Episode 5

Unleash the Rhythm: How to Respect and Optimize Your Unique Physiology

the fully nourished podcast | Episode 05

Listen on Apple
Listen on Spotify
Listen on Youtube
Listen on Amazon Music
Listen on Google Podcasts

Transcript

Welcome back to the Fully Nourished podcast. I'm your host, Jessica Ash, Functional Nutritionist and Integrative Health Coach, coming to you with a scientific and spiritual exploration of what it looks like to awaken our feminine radiance by becoming deeply and fully nourished in a world that wants to dull us down. You ready?

As a reminder, everything in this podcast is for education and inspiration only and is not intended as medical advice. Please talk to the appropriate professional when necessary, and please use common sense before making any changes to your diet and lifestyle. 

So can we just start this episode by saying how amazing you are? I just want to say I am so incredibly grateful for all of the loving and encouraging messages you ladies have been sending me. You have been spoiling me with love and support, and gratitude. It feels so amazing. So thank you, thank you, thank you. I'm reminded of just how powerful having someone be grateful for your work is - it changes your energy, and it makes you just so willing to pour out. I hope that we can continue to just show so much gratitude for each other. 

I have to say, you know, to pour so much into creating something new and making changes, it has been kind of a little bit of a scary process, so to have it be received so well – I mean, you ladies are just incredible and amazing. 

Today's episode is one of my favorite topics ever. It's really what got me started, or at least educating women about the menstrual cycle is what got me started on Instagram. It's what got me noticed and what really started to go viral amongst women as they started to have those aha moments about their body. And so today's episode is all about the rhythms of the menstrual cycle. 

When I wrote down the notes, when I first started to have the thoughts for this episode, I wrote down the words “unleash the rhythm” and that was kind of my title for this episode. It has turned into a discussion and a little bit of education surrounding the menstrual cycle. But not only that, the infradian rhythm. I started by talking about female physiology, but then I realized that it's much more powerful to compare and contrast female and male physiology. And so that is what it turned into. And man, is it a cool ride, and I am so excited to dive into what I have prepared for you. 

Before we dive into today's episode, I want to officially invite you to my Sunday tea, which is my weekly newsletter, where I share something with you that's on my brain on my noggin. Some of its nutritional, some of its spiritual, it gets pretty random in there. Some things I've shared over the past couple of months, just to give you an idea are how I make my homemade eggshell powder for calcium, my gelatin jar hack to always have easy gelatin, glycine-rich gelatin on hand. And this past week was a deeper dive into gut health this past Sunday. I take my responsibility of showing up in your inbox very seriously. I'm very mindful about the emails that I send you because I want to keep your inbox sacred. I mean, come on, if you want to subscribe, you can find the link in the show notes.

Since I'm still riding the high of all of your love and encouragement, and I appreciate that most of it is coming from women. And that is my target audience, right? I love women, I care for women, I share in the female experience, and I really want to explore it together. But that does not mean that I do not just love and respect and honor male physiology as well. And this week, I got this really heartfelt message from a male listener. I wanted to share it with you because when I read it, it hit me really hard. I had to read it a couple of times. And I was like man, man. Sometimes I'm focused so much on the female experience that I am not as connected to the male experience because most of my feedback is from other women. 

One of my male listeners sent me a comment that I'm just going to read to you and said, Hey, I've been listening to your new podcast episodes, which are amazing. So thank you. He said, “I know most of your audience is women and you aim your content at women and the podcasts you speak of how women may be feeling and struggling. As a guy so much resonates with my own experience. I feel so much of what you're sharing is how many men feel too so I just wanted to share and thank you for sharing everything you know.” And this comment really is what opened my mind to having this episode end up becoming a discussion of both male physiology and female physiology because it is important to talk about and they provide so much context for each other. 

This might be an episode that you can listen to if you have a male partner or spouse and really revel in the strengths that each have. If you love this episode, maybe even share it with your male, significant other. 

I just want to say to all the men that are listening, I know it's a small percentage of the discussion of this community. But we do have some guys here who are super dedicated to learning about female physiology so they can support their women better. And also, we have some amazing men that just really want to understand female physiology and understand women better for their own life. I am gonna take the plunge and say that on behalf of all women who are super confident in their femininity and have a strong sense of self, I just want to say to the men listening that we see you, we celebrate you, we love masculinity and celebrate its wild, free and controlled power. We love it, we crave it, and we need it. And I do not feel like we women say it enough. But I want to say it on behalf of all women that feel that way. 

I have this really powerful quote that I'm going to kick off today's discussion and education with because I found it and I thought it was really powerful. If you're like, “Wait, I thought this was a discussion of female physiology!” Don't worry, just trust me. You'll understand by the end of this episode. So I found this quote. I was looking for something to really explain the divine masculine and or that masculine energy because we talked so much about feminine energy and we're going to get into a big discussion about it today. But there's something about understanding masculinity to deeper understand femininity because there is polarity there and we'll dive into polarity in a second. And so in this quote by Aza Bertrand, he talks about the male energy or in Hindu, the life force energy that we have been talking about is usually referred to as Shakti. And so he says the dark primordial river of the wild male Shakti or energy has nothing to do with the distorted masculine we see at large in the world today. True male Shakti is wild and powerful, very strong and playful, direct and penetrating. It serves only love. Many men have never given themselves permission to access the side of their being. Pure male Shakti energy comes from the deepest root of a man's being flowing in a very free and relaxed way with nothing to prove. This is the essence of a power that can bring down civilizations, it can fight to the death for love, it can live only for love, it can bring a woman into her wildest, deepest pleasure, the world is terrified of this transformational energy. Male Shakti is expressed directly in the world. It is the warrior energy that can inspire humanity to rise up off its knees and incite change and radical ways. This wild male Shakti can only ever come into being through an open heart and full connection with the feminine. 

That is why what we see in the world at the moment is a negative shadow of this energy, the power to manifest creations that are ultimately destructive or disharmonious. It is not so much that men are frightened to embody this energy, they just don't know how to. Men have been deliberately guided away from this energy or its secrets have been hidden to them. And the very depth of their beings they've always desired and searched for it, but have been led in the wrong direction. Misled onto paths of separation from the feminine and separation from love. The full expression of this wild masculine, sexual energy needs a powerful, open, wild womb to receive it. When the wild feminine rebirths, the wild masculine and when the men claim the full magnificence of their loving power, a new Earth is birthed. 

I felt like this quote was a really great place for us to get started. Because it hints at how important it is for masculinity and femininity to be in balance. And for them to celebrate their uniqueness and be in their kind of yin and yang power. Maybe it's not so politically correct to talk about polarity anymore. I don't know, it's not really politically correct to talk about anything these days. So I'm just going to do it anyways. But you know, in our society right now, celebrating differences and celebrating your uniqueness, and having a really strong sense of self and being confident in who you are, seems to be the not cool thing, which is very interesting and very strange at the same time. 

All of us are kind of walking around with a poor sense of self or we feel almost afraid to find who we really are and face who we really are and grow into who we are. But there seems to be this kind of almost dance around certain truths, like certain truths don't exist, and so we're just going to kind of ignore them or pretend they don't exist or even worse lie about their existence or kind of twist their existence. They're just certain truths that you can't change no matter how you feel about them. There has to be acceptance there. And there are just certain truths of this world and our reality and our existence that cannot be ignored. We can pretend they're not a part of our reality, but they are a part of our reality. 

I think it's really interesting because nature has a really powerful set of rules. There's order within nature, there's balance there, it demands it. There's this energy force behind everything, right? There's something behind everything that is living that kind of keeps everything in motion. And so living organisms within this energy, this constant motion, this constant life-force are always trying to find some type of rest and homeostasis. We see the evidence of everything around us trying to maintain this balance or maintain this homeostasis. And there is so much polarity within nature, and we'll talk about it in a second. But no matter how you feel about it, it still exists. 

Sometimes accepting and processing the hard truths written into nature, the harder things that are harder for us to face, no matter how they make us feel, they help us grow and stretch as human beings. When we face hard truths, and we work through them, and we work through the emotions and the feelings that they bring up, we often can grow and stretch and start to see things from new perspectives, which is really important for our existence as humans. And right now, what we're seeing around us is there are people that just need to live in their bubble, they need to live in a bubble world, and we see so much focus on trauma, so much focus on what triggers our emotions, and we see a lot of victimhood, a lot of blame for other people making us feel uncomfortable. 

Instead of working through why we feel uncomfortable, and facing our feelings, and facing our emotions, and working through them, and having them grow us and stretch us and see things from different perspectives and challenge our belief systems so that they can become stronger, we just kind of blame other people for making us feel uncomfortable and move along on our merry way. You find this kind of victimhood, or this lack of ability to accept hard truth is really, at the end of the day, a lack of recognition of your own true power. You do have all of the power, you can shift your perspective, you can feel hard feelings and work through them, and accept them and then let them go. So they you know, because they're no longer serving you, you've worked through them, they no longer affect your physiology, and you can let them go. And it's okay to be challenged. And it's okay to be uncomfortable, which I think is very hard for a lot of people to hear right now. 

We've gotten to this place where everyone wants to live in their bubble where nobody triggers them. Nobody hurts their feelings, they don't have to feel anything hard, or anything tough. We see a lot of people fighting to become a society that's frozen in place. And they want to focus on the hardship, they want to just rehash things over and over and over and over again. And again, and again, you've heard me say how energy follows our thoughts, energy follows our emotions, energy follows our intentions. What we focus on truly becomes our reality. And we're seeing it very, very clearly. 

That's a long way of me saying that there might be some hard truths in this episode that you maybe don't like hearing, or stretch you or grow you or make you think, and maybe you'll come to a conclusion that's different than mine, maybe you'll disagree with me. But I just encourage you to think about it to marinate on the trigger points that come up. This is stuff that I have been thinking about and working through for years now. But I'm still human, I'm still imperfect, I'm gonna say the wrong thing. I'm also just still working out all of the details and the complexities and the nuances. So I'm so open to hearing everybody's thoughts and opinions. But there does come a time in a place where sometimes we have to face that, wow, that is a truth and it's actually hard to accept. 

I think about nature, it's really hard for me to watch things like a lion taking down a gazelle or a coyote eating a rabbit or like a killer whale eating a seal. These things are not really comfortable, but they are part of the order and balance of nature. There are rules here, there is order, there is balance, and it must be maintained at all costs. I think a part of why humans are having such a hard time accepting hard truths is we're really very far removed from our own nature and from nature itself. We have a hard time rising up and meeting challenges and facing hard things because we're stuck in the shackles of comfort, we have very poor mental flexibility, right? We live very comfortable lives where there's very little challenge unless we go and seek the challenge out. 

A lot of us live in very, very cushy, comfortable bubbles that don't really have us facing the hard truths of life, the life and death cycle, the sacrifice that life takes. We don't face those things on a daily basis, because we live a life of convenience. We live a life where a lot of the hard stuff is done for us. This is something that I even see in my own life. I think there's so many layers to this. It's not easy to navigate either. There's no perfect answer a perfect solution for it, I just think becoming aware of it is very helpful to getting to the point where we get a little bit more outside of it, we become a little bit more open minded and more resistant to or more resilient to challenges and facing hard truths and working through really hard emotions so that we can really weigh the pros and cons and sit there and really challenge our own belief systems and come out with new and fresh perspective and growth and wisdom as a human being. 

So I know that not everyone likes this type of discussion. And that's okay, that's totally okay, you can turn it off, or you can listen and maybe take a few things away from it. As I was thinking about polarity, and I was really thinking back to some of the first times, I was teasing some of this polarity, on my Instagram Stories, a while back, I think it was maybe 2022 or 2021, just talking about a few different things, and discussing the differences between male physiology and female physiology, and also just the polarity that you see in nature. And I got a message back pretty quickly from somebody who seemed a little bit bitter about what I had to talk about. 

What the Male and Female Polarity is NOT

She immediately accused me of being into what's called “complementarian theology,” which is pretty much this theology or this belief system, within Christianity, which is like the idea of, you know, there's masculine roles and feminine roles, and that men and women, they complement each other. And I firmly reject that. I just want to make that very, very clear. I think that complementarian theology has really debased and diluted our true potential, both as men and women, I think that it has actually confused people to not live within their true essence. And it really creates a transactional relationship between men and women. 

You find this theology taught a lot within the Christian church. And it's really the idea that the woman is the Giver, she's the helper, and the man is the receiver of help. This is a huge inversion of masculine and feminine energy. They're flip flopped within this theology without people even understanding that it really creates men who are very entitled, weak, and kind of sniffling, almost, because they're in their feminine energy, all they want is to be served and to receive and to receive and to receive, and they expect to be to receive almost like a child, right? It keeps them in this kind of childlike place. 

You know, a lot of women lovingly call men like this “children,” and for very good reason. It really does create this kind of childlike mentality in a man. And then, of course, on the flip side, you have women that are just so burned out, they're so sick. I mean, how many women who live within this structure within their relationship are so sick, they have tons and tons of hormonal symptoms, autoimmune symptoms. I mean I can think of almost dozens of situations that I've been in, or I've encountered women like this. 

So you have this inversion of the feminine and masculine where the masculine has become the receiver and the feminine has become the giver. And, of course, the women are burned out and they're bitter. They are so resentful, they are full of rage, because their boundaries are being crossed all of the time, and they're being taught that they just need to lay down, have no boundaries, and just have no feelings about having their boundaries violated. No wonder you are so ragey inside, no matter if you deny it or not. A woman who is a giver, a constant giver is in her masculine energy. 

I kind of picked on the church a little bit because it's where I grew up, and I just see so much dysfunction there. But it's really a reflection of what's going on in society as a whole in different ways, right? We have tons and tons of man-children, if we want to call them that, I find that term kind of a little bit degrading. But just for the sake of what we're talking about, we have these kind of entitled, baby males. And then we have tons and tons of women who are doing it all, it's all on their shoulders, they're taking all of the roles of the whole family on their shoulders. They're providing they're protecting, they're doing all the bills, they're doing all the housework, they're taking care of the food, we have women that literally have everything on their shoulders, and they are very, very bitter and resentful, which of course, like of course they are. 

This is why I so heavily reject the trad-wife movement. I think that right now, the trad-wife movement, I can see what the intention is here where you know, women are hungry for more. That's why I came out with this podcast, I see what women want. And what they're doing is instead of forging a new path, and really thinking through what society has done up until now, and then moving forward with a new and enlightened perspective and doing things differently than ever before, they're kind of looking backwards, like looking into the past and looking back in time and saying, there was a time before where it was greater than now, you know, even those imperfect, and we try to move out of it for a reason, we should go back there, because what we're doing right now is not working for us. 

That's almost to me like a flight mechanism of, I don't like what's going on now. I feel uncomfortable, and very misaligned with what's going on now. So let's look to the past to what was also dysfunctional and what we also decided not to do, and do that instead again and repeat old cycles. No matter how much we want to go back in time, I'm sorry, society has changed, it has shifted, the needs of the family have shifted, and things are different. But that does not mean that they have to be worse, just because you feel that they are worse, doesn't mean you can't forge a new path. And that's really where I see there's a lot of opportunity there. And that's what I'm trying to achieve here with what I'm doing with Jessica Ash Wellness, and also with this podcast is it's okay for us to forge a new path and have such big vision and wisdom and be guided by our intuition. So we can build a whole different structure that we've never seen before, that works better than what has ever been done. 

The Trad wife movement was really toxic the first time, which is why women were so easily riled up to, you know, free themselves, which we're going to talk about in the next episode. But obviously, something wasn't working for women, they were feeling suppressed, you know, it goes back to that suppression. We're trying to be something that we're not, we're trying to live so far outside of our alignment. And so it's very easy for us to want change. What we saw, you know, in the early 1900s, is we were promised change, right? We were promised this change, and we fought for change. And then oh, look at that the change was maybe even worse than what it was like before. 

But what it has always come down to really what it always comes down to is, as women, we get really scared of our true potential and our power and we take a step back instead of taking a step forward and faith and trust. Understanding the polarity between masculinity and femininity, and really understanding these energies is really the next step. It's very important for us to understand that we can't embody our femininity, if we don't even know what it is. And masculinity and femininity goes so far beyond gender and gender roles. It's not even funny. 

If we want things to change, we have to accept that we have to stop getting caught up in the minutiae of like, “Oh, should women work?” Or “Should women not vote?? Or should women not…” What are you? Like, what are you focused on? There is something so much bigger at play here, so who gives a flying foreign space if a woman works or not? So when we look at femininity and masculinity, we have to think beyond gender, we have to think of beyond what we understand and kind of the box that we've created in our minds and go beyond that. It's okay, if we don't fully understand it. It's a little bit mysterious to us. That's okay. That's why we sit there, we wrestle with it, we think about it, we let it challenge our belief systems and then we grow or we say no, that's not for me. It doesn't align. I don't feel it aligning. 

So you know, these energies, the energy of the feminine and the energy of the masculine, they can also be considered essences, they are really the essences that exist all around us. They are really the yin and the yang or the balance of all things within nature within Creation. And polarity is very important because when you look at one without the other, when you look at the feminine without the masculine or the masculine without the feminine, you really have no context, they provide context for one another. No matter how you feel about that, if you feel that that's complementarian theology, even though it's not, you know, one cannot exist without the other. And that's just, that's just a law of nature, that's just the order of things, I didn't make this stuff up, don't shoot the messenger. 

But if you really, really think about it, if there was no darkness, there would be no light in the science of electricity. You know, if there were no negative ions, there couldn't be positive ions, who would just be ions within nature, there always has to be a giver, and a receiver. And that is just what is required for life. It's required for plant life, it's required for animal life, and it's required for human life as well. In reality, there would really be no hot without cold, right? There has to be day in order for there to be night. Night provides context for day and day for night. And even the sun has its polarity with the moon, just as the polarity within nature provides life and sustenance and keeps the universe going on in the same way it always has. So does polarity with the male physiology and the female physiology. 

You know, when you look at male physiology, it really is set up in a specific way to be able to embody masculine energy, or mostly masculine energy, because we always have a balance of two, but to mostly embody that masculine energy, you know, their hormones, their bone structure, their center of gravity within their chest, all point to this ability to embody masculine energy. The masculine physiology, or the the male physiology,  it is really the giver, it's the penetrator, it's the protector, it's the provider, and when it isn't balanced,  it gives and gives, and gives, and gives and gives, it really has unlimited potential there.

Then on the flip side, when you look at how female physiology is set up, it has the hormones, the bone structure, the center of gravity in the hips, to embody mostly feminine energy, it has the unique ability to embody this type of essence. And this discussion is really never about an argument of what a woman's body can do or cannot do. Right? I think we're beyond that as women and I think if we're not we should be. It's really not a discussion of what men can do or cannot do, either. What it really is about is understanding that women can - using the specific word can! - do anything they want. But we have to ask ourselves, what is the cost to our physiology, and I believe in informed consent about all things. 

I think a lot of women have been sold a bill of goods, I really do. And they were sold this kind of fantasy package without being informed or aware of the physiological debt that they would rack up doing what they're doing. I think that's where we find ourselves, a lot of us as women, right, especially as we start to explore our own physiology and start to really understand how our physiology works and our difference in resilience to stress than the male physiology. 

We start to really wake up and see the choices that I've made up until this point are not something that really align with what I would want to be doing now that I know what I know. So heck, yes, women can do anything we want, we totally can. But that doesn't mean there aren't physiological and biological consequences for rising up to meet certain challenges that our body doesn't really want to meet, or doesn't have the capacity to meet. Just because we can do something doesn't mean it's in our best interest. I know that can be a really hard one to swallow, for sure. And we're going to, you know, I think by the end of this show, you'll feel a little less unsettled towards the end. 

This is a hard truth that I had to learn. Years ago, I think, I really thought and expected my body to almost act like a robot, in a sense, where it could just do go and go and go and go and go. And as long as I put some fuel in the tank and got some sleep, I could just do whatever I want. I learned pretty quickly at a pretty young age that that is not the case. I found myself in a really severe burnout multiple times because it took me a little while to learn that lesson. 

I'm guessing that there's women that are listening who have experienced a very, very similar thing. And for some women I've seen it's taken a little bit longer for them to realize that the burnout is a message from a part of themselves that has been suppressed for so long. So one of those hard truths of life that I think can be hard to accept, and I know at least it's been hard for me to accept is that everything in life has a cost or a sacrifice to it. Nothing worth doing ever comes easy. And it never comes without a cost. So everything we do is really about deciding if the cost is something that we're willing to pay. 

And what we've seen in the last century or so is that we've seen this really big shift take place where I think women, especially now at least, I'm I have been filling was feeling it. And I'm still feeling it. But I think the more aware you become of it, the less you feel it, you start to really understand, “oh, this is why I'm feeling when I'm feeling and that makes total sense. “ But I think, as we've seen in the last century, we've seen a really big shift to take place within just the existence of women, women used to be able to follow the rhythms of their body. Not always, there are certain times in history that we see that wasn't the case. 

But within those more traditional feminine roles, you see that women can kind of live out their rhythms in their own way within their own home. I think this is part of the reason why so many women are kind of jumping on the trad wife train - they are tired. You know, there's a lot more people talking and speaking up about hustle culture, and how demanding careers can be really hard on the female body. But as we often see with human nature it is like there can be no nuance within that, it's just we always see things in terms of black or white, right. And so if we swung this way, or to this side of the pendulum, and it didn't work out for us, let's just swing all the way to the other side of the pendulum. 

I find it interesting because what I see within women who are maybe craving or being drawn to these more of like traditional roles, or traditional gender roles, is that they're often finding that they're it's not as fulfilling as they thought it would be, because they're still approaching it in a very masculine way. They still are not following the rhythms of their body and peace right within their own home. And they're treating their homemaking, almost like it's this full time job that is very demanding nine to five with that type of attitude and energy. And that does us no good, right?

Who cares if we're at home, or in the workplace, or anywhere else hustling, if we are in the same energy regardless, which is out of alignment with what where we truly should stay. And so I think amongst women, what we're seeing is really this, you know, with the rejection of hustle culture, and the uptick in women opting for more traditional gender roles, or you know, becoming Trad wives, whatever we want to say, or stay at home moms, what we're really seeing is a deep craving to be able to follow the rhythms of the body instead of the rhythms of the world or the rhythms of society, right, because as women, that's really where we need to live within the rhythms of our own body, not within these kinds of hustle and bustle of society, are the really high demanding achievement, success oriented pace that comes with how society operates today. 

I totally believe that this is why we're seeing so many women have such big health challenges in the world today. And by no means am I downplaying the amount of health challenges amongst males, because it's huge. But what we're seeing is we're seeing women who are completely out of alignment with their own rhythms, they either can't because of the pace of their life, or they don't want to or they're not aware of it, and when we look at hormones as really just messengers of the brains and glands. The body is a biofeedback machine that shifts based on energy and the brain is always picking up on energy and environment, what's around you, and what's within you. And then it's directing hormones, which are just chemical messengers that are how the cells communicate with one another. 

So, of course, all of our biofeedback machines that we're walking around in are telling us that something is very, very uneasy within us. We're not flowing within the rhythms of life, we're pressured by the constant demands of society. And of course, our hormones are showing it. We have women striving to keep up with the demands and the pace that society brings right now, and they can't do it. We physically can do it, but it comes at such a cost and it feels so awful, and so soul sucking, and it leads us to such a burnout that really our only option is often to just disembodied to just disconnect and to numb down and to just kind of go into that robot mode where we're just going through the motions of life miserable, not connected to our own experience. To me, every woman deserves to be connected to her own experience. Every woman deserves to be fully within her body and experience the pleasure of being in the present moment, yet so many women right now are robbed of this. 

Even when we think of hormones as biofeedback, or our bodies as biofeedback machines that really let us know what's going on on an energetic level, I think about how there's just really right now there's no shortage of PCOS diagnoses. I think about how so many women right now are struggling with high androgens or low androgens because they have been running on and on secreting so many androgens over a period of time that they've gotten to a place where they're not making as many androgens anymore. Women that are just running on straight adrenaline to get through their day, which is a very masculine state for a woman to be, or who have incredibly high levels of DHEA, which in high amounts really can act as that adrenal androgen — DHEA is both a precursor for both testosterone and estrogen. And we all know, I also think about how many women are struggling with estrogen based issues. And we often blame these androgens for all of our symptoms and all of our problems. They definitely can cause symptoms, right, because we're not meant to embody masculine energy, we're not meant to have huge amounts of adrenaline or testosterone running through our system at all times. And so of course, our structures start to shift, right? Because energy begets structure.

This energy that we're embodying, this place where we're having to push ourselves beyond our limits and live outside of our own rhythms, our body’s rhythms, our bodies demands is keeping us in a place where we are producing male hormones, we are starting to experience physiological shifts in our jaw structure, our voice. You know, women right now are growing full beards experiencing severe hair loss and skin problems, not necessarily, I don't believe it's because of the androgens. When you look at the research, there's so much research that points to estrogen being a causative factor in conditions like PCOS and in states like this, but when you look at testosterone, it really does end up as much as it can cause pesky symptoms for women and real physiological shifts, it’s not the enemy. In fact, it's protective against stress. 

There's a reason why men are more resilient to stress than women, it's because they have higher amounts of testosterone. And so when you look around, it goes deeper than hormones. I think right now, the health and wellness world is at this tipping point, where they've been so focused, and they're still so focused on just hormones and labs and physiology and chemicals, but they're forgetting the bigger picture. That's why I'm so passionate about this soul-deep, cell-deep discussions, because it goes so much deeper, and you can try to manipulate the physical all you want. 

But if the energy isn't changing, neither will the structure, neither will the physiology, you might see some small shifts, right? I think a lot of women in our community are feeling that way where they've been so focused on the physical, so focused on the nutrition, so focused on the hormones, so focused on the supplements that they've gotten, but they haven't gotten far enough, they haven't gotten where they wanted. Instead of seeing that, oh, this is bigger, this is deeper, this is soul-deep, this is cell-deep, this is energetic, they jumped to the next supplement, or they jumped to the next diet or the next kind of cult-like protocol. 

And so we're still in that place where many of us have not really recognized how much we're living within our masculine, we're forcing our body to embody masculine energy instead of feminine energy and our body listens, our body does exactly what we asked it to do. But then the cost of it is so severe, and then instead of really thinking and contemplating what the root cause is, we blame the very system that is just listening to us, and rising up to meet the demands that we've placed upon it. 

We’ve found ourselves in a really tragic situation, where so many women feel like it's their job to control everything around them, where we act hyper-controlling, we get super protective, to the point of being defensive, dramatic, everything is a threat, right? And then we also feel that the weight of provision, providing protection falls on our shoulders and our shoulders alone, because when we're in this energy, we become very disconnected from our spirituality, we become very disconnected from our creative energy from from source or our Creator, whatever you want to call it, and functioning this way within the world requires us to build very, very thick, hard walls instead of embodying what femininity is, which is softness.

You know, I even looked up softness in the dictionary and the synonyms of softness within the Webster's dictionary or one of the dictionaries online, I can't remember what it was, was that its weakness. Softness is not weakness. And we as women were not really meant to put up these really hard, harsh walls to become cold and callous - it requires a ton of energy, it's a really big energy suck to stay within that place. Because our body desires, as our energy requires, us to be soft and surrendered. And up until this point in time, we've been doing it just because it's the thing to do. 

We look around, we see everyone else doing it. And so we think, Well, this is just what existence is like. But, we do not have to accept it. It's okay to declare or to believe that, yes, I can do anything. Because that much is true, we can do anything that we set our minds to. But we need to stop and ask, “do we want to?”  Because our deepest desires to the deepest part of myself want to do this? And, honey, it is okay for you to say, “No, I don't want to do it anymore. I don't want to do it, I can't do it anymore.” It's okay for that to be a resounding no, I do not want to do this anymore. 

It can be quite the conundrum for women today. There's so much demand placed upon us from every single direction. You know, I think of how many women that I know personally that were pushed to be, they really wanted to be stay at home mums. And they were pushed to be independent, to pull out massive amounts of student debt for degrees they didn't really plan on using or didn't really even want, but they just kind of did it to do it. And it was just all about, you know, the success or the achievement or the clout of getting it. Then, the minute they graduated, they just didn't want to use it. And so they felt kind of enslaved to this debt. And they didn't even really get a degree that they wanted to use. 

Now, of course, that doesn't apply to every single woman. But that's just kind of one example of where we've kind of gotten ourselves into this indebtedness. I think of women who I've worked with that have many children, multiple children, because it was just encouraged that that was the thing to do. You just have child after child after child after child, and you just kind of stay at home and you serve the family. 

But what ended up happening is that conundrum where you know, the female, the feminine, becomes the giver, and the masculine becomes the receiver and you start to flip flop the energies. Not only does she have four children, but she has a fifth man-baby as well. And it becomes incredibly draining.  I feel like so many women feel like they're stuck, like, how do I get out of this? I do all the things for all the people all the time, I'm stuck doing this, I'm stuck doing this, I'm stuck doing this? How do I get out of this? How do I shift my mentality?

And I don't have an answer for you. I'm sorry to say I don't think that there's one specific answer, I think it's really about us just starting to be mindful of it and starting to be aware of it, and starting to be aware of the rhythms of our own body and forcing women to do what they really deeply don't want to do isn’t for the good of everyone right? For the good of everyone else is not pro-women. Right? You know, being pro-women is really about being able to understand our physiology and weigh all the options, make informed consent, and ask ourselves what we want. And what is our body wanting. Because at the end of the day, our body lets us know it is the intuitional guide. 

Although I'm not a mother yet, I do like to ask women, you know, no matter if we're mothers or not mothers of daughters, what do we want for our daughters? And I mean, daughters as a collective? What are we imagining and envisioning for the next generation? Do we want them to continue to repeat the same cycles? Or are we ready to upset things? Are we ready to change the paradigm and shift the paradigm to a new age? And I know, I am totally ready for that. So as we dive into the discussions of physiology and we shift gears a little bit, I'm gonna read you two quotes that I was thinking about and it kind of came across in my research and I feel like this is these are perfect quotes for us to just kind of marinate on for a second. 

The first one is a Mama Gena quote, and she says, “It is my deep, hot and holy conviction that the body of every woman is a living, breathing, altar.” Think about that one for a second. And then the Nikki Row quote, where she says, “The feminine are the portals to forgotten knowledge to ancient energy and medicine, creation, and recalibrating the soul back to its original source.” Think about that one for a second. 

Let’s Talk About Hormones

So as we shift gears into hormones, we're really gonna be talking about the circadian rhythm versus the infradian rhythm. And remember, you know, the brain is always taking in our environment, and then just directing the glands from the hypothalamus and the pituitary. So those glands within our brain, the hypothalamus, and the pituitary, are really taking in what's around us, you know, sunlight, energy, environment, threats, everything, taking in our internal environment, and then just sending messages to the other glands of the body. 

We really need to remember that the unseen and the seen are interdependent energy, the unseen and structure of the scene are interdependent on every level. So energy is going to direct hormones, yes, but then hormones are also going to direct the creation of energy and energy flow - they work together in tandem. And so biologically, when we look at men from a hormonal level, they have bodies that are really meant to be, the best word I can use to describe it is hard, or hearty, almost, they're there, because of their testosterone and their reliance on the circadian rhythm only, they're much more resilient to stress, because it's quite literally their biological purpose to provide, protect, create stability, and lay down their bodies at the altar of women, and therefore society as a whole, to take action within the vision, right. 

So there's this kind of collective direction that everyone's headed in, but men are the ones that actually lay down their body and sacrifice their body for this provision, in this protection, in this building, so that society can go on. We’ve seen this again and again, throughout history. And the cool thing is, and we'll talk about this and both, as we go through archetypes, but you know, as men live out their biological purpose, this is actually where they feel most aligned. This is where they feel good. And it's because energy begets structure. When we live out our energy, and our essence, our structure responds to that, and it kind of works together.

When we want to simplify male biology, or if we want to simplify masculine energy, it really comes down to men's biology is centered around protection and provision and energy output. It is the energy of action and put simply, it's really just about being able to take something big, and make it small, right? To take a vision, and to put it into action. 

Now flipping to female physiology, we see a complete flip flop in that biologically women take something very small, and channel it into something very, very big, into something huge, right? You know, biologically, we have bodies that are designed to create, we have bodies that are designed to nurture, to heal, to be intuitive to be sensitive, to guide and be in constant connection to the wisdom of the universe, to create life, soul, home, art, pleasure - that is why we are sensitive and emotional. It's because we feel everything around us we are connected to the mother of all and being a body that embodies this, it requires us if we look at that, it requires us to be soft, we need to be capable of being penetrated, of being able to receive the hardest of things, and then be able to convert that energy into something even more powerful. 

So we require a lot of reception, we need to receive and receive and receive in order to be able to create and pour out, which requires immense energetic potential. And there's this old Cherokee proverb that I've meditated on for many months, if not years, and I just loved the way it explains the polarity between men and women and the masculine and the feminine. It says, “a woman's highest calling is to lead a man to his soul so as to unite him with source. Her lowest calling is to seduce, separating man from his soul and leaving him aimlessly wandering. A man's highest calling is to protect woman so she is free to walk the earth unharmed. Man's lowest calling is to ambush and force his way into the life of a woman.” Man oh man, we see it, don't we? 

So diving into male physiology, which I actually find incredibly fascinating. I hope you find it fascinating as well. I like to talk about male physiology first because it really makes female physiology just boom, hit home, hit hard. When you look at male physiology, it's really directed by one rhythm, the circadian rhythm, the rise and fall of the sun. You know, if you look at how their luteinizing hormone and their follicle stimulating hormone or their FSH direct the production of testosterone which is a really an anabolic, a building, hormone of direction and strength and motivation, which it’s just so funny how the hormone itself is a direct reflection of the masculine energy and the characteristics of masculine energy. 

But you see how male physiology really follows a daily kind of 24 hour rhythm. Male physiology is reflected in how the sun operates, we have this kind of steady, constant penetrating nature of sunlight, and testosterone kind of follows that rise and peak with the sun mid morning. And then it starts to kind of wane slowly over the course of the day. That testosterone directs the male drive to be able to go out and provide and protect and build on a daily basis. It gives them that motivation and that drive and that force and that ability to consistently act. 

This rhythm impacts everything within the male physiology, their digestion, their appetite, their leptin, their insulin, their ghrelin, their metabolisms, and these are hormones that are expressed so differently within the male physiology than they are within the female physiology. It's like night and day different, which is why I get so agitated when we see this kind of universal application of things like stress and survival-based eating styles and living styles like intermittent fasting and carnivore and cold water therapy. These are all really stress and shock inducing therapies that men are much more resilient to, and they almost get like a cyclical repeat every single day. So if the day doesn't go quite right, well, they just get to repeat it the next day.

They have this steady, constant, more stable physiology that's much more resilient to stress than we are. Their liver health is different, because their livers don't have to detoxify as much estrogen, so their stress tolerance is different. Their fasting tolerance is different, because if you look at, you know, we talked about how biologically their purpose would be to go out of the home, to provide to protect, whereas women's job was really to be the backbone of society as a whole, and stay within the community and to remain inward. So the access to food throughout the day would have been extremely different for men versus women. 

But this doesn't mean that men are impervious to stress. In fact, we see imbalanced men everywhere. So many men right now are stuck in this imbalanced energy, they're chaotic, their energy is anxious, they're bored, they're controlling, they're selfish, they're frustrated. They're unenthusiastic for life, you know, they're weak-minded, even impotent, right? So many men right now are addicted to downers - to alcohol and weed and nicotine. I'm not saying women aren't either, because they are, but men that have this really hard drive to go and go out and take action and provide and protect when they're not allowed to do so. Or, for some reason they're not capable of doing so it really takes a toll on their psyche, and that will take a toll on their hormonal output. 

Men being able to fully embody all of their masculine qualities plays a big role in their testosterone output and their hormonal balance. So where does that begin? I think for me, specifically, it's been very helpful for me to study the typical four archetypes of the masculine. It has helped me understand men on a deeper level and kind of see when they're in balance and when they're out of balance. I think these archetypes are a really great way for us to understand masculine energy on a deeper level. So the four archetypes or the typical male archetypes are the king, the warrior, the magician, and the lover. These are kind of the archetypes that all play together within a man's psyche. 

The Four Male Archetypes

First, the King. The King is really his primal essence. It's his wisdom. It's his selflessness. It's his ability to really delegate tasks and create direction and to be generous, right? The king archetype is that part of a man who is so generous and gives so much praise and tells people how much he values them. The masculine takes so much joy in bestowing blessings on others - that's a part of that King archetype within men. But the shadow part of this archetype is usually considered the tyrant or the weakling. The Tyrant is usually merciless and selfish and always after his own agenda and callous and cold and really ruthless, right? We see men like this all the time. That's really the shadow of this king archetype. When a man is living in balance, he will be generous and magnanimous, but when he's not, he's going to be a weakling. 

When men are praised and when they're valued, and when they have people expressing their value to them on a regular basis, they really require that as part of the masculine. And men's hormones start to shift when they're valued, when they're praised, when they have blessings poured upon them. The easiest way to boost your man's testosterone is by telling him all the things he's done right, and the quickest way to tank it is by telling him all the things he's done wrong. So the shadow part of that King archetype can be the tyrant, but it can also be the weak link, which is a man who demands praise and demands his value to be expressed all of the time. Weaklings are often defensive and hostile because they are operating from a place of insecurity. Men are meant to be centered, calm, and self confident, that is a part of healthy, masculine energy. But when they're not, this is where these shadow parts of them can really start to be expressed. And that usually coincides with hormonal imbalances or men - a man living within his feminine instead of his masculine energies, men that are producing much more estrogen than testosterone.

The second powerful archetype is the warrior archetype. So this is the one I think that gets such a bad rap within society. I think there's a lot of women out there that think of men as almost dangerous in a way. And that is a shadow part of this warrior archetype. The warrior archetype really represents the the male confidence - he doesn't need to massage his own ego, or he doesn't really need to seek the validation of others, which we see so many men right now, on social media, just seeking the validation of women. The warrior also doesn't need to stir up drama to get confidence, right? It comes from within, the confidence comes from within. 

There's also discipline as a part of the warrior archetype, where the warrior archetype is the representation of a man's extreme self control. Men should be extremely disciplined, and self controlled when they're in balance, and not only self controlled, but in control in a sense that they are no longer a victim. Masculinity and true masculinity is not a place of victimhood, it's a place of moving forward. Men feel their best and produce their most testosterone when they're in a state of action, or moving forward. 

Another aspect of the warrior archetype of the masculine is loyalty. So a man who has healthy masculine energy is going to be loyal, he's going to be loyal to his family, he's going to be loyal to his brothers, he's going to be loyal to other men, and he's going to be loyal to God, he's going to be loyal to whatever he esteems. And so when a man is not in his healthy, masculine energy, and he's starting to get into his feminine energy, he's starting to produce more estrogen, you start to see that the shadow part of the warrior is really the man that acts almost like a sadist. There's blood lust, there's loss of control, there's preying on the weak - anyone that's weaker than him has become a prey to make himself feel more powerful. 

It can also kind of come out in the opposite of that, like the masochist, where you see how there are men who are pushovers. They're constantly trampled by others. They're constantly trampled by themselves, they put themselves down all the time. They don't really step into their true power, their true confidence until the point where they snap and they lash out. So we have men that abuse power and prey on the weak and then we have that opposite place where they're a pushover, pushover, pushover, pushover until they lash out. And that is kind of a part of the shadow part of that warrior aspect of the masculine. So a man producing testosterone and a healthy place of balance is going to be confident, disciplined, have a sense of control, and be incredibly loyal, and that's a part of that warrior archetype. 

Now moving on to the third archetype, which is usually called the magician. I've heard of other names as well, but I like the word magician, so I'm gonna keep it. But the magician archetype really represents the wisdom part of the masculine. The masculine possesses kind of this inner knowing, there's an energy, that there's this deeper kind of knowledge of the hidden realm, there's a part of the masculine that is incredibly wise. This is the energy that drives the production of technology, right? There's the desire to understand the way things work, and to advance society as a whole. And this part of the masculine really accepts the vastness and the mysteriousness of the universe. It taps into the wiser part of the masculine because the masculine is definitely directed by output energy or action energy. So it often comes from a place of a quick reaction. We see this in our men, right, we see that they tend to maybe not sit and think and feel through a decision all the time, they just kind of take action, sometimes not the action that we would take. But that's beside the point. 

The magician archetype is the part of the man that kind of taps into that deeper wisdom part of himself that takes a step back and practices a little bit of introversion and plugs into his inner universe a little bit and tries to maneuver through the world from a place of inner knowing. This really represents the intelligence of the universe. 

So we see the shadow part of this where the magician can become a puppeteer, right, or a manipulator or controller where, instead of guiding others to wisdom and tapping into inner wisdom, it is all about manipulating others in a way that they can't see. This shadow part of the magician archetype is really a detached and cruel man and has intentions to hinder the growth of others, and hides in the shadows. We see this so deeply in what's going on, if you know, you know, but we see this part of the masculine of society has taken such a route here where the shadow magician, or the puppeteer is, instead of guiding others to greatness is manipulating them to serve their own interests, which is really cruel and takes away people's consent. 

The last archetype of the masculine is such a wonderful one to celebrate, which is the lover. It's the representation of the primal passion and vitality of the masculine. We've been talking a lot about the ravenousness of women, but a part of the masculine is a hunger for pleasure and love, hunger for food and sex and creativity. And, like I said, pleasure and deep cravings for intimacy to the masculine craves love, craves connection, and craves intimacy, and it craves to be touched and touch others. 

This is not just physical, of course, physical is a big driver. But it goes deeper. This is an emotional and a spiritual intimacy as well. The masculine is incredibly capable of love and loyalty. I think sometimes more than we recognize, because our society doesn't really embrace the the primal nature of man, like traditional cultures do, and doesn't really let the wild and free part of the masculine go in our society. I feel like it's kind of leashed up and all parts of the different archetypes really suffer, all of the parts of masculinity really suffer because of this, but I think the lover part of the masculine suffers the most. We see this so often because the shadow side of the lover is really an addict, it's an addiction, to getting lost in the pleasure. Instead of being in that discipline and self controlled place, the masculine is just wants to be lost completely in pleasure. 

Then you see the opposite side where there's just kind of like an impotent man who really just has completely lost touch with any sensual part of himself, any primal part of himself, he's just kind of cut off and numb from it. The reason I bring up these archetypes is not to be super woowoo, but to give you the different facets of masculinity, because it's so vast, and it's not really something that can necessarily be taught. It’s also something that needs to be experienced and observed and seen. I want to start giving you visuals, so you can start to really see it all around you. 

You know, I read that comment earlier from one of my male listeners because I wanted to bring to light how important keeping an eye on the masculine is for the feminine. In a way it provides us context. And it's almost a mirror as to how things are operating, how the harmony is going, how the balance is going, not just within our relationships, but the world as a whole. And no wonder we have so many men that are in that place of just feeling so out of alignment with who they are. And as you know, I hope you can see now what people mean by patriarchy and toxic masculinity. I see a lot of women man-hating or man-blaming or they tend to use derogatory terms towards men. I encourage you not to do that because I don't think that we should talk in a derogatory way towards females either, right? And that doesn't mean people don't because they do. People talk in derogatory ways always towards men and people are always going to tuck away in derogatory ways towards women.

But that's not our problem. We could shift our perspective and our focus and the words that we use. So if I slip and say the patriarchy, I don't mean it in the sense of this overarching, man-hating mentality. I think when women really say “the patriarchy” or toxic masculinity, these are terms that are describing masculinity that is out of balance, or in its feminine, and not true masculinity. Because true masculinity is going to fully embody the masculine essence, which is equal parts King and equal parts Warrior and equal partMagician, and equal parts Lover, right? He lives to give love and live within this generosity and this giver of blessings, to be this magnanimous warrior that is both fierce and powerful, almost vibrating a power, but so disciplined and self controlled that he can hold himself back, but also be incredibly quick to act whenever necessary. I think of masculinity as almost like this tightly wound or coiled spring, that at any time can just, you know, reach out and grab it. 

I think as women, sometimes some of us have gotten to such a state that we fear anything different from ourselves, we think that finding harmony within relationships, or finding harmony with men is actually making them more like us, and controlling them, and having them see it our way, when in fact, I found such power in kind of just like sitting back and all of the differences of true masculinity and all its glory, because man, do I not fully understand it, and man, is it fully mysterious to me. But it's so powerful, and it's so different. But I think women that are not capable of accepting that can feel a little bit uncomfortable when you are around it. 

The thing to really remember is that real men and real masculinity gives and gives and gives and gives and gives. It is created and born to give and to provide and to create safety and stability. All masculine energy asks of is a spur a soft place to land, and rest and rejuvenate and connect to source so it can give some more. Masculinity is truly a giver and masculine physiology and male physiology is a giver, and the testosterone and the way it follows the circadian rhythm is a reflection of that. 

Female Physiology: The Opposite

So now that we've celebrated our men, and really reveled in the glory of the masculine, which I just I enjoy, it is so powerful, but it is not my existence. So it must be nice, right? But we have our own part to play in this in this beautiful polarity within within the world. And man, is it an exhilarating ride! Let me tell you, and I'm sure you agree with me. But really, when we look at female physiology, it's the opposite of what we just talked about. You know, although we have a rise and fall with the sun, we do have parts of our system that align with the circadian rhythm, of course, right? We're just not as reliant upon the hormones of our adrenal glands. Our body is not really meant to rise up and meet challenges constantly without rest. And it doesn't operate in these kind of 24 hour resets, where every day, the system in the rhythm kind of resets itself, we're not really designed to operate that way, unless we're living outside of our feminine energy and not really, truly embodied, right? 

If we're living in our masculine energy, then we're going to try to rise up and meet that challenge. But it's going to feel really damn hard because our bodies are just not meant to live within that kind of constant 24 hour reset rhythm. There's no ebbs and flows. And when we try to maintain that type of rhythm when we try to just keep structured and stiff, almost like a statue in a sense, when we try to maintain control and build up a kind of hardness out of survival or necessity or if we lack energy, right, a lot of women who lack energy are undernourished are living off of too little food or too little carbs or too little protein or not supporting their physiology in the right way. So they lack energy, and it can become very easy to live in this place too, because we start to rely a lot of adrenaline to balance our blood sugar like we talked about in the last episode. It can become incredibly difficult when we become hard and callous and cold. Because that's what is required to live within the survival energy. It can become very hard to surrender to the rhythms and flow that being in your feminine requires because it's a completely different rhythm. 

I kind of think of it as, we are on this constant rhythmic shift, constantly cycling, constantly moving on this constant kind of dynamic change within us, it's almost like a storm within us. I don't want to call it a chaotic energy, but it's just kind of this wild flowing energy, kind of like water, I guess, like a flowing stream or a river.

When we try to maintain tight control on that, we try to live within a completely different rhythm. I think of it as you know, if you are in a fast moving river, it's very easy to just let yourself go and kind of flow with the river. But if you hold yourself still against the flow of the river, well, what happens you waste a ton of energy, just trying to maintain that hardness trying to maintain that wall. And so of course, our flow, our transitions between cycles become extremely difficult, they become painful, they become rocky, because we're trying to stand still when everything is moving. And that's quite the energy suck, I'm not gonna lie. That's what many of us are finding out the hard way - to maintain this type of control, to maintain this type of hardness, to maintain this type of schedule, this this type of rhythm, this rigidity, this constant pushing, pushing, forcing, is sucking the very life out of us and leading us to a continuous state of burnout. And so of course, I'm never going to deny that the sun is important. Of course, the sun is so important for regulating our circadian rhythm. And the pituitary is very sensitive to sunlight. And so it can be very helpful to get enough sunlight during the day to kind of reset our pituitary gland. 

But it's interesting to see how, if you're super into health and wellness trends, that the circadian trend is all the rage right now, this idea that, as you know, as long as you regulate your circadian rhythm, your whole physiology will follow. And again, it's another health and wellness trend that is based on the masculine physiology. It's so interesting how all of these kinds of creep in - fasting, keto, cold water therapy, or ice baths, or whatever you want to call it, hydrotherapy, all of these survival based stress based practices are very much geared towards masculine energy. We see it happen again, within the kind of circadian space where everybody is so focused on the sun, that they forget about the rhythms of the moon, baby, and I'm not going to be forgotten. And I don't want you to be forgotten either. 

So of course, I'm not going to deny the importance of sunlight for vitamin D production, pregnenolone production, adrenal function, ovarian function, there's no denying the impact that sunlight plays on our ability to produce progesterone, we're definitely more fertile in the summertime. Research has proven that but we do not live by the circadian rhythm alone, we have a completely different rhythm called the infradian rhythm. We dance and twirl around the stability of the sun, you know, the sun, it's reliable, it's steady, and the moon constantly shifts and changes. And that is a perfect representation of our rhythm. So the infradian rhythm is really reflected in the ebb and flow of the moon. 

You know, the moon comes in and the moon waxes and the moon wanes. The moon ebbs and the moon flows, and the moon has a cycle of 28 days. Now, of course, not all of us have a cycle of 28 days. There are people that argue that if we were more aligned with the moon and practice more Lunaception, and spent more time outside at night, it makes us more capable of having a 28 day cycle. I don't know how true that is. But women's cycles tend to vary in time. So of course, there are people that believe that when you're aligned with the moon, your hormones are more and more aligned. I have kind of seen that happen at periods of time in my life, where I do become a little bit more aligned with the moon, when my hormones are imbalanced, and I feel more in harmony, and I tend to ovulate with the new moon and menstruate with the full moon or vice versa, depending on where my energy is at. But I'd be curious for you to share what your experience is with that. Obviously, not every woman has a 28 day cycle, but for the sake of talking about it today I'll just say 20 days, but I'm not trying to pick on people that have a different cycle length. You know, we're men and their LH and FSH really stimulates testosterone production. We have more cyclical LH or luteinizing hormone secretion and follicle stimulating hormone secretion. They are really concentrated around the time of ovulation. 

We have four phases of the cycle. Typically some people will say that menstruation is its own phase and then the follicular phase, ovulation is its own phase, and then the luteal phase or the premenstrual phase is its own phase. Really, menstruation is kind of a part of the follicular phase. But I don't want to get too technical about it. So we're just going to talk about the four phases, because they do kind of represent different aspects of our own feminine energy, which we're going to get into in just a second. 

The Four Phases of the Menstrual Cycle

So when we're menstruating, our hormones are at their very, very lowest. That's the time when they're at their very lowest. And often our body temperature and metabolism and consumption of energy is at its lowest. Now, that doesn't mean that we don't consume energy in order to be able to contract our uterus and slough off the uterine lining. But it tends to be the time when our body is really turned inward, and trying to conserve that energy. And man, don't we feel it, right, there's just something about when we're menstruating that we want to just turn inward. I know for me, I want to be alone, I don't want to go out, I don't want to push myself too hard. I used to just push myself through every phase of my cycle with not a thought in the world, with not a connection to my own rhythms, not a connection to my own wants, needs and desires. My goals came first, my gains came first at the expense of my own system and my own connection to my femininity. 

But once I reconnected, I cannot bring myself to push myself while I'm menstruating. It comes at such a cost and the times that I am menstruating, I have such a connection to spiritual things that are going on around me. There's a sensitivity there, right, a lot of times we’re talked about as emotional or, you know, it's the kind of the stigma that comes along with having our period or being on the rag. But in reality, what's happening is the barrier, at least from a spiritual point, the barrier between the two worlds is very, very thin there. Our cervix only opens twice a month, and the cervix is opened to really connect us to the spiritual realm, to the spiritual energy. But there's a release happening there. There's a special type of release, which is physiological, there's iron, there's other metals, there's sloughing off of uterine cells, mucus, it’s almost like our body is renewing itself for the next cycle. Our uterus and womb is kind of renewing itself in a way. It's experiencing the death part of the cycle. And it's the death of one thing to bring in the newness of another which is what death represents. 

And then, of course, we enter the follicular phase. This is when our hormone estrogen starts to rise slowly, we can feel pretty good during that time. For some women, they don't like this phase, everyone's a little bit different. But this is the time when we're actually meant to be “estrogen dominant” within the cycle. So estrogen is a hormone of growth, right? It's a hormone of building, it's a hormone of potential, it draws water into the cells so that they can grow rapidly. It does come at a cost, which we'll talk about in a second, but that hormone of potential is working to, you know, stimulate Luminizing hormones, stimulate Follicle Stimulating Hormone LH and FSH so that ovulation can occur so that the the egg can mature the follicle or cyst, which it’s also called in medical terminology, so the follicle can mature come to fruition. Then that egg sac can drop that egg and then the empty egg sac can now become a hormone producing gland called the corpus luteum. And that is really, you know, after ovulation occurs, we enter our luteal phase. 

Now the luteal phase is characterized by, once that corpus luteum starts to produce hormones, it doesn't just produce progesterone, which it’s popular for, it also produces hormones like leptin. Progesterone is supposed to become the dominant hormone of the second half of the cycle. That is how a woman's cycle is supposed to function. Progesterone is protective against estrogen, where estrogen is the hormone of possibility or potential. It's bringing on that building and growth. Progesterone is really a hormone of, I guess, expansion in a way or it brings a structure or a consciousness to the rapid growth and building that estrogen brings. Progesterone really balances out estrogen and keeps estrogen within balance and estrogen without progesterone to balance it is in fact a very masculine hormone. 

And for some of you, you know the drill. You know the estrogen industry has really shifted us to believe that estrogen is the female hormone. That is not the case. Progesterone is the female hormone so much so to give you an idea of how little estrogen we need and how much estrogen is not the dominant female hormone - estrogen is measured in pico grams or you'll see oftentimes you know, picograms per milliliter, which is the abbreviation PG/ml or it's sometimes also measured in picomoles per liter, which is which is an abbreviation pmol/L. And this is in serum tests where progesterone is measured in nanograms per milliliter or nano moles per liter. So, to put it in perspective for you a picogram or picomole, which is how estrogen is measured, is 1000 times smaller than a nanogram, or nanomol. That means estrogen is measured and 1/1000 of what progesterone is measured by. Our body is very specific about its needs for estrogen. It only needs enough to build and grow and that can very much be a hormone of action when not kept in check. And we see this so much where so many women who are stuck in their masculine energy are struggling with plenty of estrogen dominant conditions. 

When we have estrogen that's unchecked by progesterone, we have no relaxation, we have no chill, we constantly are seeking out information constantly wanting to build and grow and seek and build and grow and seek, we will build and build and build at the expense of everything else within our body without having estrogen balanced by progesterone. And the lies of the estrogen industry and estrogen being the female hormone are really just a kind of a brainwashing, almost a misunderstanding of that this generation of females are really stuck in. It was only done so that we would accept estrogen into our lives freely and think it was good for us. But that's a discussion for a different day. 

So the two primary hormones of the female cycle are going to be estrogen and progesterone. Estrogen is going to be a little bit more dominant. The first half of the cycle, especially the second half of the follicular phase, once we ovulate then progesterone becomes the overpowering hormone and we become progesterone dominant. But we do have a little bit of testosterone secretion, especially around ovulation. It gives us that subtle push or that subtle motivation to take some action to go out and get what we need to get - it can stimulate our libido. That's why our libido will change throughout our cycle. We'll find it kind of takes on a different nature. Sometimes it's very ravenous and very desperate. And then sometimes it's a little bit more slow and subtle and buildable. I find it really interesting that testosterone gets secreted mostly around our ovulation because there's this belief that sperm kind of chooses the egg. But in reality, it's shown that that's not true. That's a myth, the female body actually chooses the sperm. It's quite fascinating. And to me, that's a nice little reflection of how testosterone can bring some masculine energy with it and bring some action and some motivation. 

Ovulation is really that second time that the cervix opens. It opens up and that is the time when it's time to receive. Our body has prepared itself, it has rebirthed itself, and it has moved into a place to receive and so the cervix will open up one more time. And it will be a completely different experience than the first time that the cervix opens on the cycle. Then once we enter the luteal phase, that's really a time of a complete energy shift where our body is focused very much on our creative and reproductive potential, slowing down and getting into the flow and rhythm of femininity. I think the best way to really understand the phases of our cycle is to talk about the four female archetypes because really, when you look at the four female archetypes, they're perfect representations of the phases of our cycle, the phases of the moon, and then also the seasonal changes that the shifts throughout the year. 

The Four Feminine Archetypes

By studying the feminine archetypes, not only do we understand ourselves on a deeper level, but we understand the phases of our cycle on a deeper level and the meanings and importance of them because as we talked about the masculine archetypes, they kind of embody a mixture of those archetypes at all times. We embody a mixture of our four archetypes at all times as well. However, we see different expressions of our true self and different expressions of our personality show themselves at different parts of our cycle. It can sometimes feel like work for different people as we shift and this is natural and normal and a part of our existence. 

So the first archetype of the feminine is sometimes referred to as the Maiden, sometimes referred to as the Lover, sometimes referred to as the Virgin. This is really a representation of spring, of pre-ovulation. The part of the follicular phase that is right before ovulation. It's the phase of the moon that it really represents is the waxing moon or the moon coming into its fullness. And when you think of maiden or virgin or lover, you know, the word virgin has been really twisted into having to do with sexual status and sexual status only. And purity has really become kind of a coined term, and innocence has become a coined term for a woman's sexual status, which is so disgusting. It is so much bigger than that. Purity, in a sense, virginity, maidenhood, they all really represent a kind of independence or free spiritedness, right? There's a lot of love there. A woman who is independent, loves herself, and loves others unconditionally, has a connection to the child within herself, her inner child. She's positive and she's sensual. And she's in touch with the parts of herself that are more playful. She's autonomous, she knows exactly what she wants. She's also ready and she's magnetic. She's trying to magnetize the things she wants toward herself. In one word, the maiden/virgin/lover archetype is open, her heart is open. 

Now when that becomes imbalanced, and our hormones become imbalanced, the shadow parts of the virgin or the maiden are the lover is really that she can become so emotionally dependent on other people. She's needy, emotionally needy, and she's disembodied from herself. She overrides her own needs constantly for other people, for that emotional dependence and becomes quite the people pleaser. We see this a lot, right? As we've talked about, in previous episodes, this is often a place of fight or flight or fawn, right? When we become imbalanced emotionally, we're living in a state of survival, we start to fall and we start to people please, and say yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Because it's so energetically expensive to say no and hold our boundaries. But that's just a part of the feminine. 

We also have the Mother archetype or the mother part of the feminine, which is represented by the season of summer, right? It's a time of fruition and abundance, it's represented by the phase of our cycle that brings abundance - ovulation - the full moon, the state of the moon, in its complete fullness, is a perfect representation of the mother archetype. Part of the feminine, you know, it really is connected to all of life, it is in that co-creator energy, where it's generous, and it's nurturing, and it's compassionate, and it's abundant. And it's protective, and it's creative, and it's focused, and you get all of its attention. It's soft and caring. 

That mother archetype, it loves, and it loves so boldly and fiercely. This part of our essence is the one that's really connected to all of life, it’s connected to Mother Nature, or the mother of all this part of the feminine is really sensual. It's really fertile, right? It's that place of abundance. 

But the shadow part of the mother, and when we're in an imbalanced state, or a state of fight or flight or adrenaline, what can happen is the mother wound is very common right now. We have a lot of generational trauma passing down between women, right? Women just repeating cycles over and over and over, until one of us puts a stop to it and a lot of us are carrying around really deep mother wounds. So the shadow part of this essence can be a measurement, it can be control. It can be the feeling of just being abandoned, constantly feeling responsible for everyone's emotions, especially if you had to kind of manage your mother's emotions growing up. You can feel like being a mother and being that nurturing caring person is a manager of everyone's emotions around you, and that's your job. It can lead to a lack of self worth, because our mothers are designed to give us our sense of self and our self worth. Their focus and their attention is what does that and so when we do not get that we can have that really deep feeling of lack. It can also lead us to not knowing how to nurture and mother ourselves, to not know how to take care of our own needs, not know how to take care of ourselves, not know how to stay in our own bodies to embody the feminine, right? And it can create this difficulty nurturing our inner child and our outer child because we learn to mother ourselves by how our mothers mother us. 

If our mothers don't mother us in the right ways, our mother is from this shadow place, in this place of imbalance, right? They have trauma, they have imbalanced hormones, they're operating from a place of survival. They don't know how to mother, they've only been shown another way to mother. And so this is why we have these generational wounds being passed down. This is why our generation is saying absolutely no more, it is time to change this, we are breaking these cycles. But mothering and nurturing and this creative energy and this fullness, and this abundance is a part of our feminine essence and energy. 

Moving on to the third archetype, we also have the Warrior. It's also sometimes called the Enchantress, or the Wild Woman, sometimes it's called the Witch. Whatever you know it by, it's really a representation of the darker part of the feminine. So remember that the feminine is a representation of all of life cycles, including life and birth and death, right, and you can't have one without the other. A great seasonal reflection of, of the wild woman archetype is autumn or fall, right? The leaves are falling off the trees, things are being pruned. It's a time when you're transitioning from summer, a time of abundance, into a time of winter. 

And the luteal phase is the wild woman. When we go through the follicular phase we are ripe with potential and we're going towards ovulation. But once we ovulate, once we entered, the mothering, the nurturing the abundant phase, we need to transition, it's time to start moving towards the death part of the cycle. So there's that transitional phase between fullness and life and mother, right, and winter and stillness. And that is the luteal phase. That is the wild woman archetype, that is the waning moon when the moon is going from being in its fullness to not, when we start moving to a place where we're moving inward. We're moving into ourself and becoming fully embodied into ourself. 

And the shadow part of this can be really challenging, it can be really rough. This is why the luteal phase is so tough for so many women, it's because this part of ourselves this archetype, is really the healer, it's the medicine woman, it's the untamed part of ourselves that is connected to something so much deeper and so much more vast than we can comprehend. It's kind of that undercurrent of spirituality or almost magic in a way that can't be explained by science or logic, or any of the other things that make us want to stay in our intellectual brain. It is the part of us that is wild, and very powerful. For a lot of us who think that those things are bad, it can be frightening, and also unpredictable. For those of us that are trying to stay within this strict place control, that is too scary. We're going to fight that transition, and we're going to fight that change. 

This is where women are today. Wild woman, this part of our essence, as part of our archetype is suppressed, she is suppressed, but she is wild. And she is desperate to be seen, she is desperate to be heard. This is the part of us that really forces us, or I should say, not forces us but asks us, to feel our pain. It's the part of us that requires to be seen and heard, will do it in a gentle or not so gentle way. She requires us to address the root of our issues, to address our pain, to work through our pain, to stand in stillness, to reflect, to accept things, to let go of things to move on. And then to take our pain and transform our pain or, you know, create a type of alchemy in a way where we're taking pain, we're taking experience, and we are transforming it.

It's that ability to take something small and turn it into something very large. And is this why we're seeing such really such hard transitions in women's cycles? This is why we're seeing the luteal phase be such a challenge for women, and where women are so disconnected from themselves. They're so disconnected from their own systems, that they are suppressing wild woman. They're suppressing this part of their feminine essence state, they don't accept the wild  part of themselves. And so their body is still embracing it but they are fighting it in their psyche - their logical brain, their conscious brain fights. It denies, it suppresses it. We have a mismatch there, we have a misalignment going on. The body is shaking like an earthquake with all this movement and dynamic shifting and changing and we're tightly holding on to control. No wonder our wombs are literally shaking with cramps and shaking with pain.

It reminds me of when you hold on to something so tight for so long that your hands and your muscles just start shaking uncontrollably and it’s so painful. And then for days after you get so sore - it's pretty much the same thing. And the shadow side of the warrior or the Enchantress is as a manipulator, and is also miserable in her rage, because when you can't, when you don't let the wild woman out, you are going to be raging. And you're going to be hard, you're going to be aggressive, and you're going to be in a constant state of having to control everything. 

Moving into that fourth archetype, which is sometimes called the wise woman or the matriarch, the priestess, or even the Crone. We think of crone as like an old, haggard woman, but it really is a representation of the wise women of the community. This is a one that I think we are the most disconnected to, and I know, if you're a menopausal woman, or you're going through menopause, and you've been listening to this, I think sometimes when menopausal women disconnect from the feminine experience, I found that when I'm talking about cycles, I'll get messages like, “well, where where do I fall, you know, this doesn't apply to me anymore,” like you're some separate creature, and don't treat yourself that way. This is really your time to shine. This archetype is really a representation in a way, which we'll talk about in a second, of menopause. 

The wise woman or the matriarch or the crone is really the winter part of ourselves, the dark New Moon. So we've gone through the spring, and then the summer, and the fall, and now we're in the winter, we're in the stillness, and the moon is dark, and we're menstruating. Our hormones are low, we are conserving energy, we are turning inward. And this really is a representation of the feminine 's need to slow down, both physically and spiritually. This is the part of the feminine, that requires us to live outside of the kind of achievement or production part of society where we constantly have to produce, produce, produce, produce produce. We are free from those chains. We live within our own rhythms. 

This freedom is really hard for our patriarchal shadow, patriarchal society to accept. It's just so far, and almost so foreign, to the rhythms of our current society that we're just looked down upon. It's also really a representation of the life and death cycle. This is the death part of the cycle. This is the part of the cycle that we don't like to see. And it's a part of the cycle that our society has the hardest problem with, because we don't get to experience death very much, or in very healthy ways within the Western world, death and winter represents the end of an era and the entrance into a new beginning. 

The wise woman or the matriarch doesn't really align with the expectations of what a woman should be in society, right? There's expectations upon women, and this is a part of the feminine, that does not rise to meet those expectations at all. It's really a place where we're completely tuned out. We're connected to that creative energy. We're connected to the Divine parts of the world. This is the part of us that really allows us to align with our wisdom and our intuition, especially when we're going from one phase to another, when we're closing one chapter of our life and entering another chapter of our life. It also is the part of us when we're led by wisdom, the wisdom part of our feminine or the wise woman part of our feminine or the matriarch, part of our feminine, is really the part of us that has so much compassion for everybody around us. All she wants to do is offer guidance and support. She has the life experience, it's the part of us that has the life experience and now just wants to share the wisdom. We've gone through the pain, we've transformed it, the wild warrior part of us has gone through the pain and transformed it. And now it's time to use it. That is where the wise woman is. She's the matriarch, she has the wisdom, she earned it. 

And this is a part of all of us. I feel like women have suffered the most from our denial of this part of the feminine. You know, the feminine in general is not really understood or accepted in our society, or it's very misunderstood. And this specifically is the part that gets denied the most or ignored the most. Menopause, to our society, is really like a representation of aging, as a representation of the loss of fertility, maybe even beauty, and even just our ability to be active, to do what we want to do, but it's because we don't accept this part of the feminine archetype. 

This is the part of the feminine that we hate to admit, especially in our high functioning and high performing society. This is a celebration of stillness, this is a celebration of slowing down. Menopause is a crowning. Menopause is your crown, it is your transition from water, constant cycling, constant production, constant achievement (because the cycle is circling constantly around reproduction, and creative energy and creation) and you now live outside of that you are free. And that freedom, in the words of Pride and Prejudice is a fearsome thing to behold. Our society does not know what to do with it. And, you know, it's the body’s forcing of stillness, it's the body's forcing of moving into a different chapter of life.

This archetype is always a part of us, right? We go through it every time we go through the death-life cycle of the menstrual cycle, the menstrual phase, it's a phase of sacrifice, it's a phase representing new beginnings. And because we don't really accept that in our society, it's the part of the feminine that we really don't like, the part of the stillness. We see this archetype get really rejected a lot. The sensitivity, the introspection, the connection to the divine, the connection to the intuition, is rejected in a way. This is what we see when this is rejected, you know, you don't own or trust your inner wisdom at all, and you don't own and trust your inner wisdom and sensitivity. We see this a lot in menopausal women, right? It's a denial of our power. It's a denial of the part of us that is capable of connecting to other dimensions. It's the part of us that is comfortable kind of sitting in awe and is comfortable with not really knowing anything, it just kind of acknowledges that I don't know anything. At this point I thought I knew everything. And over time, I realized, I don't know anything. It's the wisdom that we've earned, right? 

When you deny this part of yourself, you spend more time trying to figure things out, constantly trying to figure things out, seek out answers, instead of just following your inner guidance and your inner intuition. You seek to push and force yourself and practice control and think your way out of things. This also can be expressed in a kind of sacrifice, like you see this happen a lot where because you're disconnected from your wisdom and because you're disconnected from your power, you have a very hard time setting strong boundaries and keeping strong boundaries. This is the shadow part of this archetype - if we're out of balance, we tend to practice a ton of self sacrifice, almost like a martyrdom in a sense of victimhood, or a self denial of where we're at. We kind of are in denial about what our true needs are, or what a connection to the spiritual is. We tend to have a habit of being everything to everyone all of the time, except for ourselves. We put everybody's needs above our own. You kind of look at this as a loss of creative energy, you've given your creative energy away to everybody else except yourself, you've denied your intuition, you've denied your power, you haven't held up your boundaries, and you've given too much to others at the expense of yourself. This really leads to a place where not only are you burned out, but you have a lack of self love and are very disconnected from your true self. And this is something that is a part of all of us. This is a part of the feminine, but this is the role or the part of our femininity that we really step into as we go through the transition of menopause. 

How often do we see the Karen-esque woman who is so disconnected from her body, so disconnected from her true self, who blames everyone, is such a martyr, is such a victim all the time. Menopause really expresses how disconnected we are from this part of our femininity. 

I encourage women who are perimenopausal or menopausal to change the way they view menopause. Menopause is a crowning glory, it is an expression of our transition from water into fire. Yeah, and it may be a loss of sorts, a death of sorts, but women have to die a thousand little deaths throughout our life, right? When we go through puberty our childhood dies, when we go from maiden to mother, our maiden hood in a way kind of dies, we have to make sacrifices, there's death there, we have somebody else to take care of. And then when those children leave us, there's another little tiny death. And then when we transition from cycling, to not cycling, there's another little death. 

We as women go through these death life cycles throughout our life. When we fight these transitions, this is another transition that we fight or we try to control. And in doing that, it really controls us. And so as women losing our menstrual cycle, or moving out of this constant flow and movement is a gift of stillness and rest and connection and intuition. It's time to connect to that part of yourself, the matriarch, you don't have to focus, you're not caught up in the hoopla as much any more. You have the wisdom of life experience at your back holding you. A transition does not take away your essence, not having a menstrual cycle doesn't take away who you are, what you embody what your essence is, you will forever be a rhythmic and dynamic being. But you can now rest in the stillness. 

I know whenever I talk about menopause, always the next thing is, well, what about a hysterectomy? You know, what about a kind of a forced menopause? I would encourage you to think of it in a similar way in the sense that no one can take away your essence. When you think of the womb acting as a door or a gateway, right, the cervix opening, closing, opening and closing, it is really the center of our body, right? Our center of gravity really sits in our hips. That's really where our rooted sensual, sexual lifeforce energy is. It is the generator of creative energy, it gives out a ton of electricity and energy. And so things like tubal ligations and hysterectomy is, I think a lot of women, once they go through something like that, they feel very out of alignment with who they are. It's just an encouragement to get back into alignment. No one can take away your essence and your energy. And maybe you don't have the physical or the structure anymore, that structural or physical representation. But just because the scene is gone, doesn't mean the unseen is gone. 

So understanding the four different archetypes or parts of the feminine essence is incredibly important for us as we go through life's transitions and our menstrual cycles of transitions, right? We absolutely need to embrace all parts of ourselves and celebrate all parts of ourselves and surrender and accept how our personalities and energies will shift as our hormones do. The Maiden, the Virgin, the Lover, the open-hearted part of us is as much of a part of our feminine as the mother and the nurturer and the abundant fertile part of us. But so is that warrior medicine woman, intuitive, wild part of us as much as the wise woman, the matriarch, the Crone.All aspects of ourselves need to be celebrated, surrendered to, accepted, seen, and allowed to flow through us. We are dynamic, we are powerful. We are different, we are unique, and that is totally okay. Not only is it okay, it's beautiful. We are women, and we are the very representation of the fullness and lushness of life. 

Thank you so much for listening to the Fully Nourished podcast. I hope today's episode about the rhythms of the female physiology resonated with you. If you're looking to explore more about the power of progesterone, dive deeper into the hormones of the female menstrual cycle, and how they impact our metabolism and nutritional needs and the sacrifices women have unconsciously made in the past century, I'd love for you to join us for next week's episode. 

Episode Links

Connect with Jessica:

Have Sunday tea with me! Sign-up for my Sunday newsletter where I share what’s on my brain from the nutritional to spiritual: https://www.jessicaashwellness.com/email-subscribe.

Join the Fully Nourished community! Follow me @jessicaashwellness on Instagram: