UnF*ck Your Money
Welcome to The Unfuck Your Money with Nadine Zumot, Certified Money Coach, Functional Somatic Practitioner, Leo Virgo Cuspie, 1/4 Mani Gen and a lot more!
The Unfuck Your Money Podcast is for coaches, practitioners, and Soul-led entreprenurs who are ready to step into their Unfuckwithable energy!
With my direct, edgy and fun approach to money, the purpose of this podcast is to help you break through your financial blocks, release unhealthy money patterns, and cultivate a sexy and secure relationship with money.
UnF*ck Your Money
Menstrual Magic w/ Rachel Root
Did you know that your menstrual cycle could be intimately connected to your money and your ability to manifest abundance?
I would never imagine myself describing a podcast episode as “precious” especially one on periods... but precious is the best word to capture the essence of this mindblowing interview with Rachel Root 🤯
Y’all! The stuff she shares is WILD! And I SO wish I learned all this 20 years ago because my life would have been very different.
Instead of waging a war against my period for nearly 3 decades, I could have not only befriended it but harnessed its superpowers!
Turns out, our monthly cycles hold the secrets to creativity and manifesting abundance! That’s bananas!!
Rachel offers invaluable insight into the complexities of women's reproductive health, including perimenopause and menopause.
It's not just about procreation she explains, but also about maintaining a healthy hormonal and nervous system to support our best life.
I hope you love this episode as much as I did!
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Rachel Root, LA.C is a is an East Asian Medicine Practitioner, Integrative Women's Health Coach and the founder of Root Care.
Rachel is a fertility and hormone health specialist, she helps people with periods heal their hormone issues so they can live a life they truly desire.
She loves helping couples conceive, fixing menstrual cycle issues, and helping women thrive in their perimenopause years.
Her 6-month, 1:1 coaching program is designed to help you achieve your best hormone health.
Rachel's Instagram: @rootcare_ provides some excellent resources for further learning. She also recommends some awesome resources such as :
- Period Power by Maisie Hill
- Wild Power by Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer.
Explore my 3 month Wealth Program MOMENTUM ⭐️ HERE ⭐️
Thank you for being here ❤️
✨If this podcast is a helpful resource for you, please share it with your friends, on social media, and leave a 5-star rating and review.
Connect with me on Instagram for free tips, inspo: https://www.instagram.com/nadinezumot/
~Podcast theme song by The Jilted Irony
Hello everyone and welcome back to the Money Healing Podcast. Today we've got something different happening here on the podcast. We're kind of focusing on women's health and with me I've got somebody that I love, love, love following on Instagram. We've been going around in the same business circles for the past year. We were in Cat Lee's business alchemist mentorship together, but we've never actually met in person so well. This is in person as in person as it can be right, so I would love to welcome Rachel Root here on the Money Healing Podcast. Rachel Root is an integrative woman's health coach, so welcome, rachel. Thank you for being here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you so much for having me, nadine. I've been such a fan of you and your work for a while, so it's really fun to get to have this chat together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've had my eye on you ever since I started that podcast. This podcast it was named something else at the time and I'm like, yeah, we're gonna get there, we're gonna start talking about menstruation and women's health and all that stuff, because it's needed and you know, I love that, I love what you do, and I like to first ask all my guests what is turning you on in life at the moment?
Speaker 2:Well, I'm trying to revision my life at the moment because I am very pregnant. I have about seven weeks left of this and you know I'm 38 years old and I've spent my life not as a mother to this point. So now I'm trying to create like a really positive vision for what this next phase of my life is going to be like, and it's nice thing to fantasize about right now.
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah, I mean it's. It's cool when you know a lot of people come and work with me just as life slaps them in the face in one way or another, something happens and they're like, oh shit, nothing's making sense. What's going on? Right, and of course, it all links up to money, but it's cool when you know that you're changing your life and your life as you know it is gonna change forever. You're no longer, you know, just Rachel. You're Rachel, the mom forever, and it's very exciting. And you are such a cute pregnant person, like the photos. A lot of people look pregnant, but you look particularly cute. So, yeah, I just wanted to say that.
Speaker 2:That's so sweet to hear. Thank you so much. I'm so excited to talk about the menstrual cycle and women's health today, but what I'm excited to explain to your listener is how this closely relates to money and our ability to have abundance and manifest.
Speaker 1:Seriously. Yeah, it'll be fun to have a conversation about how these things connect, and how?
Speaker 2:yeah, everything is connected, as we know, but these two things are more connected than I think we realize, unless we really know.
Speaker 1:Oh wow, I really didn't expect that. Well, this is exciting. So before we dive into all that, tell us about your journey and how you got to where you are.
Speaker 2:Okay, how much time do we have? Let's see. Let's see if I can make this short version. But um, well, let's start at when I decided to sort of study medicine, and I'll have to go back a quick step.
Speaker 2:I love education and I started off as an education major and then in college I realized very quickly just was not the right fit to me. I was not interested in those courses. So the next best thing, in my opinion, was like becoming doctor, wanting to study medicine. So I started to think about that path. But reality hit after I started that course of like I don't think I want to be an ER doctor and I honestly felt, really, I would say, jaded about my ability to help people within the field of Western medicine. So I ended up studying physical therapy because I felt like it was sort of this in between it's like hands-on, you're helping people, and I was going through a ton of health problems during that time myself and I was interning at this great sports medicine clinic with this Japanese baseball pitch specialist and I know he recommended they seen acupuncturist for the things that I was struggling with because nobody else seemed to help at that point.
Speaker 2:So I went to this student clinic, which is all I could afford at the time, and this student who saw me could explain to me what's happening and was more insightful than years of going to Western physicians. She just seemed to ask the right questions and I left feeling like more cared for than I had felt before and it just like I did something, opened up and I was like, okay, chinese medicine is it? This is what I'm going to do. So then, while studying Chinese medicine, I more and more started to learn about, like the women's health side of things, how to heal my body.
Speaker 2:I just really fell in love with women's health and more and more I realized that was the track I wanted to take. Wow, yeah. But I was not satisfied completely with only Chinese medicine. I felt like there's so much new things coming out within the field of, like Western medicine and integrative medicine and especially I yeah, more and more research is more women in medicine than ever before. There's more women in research than ever before. So my brain and my heart were really interested in making that a really integrative approach.
Speaker 1:Integrative that word yes, yes, and yeah.
Speaker 2:So it's sort of my journey of studying Eastern medicine, western medicine, and then realizing so much about how we heal comes down to how we care for ourselves, but changing the way that we do things. It's not easy. So that's been like coaching came in right. It's like how do I help people change the things that they need to change in order to, you know, I guess cultivate a healing state is the way I like say it which is which is really hard when you know we are used to living our lives changes very hard. So then this approach to how do I help people change, and then it kind of all came together and that's where I ended up right now you could just tell how much you love what you do just by looking at your Instagram.
Speaker 1:Your Instagram is one of my favorites. Honestly, I've had a very weird relationship with my period all my life. So it's been up and down and you know I try to be friend and then sometimes I feel like it's gonna murder me and then sometimes we become friends and just reading things in you you're opening questions in my head in a very good way in the way that you post things, in the way you talk about things, and I definitely feel like my period, or our periods, speak to us or communicates. They communicate with they are coming. Our periods communicate with us through pain and through intensity. Is that something real? Or is that something that I just made up to feel, to feel better about the past 20 years of my life?
Speaker 2:it is so real and it's so insightful for you to think of that way. It's a monthly feedback system. It's designed to show us how we need to be caring for ourselves and, unfortunately, the world that we live in right now, as the pace that we have to go in and function every day, it's not really time for the self reflection and the connection to our menstrual cycle for us to really get all the benefits and wisdom out of it. But we'll talk today about like how our menstrual cycle is actually so. It's really there to help us grow both physically, mentally and spiritually. Outside of being able to just create new humans, it's really designed for our own internal self-growth as well.
Speaker 1:Well, you just gave me goosebumps. Honestly, I feel like we need to dive in now. Let's go Tell us more. That was a teaser and a half, wasn't it?
Speaker 2:I want to start off by framing this, because this is a money podcast, framing this a little bit about how this, in my opinion, connects with abundance and money and our ability to manifest. I want to sort of turn it around on you first, if I can, just a little bit, because I know through studying you and your work and the beautiful offerings you have to give, that, in order, I would say, the people that tend to be the most successful with creating money and having money, we know, and the archetypes speak within your language are the warriors and the magicians. Yes, oh my God, Rachel, yes, but you know this so much more intimately than I do, so maybe we can remind everybody listening what are the qualities of these people and what makes them warriors and magicians.
Speaker 1:Sure, I like to always say that to have the right balance in money. So the thing is there is always a school of thought of so much discipline, you got to do this, you got to do that, and then the other school of thought that is just kind of recent in the past 20 or 30 years of just attract it, just manifest it. So I like the marrying of both sides, the balancing of the magician and the warrior, meaning like, yes, you are the creator of your life, you are your soul and your spiritual practice is part of your money journey. But also you've got the warrior side, which is your practical side, the side of you that knows your values, knows what your goals are, makes sure that your goals are not coming out from your trauma, they're coming out from your soul. So it's more like a collaboration between your soul and your human side. Pretty much in very simple terms, and it's not a 50-50,.
Speaker 1:I'm noticing, the more I work with people, the more I see like it's more of a 75% magician and 25% warrior and the magician really balances out the warrior, because if the warrior is not balanced by the magician, it can swing into becoming a tyrant or becoming a martyr. So when we're so savvy and so like, you know, not just with money, but so like practical, and we stand on both feet and we're like, really like strong and who we are, we might either become too strong or we might want to save the world. So that is why I always like to have that balancing of the magician. And just to give credit where credit is due, all these archetypes were created by my mentor, Deborah Price. Hey, Deborah, if you're listening, could be, I don't know, for Deborah actually was the one to sort of find me to use these archetypes but, of course, because of my love of the nervous system and of trauma, I took them a step further.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because those marry each other very well. In order to be our warrior self or to be our magician self, we need to have regulated nervous systems. Yes, absolutely. I mean, in order to have healthy menstrual cycles, we need regulated nervous systems there you go.
Speaker 2:Really, really, it's all coming together. But what I like about these archetypes a lot is that the warrior to me and from an Eastern medicine perspective she's very young, right, she goes out, she gets it done, she does the work, she's not afraid to learn what she has to do or ask the questions or get that bank account set up.
Speaker 1:Pretty much.
Speaker 2:yep, that's the war and the magician is the one who's like, has the ability to safely receive or to trust or to have some sort of alignment with life that feels less doing and more receiving. Am I?
Speaker 1:getting this thing Exactly more of a Yin energy. Yes, you got it, and you said it so beautifully.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is the Yin and Yang balance. Well, our menstrual cycle is exactly the same way. It's set up for us to go out and do and create and be in the world. But also there's this very important other aspect to it, which is, in order to be in sync with our menstrual cycle, there is a period of time where we really need to be able to like, rest and receive and trust and let go and whoa, okay, wow, our hormones that are released during different phases of our cycle really set us up for that really well. And I'll kind of start from the beginning.
Speaker 2:When it's time to menstruate, this is when our estrogen and progesterone levels drop to their lowest state and we kind of become a more of an empty vessel, right, and we start to bleed, we shed, our energy is much lower and this is sort of like the winter season of the planet, right. This is the time where there's not a ton of abundance. It's time to bring all of our energy down into our roots and rest and weight. So we have this sort of season of our menstrual cycle that is akin to winter, and it's also because it's not a very young time. It's not a time to go out and do things. It's a time to dream and vision and set intentions and think about these bigger goals that we want to create or how we want to. If we want to talk about many, you know how do we want to do that and what do we want for our lives and what do we want to look like. It's a great time for that because it's not the time to like charge out and go do things. Okay.
Speaker 2:Also, paired with this time where uterine contractions that happen in order for our bleed to happen, well, we release a hormone called oxytocin. This creates that uterine contractions and you might know this is also known as like the love hormone. So it's a time where we can kind of be like filled with love and relax. If it's a time that we're going and doing too much, we can really stress hormones that can counteract the oxytocin, their agonist to each other. So stress hormones will actually make this like uterine contractions, smooth oxytocin thing that's happening and we can be here with that. So if we're doing too much during that time, we're not really honoring our inner winner, we're not connecting to our intentions and our dreaming and visioning, then we can have problems during this time, more problems during this time of cycle right.
Speaker 2:Why did I?
Speaker 1:know that 10 years ago. Why don't we all have any like paid leave for when we have our periods? I work for myself and I try to do that for myself but when we're employed, why isn't this? A thing Like this is real. This is real.
Speaker 2:This is real and unfortunately it's because our society was set up by men, for men and they don't really need this time, and so it wasn't really put into place within society. And once women got into the working world, we just had to sort of roll with how it was going. And unfortunately it's to our detriment, in my opinion, because this time where we can rest and receive and vision and dream is highly productive. It's not unproductive, it's a tool of, like, deep self reflection. Otherwise, we're just going going, going in this time in this sort of rat race way, where we're not actually using all of our wisdom in order to be able to make the things that we want to make happen.
Speaker 1:Or this is amazing, you know, make the money that we want to make happen, yeah, like just making our life, manifesting our life and designing it and kind of creating it from intention as opposed to reaction.
Speaker 2:Exactly, yeah, we can be so much more wise if we have that period of resetting and thinking. Then, after a period is over, estrogen starts to build within our system and we get start to get that estrogen back. And this really, most people feel it. You know we're all a little bit different, so there can be nuances within this, but for the majority of people, that rise and estrogen again gives you energy to start to go out there again and start to do the things that you want to do. And this is a time that tends to be a little more lighthearted and you can feel creative and you can feel you have that reset. You can go out there and be the more, start to be the more young side of yourself, the more warrior side of yourself, very naturally, because your hormones are really helping your brain and your body respond in that way.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, that makes so much sense for me. Okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we get to ovulation time, astrogens out its highest and then we also get this great boost into testosterone. So then there's this feeling like I want to do it all and I can do it all you know I can make should happen, and it's very it's, it can be, if you know everything is healthy and balance. It can be a time where you can really bring out that inner warrior and she can really, you know, get things done, get shit done, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then on the elation, when that happens, we release an egg from our ovary and then we create a new organ in our body called the corpus luteum and she creates this hormone called progesterone and we start to make an abundance amount of abundant amount of progesterone. And this changes our body and brain a little bit and influences in our brain in a way where we tend to be less focused on the external world and what's happening outside of us and a little more tuned into the internal world and what's going on inside of us. So we start to go back towards that yin energy again. We're moving from that yang energy, that height of ovulation, and we start to close back in on this sort of yin energy within ourselves. And, just to let you know, we're always balanced in yin and yang throughout this, but as far as, like, an energetic feeling point of view, this is coming back to our yin side of things and this progesterone that's happening with our brain.
Speaker 2:It also helps us analyze and edit and think about all the stuff that we're doing and saying like is this working for us? And this is sometimes why we can be so emotional during that time, because sometimes it's just not. You know, like we live in a world where things are really hard. It's really hard for women. It's normal to get angry about the world, but we feel it more during this time because we're more in tuned with those inner emotions and those things that are working and not.
Speaker 2:It can be a fabulous time for journaling or thinking like, okay, I went out there and I did the stuff. Like let's reflect on how is it working for me and is it working at all, which is hard to do. If you're go, go, going all the time, you don't take that time to think, oh, okay, like, let's edit what we're doing, like this is working for me. This is, you know, this is helping me within my job, or helping me within my goals, or helping me within what I'm trying to do in the world, and this is not. And if we're not taking that moment to use that time of our cycle to really edit what we're doing, we're just going to keep going down the path that is not serving us.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes. Until we crash and burn Exactly, and we don't say that until we crash and burn and like from archetype speak. That's when we're just forcing that magician until it becomes a martyr or a tyrant kind of thing, where nothing's working. Keep going, keep going. I don't care how I feel, I'm just going to keep going. You end up either over giving or being really angry at everyone.
Speaker 2:Which is kind of yeah, you get resentful because you're like I'm doing, doing, doing, but I'm not receiving. We forget to learn. We need to learn how to receive. I need to. I'm still learning. Oh, you're all still?
Speaker 1:learning, because our relationship with receiving is so connected with receiving from our caregivers, from our parents in the beginning and it's as nice as they were, or whatever. It's always strings attached. It was always a conditional receiving of like oh, you get good grades and you'll get this thing, and now we're like. So if I'm a good person, will the universe give me one. That's what I want, that's what I keep seeing. A lot with my clients is like that's conditional relationship with receiving. Oh, so if I do everything right but I did everything right why isn't it working?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we think that if we're good girls and we do things we're supposed to, everything's going to turn out fine, and unfortunately, the system isn't completely set up for that. We actually need to take our power into our own hands, so to speak, and reflect like, okay, I am doing, doing, doing and doing all the things, but how is this working for me and my community? How can we keep that in balance and not just have one benefactor in this and using all my energy up?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and how do I stop extracting from myself pretty much and just not do that anymore? Yeah, and it's a slippery slope when you're a solo business person, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I think you know, as we've gone through you know a particular course together. Shout out to Kat if she's listening. But we see that you know, in the cohort of people, one of the hardest things is to ask for. What you deserve is to be able to ask for money for the services that you've worked so hard to learn. And yeah, but creating this balance within yourself, or your balance within yourself, is already there. So you know, you can't just stay connecting to this balance within yourself, rather yeah.
Speaker 1:Not overriding it, not overriding yourself, not overriding what your body's trying to tell you, because what you just shared is so valuable. And yes, I mean I learned about all that at school, but not like that, not in a way that's like. This is a time for reflection and this is when you're you know, instead of like, oh, you're overly sensitive, are you about to get your period? You know that shameful like, are you on your period? Like you know? Question, because you're overly not overly sensitive, but, like you said, like you, you see the world differently and you're more in tune with things, and when things are not working, you're more in tune with them. That's why you're quote unquote overly sensitive, and I hate it when people ask me that like, are you in your period?
Speaker 2:I know it feels like such an insult, right, I know I mean we associate that with being, you know, out of control or not.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in balance, or like yeah, hysterical, or whatever. Like yeah, I really resent that. I don't like it when people say that to me. Luckily, my husband never says that to me, but yeah, it's just, it's just the way it is, you know, people just say that it's mean.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, yeah, it has definitely roots in the patriarchy. The history, you know being hysterical, refers to the uterus. What? Yeah, the origin word of is is the uterus, so it's basically okay. It's from having a cycle and having, you know, different emotions throughout the month and those changes not being the norm because men were the norm, right. And women were not the norm. Okay, yeah, so yeah, it's a nasty word really.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, I love this interview so freaking much. Tell me more, tell me more.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I will back up for a second, because I talked about our menstrual cycle being our winter. Then we move into this, like estrogen rising, so we refer to that as sort of our inner spring, okay. So you know, and then our ovulation period is our inner summer, okay, and our luteal phase, that pre-menstrual phase, is our inner autumn. And because we have this sort of monthly cycle within ourselves, this sort of mini, you know, yearly calendar within our monthly cycle, really helps the growth process, because it's that time to you know, get yourself out there, try something, get creative, put that young energy into it, reflect and then rest and receive and start over. And if we're using this time really intelligently, that's how, like each cycle we go through should be helping us, you know, energetically, spiritually, psychically grow. We should be learning from this continuous, just like the, you know, our plants and the things in nature grow because of the seasons, of the cycle, because there's just time of growth and repair and starting over.
Speaker 1:And you gave credit to.
Speaker 2:I'm glad you're, I'm glad that you're enjoying it, and I want to give credit to the teachers who really put this together for me, since we did as well. But if you're interested in learning more, about this inner seasons and your cycle. There's an amazing book called Wild Power, and it's by.
Speaker 2:Alexandra Pope and Shawnee Hugo Berlitzer, and both, I believe they're both psychologists yeah, I believe that's their background. But they connected, you know, women's mental health and the cycle and put this language together for us. When I read this book, it was really mind blowing to me because it is very connected to the way that Chinese medicine use and looks at the cycle and treats the cycle and helps harmonize with the cycle. So there was a big crossover there for me and it gave a lot of language to this experience of our cycle. So if you're interested in knowing more about that, that's the origin.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so weird question. What's coming to mind now is that so we all have these apps that kind of track our period and tell us when the period's coming, and all that. So I've been in this habit of the app telling me where I'm at. But now that I'm 42 and I'm in a few weeks, my period's all over the place. So there's no app that can track the crazy wild ass thing that's happening inside of me. And now it's interesting because now I'm relying on my body to tell me where.
Speaker 1:I'm at with my period, as opposed to the app or the time of the month kind of thing. So how would you recommend people actually track where they're at in their body seasons, as you were mentioning? Is it how they're feeling, or obviously not an app.
Speaker 2:So now I'm like yeah, that is such a great question and thank you for asking it. I think, in order to use this information that we can gather from our cycle and these tools that come along with it, we first need to be the observers and build the awareness. So, like you said, tracking it is so, so helpful. So what you can do is just every day write down and a few words like how you're feeling and what you're needing as you go through your cycle. And so the very first day of your cycle is the day of your full bleed. So if you're like lightly spotting or something, you're not quite there yet, but if you're on a full bleed, you can count that as cycle day one. And so in your calendar or your diary you can write one you know just a one, and then you might want to stay how you feel and what symptoms you're having next to it and if you can keep up with that, and just six, a couple minutes and a little practice getting to the habit, if you can keep up with that and do that for a couple of cycles and you have so much information about how you feel.
Speaker 2:Because the stuff we talked about it's a general right, but we're all individuals, like we're all going to feel a little bit differently and we're going to have different needs and different phases of our cycles, and so you can just take that moment to self reflect and be like oh God, what do I really want right now? And you know, for some people during their population phase, that they want is to like you know, have a great time with friends and go dancing or something more young, right, yeah, they want to, like, do something fun. Let's say that's not always how we feel at the end of our Lutial phase. You know somebody invites you out and you're like crap, why I don't want to do this today.
Speaker 2:So you can note that with and correlate it to each part of your cycle and then you have this information of oh, this is how I typically feel then, this is how I typically feel then. So then you can start to sort of you have a projection in the future and keep track of saying like, if you're going to make plans or you're going to do something, you can say like oh, you know, I'll be on cycle day I'd say 29 at that point and you have a 32 day cycle and you know this is the time where you don't want to do anything. So you can just tell somebody like no, next week is better, right, yeah, that's super helpful. But what you're mentioning is like, once we get into that Perry menopause this like another word.
Speaker 1:I don't know how to pronounce Perry menopause. I read it and I'm like I don't know what that is. I know what that is. I don't know how to pronounce it Perry menopause. Thank you, it's like an English language thing here Yep Perry menopause.
Speaker 2:Well, I don't speak three languages, so I can't.
Speaker 2:I just just one, and sometimes not even that well. But yeah, perry, menopause, which is like a whole new term we should probably let the listeners know about it's this period of time leading up to menopause. Menopause is the stopping of your period and your you go into menopause one year after your final period, but the time leading up to that, that transition, is actually a really long period. Most of us don't realize that we start to go into a whole new hormonal cycle Anywhere. We could be 10 to 15 years before. Some people don't have any symptoms until four or five years before. Some people start to have symptoms 10, 12, 15 years before, because our brain and body is changing or changing and we're getting ready for a new phase in their life where we're not cycling anymore.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. And for me, the only symptom that I know of and I'm sure that once you start, you know saying things it'll be like oh sure, yeah, that makes sense Is that my periods all over the place, like it used to be like clockwork, it used to be like 2pm on the day. It's there, it's like my period is a Virgo, it really prompt, but now it's unpredictable, like my last one was six weeks, it was two weeks late, so it was a really long cycle. I didn't know where I was, I don't know what was happening, I had no symptoms and then all of a sudden it came and it nearly killed me. And now I've survived. We're good now. I made it through.
Speaker 2:So yeah, yeah. This makes it very challenging to sort of have that weather forecast, if you will, of saying like oh my period.
Speaker 2:I know my period is coming in two days. They always have a 32 days cycle, right? Yeah, this is a very, very normal symptom of early period menopause that our cycle links will vary and it's there's nothing unhealthy about it. Within this period of time Say this happened when you're 18 or 19 or 20, then that's symptomatic and that's something that you actually want to tell you know menstrual health expert, a doctor, somebody so that you can work with your cycle in a way to regulate it. When, once we get into our 40s, those irregular cycles they're not. Actually there's no actual problem with it. It's a normal aspect of aging, but it does make it harder to track. You really have to rely on your internal feelings. At that point, hopefully you've made a connection enough with your cycle to say like, oh, I know I always feel this way during this time. So this must mean but it does get more difficult and it does require a little bit more patience and understanding and softness and tenderness with your body that it's not going to work like clockwork anymore.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you just hit me in the gut with that one softness and tenderness with my body, not frustration, and like where the hell are you? I need to find my life. I need to know how, until I can go to the hot springs. Come on, tell me where you're going.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. Unfortunately we don't have that same timing and luxury, but we we can use that information of knowing what we need, of checking in and thinking what do I actually need right now and trying to give yourself a little bit of that right, having that self reflection of what is my body telling me. That would be really juicy and delicious right now. Would it be like a long conversation with a friend, would it be a hot bath, would it be a bike ride or would it be going to bed like two hours early Going to bed now, I think for me it was more like that Going to bed.
Speaker 2:The hard part is to listen right.
Speaker 2:We don't a lot of it and I think this also goes back to manifestation too is a lot of us have a hard time giving ourselves what we need, because we we don't ask ourselves what is it that we want to need. We're just, we're just focusing on the outside world right Of like what should I be doing? What you know, what did society tell me that I like how I should be spending my time, or how I should be making money, or how I should be in the world, all of that, and it's easy to just keep running on that outside picture that we've created, yeah, without ever actually checking in and thinking like is this truly what I need or want? Is this really working for me? So, even those like little check ins in order to be able to be more in tune with our cycles and part of it, you know, a part of our cycle experience in a way that serves us more, is having that little check in is like what do I actually need instead of what do I think I should be doing?
Speaker 1:Got it. So obviously all that connects. So okay, another weird question chicken or egg question. I know you actually hang on, so I'm can. I'm not confused. I know that I won't be as soon as I asked this question. So the nervous system tells your like, determines your period, health and your period and your cycle also produces the hormones. That also influences the nervous system. I feel like 100% like, yeah, in the cycle with each other, yeah, okay, yeah, they know each other.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you gotta ask your body, but 100% true, and I think that's something that we don't talk about and I'm really glad that you brought that up because it's not really a voice or expressed in this way, but they do both help each other so much where a regulated or cared for, as I like to say sometimes nervous system really helps promote good hormonal balance. Because our body is either in this rest, digest and reproduce state, which you know. Reproduction requires our sex hormones to be balanced and good standing and that works really well and we're safe when we're aligned, when we're, you know, regulated within our nervous system. Your body is going to be wanting to do that work.
Speaker 2:Really naturally there's a lot of stressors or when we go into those fight or flight states when we need the protection of our survival hormones, our body needs to switch its focus and that's reproduction and, you know, sex hormone regulation to the side in order for us to stay alive, because it thinks right now, protecting you and making sure you are safe and alive is more important. So we'll head aside for a minute and we're going to focus there so that we can keep you safe, and we'll go back once you're in safety, because in the past our threats to our actual safety usually came in short bouts a run in with a predator or maybe a, you know, physical fight with a human try a member.
Speaker 2:Yeah, something that was like okay, we're going to have to put a lot of energy into the system, make sure you survive it and then, once we do survive, we'll go right back to that state. Right, and you know this very well. It's this part of the way you teach as well. But there's also another aspect with our hormones, like our progesterone and our estrogen really help our nervous system work its best. They communicate with each other.
Speaker 2:Like progesterone tends to be a very calming hormone on the nerve, on the nervous system as well, and we need to be. We need to ovulate in order to make progesterone, but we also need to not have so many stress hormones in our body in order to be able to have the energy to ovulate. So it's kind of this crazy like system where we, yeah, our hormones are super helpful for keeping our nervous system regulated, but we're not going to even create them in the first place. If we're, we're living in this dysregulated, more survival state. So then you can get in this really bad feedback loop, or you can get into this really positive feedback loop where they're all supporting each other really well.
Speaker 1:Do I look like the mind blown emoji to you?
Speaker 2:Because that's how.
Speaker 1:I feel, just feel like the top of my head is exploding. That's awesome. Oh my God, that's so cool.
Speaker 2:Tell me more. Yeah, I mean, that's another reason why learning to care for a reproductive system goes way beyond wanting to get pregnant. It tends to be. Even though I'm fertility specialist and I've been working in that for 10 years, the message that I end up wanting to get out there, like on Instagram or into the world that I feel passionate about, is that, god, this goes so far beyond just making babies. This has so much more Like not everybody wants to do that and that's great and perfectly wonderful, but it doesn't mean that you can just ignore your hormonal health all together and live the life that you want to live. If your hormonal health is there to help you have the life you know your best life, honestly caring for it, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I only learned that from you. I learned that from you from following you on Instagram. That is the only time I learned that, that what you just said because in the back of my mind, I don't want to have kids, so I didn't care, because that's what I was told. I would go to the doctor and like have issues with my period, and they're like do you want kids? I said no. They're like oh, you don't have to worry. That's what I was told so many times, because they just didn't have the tools to help me. And then, ever since I started following you, I was like whoa, hold on, this is not right, I need to. Everything you said like yes, we need to care about our hormonal health, not just because we want to have children, even though I was told that so many times.
Speaker 2:No, it has been a misconception. You know, women medicine for a long time.
Speaker 2:That is that if you aren't actively making babies, it's OK to just shut down the system and ignore it, because that's what it's there for. But we forget that estrogen helps our mood, it helps build our bone health, it helps protect our breast, it helps prevent dementia, it helps regulate our weight and our hunger. It has so many things that it does outside of reproduction and making babies, and the same with our progesterone. It protects our brain and our breast health as well. It helps support our mental health. You know I'm probably missing a million things here on this lot, but it has a lot to do with our health outside of getting pregnant and we're a lot of us are missing supporting that system because we're under stress, because we don't know how to live in alignment with it and we don't know how to make it our friend and our benefactor. We're taught that we should just try to ignore it and survive it till it's over. We lose so much gold.
Speaker 1:And it obviously has a lot to do with manifestation, like you mentioned. So that's a very interesting take, not that I'm going to care about it just because of, you know, financial health or prosperity. Now, you know, is it too late for me to take care of it at 42?
Speaker 2:No, no, no, no, no, no, not so ever. In fact, it's more important than ever, because what we talked about before is that things don't work the same necessarily anymore as our, where we go through a big brain change and our body needs to do some shifting and this time becomes a period of time where we're really vulnerable to like problems, like problems that can manifest later in life, that we want to avoid. Things like diabetes or dementia, or caring for ourselves in our pairing cause years can really help support the longevity of ourselves, because we come, become more vulnerable during that time because our hormones are not as stable and you're not getting that stable support from the things I had mentioned a little bit earlier. They progesterone starts to go down first. This is why we tend to get more sometimes moody or irritable in the perimenopause phase, or start to feel worsening PMS symptoms or start to feel more breast tenderness or start to get heavier periods. This happens because our progesterone becomes less abundant and less stable, just naturally, it's part of the process.
Speaker 2:There's things that we can do, though. We know that nutrient deficiencies, things like vitamin B or vitamin C deficiency, or stress of course, stress is a big one these will naturally lower our progesterone even more. I like to think of it as protecting what we got while we have it and making sure that we're doing the things that we can to help support what we have while we have it so that we get as much of those gorgeous sex hormones as long as we can until we hit that phase of menopause and things switch. Menopause is not a bad thing for us necessarily. It takes us into a whole new journey of our being. It's a spiritual upgrade for sure In some ways, because our body is less worried about making humans and manifesting other things like caring for others. Well, we actually become even better caretakers post-menopause. So that sounds a bit confusing, but there's like this focus of we're going to eliminate this so that you have even more time to focus on yourself, your creative endeavors, the community at large. It can be an upgrade, for sure.
Speaker 1:I actually know exactly what you're saying. I'm sure that the listeners are as well. It's more like you're still caring, but the caring is different. It's like when I hit 40, I stopped caring about certain things. Not that like, oh, fuck you world. It's more like, oh, I no longer care about these things that I used to care about, and it happened as soon as I hit 40. And the same happened when I hit 30. And it's like after menopause, you no longer care about these things and you care about other things. You're still caring, but the things you care about are different.
Speaker 1:Yeah absolutely and.
Speaker 2:I think you're taking me to this point I was trying to make. Which better is that, after all that time cycling, you're learning and growing, each time right, you're reflecting, you're trying, you're, and then it becomes clear to you the things that are truly important, the things that you want to spend your time on, the things that are aligned with your purpose, and then you can just get on with that. You don't need necessarily this period of experiment and reflect. You can, just you can, get on with things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that makes sense had all your learning.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my mom didn't. I mean she she's in her sixties now, but she had a situation where she had to have his direct to me, so her, um, perimenopause and all that was not something that I can ask her about. So it's such a mystery for me, you know, like, oh, that, oh, and people I say, just go ask your mom. Like my mom didn't have that, she had to have his direct to me, like in her mid thirties, I think. So it's such a big like question mark for me of what, what does that look like? And like it just feels annoying when people are like, just ask your mom. Okay, yeah, she's here, but I can't ask her these things.
Speaker 1:So I'm really happy we're talking about this and I'm obviously very like, uh, intrigued because, um, your 38 you mentioned, but the thing is with 40, it hits you on the face because you're like what the fuck does happen with time? Um, and I think I mentioned this before on this pot and on the podcast is that the days leading up to the age 40, I literally would wake up in the middle of the night and go to my calculator and actually subtract the year from the year of my birth because there must have been something wrong and I did that so many times of like how did this happen? How am I 40? You know, like there must have been, there must be some miscalculation because where did time go?
Speaker 1:Okay, that was what's coming up for you, it just felt like, like I was at uni like yesterday, not 20 years ago, yeah, and this whole thing with perimenopause. I'm like, oh my God, I'm here now. How did this happen? In my head? I'm like this 26 year old dancing to Pearl Jam you know, I still am, but like I'm not 26, but like that's the image I have in my head and perimenopause just also hit me in the face. I'm like, oh shit, we're here because I read about it or whatever I hear about. I'm like, yeah, that's something I worry about later and I don't want that to happen with menopause. I don't want to just all of a sudden wake up and be like, oh shit, it's here.
Speaker 2:Well, that's true. I may have reminds me of my mom when we sit in her head, she's 23 until she looks into the mirror. You know, as we, and when you're young and you hear older people say that you're just like, oh, come on. But then you experience it for yourself and maybe it's, you know, a reminder that we're always hopefully living in the, you know, eternal.
Speaker 1:Now it's not really the eternal now? Yeah, that generous present moment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I mean, you know in some ways, of course we have a past and we have a future, but it feels so jumbled because it happened in some ways, happened so quickly, because it's really just a thought that we have. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like is this an illusion? I just make this up Like what's going on. So, yeah, time is weird and I don't want this to happen again when I'm. When is menopause? What time is menopause?
Speaker 2:50? Yeah, that's a great question, because most people don't know too.
Speaker 2:I would the average age is 51 or 52, depending on, for for most, like Western white countries. I don't know the statistics everywhere, but I know that that's sort of what the medical language here says. But it can happen much, much earlier for some people and it can happen later for some people. And, like you mentioned, you know, asking your mom is kind of a pretty good indicator. It's somewhat, you know, accurate to have that genetic link because there, there, there is a true correlation there. But it's not guaranteed that because your mom did it at, you know, 49, that you're going to do it at 49 either.
Speaker 2:Yeah, got it Cool, but you can expect it around sometime around then for most people.
Speaker 1:So I've got a few years, me and my period, me and my besties, but I'm going to learn.
Speaker 2:You can really use this knowledge to still have you know, potentially 10 or more years of this cycling and connection with yourself in this way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that way. Wow, so anything else that you'd like to share? I don't really put a time limit on this moment. When we're flowing, we're flowing. But you know anything else that you'd like to speak into the space? Tell our listeners, add to whatever anything that you said. Start a new subject. It's you know, just let's go, you're like. I'm like, I'm like hanging on every word you say, so yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh, I love, love, love. But that's the case for you, because I honestly love the work that you do and what you put out in the world. It's been so beneficial to me in my life, so it's fun to get to share some of what I know and hopefully that can help a little. I feel like I definitely said a lot today, a lot for people who are listening to probably need to digest or oh.
Speaker 1:I need to digest, yeah, so.
Speaker 2:I don't know if I'll put anything else out there, except for you know. Come join me on Instagram if you want to learn more. I tried to do as much as I can there.
Speaker 1:I'm not as active as.
Speaker 2:Instagram is awesome, thank you.
Speaker 2:I'm not as active as you know. I have, you know, some other people, but I try to inform as much as I can and talk about these things as much as I can. So, if you're interested in learning more, there's that, or there's the book Wild Power. There's also an amazing book called Period Power by Maisie Hill, and she was one of my mentors for a while, who, oh wow, she, um, you know, also studied this work and wrote a book about it. So, yeah, if you loved what you heard today, or just are curious about what you heard today that those could be great resources, um, we're, we're here for you so that you can keep learning and growing and manifesting and, and yeah, creating your life in the way that you want to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, like I said multiple times, your Instagram is a great resource for me and I think it's a really good quality resource for everyone out there. Of course, I'm going to link everything in the show notes. Um, so tell us about your offerings, because if people are not lining up to work with you after they heard that, I don't know who they are.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, the main offering I have is a six month one and one um container program, as I call it, and this is really for people who are trying or wanting or trying to get pregnant, people with menstrual cycle struggles or people who have perimenopause symptoms that they're hoping to um, just take control of or understand better. So, we know, really helping guide people through, caring for themselves through these you know, three different and a lot of times overlapping um and say I don't want to say problems there's not always problems with challenges that we can have and um, yeah, that's six months of working one on one with me and um, if you have any questions about it, you know guys definitely reach out to me and let me know.
Speaker 1:I love that it's six months. I do love a long container, honestly, um, sometimes I go through phases of offering only six months and then I go to four months, you know in my offers, but, honestly, like there's nothing better than sinking your teeth in a long container with someone you trust and seeing how things evolve, because the nervous system like slow bam, bam bam doesn't work. It's more like go slow, build that trust, build that safety and see how things evolve. So I love that. You, you, um offer that. That's awesome, yeah.
Speaker 2:Healing cycle stuff and hormones. It just takes a while. You know, our, the health of our, oh, our eggs and our ovaries have so much to do with that, and it takes three months of intervention to even really get to see shifts. So, um, yeah, I feel like it's the best way that I can help people as those longer containers.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Well, I will be linking everything in the show notes. Thank you so freaking much for all the wisdom that you dropped, for your time, for the work that you do not just like this hour here on the podcast, the work, the work, the body of work that you have done throughout your 38 years here on earth, because it's really needed and your wisdom is beautiful, your energy is beautiful and thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 2:Oh, thank you so much for having me. I feel the same about you. I just every time I see your face online, it fills me with so much joy. Your energy is so contagious and you're like a genuine want to help people with something that is so complicated and complex and, you know, full of trauma spots and discomfort, and your ability to make it joyful and light and lovely and informative and full of soul is very inspiring to me. So thank you for letting me have that love fast on you for a minute.
Speaker 1:I receive, I receive. I'm like, okay, I really receive that. Thank you so much for saying all this. It's beautiful. Whoo, what an interview. I hope you all enjoyed this interview as much as I did recording it. I not only took away so much from it, but I ended up hiring Rachel straight after our time together here during after our recording, so I will pop in all her information in the show notes. If you have any questions for her, just reach out to her. I will also be linking all the books she recommended. I am currently reading Wild Power, which Rachel recommended earlier in the podcast interview, and it has completely changed my life and I wish they taught the stuff at school. It really is so life-changing.
Speaker 1:And, yeah, we need to start talking more candidly, more openly about things. You know we talk about money a lot on this podcast and money is a taboo subject, but we normalize it, we dissolve the shame around it to make it more of a normal subject, more of a subject that is empowering. And now the invitation is to shift that conversation towards our menstruation. There is no need for us to feel any shame or any guilt or anything about taking time off for our periods. I know it's not easy for all of us to do that, but just reframing the way we think about it, the way we talk about it, how it comes up in conversation. That needs to shift. That needs to change because we are entering a new paradigm and menstruation is a taboo subject. But we need to change that so we can all just anchor into our power instead of anchoring into shame. With that, I love you and leave you. Thank you so much for being here and I will see you next week. Bye for now.
