's going to be it.
Because until we know that language, it's really hard to. Then kind of put practical and tactical strategies or make any changes. Yeah, I mean we can right but we're not going to really know how they're impacting us if we're not looking at it. It's like anything. Yeah, we don't have the foundations in place we don't have the foundational understanding.
It's harder to be like. Strategic with what we don't know what the body's trying to tell us. We don't know what the body's trying to tell us. Yeah. Sometimes we know, like, yeah. Yeah. And that's really the, how our body is just always constantly in every moment, even right now, trying to guide us on our path.
It's always trying to show us our path. Yeah. And how our body talks to us is a little different for all of us, but very often it's through sensations. It's through nudges, visions, right? Mhm. Um. And really feeling through any of our senses. Like, oh yeah, yep, yep. Mm-hmm. , nudge, nudge. A little nudge here, little nudge there, or a pull.
Nope. Not there. Yeah. . And it's really, it's different for all of us. but really, I feel in your work, it might also have more to do with the moods you go through right? In a, in a month. Yeah. Yeah. Different areas, different sensations, different area of the body. Yeah. So we look a lot at, I like to call them like the struggles and the sweet spots in your psycho.
So looking that's physically, mentally, and emotionally. So as you could probably guess from this conversation, I'm a very holistic person. So we're looking at like the three bodies really. And, we're looking at them every day. So. I don't know. I have a cycle. This is my cycle chart. Yeah. I, that people on podcast won't be able to see, but it's, it's a tool that I have that, I will be at, you guys have, we'll have access to.
And every day we just start by, you would just start by writing down how you feel from a physical standpoint, emotional and energetic. And really you want to do it for a minimum of three cycles to start to understand your own patterns. Because a lot of it's a very delicate system that we have inside of us, the endocrine system is very delicate and things like stress, travel, change of environment, change of weather, the moon, what you're eating, your, what you're doing at work can impact it.
And so you really want to at least look to start at over three cycles. To understand what's a pattern and what's maybe just not an occurrence from something that happened in your life. Yeah. And then you will also, you would also want to look at symptoms. Any, anything you want to kind of take. Get a deeper understanding of.
So if it is mood swings, yeah. Starting to really pay attention to like, what are the days I get in a fight with my partner? Like what are those days I want to quit my business and like burn everything down? Like what are those days? I literally just feel like I can't get out of bed. I don't have like the drive to do anything I need to do.
So if, you know, starting to track those as well. The physical, and that's going to change again, depending on the person and what they're wanting to kind of like explore within their cycle. But those basic things, plus what's happening throughout our period. If we start to look at those over a few months, there's so much there.
And then I do like cycle chart readings, like kind of like an astrology chart reading, but we go through your cycles charts. and I teach you not only like. I not only kind of like take a look at them, but then help you understand how to read them so that moving forward as you can read your own charts, and say, yeah, start to understand and interpret what the language of your body is.
Because there's so many subtleties and nuances. Yeah. Yeah, it's really, really big reminder how self awareness is really the key to leadership. Yeah. Self leadership into leading your life, your business, your career, your relationships, your health. Yes. Yes. Self awareness. It all really just, and you said this earlier, which I loved is, and I felt the same way on my journey.
Like the awareness was everything and, and so empowering and so healing just to be able to say, Oh yeah, this is why I feel this way today. And it's okay. This is my, this is how my body, this is, this is just how I'm built. So I'm designed to feel this day and that's okay. And say, it's one of these days, like I had this morning, right?
That's okay. And I have. these, I have my toolkit of things that I know is going to serve and support me in that phase of my cycle and I can start leaning into them when I start to feel those shifts. love it. And then I got my chocolate waiting for me for that's in my toolkit right now. Yeah. And yeah, and then we can take it to that level of how are we, what are we doing in our business that day?
How are we leading that day? How are we? You know, by showing up in our honesty and our truth and supporting ourself in the way we need and then hopefully getting to the point where we're, you know, communicating those to the, to the around us in our life as well. Yes, love that. Yeah. So, Nicole, thank you.
You have little gifts, or an invitation for anyone who's listening to kind of start there. They're reconnecting to their cycle journey. Yeah. with what we were just talking about cycle charting, and I want to be able to, I'm really on a mission before the end of this year. I want to get, as many women, I'd love to get like a hundred women going on charting their cycles.
So, yeah. So I wanted to offer, not only the tool, but a. Uh, like 20 minute consult or session with me where I will get you set up charting for yourself and we can, I, we can figure out like where your cycle exactly starts and kind of some of the things you're experiencing and some of the things you may want to kind of take through the cycle charting process together.
But most importantly, I'll give you the, the tool. It is a physical practice. And so I just did want to say there's a difference between tracking your period with an app and cycle charting, cycle charting, the daily, It's a daily mindfulness practice where you're actually putting pen to paper, which really helps us to like fully kind of translate and understand and embody what we're experiencing each day.
So yeah. So you're welcome to DM me on Instagram. I know the link will be down below, but it's at season and cycle and yeah, we can get your. your cycle charting session set up and get you going. I already did one with her, with Nicole, and I can tell you, it is so worth it to take the time to really set yourself up in your cyclic journey to reconnect to what your body has been telling you all along and for you to understand it, and to lead from that place of power that already is within. So thank thank you so much. Thank you. I love this conversation. Yeah, I really hope it reaches far and wide. This is so important. I know that for me, there was clearly a before and after, me who understood. What is actually happening in my body and how I can translate that and how I can nourish myself through my cycle.
So please, please, please create space and time for yourself to do this. It's so freaking worth it. Any last words, Nicole? And last insight, wisdom, something you want to share advice, just going to say, let's change the world together. One period at a time, starting with your own. Yeah, I can't wait to connect with everybody.
I'm joining your crew. I love it. And, no, everybody just has a lovely, lovely rest of your season. Whenever Susan you're in while you're listening to this. Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing your fire with us.
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