My luteal phase helped me make $500. I know that sounds like a stretch — but hear me out.

In this episode I share the real story of a car that sat in my front yard for four months, a mechanic with questionable diagnostic skills (and a GP analogy that writes itself), and the simple reframe that finally got it sorted — in under 24 hours, during the phase of my cycle where energy is naturally lower.

From there I go through all four cycle phases — menstruation, follicular, ovulation, and luteal — and what tasks are genuinely easier or harder in each. Not as a rigid schedule, but as a way of understanding why the engine runs differently at different points in your cycle, and how to stop pushing uphill when you don't have to.

If you've been feeling like you're inconsistent, or like you can't maintain the same output week after week, this episode might reframe everything.

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TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 — Welcome + what this episode is about

03:28 — Cycle check-in + free Cycle Tracking Guide

05:00 — The car story: four months of procrastination

10:03 — The mechanic / GP analogy

12:58 — Back to the luteal phase and the reframe

17:12 — The 24-hour turnaround: $500

18:18 — The physiology behind luteal phase energy

19:27 — What tends to feel easier and harder in the luteal phase

23:14 — The car analogy across all four cycle phases

30:21 — Three reflection prompts

32:52 — Close + get your Cycle Tracking Guide

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WATCH OR LISTEN TO THIS PODCAST:

💖 On website: http://karindawholistix.com.au/podcasts/oh-my-menses/

💖 Youtube: youtube.com/@karindawholistix

💖 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0SksHGmREZ7waOeGrIXgvw

💖 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/oh-my-menses/id1673595367

💖 And be sure to check out my other podcast, The Nuanced Naturopaths with my bestie & colleague Julie Forrester: https://www.karindawholistix.com.au/podcasts/nuanced-naturopaths

TRANSCRIPT:

[00:00:03] Hello. Welcome back to another episode of, Oh My Menses. I'm your host Karinda. I'm a women's health naturopath and menstrual cycle educator, and I'm very grateful that you decided to click or tap on my face today. In today's episode, I'm gonna share with you how, as I see it, my luteal phase, my premenstrual phase, the second half of my cycle helped me make an extra $500.

[00:00:34] And that might sound not quite believable. And if you're on my mailing list, you've already had a peak at this story, but I wanna share how our cycle phases can make certain tasks feel easier or more challenging to complete, and the benefit, and quite frankly, the magic, that can come from leaning into the tasks that are more [00:01:00] in natural alignment

[00:01:01] with whatever cycle phase you find yourself in.

[00:01:04] So I am definitely gonna be talking about the luteal phase a lot, but I am gonna go through each phase of the menstrual cycle and give you a couple of examples of things that might feel really natural and easy to do in that phase of your cycle compared to things that might feel a little bit more sticky or resistant or challenging to get through at those times.

[00:01:22] So to kick us off talking about cyclical energy shifts, let's start off with a cycle check-in today. I am on cycle day 18 and I feel like, I feel like I'm on the other side of ovulation. I think I had a temperature rise this morning, but we have to wait a couple more days to see if we can confirm that temperature rise.

[00:01:44] Um, and I haven't had any peak cervical fluid for a couple of days, so... feeling, feeling in my guts that I'm on the other side of ovulation, but feeling like I'm still holding on to yeah, a little bit of ovulatory energy in [00:02:00] terms of determination and just wanting to power ahead and get things done. Um, something I notice for myself in ovulation is that it's easy for me to get well and truly started into my day before nourishing myself with food before eating breakfast.

[00:02:17] Versus in my menstrual or premenstrual phase, I am onto it and I'm eating within an hour of waking up or within an hour and a half of waking up, you know, without fail. But sometimes it's that ovulatory energy that just creeps us into the territory of extending the fast for too long. And if you're not familiar, if you're wondering why that's maybe not great, is when we fast for too long,

[00:02:43] especially, if we're having something like coffee or any caffeinated beverage on an empty stomach in the morning, it sends our cortisol and our adrenaline levels into overdrive, and it's sending this signal to our nervous system and to a few different organs in our body that. We are kind of in [00:03:00] like a starvation mode.

[00:03:01] We are not getting the sugar that we need from food, so we need to start breaking down muscle. And we're also putting pressure on our stress hormones to give us the energy to get through a normal day. Whereas those bursts of stress hormones should be reserved for times that are genuinely stressful.

[00:03:18] Things that would activate, fight or flight. So try to eat if you're a, especially if you're a menstruating woman, if you are, if you have a menstrual cycle. Eat within 90 minutes of waking up two hours at most. If it feels like a brand new thing to you and you're not used to eating until lunchtime .

[00:03:36] That is my, that's my fresh hot tip. Straight off the, straight off the bat. We don't usually get such a good tip less than five minutes into the podcast. You are welcome! And if you are new to cycle tracking I, 'cause I invite you to do a cycle check in with yourself as well. But if you're not sure where to start, I do have a free cycle tracking guide.

[00:03:56] You can download that. The link will be in the description wherever you are watching [00:04:00] or listening to this. It's a free PDF guide. It's 25 pages teaching you how, to track your period properly. 'cause we're not always taught that. And also showing you other signs that are really important to track, to understand what is going on between one period to the next because you don't just have your period and then the next period comes.

[00:04:19] There are a whole three other phases that are happening in the time between two periods, which tells you so much about your hormonal health and your fertility, and determines so much of your energy and your mood, and so many other functions in our body. So highly recommend you get started on cycle tracking

[00:04:36] if you haven't already; link to download your free 25 page Cycle Tracking Guide is in the description below. Let's kick into it. Let's talk about how this started. How did my luteal phase exactly, in real terms, help me make $500. Well, it was Wednesday. I was in my luteal [00:05:00] phase and this was the time in my cycle. I was close enough to my period a k, a premenstrual enough that I was kind of looking at my to-do list and just thinking about like, okay, what things have I got done this cycle? What things haven't I got done this cycle?

[00:05:15] Where are there any gaps and what do I need to finish off? And there might be a bit of a gap in the energy because I'm still very much in my ovulatory energy now and I'm trying to reflect on a mindset that I had when I was luteal, so a little bit interesting there.

[00:05:30] So yeah, I was going through my to-do list. And some tasks and to-do lists in general in your luteal phase can just feel so overwhelming. And so like all, like all the avoidance, all the procrastination kicks in and it's, it's very fair enough and there are biological reasons for that. And I was like, you know what?

[00:05:53] I think there's some things I would like to tie up; some loose ends I would like to tie up before I start my [00:06:00] next cycle. And so I was sort of like going through some like really easy things that I could do and I'm sitting here at my desk and I'm like, no, I feel like there's some heavy baggage. Like what?

[00:06:10] What can I really let go of this cycle? And lo and behold, in the front yard, I see what was my silver Hyundai i20, the first and only car I ever owned sitting there. And to give you the background on this part of the story,

[00:06:27] the very annoying background, and any of my friends listening to this, they'll be like, oh, yep, we heard, we heard this. And, shout out if you've got any fond memories of my car. That car, ugh, helped me uproot my life so many times. It helped me move so many friends and ex-boyfriends houses like it. It was a tiny I 20, but it packed a punch.

[00:06:51] I slept in it. I took it to Tanglewood, Bush Doof Festival, and I slept in it. [00:07:00] Oh, good times. And I've had this car since 2014 and it hasn't really had any major issues. And then last year it started having this intermittent issue and intermittent issues are almost worse because it's like you can't replicate it on demand. It kind of just, it's an issue that comes and goes. So I, it was like 1:00 AM I was with my friend and we were driving to a gig, we were leaving the city and my car starts doing this thing, having this problem where I can still drive it, but the speedometer doesn't work. It can't shift beyond third gear. It's just, it's doing way more revs than it needs to do to go like 40 kilometers an hour. It's not great. And it's, it's really scary to drive.

[00:07:43] And called the RACV. They diagnosed the issue while the issue was there, and it was the transmission speed sensor. Cool. Then the next day, the issue was gone and I drove my car home fine, and then it probably happened maybe two more times in the year [00:08:00] and at the end of last year. And I feel like December is naturally a very luteal time, which doesn't really line up with the season that we experience here in the Southern Hemisphere.

[00:08:10] Like luteal phase isn't very summer energy, but just in terms of like a year, a calendar year closing off, like, what do you not wanna bring into the next year? And I was like, I wanna get my car sorted and fixed before the year ends. So it's like early December, and I take it to get serviced and I say, look, it has this intermittent issue.

[00:08:32] It's been diagnosed by the RACV, it's the transmission speed sensor. Can you please replace that and tell me how much that will cost you replace? And they're schmoozing me a bit, this mechanic. He's like, no, no, no. Don't you know. We'll there, there are many issues. There are many reasons that could cause that issue.

[00:08:47] So we'll investigate them. And he didn't even gimme a quote on how much it would cost to replace. He's like, no, no, no. There could be other things that it is. Like, we'll check the other issues first. And we'll try to replicate the issue. And I was just like, yep, cool. You're not gonna be able to replicate [00:09:00] it.

[00:09:00] And anyway, my car was, uh, at the mechanics all day and he was so happy when I got back. 'cause he's like, oh yeah, my god, your transmission fluid was really dirty. And he recorded a video of him changing it and, kept the, kept some of the transmission fluid to show me like, this is what yours looked like.

[00:09:17] This is what like a healthy one looks like. And I was like, oh wow. Yeah. And he's like, so we did this. We also checked the electrical, like that seems fine, da da da. And I was like, okay, cool. But they couldn't replicate the exact issue, so they couldn't get the car to signal the error code that would direct them to the exact issue.

[00:09:34] And I'm gonna tell a story in a story here. It's just a quick little deviation, I promise. My gosh. Thank you. Are, you are an absolute stunner for bearing with me and all my, my frantic, uh, thready thoughts. But as I was, when I was writing the email for Karinda's Corner about this story, I was like, gosh, thinking about this mechanic there, there's like a [00:10:00] medical health analogy in here somewhere.

[00:10:03] the mechanic being like, yeah, well, yeah, we looked at everything that we would normally look at and yeah, everything seems fine. Um, we just replaced this thing. Um, so yeah, drive it and, uh, see how it goes. It kind of reminded me of like going to a GP where they're like, well, yeah, you came in reporting this issue, but we ran our blood tests, and uh, they all came back normal.

[00:10:23] So, uh, you're good to go. And it's like, hang on. Hang on. It's, it's almost like that gut feeling where you're like, no, I know. There's something deeper up. Like you can be sitting in the GPS office, getting the, getting, hearing them say, yeah, everything's fine. Everything came back normal. And you've got that gut feeling like, really?

[00:10:45] Really? So that's a side note about how passionate I am about interpreting blood tests through a functional lens. And if you're interested in getting your blood tests properly interpreted, in a very holistic, functional way that actually cares about [00:11:00] your optimal health and not just making sure that you're not sick,

[00:11:03] in terms of a doctor's like five minute opinion on you, you can book a free connection call with me and, and see if that's a path that you'd like to follow. But anyway, there, there was analogy in there and I had to, I had to acknowledge that.

[00:11:15] So. I paid the mechanic like over $500 for, it wasn't even a standard service, it was just for that issue.

[00:11:24] And I was like, yeah, okay. What else did you change? Like oil filters? He's like, no, no, everything else is good. So I was like, oh, okay. So fixing this issue without replacing the part that I've told you is probably the thing that needs replacing, is more than $500. Cool. He seemed very confident and I took on his confidence and the car drove fine, but the car also drove fine

[00:11:47] when I took it to the mechanics, I, it was just an issue that came up sometimes. But when it came up, it meant I couldn't safely drive my car. So, yeah, not an issue you wanna just leave lingering. And it was within two weeks, within two weeks, [00:12:00] one morning I started my car ready to go out for the day and the issues there, and I'm like.

[00:12:07] Oh, so I call up the same mechanic and I'm just like, Hey, and he said, you know, lemme know if the issues come back. I said, Hey, the issues come back. Like, can, can we get onto replacing the speed transmission sensor? He's like, oh, yes, yes, yes, yes. Uh, yep. That'll be $597. And I'm like, I just paid you $500 to fix this specific issue.

[00:12:34] And I told you what needed replacing. Oh. And, and I don't know. I feel like, I don't know, I know mechanics can charge huge variations in, in amounts of money. I just thought that given that it was within such a short period of getting it serviced, they might've been like, okay, yeah, yeah, bring it back and we'll, we'll charge you for the part, but you know, we won't charge you for labor.

[00:12:57] Like, I don't know. I don't know. Anyway, [00:13:00] I was so pissed off and frazzled by the situation that I just left it. I did not take it back to that mechanic. I contemplated a lot of options and I was like, uh, do I like fix it professionally and then try to sell the car? Like am I kind of just over this car anyway?

[00:13:19] Has it run its course with me? I have a couple of like mechanic savvy friends. I'm like, do I just like buy the part myself and do we just try to fix it together? But that doesn't feel safe to me. Um, do I just sell the car for parts? Like I just, I didn't wanna fork out, I don't know, spending a grand on that car.

[00:13:37] And my insurance for it was coming up and I'm like, what if I just like unregister the car, cancel the insurance. I'm saving a bunch of money for a car that isn't even reliable, uh, reliable at this point. And. I, I, I'll say I'm in a privileged enough situation that my mum has a spare car. She has a car that she barely uses that I am able to use and it's the car that I, um, [00:14:00] had like learned to drive in.

[00:14:02] So one of the cars that I learned to drive in. So it's, um, weirdly nostalgic, but it was also newer than the car I had. So I'm happy with that. And it's red, so I'm feeling, feeling a bit more fancy in the car department with a bloody 2012 Hyundai. Ridiculous. So because I had an immediate solution, oh, I have another car to drive, I, my brain just went, put it out and I was just like, I can't decide what I'm doing with that car right now.

[00:14:32] And so jumped back to the time before writing this email, and I'm thinking about, okay, I'm in my luteal phase. What other tasks can I sort of like let go of and release? And I look out the window and I see my car sitting there, and I'm like, it's been like nearly four months of my car just sitting and rotting and collecting dust and all sorts of crap.

[00:14:59] In the heat of [00:15:00] summer, just sitting there sticking out like a sore thumb. And I was like. Uh Yep. That thing. It's the thing that I've been putting off, and I'm sure you can relate to it too, that thing that's on your to-do list that just keeps getting pushed to the next day, to the next week, to the next month.

[00:15:16] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know that's really important, but it's not that urgent. It's so easy to dismiss and put off, and by all means, I had looked at that task on my to-do list multiple times before this luteal phase. I had seen my car sitting out in that front yard many times before this luteal phase, and every time it just looked like a big, overwhelming task.

[00:15:43] But I did a cheeky little reframe. I did a cheeky little reframe, and it made all the difference. I leaned into my luteal energy. My luteal energy is about letting go. It is equivalent to [00:16:00] autumn. It's like. Okay, let's, things are dying. We are letting things fall off before we start this new cycle. And of course, the act of menstruation itself is a shedding, so the early phases of menstruation are also a huge letting go and a huge surrendering.

[00:16:19] But how I see it, how I work with my cycle energetically is like, I wanna leave as much baggage behind and, and resolve as much baggage as I can rather than bringing it into my new cycle and just like sort of starting off a new cycle, like when you get your period, starting off a new cycle with more stuff on my plate than is necessary.

[00:16:43] And so by thinking about sorting out my car as a thing that my luteal phase can help me get done, be coming from the motivation of, yeah, I, I wanna have a really solid next [00:17:00] cycle and I don't wanna bring anything I don't need into this cycle. Like, what can I shed? What can I let go of? And looking at it through that lens, from that kind of energy, that premenstrual energy, I was like,

[00:17:12] oh, let's get this thing sorted. It's the reframe was all my brain needed to stop seeing it as this huge, overwhelming task that was at the bottom of my to-do list and kept getting pushed back and instead see as this opportunity to let go and clear some dead weight and go into my next cycle, feeling lighter and more satisfied and accomplished. As soon as I had that thought.

[00:17:40] Within five minutes, I had four tabs open for different cars, for cash places. I just decided that was the path of least resistance. And I was like, yep, we're gonna do cars for cash, let's do it. And I knew I wouldn't get much for it, which is totally fine. And the next day, the next day I got a quote, someone sent me a quote, $500.

[00:17:59] Yep. [00:18:00] Next morning it was picked up, gone. And so that was a turnaround time of like 24 hours or less. 'cause it was like the afternoon that I was doing it, that I was making the inquiries, getting the quotes. And then it was the next morning that I got picked up. And this is in a time of my cycle where I typically can run on lower energy.

[00:18:18] I may feel a bit more fatigued and I'm just naturally starting to like retreat and go inwards. And you might notice this in yourself too, but. I chose to do a task in a way that harnessed and leveraged the power, the natural energy that was in that phase of my cycle, and it made a world of difference. It made the task so much easier.

[00:18:40] So the physiology behind this, behind your lute phase is that we have the production of a hormone called progesterone that is now dancing with the hormone that we already had in the mix called estrogen. But the introduction of progesterone can help kind of chill us out, calm us down, and for some [00:19:00] people this can result in feeling a little bit lower energy.

[00:19:04] And energetically, there is this tendency to naturally go a bit more inwards and feel a little bit more internal. And there's more power and potency in reflection during this time and in completion during this time, like I said. So we're not bringing things that are uncompleted, that are unresolved into our next new cycle.

[00:19:27] So because of this physiology, things that might feel easier in your luteal phase include analyzing things, reflecting on things from this new perspective, from this new biochemical energy that you have, this different hormonal landscape that you, that gives you, literally gives you a different perspective.

[00:19:45] It's a great time for finishing tasks, for editing. If I've got podcast editing to editing to do, or blog writing to do, or email editing to do. I find it so easy in my luteal phase. It's the exact kind of task that feels so [00:20:00] easy to lock into. It's a great time for decision making on open loops. Now a little challenge that could come up here is that if we are operating from a lot of people pleaser energy, from a lot of perfectionist energy, we might be in a phase of our lives where it is hard to say no to things that actually don't light us up or inspire us or excite us, and your luteal phase will show you symptoms if you are not upholding your boundaries strongly enough.

[00:20:34] So if you don't have good sets and reps of practicing your "no's", you might have more intense PMS or PMDD, just as an example. So decision making can be really powerful at this time, but only if you've practiced saying your nos. Because once you get into that rhythm of [00:21:00] like knowing like what's a yes and what's a no in terms of

[00:21:03] invitations, things that you are asked to do, um, ways that you are asked to show up, things that you have to do for yourself or for work or in your household. And once you get into that rhythm of like, what's a yes, what's a no, and knowing that you have to protect your energy a little bit more in your premenstrual phase, it can be really nice to be premenstrual and go, "okay, are there any decisions I haven't decided on yet?"

[00:21:26] And then just like come in with that sort of like. Executive energy, like sitting in your decision chair and just pr, just looking at that to-do list, looking at that list of decisions and going, yep, no, yep. No, no, no, no. Like it's, it can be really, really powerful. So good time for decision making, great time for letting go as I hope my example demonstrated.

[00:21:51] And a great time for evaluation as well. And you know, sometimes this, this comes up without you even consciously trying. I mean, think about how many [00:22:00] times you have maybe been a bit more irritable or started certain fights, with like partners or friends or people that you live with or family members.

[00:22:09] And you might get your bleed and then you're like, oh God, why was I so shitty about that issue? But usually there is this natural evaluating energy that you're now looking at things from, whether you are in control of it or not, whether you are conscious of it or not. Because that's the flavor of progesterone and that's the energy of the luteal phase.

[00:22:29] And so sometimes if we are running that lens by default we'll naturally like react a bit more, but we might not even know what we're reacting to. And so we might be a bit more irritable and we might see issues with things that our partners or our loved ones are doing and be like. Hey, why are you doing that?

[00:22:46] And next thing you know, we might be in a conflict and we're like, shit, how do we get here? It's possible that you're a part of you in your premenstrual phase, picked up on something that felt off or crossed your boundaries or [00:23:00] just didn't sit right with you. And that can be really common in the luteal phase.

[00:23:04] Things that might feel harder in the luteal phase is getting things started, starting the engine, right?

[00:23:14] The lute teal phase, the natural energy is not initiation. The natural energy is completion and resolution. And actually, let's throw I've, I mean, I've started with a car story. Let's throw a car analogy in here.

[00:23:26] And especially as we go through the other phases, I think this can be a helpful way of looking at it.

[00:23:30] We can see if we think about like the process of getting a car started and running a car and then like maintaining a car. The luteal phase is the time where we have to like maybe pump the brakes a bit. We've been cruising down the freeway and now it's like time to pump the brakes because soon in our menstrual phase we're gonna have to stop and refuel.

[00:23:49] Right.

[00:23:49] So then if we are looking at the other phases, so let's roll into menstruation from the luteal phase. 'cause that's, that's how it works, that's how it flows. So menstruation [00:24:00] surrender isn't, it might not feel easy, but the natural energy of menstruation is one of surrender and letting go. It's a cleansing, it's a cleansing of sorts if you let it be cleansing.

[00:24:15] I think especially menstruation, it holds so much taboo and so many personal stories for each of us. And so, you know, it, it can be a really big thing to work through yourself, but when you get to a good place with your bleeds, it, it's just a beautiful, perfect time for surrendering. And towards the end of your bleed, like in your early follicular phase.

[00:24:39] That's when you might find, is a good time to start thinking about like initiating tasks. So during menstruation you may get a lot of ideas, like once you surrender and you just like let yourself dissolve into the void and you're like, I don't need to have any answers now. I don't need to have any new ideas now.

[00:24:59] I don't need to [00:25:00] action anything now, other than looking after myself, refueling, right? Taking the car to the petrol station. Some ideas when when you really surrender ideas and thoughts like and unusually beautiful visions and stuff, they might flow in naturally. And the challenge there is to not go, oh my God, I need to put all this into action.

[00:25:21] Oh my God, I need to start all these new ideas. I need to initiate all these new ideas. You let it land in your menstruating body, you'd let it land and you consider all the ideas and anything else that's coming through. You might even have realizations about decisions that you've made or haven't made.

[00:25:37] You might have, um, realizations about just aspects of your life, about maybe about work or your health or your personal life or, relationships that you have. So it's a great time for surrendering and then like receiving info, but it's not necessarily a great time for starting that engine up for initiating tasks. Once we stop bleeding and we are [00:26:00] firmly planted in our follicular phase, which is the next phase,

[00:26:04] this is where we may get some more natural energy coming in that will help us initiate tasks and put ideas into action and practical tangible steps. We can very much relate to this, to starting a car, right? Especially early follicular phase. You can put the key in, turn the ignition. Great.

[00:26:23] We can start things. Your estrogen is rising at this time. Your testosterone will also be rising at this time. During menstruation, all of those hormones fell to a much more flatter baseline, and now they're starting to pick up again. And so you've got that physiological support in helping you get stuff done.

[00:26:41] It may feel really challenging in the follicular phase to slow down to pump the brakes, right? Because there's so much natural upward rising energy. As you get further into your follicular phase and you get closer to ovulation, you may feel like, okay, not only am I like, have I [00:27:00] started the car and we are rolling down the hill, but actually I've got my foot on the accelerator and I can go and I can go faster, and I've just really am finding my flow.

[00:27:09] It's really common to have that sort of energy as well, right? And certainly once you get to ovulation, the, the midpoint of the cycle, the, the peak of the cycle, that that's very much, I mean, it is pe what do they say? Pedal to the metal. It is foot on the accelerator, pedal to the metal. Um. It's just like, woo.

[00:27:31] And the challenge there is almost like keeping yourself grounded and making sure that the tire tread stays on that bloody road or stays on that bitumen so that you can like get to the destination where you have set your sight, so you can get to the place that you've put in the GPS that you've, you know, pointed your arrow at in the follicular phase.

[00:27:51] Right? You've started the car in the follicular phase with a plan, right? And ovulation requires a certain focus and [00:28:00] groundedness in order to execute the tasks that you want and to follow through. It's very easy to get swept away and be like, oh my God, I've got so much energy.

[00:28:10] Look how fast we're going, and whoa, I can just do this, this, this, and this. Yep, yep, yep. I'll take on that. I'll say yes to that. Yes to that yesterday. Yes. I can go out. Oh my God, yes. Yeah. My shift doesn't start until eight tomorrow. Gosh. I'm like, yeah, I can stay out till 4:00 AM No, no worries. Like. Things and exerting ourselves and doing more and pushing ourselves can feel easier.

[00:28:31] So ovulation is like foot down on the accelerator, but it can feel harder to slow yourself down. So grounding is important. And then, yeah, we return to the luteal phase where, like I said, it's like, okay, we've picked up our speed. We've picked up our speed, and now we can see the descent in front of us. We've gotta start pumping the brakes.

[00:28:52] We've gotta start pumping the brakes because we know we're gonna get to menstruation and our physiology is gonna rapidly [00:29:00] shift, and we wanna make sure that we're not going into menstruation, feeling depleted, feeling burnt out with an empty fuel tank, with a burnt out engine. We don't wanna make sure that we're getting to menstruation with enough reserves and enough space to fully surrender,

[00:29:17] to let the natural energy of the cycle play out so that we don't, and again, this is something I speak to a lot. I speak to this because I want more women to understand how they can prevent burnout. You, you have this inbuilt cycle with natural energy peaks and dips, with tasks that will naturally feel more challenging or more ease And all it takes is a little bit of leaning into that to feel the benefit of it and feel the power in living in a more cyclically aligned way. And maybe, maybe you can make more money and maybe you can get an extra $500 in your bank [00:30:00] account for selling your car that you were putting off selling for four months.

[00:30:05] Because you were just seeing it as this big, dreadful task or maybe considering that task in the unideal times of your cycle. And all it took was a little reframe to be like, yeah, what loops do I want to close? That's a nice way of thinking about it. What loops do I want close? What open loops do I have that I can just tie up into a neat little

[00:30:27] beautiful bow. You can do the trick with the scissors where you make the ends of the ribbon all nice and like pigtail springy. Let me know if you know what I'm trying to describe.

[00:30:39] Anyway, the bottom line is that when you align a task with your natural energy, your nervous system and your energy systems don't have to push uphill. They don't have to fight a battle to get it done. Kind of like my last episode about setting your sails with the wind, right? You are setting your sails with the [00:31:00] wind.

[00:31:00] When you focus on tasks that are more just naturally aligned with the energy of the cycle phase that you're in, you don't have to work the engine as hard, you don't have to push yourself as hard because you are letting the flow and direction of the wind, uh, guide you and give you that natural, that natural push under your wings, right?

[00:31:20] So I have a couple of prompts for you if you want to explore this within yourself a little bit more. I would love to know, and I would love you to reflect on what open loops have been nagging you? And how far away are you from your next luteal phase, and could this upcoming luteal phase be the one where you finally close these loops? So you don't have to go into your next bleed with this like nagging thing at the back of your mind? What are you carrying into your next cycle, your next bleed that you could close off in this [00:32:00] current cycle?

[00:32:01] What can you close off that doesn't need to be carried forward into your next bleed? And my last prompt for you is what would genuine shedding feel like? What would a genuine sense of letting go feel like for you? Not just, not just productivity, not not seeing the big task, not seeing the selling the car as like a thing that you have to do to be productive.

[00:32:31] But seeing it as a genuine shedding, what does that look like and feel like for you? If you were to like take a few moments and just visualize that for yourself and maybe it might help, it might help to like tune into that energy first. Feel it, see if you can conjure it up in your body before setting your sights on a task and going, yep, okay.

[00:32:52] I can get that done. Sense what that feels like in you first. I hope this episode has been [00:33:00] helpful and gave you a few little ideas of how you can work with your cycle in more closer alignment. And yeah, ultimately, like I said, there is just so much benefit in this in terms of preventing burnout and managing your health, sustaining your health, you know, just to make life easier for you to, to ensure that you're not

[00:33:20] pushing anything uphill that you don't need to be pushing uphill, you know? But it can be hard in a world that expects so much of us and has us believing that we are more valuable if we are being productive. That's not the truth. Your cycle holds so much power, even in the moments that feel less productive.

[00:33:40] So if you don't have it already and you'd love to start cycle tracking, check out the cycle tracking guide free 25 page PDF in the description below. If you're listening and you like what I had to share, please, please, please, I would love, a comment or a, like, if you're watching on YouTube. Or a follow and a rating [00:34:00] on Spotify or Apple.

[00:34:01] It really means a lot to me. And the more ratings I have, the more my podcast gets suggested when women like you are looking for information and guidance like this. So I would love any feedback that you have for me. Thank you for supporting me and Oh My Menses and I will see you in the next episode.

[00:34:19] Take care.