Rebecca Rankin (00:18):
Episode, number two, how cyclical living changed my life now. Cyclical living has honestly transformed my life so much that now I shift my daily habits - like workflow, nutrition, mindset, movement, and exercise, all to be in alignment with each phase of my cycle. So much so that it's almost in the flow, and it's kind of woven into the fabric of my daily routine that I don't really have to think much about it. But honestly, it wasn't always like that. It literally has taken like many moons. I get into this good rhythm of understanding what my body needs and what my body is craving in each phase. I then have the wherewithal to really lean into a self-care routine that will nourish my body throughout my cycle.
Rebecca Rankin (01:20):
I have been a yoga teacher and mindfulness leader for over 15 years at this point. And honestly, it wasn't until more recent years that I really started to lean into cyclical living. Actually, it was when my second child, when my son was born. And I remember when my period came very shortly after the birth of him. I remember these feelings of just being burdened by having a period again. I remember feeling like, 'ugh, I'm exclusively breastfeeding and I'm not supposed to have my cycle yet'. And feeling totally inconvenienced by having my period again. And I was having these really dark, negative self talk around, around it all. And, and that was for me a bit of a big
Rebecca Rankin (02:22):
red flag. To take a pause and turn that inward fight into an opportunity for a little bit of self inquiry. Some friends of mine over the years had leaned into cyclical living. And a lot of them were aligning their movement practices with their own inner cycle. And I remember in that moment kind of being like, you know, maybe this is something that I need to look into. Maybe this is something that will actually really nourish me and get a lot out of. Because I know I'm not, and we're not supposed to have this feeling of being burdened. That's a big flag waving at us saying,' all right, this is something to look at and change our perspective and change our relationship with our own bodies.
Rebecca Rankin (03:17):
For me, movement has always been a part of my life. It helps me find stillness, it helps me clear my mind and allows for focus. And it clicked for me. Recalling all these conversations of my friends who had told me about dialing in your movement to match not just like the week of your period, but your entire cycle. Seeing that zoomed out perspective was huge. I mean, it brought this awareness that our hormones are constantly shifting. We are cyclical. They're shifting. And with that, our self-care needs to shift as well in order to support our cyclical nature. We're not meant to live each day the same as the previous day. And for me, honestly, with cyclical living the entry point was movement. It was shifting my movement practices to match each phase of my cycle.
Rebecca Rankin (04:22):
For example, meaning that the week after my period ends that's when I would feel like I've got the energy, I've got the stamina to do longer runs or maybe work on sprints or do more power yoga and vinyasa yoga practices. And honoring those first two weeks as this time for expansiveness, doing more, and challenging myself as far as movement goes. But then also knowing that because we are cyclical, there's the other half of the equation too that brings us back into balance. So honoring in that the last 10 days or so before your period that's the time to, well, you're not gonna be setting your PRS. That's the time where, yeah, maybe it's just about maintenance.
Rebecca Rankin (05:16):
It's about doing stuff that feels good and nourishing, and it's not about challenging yourself. It's about moving enough that you feel good in your body, but not so much that you're overexerting yourself. And that's hard in a society where perpetually productiveness is in your face. We should be going, going, going, doing, doing, doing. It takes a moment to recalibrate to being in a cycle and to embracing the ebb and the flow of what that looks like. And honestly, movement for me was that entry point. The more I dove into cyclical living, the more I honored all these different aspects to really align with each phase of my cycle - meaning shifting, not only the way I move my body, but the workflow, how I work, shifting my nutrition, shifting how I'm preparing food, as well as the mindset shift.
Rebecca Rankin (06:22):
In the beginning, all of that to me was really overwhelming to be honest. I remember reading different books by Alissa Vitti and Dr. Aviva Romm, among so many others in this field and it can be a lot. Oh my gosh, that's a lot. And you know, at the time when I started practicing this, I had the two little ones and felt like, how do I, how does that even happen? But I noticed then as I picked one thing. And for me, I picked movement. I'm just gonna dial in my movement to be in alignment with my phases. My follicular phase, ovulatory phase, luteal phase and my menstrual phase. I want to align my movement, my exercise practices because for me, like I said, movement has been my go-to.
Rebecca Rankin (07:13):
And then my next entry point, my next way to dive a little bit deeper, when I was ready, was shifting how I worked and you know, I'm an entrepreneur, small business owner. So then it was just like, all right, all these things need to get done within a month. And some of them, yes have more priorities than others, but I'm privileged enough that I am my own boss, so I can arrange my work flow to be in alignment with and take advantage of my hormonal strengths. So saving times for big picture stuff, like let's say doing batch content for social media or even newsletter, batch content, saving that for my waxing moon phase or my follicular phase.
Rebecca Rankin (08:18):
Which is the week after my period, when I can see more clearly and I can see the bigger picture and have these great dreams and visions and see what I want to bring forward in the coming weeks. And then shifting to the more admin, task oriented, detail oriented stuff for when my brain chemistry can honor that, which would be our waning moon phase which is the week to 10 days leading up to our next period. That's a great time to get stuff done, do task oriented things to honor that aspect of ourselves. And when I like started to dial in, the workflow and the movement in a way, other things just kind of fell into place. Of course, it took some navigating, especially around nutrition, like what I eat and how I prepare it.
Rebecca Rankin (09:12):
And that took a little bit of organizing because I was also dealing with organizing cyclical food prep in relationship to my family. It wasn't just for me. I also had to organize what does this look like as I prepare it? And the biggest take of it all is that it's fluid. Right? All of this cyclical living, the zoomed out thing is that you, you learn to see the bigger picture, zoom out and go with the flow, become a little bit more body literate. Get to know your body in a way that what's going to nourish it, get to know what your hormonal strengths are so that you can shift your perspective to be in alignment with it. It's not this like, oh, I can't eat this during this phase.
Rebecca Rankin (10:00):
Of course not. It's giving yourself the room to be where you're at and honoring yourself along the way. And when I began to really lean into all of these generalized, if you will, mindset shifts that happen with that specific biochemistry during each phase, that gave me room to give myself grace. It gave me the space to just give myself a little bit more grace around being human. Giving myself permission to be cyclical. And the mindset shifts were huge. For me to really allow myself to see these strengths, it was like having this a, oh, I see it now. I see how this has played out in my life and how I've either been working against it or working with it. And most likely for myself at least, it wasn't until learning about the hormonal strengths of each phase that I realized how often I was trying to go against the grain of my own biochemistry.
Rebecca Rankin (11:28):
So a great example in your luteal phase. So this is the seven to 10 days or so before your next period, your premenstrual phase. This is when you'll have this surge of progesterone, but then your levels of progesterone, your estrogen, testosterone, they all start to wane. And so with the waning of these hormones, what's great is that you have this innate sense of wanting to get things done. You're a little bit more detail oriented. It's when for me, probably the only time in the month that I am stoked to do deep cleaning or clearing out my closet or finding stuff to give to donation. This is my time to do that detail stuff and check things off the to-do list. And I recall my husband and I were going for a walk with the kids, it was winter.
Rebecca Rankin (12:30):
And he was asking me some topics that were more bigger picture things about our business and saying like, "oh, well, like, can you look at it this way? And what if we did this?" And I kept like asking him these very, super specific, detail-oriented questions of, "well, if we do that, then X, Y, Z needs to get done. And if we do that approach, then, you know we'll need to do this" I was getting hyper-focused on this really minute detail these ideas of his. And he paused and was like, "well, that's great, but why are you so focused on the details? Can't you see this bigger picture?" And I remember chuckling to myself and explaining to him, which he's on board with all like my cyclical living aspects,
Rebecca Rankin (13:31):
but I remember saying to him, "honestly it's really hard for me to see the bigger picture right now, I can only really tune into these details. So let's have this conversation in two weeks. Let's have this conversation in two weeks when I'm like better equipped to like, see the whole big picture because right now I'm just going to be task oriented and see the picture of how to get things done." And honestly, we did revisit the conversation a few weeks later when I was in my follicular phase, and low and behold, I was able to actually have the energy and the capacity to take a step back and look at it as bit bigger picture. And I think that was really eye opening even for my husband to see like, "oh, I now understand what she is talking about as far as a real life example of how [cyclical living] this plays out. And we do have to find that way to navigate each other.
Rebecca Rankin (14:34):
We're not living in a vacuum. We can't just gear everything around our cycle, but you learn to lean into those strengths. So in that moment, I was leaning into super detail, task oriented thinking while he was big picture thinking. And while it actually created a little friction in the conversation, I had the ability then to say, you know what, we're not in a rush about this idea. Let's revisit this in a couple weeks when I'm able to have it. We know that these detail oriented things are still important, but let's look at it in a few weeks when I can see the bigger picture when I'm more open to new things. And that was a really big eye opener for both of us in navigating
Rebecca Rankin (15:25):
this is what it looks like. This is what it feels like to be in flow with your cycle. To be aware of those hormonal strengths. I think prior to that, I probably would've beat myself up over or been so stubborn in it. It's nice to know these strengths in navigating life with others. Cyclical Living - it's this missing piece that none of us were probably ever taught. I recall back to when I first started having a period. When I first started being cyclical and you go through that middle school like seventh grade or something, that awkward sex ed class, where you talk a little bit about like your menstrual cycle. And then everyone's feels so embarrassed and there's like so much shame.
Rebecca Rankin (16:15):
And it's this hush undertone of "Yeah. We don't really talk about this." And it's more presented as this inconvenience. And it's not. Can you imagine if our younger selves were taught from the get-go of these cyclical strengths? These hormonal advantages that you have each phase, each week. That you have these other tools to work with each phase through your biochemistry - that would be so empowering. The conversation would be completely different. And in upcoming episodes, we I'm going to dive into each phase and we'll talk about the mindset shifts that go along with each phase. But for now just think of that as this way of saying "wow, that would be really empowering." It is really empowering to be cyclical. Hormonal isn't a bad thing. So next time someone calls you "Oh you're just being hormonal" Be like, "Yes, I am." Well, that's all I have for you guys. Enjoy. And I will talk to you guys all in the next episode.
