The Cycle within the Cycle

Episode 2 – The Cycle Within the Cycle

Women’s cyclical nature — beyond menstruation. Energy, seasons, and phases of becoming.

In this episode of Every Womyn & Her Dog, Jo is joined by Katelyn Dwyer-Taylor for a deeper conversation about something that quietly shapes the way women experience life — our cyclical nature.

While many people reduce female cycles to menstruation, this conversation explores something much broader: the energetic and identity cycles women move through across their lives.

From the archetypal seasons of Maiden, Mother, Maga, and Crone, to the expansion and contraction that appears in business, relationships, identity, and personal growth, women are constantly evolving through seasons of becoming.

But modern culture still expects us to operate like machines — consistent, productive, and always moving forward.

So what happens when women ignore the season they’re in?

Jo and Katelyn unpack the pressure to stay in “summer energy,” the cost of resisting natural cycles, and how learning to recognise your current season can bring a deeper sense of alignment, clarity, and self-trust.

This episode is a powerful reminder that women are not inconsistent, we are cyclical.

In This Episode We Explore

• What Jo means by “the cycle within the cycle”
• The archetypal seasons of Maiden, Mother, Maga, and Crone
• Why women are conditioned to value constant productivity
• The cultural pressure to remain in “summer energy” year-round
• How burnout can be a signal that we are resisting a natural season
• Expansion vs contraction in business, relationships, and identity
• The power of recognising when a season in your life is changing

Relevant Links & Resources

And She Rose – 2 Day Immersive Experience
https://joannelea.com.au/product/and-she-rose/ 

Embodied Womyn – 1:1 Container
https://joannelea.com.au/wellness/womens-offerings/embodied-womyn

Judy Mort - Artemis Rising 

https://www.artemisrising.com.au/

Twilight Birthing (Twilight Sleep)

1900 up to 1950 where mothers were given a combination of scopolamine and morphine to produce painless, amnestic childbirth. Developed in Germany, it put women to sleep through labor causing them to forget the delivery & pain. 

Feminine Herstory Books

• Herstory - Jane Harwick Collins 
• Becoming a Garment of Isis - Naomi Ozaniec
• The Goddess Path - Kristy Gallagher
• The Path of the Priestess - Sharon Rose
• When the Drummers Were Women - Layne Redmond

Original Soundtrack composed and produced by Flava Productions.

Follow here: https://www.instagram.com/flavaproductions/

Follow Katelyn – Taylor Made Digital Support
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/taylormadedigitalsupport

Follow Joanne Lea
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/joanneleacoach

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joanneleacoach/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@joanneleacoach

Substack: https://joanneleacoach.substack.com/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Hello everyone and welcome to Every Woman and Her Dog, a podcast where we talk about the things women whisper about in kitchens, voice note to their friends, and think about at 2am. I'm your host, Joanne Lee, coach, therapist, and change maker. Each episode we explore the realities of womanhood and cover topics ranging from identity shifts, feminine cycles to self-leadership, relationships, burnout, and ambition. Bringing to the surface the quiet reinventions happening behind closed doors for women. This is the being and becoming of personal agency. Let's get into it. I'm joined for a deep dive discussion with Caitlin today in this beautiful intimate container to support our discussion. As always, our conversation will be filled with truth, reflection, and possibly some uncomfortable realizations, right? What we know is that growth isn't linear and neither are women. Before we dive in, let me introduce again Caitlin. Caitlin Dwyer Taylor from Taylor Made Digital Solutions is a mum of two girls and my behind-the-scenes powerhouse bringing my work to life. Welcome Caitlin. How are you today? Exhausted.

SPEAKER_01 1:34

And this would be because babies and children and life life cycles. Yes. Because it's the eldest birthday today.

SPEAKER_00 1:46

Oh, happy birthday today. It is a cycle indeed, which hits it right on the head because today we're talking about something that quietly shapes everything. The cycle within the cycle. Let's get into it. I'm going to hand it over to you, Caitlin.

SPEAKER_01 2:01

When we talk about women being cyclical, most people reduce it to our periods. I know I do. That's what my brain goes to straight away. But that's just surface level. So today we're going to talk about energy, identity, seasons, becoming, going that little bit deeper. So, Joe, what do you actually mean when you say women are cyclical beyond just their period?

SPEAKER_00 2:28

Well, it's the recognization that as women we live the cycle within the cycle. So, yes, we have a menstrual cycle, and that cycle is with us for the majority of our adult life until we reach the rite of passage menopause. We also then have the cycle of life and death. So within that cycle, a woman has different seasons within that cycle. And those cycles that we live from birth to death, and also the menstrual cycle, which is a birth-death cycle again, they integrate and interconnect into our earth cycles because they're reflective of those cycles. So there's a deep connection with the earth and her cycles and how she moves. And also we're connecting into the lunar cycle because traditionally our menstrual cycle wasn't called a menstrual cycle, it's either called our moon cycle or our moon time. So understanding these principles as a woman is really important because sometimes it can feel like nothing makes sense. But when you understand the cycle within the cycle that we live, all of a sudden everything makes sense. And it also gives you a permission slip not to live the same way all the time every day because our cycle peaks and troughs the same as the tides peak and trough of the world. Um, so do our cycles.

SPEAKER_01 4:01

So what is the cycle within the cycle? Clearly, it's not just hormonal.

SPEAKER_00 4:06

No, it's part of it, right? It's definitely part of it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

I think a lot of women feel like they've lost themselves when they really might just be in a different season transitioning between those seasons. Could you explain maiden, Martha, MAGA, and Crown?

SPEAKER_00 4:26

Yeah. So uh if we go way back into our ancestral knowledge, feminine ancestral knowledge, our matriarchal knowledge, the triple-headed goddess has existed for a long time. That's the maiden, the mother, and the crone. And this is represented in lots of different uh esoteric teachings as well as uh ancient, it shows up in a lot of ancient history. We see that um that's represented by the two crescent moons and the full moon in the middle. Yeah, and that was traditionally uh the representation of the seasons of a woman, the maiden being the first season, the mother being the middle season, and then the crone being the final season. It was also when we talk about the the maiden, the mother, the magga and the crone, that has a better representation of our seasons and the way that we sit within those seasons now in this current world, in this current time, because jumping from the mother to the crone is a big jump, and what we know is that our lives are changed, women are having babies at a different time in their lives, and things are quite different to what they were when we were younger, or as a generational thing, thousands of years, if more than thousands of years. So I like to hone in onto that newer version because I think it's more applicable for women of this time and age. As a woman, we have four cycles we have the maiden cycle, which starts from birth and goes to 25, and the rite of passage that is celebrated or that marks the full blooming of that cycle is our first monarch, which is our first cycle, our first menstrual cycle, which is called monarch. So that is the moment that a woman starts to move into womanhood, and traditionally we would celebrate that. It wouldn't be what it is today, and we'll get into that in a minute. Exactly. Uh, but so traditionally, this would be a festival or a season that a woman would celebrate with other women, or sometimes even with the whole village, because it was such a rite of passage, a lot like um men that have coming of age manhood ceremonies. This was what a woman would have. Yeah, maidenhood goes to about 25, and then our next season starts to kick in, and that's the mother season, and that goes from 25 to about 50. And uh just going back a little bit for a second, the maiden cycle, if you initiate that with a season, it's the spring season. Lots of bright vibrant energy, and um you know, a flower just starting to bloom and look beautiful, yeah. Not fully exposed, but it's in the rosette sort of stage, yeah. Then when we move to the mother cycle, so that's 25 to 50, that is the summertime of a woman's life. It's the fullest, most peak period of a woman's life in terms of her output. Now, whether you um are mothering human babies or you're mothering businesses or you're mothering uh nieces and nephews or families or communities, whatever you're doing in that mothering stage, regardless of whether you give birth or not to a human baby, you will be it was very full season, and like high summer and the full moon, it's peak, yeah, it's a peak illumination, and there's a lot going on. You're in your mother's season right now, and traditionally, what marks the knowing or the rite of passage is birth, but we don't necessarily just birth babies, we can be birthing lots of stuff as women. We are creatrixes, we are life givers, so we give life to many, many, many things, and traditionally giving life to a human baby is a rite of passage. So there's pregnancy, you know, that takes us through, and then then there's the birthing, and then there's the raising of the child. So there's a lot that goes on, and that happens with anything that we give birth to. Yeah, there's an infancy of everything, there's a labouring of everything, there's a gestation of everything. So that is the the next season of a woman's life, the summer season. Then we move to the marga season, and that that's from about 50 to 70. Yeah, and that is what we class as the autumn time of a woman's life. And what we know happens in autumn times seasonally is that's a harvest season. So we're harvesting in our marga season. We're harvesting and gleaning everything that we've learned from the beginning of our lives through that autumn time, and we often refer to the marga season as the most powerful time in a woman's life because she's developed herself by that stage. And it's so interesting because this area is really controversial because it's the area of what what marks this rite of passage, menopause. Yeah, and of course, what do we know about the narratives of menopause? Well, dreaded as well. Yes, yeah, it's uh we'll get into that, I'm sure we will, because I know that you have questions, but that's the autumn time of a woman's life. What marks that rite of passage is is the menopause, which uh the menopause cycle or the menopause portal that we travel, that sits directly opposite the maiden journey, which is the entrance into her monarch, and now we're leaving, so that sits directionally opposite, yeah, and that um then that goes through till about 70. And from 70 until death, we hit the final season of a woman's life, which is the crone season, the wise wisdom keeper, the woman who holds space for community even more than what she did before. These these women are so rich in knowledge and um wisdom that they're handing this over. We see them as the wise grandmother type or um older woman, uh elderly eldership women that we we meet, sometimes just incidentally, and then they've always got these amazing nuggets of information to share with us or insights, and they've spent a long time on the earth, so their medicine is rich, and um we call that the winter time of a woman's life where she's a bit more reclusive, yeah, but she still has potent medicine to share with the world.

SPEAKER_01 11:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:25

How's that landing for you? It's a lot. Does it feel even though it's a lot, is there an internal knowing that that feels real for you as a woman?

SPEAKER_01 11:38

Yeah, like part of me now is a bit I'm I I'm like, oh, maidenhood was rough, motherhood's rough, Marga's probably gonna be a bit rough. But I'm also kind of looking forward to each stage. Um, I don't want to waste the season I'm in right now. Because I'm like, oh Marga sounds pretty good. Yeah. But I'm a long way off. Try menopause. I'm a long way off. Yeah, I'd like to be able to embrace more the season I'm in now.

SPEAKER_00 12:10

Perhaps I use it like this. What about if you were look to look at it as the benefits of each season? Like if you look at spring, what do you love about spring?

SPEAKER_01 12:21

Usually because it's my birthday. Uh-huh. No, um, spring is my favorite, I think. Um it always it makes me it always makes me feel really lively.

SPEAKER_00 12:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:31

And I always feel really uplifted.

SPEAKER_00 12:33

Yeah. Um and that is in essence the quintessential feeling in maidenhood. Yeah. You know, you've got that carefree, wild abandonment feeling that you have in that early stage. And even though you're transitioning the fluctuating weather and you don't know what to wear, and it's it's jacket on, jacket off type, but you know, weather and and things like that, but yet there's still the essence of that, that there's this quiet confidence about springtime too, like about this exp expanding feeling.

SPEAKER_01 13:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:08

That's how I feel about yeah, and potential.

SPEAKER_01 13:11

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I I I always feel like starting something new in spring.

SPEAKER_00 13:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:15

And then I whenever I think of summer, I just think of heat and sweating. Um, but then that kind of makes me think of hard work, which that's what it's like being in like the mother season. Um and yeah, if it's raising children or raising a business or raising furry babies, um, it's all hard work, and that I feel like that really ties into summer. Summer's hard work.

SPEAKER_00 13:43

And rewarding buttons, like what do we get in exchange for summer? We get beautiful long days, swimming time at the beach, you know, we get to engage in all these really rich connective experiences, and that's exactly what that mother season is about. Like, yeah, it is there's a lot of labour through that time, but there's also a lot of reward. Yeah, and that reward comes in so many different ways, and whether that's the reward of seeing um a business grow or seeing your children grow and develop, or watching your your animals do the same thing, whatever you choose in that period of mothering, it you it is work. Like we know that summer are long, they're long days.

SPEAKER_01 14:31

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 14:32

We love it, right? Because we feel like we can really um glean a lot out of those days and we get more done because in contrast, in in winter you're just like, oh I just can't get enough done. Like I can't get things across the line the way that you would in summer, so it they it has its its goods and its bads, right? But in essence, it's long days, it's bright days, it's full days, and within that summer sea season, at the beginning of summer, everyone's like, oh thank goodness I can't, I needed to, like, I'm I was ready for this weather, you know. But by the end of summer, everyone's like, oh my god, I just need it to slow down now. Like, there is that you you can't, and it would that really please to this fact that we cannot sustain peak illumination consistently. Yeah, we're not run like that as women, but we're told that we should be. We're we're we're made to prescribe to the fact that we need to be on 24-7 seven days a week, and that's how we we should be all the time, which is so far from the truth as a woman that it it it's almost uh laughable to me now. But I didn't always think like that.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

There's a lot of um shame around feeling like you have to be like consistent all the time and expecting ourselves to operate like robots and machines and work, work, work, and then and then you turn off at bedtime and then you switch back on in the morning and you have to keep going on. Which then just leads into burnout and n ignoring like the season that we're in and how we should be operating. So, Joe, I see so many women burning out when they're trying to stay in the summer season. Why is that happening?

SPEAKER_00 16:18

That's a big question. First of all, it's what we're told, it's what we've been indoctrinated with. That indoctrination has easily been sitting around for the last six thousand years that uh women have to completely disown our natural state of being and function like men. And I just want to put a disclaimer out there and say, I love men. I love the men in my life. I don't feel that the men that are operating in this day and age are responsible for though for that indoctrination. They're indoctrinated too. And you know, this is known as the patriarchal influence, the patriarchal mindset, whatever whichever word you want to insert that with, or the patriarchal world that we've been living in for a long time. Our knowledge as women was intentionally eradicated. Uh, it was and it and we have had to be underground with that knowledge for thousands and thousands of years. It is at present now that it's starting to resurface. Finally, um, there's a reclamation happening all over the world about our knowledge, but there are places where women still are not allowed to sit in circles together, they can't choose what they want to wear, they can't choose the people that they want to marry. Like, there's so many rules happening in the world for women that are still sitting in those spaces. A lot of women are not safe, yeah, and I can't do anything about that except share knowledge, and that is my way of trying to shift that narrative and really equalize, go back to a space where the feminine and the masculine are equally revered, and we value both elements of those things because we have them within ourselves, we have both the feminine and the masculine within ourselves, but we're also then feminine or masculine. Yeah. Um, and so the reason they're in those burnout spaces is because traditionally we would know about our cycle, first of all. It starts, you know, it we come back to the beginning of what we've already started talking about, the cycle within the cycle, within the cycle. Every element of our cycle has been repressed, revoked, or condemned. So let me ask you this. This is a really deep dive. Maybe you don't want to answer this question, but when you had your first bleed, what was that experience like for you?

SPEAKER_01 18:50

Um, I I was actually pretty unfazed. Um were you prepared? No. We're at the Laurent Market and I just went to the bathroom and I was like, oh, so that's happening. Um and then it and then of course I had nothing.

SPEAKER_00 19:10

Right.

SPEAKER_01 19:10

And then it wasn't until um we got home like that afternoon after it all packed up that we had a cupboard in the toilet with with pads. So I sorted myself out. So you didn't really talk to your mum about it? I went to mum after I sorted myself out and I went, hey, we're gonna need more of these. And I think she got a bit flustered. Right. Um but initially I was kind of okay with it. I think as it progressed. As it progressed, as like the cramps like that first period was fine, but like further on cycles, as the cramps came in and then accidents at school, embarrassment, it's just like this big shame thing. Right. And as a dancer as well, that was worse having to have a period and still go to ballet class is just an absolute nightmare. Yeah. Um, because that wasn't really catered for either. So it was a bit kind of higgledy-piggledy. Um and I hadn't started high school yet. I was just about to. So year six for you? Yeah, so it was just in that those that summer holidays. Yeah. And then so starting in year seven, and then yeah, it's very much you don't talk to people about it.

SPEAKER_00 20:21

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 20:21

And had you had any conversational dialogue with your mum before that or friends? I don't think mum and I had spoken about it. Um, it was more so we got that little tiny bit of information at school.

SPEAKER_00 20:34

Oh yeah, Happy Harold was.

SPEAKER_01 20:48

With it like no further information. And then we hadn't and then I hadn't started year seven. So when I started year seven, and we I think they start on like the like sexual sexual education pretty early on. Yes. We started a bit like, and then in year seven it was more like this is what this is called, and this is what this is called, but it's still very much like their main focus is don't get pregnant, not so much educating people about this is how your body works and functions. Yeah. So all we were kind of told was if you don't get pregnant, you're gonna bleed for five days and then it's gonna come again. That's about it.

SPEAKER_00 21:36

Um, so we're just kind of like fending for ourselves. So it's an interesting thing, right? I could say that that story is probably a rinse and repeat for the majority of women I know. If not, way worse. Yeah. And that just is the beginning of the answer. So we are life creators, life givers. We birth babies through our bodies. And we are systematically told that that process, which is part of our menstrual cycle, is wrong.

SPEAKER_01 22:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:09

It's wrong, it's disempowering, it's dirty, dirty, disgusting. It's taboo, it's disgusting, you should reject it, it's an inconvenience, it's a problem. Yeah. So when we've been indoctrinated that for centuries, what do you think we're gonna think about that?

SPEAKER_01 22:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:29

Right? We're not gonna know any different. Exactly. And our mothers, if that deep matriarchal wisdom hasn't been passed on and presented in the way that it should be, which is this is life-giving blood, you have the same capacity to bring life as the earth does. That's why women were so revered back a long time ago when we had matrilineal lineage, because we were so revered the same as the earth was, because the earth is a life giver, it it supports our life here. Women were so connected and revered, so close to Mother Nature. Um, and so having a cycle was a celebrated thing because it was our connection to divinity almost, right? Yeah, and our ability to be and give the same as the earth does, and as does the earth's other animals, yeah. And so it starts there, and that sort of mindset came in around the end of the Bronze Age and into the Iron Age, and that's when we had the shift in the way our societies were set up, and uh the goddess were the goddess uh not necessarily worshipping, but the revering that we had of the divine feminine and the goddess disappeared behind that patriarchal shadow as we moved into the the Kala Yuga in in Hindu terms. So, and then as you can imagine, each element of the cycle has been stripped, rejected, bastardized, and put in a place where it is wrong. So our our period, our monarch, our rite of passage, gone. See you later. We don't celebrate it, it's a chore, it's a problem, it's something you hide, it's something that's taboo. Uh then our next rite of passage, motherhood. Well, I'm not even going to begin to talk about how we look at motherhood. It it's changed and it's gotten better, but we're not having babies. Women aren't trusted to have babies the way that we're naturally designed. It's become institutionalized. I mean, there was a whole period there where women were ushered into um birthing suites. I I don't know the time period, I know it was probably back maybe in the 30s or the 40s, maybe even later than that, um, where they were ushered in, drugged, had a baby, didn't even know about it.

SPEAKER_01 25:10

They just pulled the babies out.

SPEAKER_00 25:11

That's right, and then they'd wake up and they've like, oh, you've had a baby. Like that went on for a big period of time. And there is a name for that period that's escaping me at the moment, and it'll come back to me while we're talking, and then I'll I'll let you know what that was. So that's that, and then let's talk about the other rite of passage. Let's talk about menopause, which is basically either framed up as symptoms or problems. Yeah, women go mad, yeah, right? Uh they're they're all over the place, they don't know what they're doing. All of the symptoms and issues are what's focused on, and none of the other part of the story, which I'm super passionate about talking about all the time, being somebody who learnt about this in her early 40s. I have been so prepared for the next rite of passage that I am in. I am I'm not gonna say that there aren't elements of it that suck, there are, but I think about this from the oppositional space. If one can cast their memory back to or what that they've watched their their young female um daughters come into monarch, and the build-up of those hormones and how long that takes to actually transition is about anywhere from four to five years for some, maybe more. I mean, some young women are getting their periods when they're 10. So from the age of maybe seven, I know it's scary thought. Their hormones are shifting and building, like that's a couple of years. Perimenopause is the same thing in reverse, except we know a lot more. We've got life's um experiences under our belt, and whatever we haven't dealt with in maidenhood comes up in menopause, so it's a deep rite of passage for us to resolve anything that we didn't resolve uh through that period, and then also integrate all of the rest of our learnings. That is not the narrative that's being told. No, it's symptoms, it's problems, and it's spiritual bypasses. Women are so worried about the experiences that they're having that the medical professions are like, here, take this, and look, I'm just gonna say this, and some people won't agree with it. Every woman should choose what's right for her. I'm gonna start by saying that. And in saying that, I'm gonna say, if you you don't know what you don't know. So if you are not prepared and understanding what is what you're about to step into, then you're gonna be floundering and not knowing, and you're gonna want to be like, I just want to solve this problem, whatever I is put in front of me, I'll take. Right? So if you think about us when we go into pregnancy, for those of us who have done that, this will be a really common story. As soon as you fall pregnant, you start investigating what am I gonna experience, right? Yeah, what's this gonna look like? There's lots of education around what each trimester looks like. You look into your birthing, you look into all these different things that are going that are going on for you, and there's more and more and more of that out there. Imagine if when you fell pregnant at three months, someone said, Here, have a tablet, and what this is gonna do is this is for you gonna pause all the experience your body and your brain and your emotions has until you're nine months and you're ready to give birth, and then at nine months we're gonna pull that, we're gonna stop giving you those tablets, and you're gonna feel everything from three to nine months straight away. How do you think that that would sit in your body?

SPEAKER_01 29:06

I'm not very good. Why? Uh from the three to nine months, you've there's so many different symptoms, feelings and stuff that you go through physically changes, right? Yeah, it changes and emotionally. Um, and you have that time to adjust and go through them, and then if you don't have that time and you just get smacked in the vase, um you want to know what to do with yourself.

SPEAKER_00 29:29

That's what's happening for women through menopause. Yeah. Because there's not a lot of literature out there. The narrative is that it's something that we should just push under the carpet or endure. Uh, like for me personally, I supplement. I've had to supplement differently all the way along my journey, but I had the knowledge, I had the understanding of what I was what what might come and what this means from an emotional, energetic um space, what that means for me in that psychic emotional space, because it's a big huge transition for our emotions as women and learning about ourselves. So I I knew that I was so blessed to know about those things, and but my mum didn't tell me. My mum still doesn't know about those things properly because she's done the best with what she had, but she doesn't know anything about it because she was just given whatever everybody else her age group was given, right? It's it's it's the narrative that we've been given, and also the most hilarious part is I talked about it being the autumn time, which is the harvest time, and the most powerful time in a woman's life, but we're told it's the most disempowering time in a woman's life where we don't know what the heck we're doing, and that is just not true.

SPEAKER_01 30:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:59

So answering your question about why are women caught in the summertime, it's because that's what we've been told. We don't know about the contrast between the different seasons, so on a monthly basis, we're not running the spring, summer, autumn, winter time within our menstrual cycle, because there is one, and which runs, you know, the moon is is representative of that. It's cyclical spaces are the same as our cyclical menstrual spaces, so we're just running like we're always on, and then imagine not knowing about that cycle and running your entire life till you get to menopause, and then all of a sudden going, I'm burnout. Well, that's because you've you have been operating against your own internal mechanisms and cyclical nature. Because in the wintering we have a a break, a reprieve that's um synonymous with the menstrual, yeah, with our menstrual time. When we come out of that, it's the build period where we're feeling better, we're creative, we put energy into things. We hit we hit um ovulation peak time, where in our superwoman's sexy lady, whatever, whatever, we're the slate queens at that time, right? And then as that disseminates and moves down, we start to pull back, uh glean and harvest what we've done over that cycle, and then prepare for the descent, which is that dark moon menstrual um cycle place where we reflect, go inward, and and look at what's right for us next. So that there's an invitation for us to do that every month. Imagine if you're not doing that every month, and imagine how long it doesn't take it wouldn't take that long after looking at the seasons of a woman's life and then having that play out every month to hit burnout.

SPEAKER_01 32:50

Yeah, for sure. Especially because like the kind of like the world that we live in now and for a very long time, um, there was no allowance to follow the cycle and have the rest when you're supposed to have the rest, because suddenly women are in full-time jobs and there's no allowance to have you're just expected to work five days a week, nine to five, at the same level. Just like that's what they expect of you, and even when it's funny because the amount of female managers and bosses that I've had that still expect you to to perform at that same level all the time, and they should know themselves that we can't do that.

SPEAKER_00 33:35

Absolutely. I mean, at the end of the day, our societal structure is set up to run like a man does, because men's cycles are really different, so men's are based on their testosterone, and that's at peak in the morning, and it gets down to its lowest of night, but it resets every day. Yeah, we don't run like that, we reset monthly, so there it's completely different. Yeah, it's more about our cycles are more like if you watch the tides of the water, you know, the tides will go up and up and up and up and up gradually until they hit a peak king tide, and then they'll move back down, down, down, down, down. That's us. Like, yes, we have a a peak and a trough daily of our energy levels, but from a cyclical perspective, it's a monthly cycle for us, it's a daily cycle for men. And we are in a world where we don't get to become or follow the the processes that our ancient feminine ancestors did, where we'd go to the moon lodge or we'd go to the red ten and we'd be able to sit with the women that had moved through their menopause cycle who would hold space for the women and the red ten. And it's it's a deep intuitive space at that time. It was very revered because women get a lot of insight and they get a lot of um if if if they know how to ground and connect, they get a lot of uh knowledge in that period, and traditionally they would go and share that knowledge with the with the rest of the community, and it would be revered. We we don't have that set up anymore, but we can hold space for ourselves in that period and learn how we can do that for ourselves, but that still doesn't mean we're not turning up to work, it still doesn't, it doesn't mean that we're throwing our hands in the air saying, Oh, it's terrible, I I you know I can't deal. Like that's not a reality for any of us. But there is a part in that reality where we can foster those same practices and look at lessening the load in those times and then really scheduling a lot more in the peak times and knowing having intimate knowledge of what that that cycle is. The first thing I do when I start working with women is we talk about what's your cycle like, where are you in your seasons, what's going on, so I can get a bit of a baseline in understanding how connected they are to that and how much of a role that's playing in their life.

SPEAKER_01 36:05

Yeah. So talking about your um journey, are we saying perimenypause? Oh yeah. Yeah. When did you realise you were coming into that new season? And if it did cost you anything, what did it cost you to fight against it? Or did you embrace it instantly?

SPEAKER_00 36:29

Okay, so before I I reckon I started perimenopause at about 42. I'm now 49. And for me, in my experience, it's come in subtly initially. Yeah. So I just noticed things that had just changed a little. Prior to that, I had already been sitting in circle, in women's circle for a period of time and had a deep cyclical awareness um about what I was going to transition. So when you when when you say what did it cost me, it cost me my time to learn. And I was happy to pay that. It cost me um changing my mindset because it was very different before that. So and I was happy to to do that. There's a lot of deconditioning that needed to happen for me to be sitting as confidently and comfortably as I am now in a space, and in saying that they there's a definite from really good um medical perspectives in perimenopause, then there's menopause, then there's post-menopause, so there's sort of three stages. Perimenopause is where all the crazy stuff happens, if you like, is where all the ups and downs happen. When you're in menopause, traditionally, if you haven't had a period for 12 months, you're then considered to be in menopause. If you haven't had a period for 12 months, but then if you do get another one, in that after that 12 months, you're still still classed as being in perimenopause because re-the cycle re-initiating resets it. Yeah. So, and I've got lots of girlfriends, it's interesting that they're at different stages. We're at the same age, but they're in different stages. So I've got another girlfriend who didn't um bleed for 11 months and then got one and then has had three after. So she thought she was near she's like, um definitely must be menopausal because I've you know, I'm in 11 months, like yeah, I don't feel like there's another, and then you wouldn't b you wouldn't believe it. It's just you know, it's back again. Yeah, so I'm aware of a lot of women approaching the space where I am going, I just want it to be over with. I just I'm sick of it, and they really are really excited to not cycle, and that can be for lots of different reasons. It can be because of whatever they've grown up with and has that what awareness they have around their cycle, it could be because they have a bit of a love-hate relationship with their cycle, it could be because you know their cycle has never been something that's been reliable. There can be lots of different reasons why women get to that stage, or it could be that they're in burnout and they're exhausted and they're just like, I need it all to stop, right? So for me, I'm just so curious. So initially my libido shifted first, then I was supplementing for that, and and when it's like, okay, cool, I'm gonna look at that. This is a change, I'm gonna look at that, and then it was um my cycle stretched out over times. Now I'm in the unpredictable space of I've got a 38-day cycle and then a 27-day cycle, and then and it's really interesting to see to be able to know what's going on in my world and say, are these reflections of you know, what's what is there any linkages here? Yeah, curiously observe it, and then um other things like yeah, I was having night sweats, and um I've noticed a difference in a a few other things, you know, like just skin changes and different different bodily changes along those lines. So I'm like, yeah, cool, that is what it is, and I'm like, well, I know what it is. I'm not gonna say I'm there with you know a party popper and sparkless going, woo, woo, this is awesome. I know from I did a lot of um sitting in circle and working with a beautiful woman named Um Judy Mort from Artemis Rising. She is a she was a midwife by craft, but then she also midwifes women in the world, and um she was a fabulous, fabulous, she's been a fabulous mentor for me in those spaces, and I always hear her words in my ear whenever a woman has a hot flush, or whether I have something like that, because she would always say, It's not a hot flush, it's a hot blush. It's your sexual energy rising and telling you that you're alive and you are you are you're a goddess, you know, and I would that stuck with me, so now I'm all I I work a lot in mindset with clients, and for that adopting that mindset for me has changed how I my relationship with this rite of passage because I'm curious about it, and I'm like anything that feels a little toe-dragging, if you like, I'm like, but how could it be reframed? Yeah, and their skills that I have as an NLP therapist as well. We do a lot of reframing and re-reshaping things so that we sit in a place of personal excellence. So applying those tools within a rite of passage just feels like a really normal thing for me to do. So that that's been I feel super blessed that I have had that set up going into this transitional space, and also that I've gained a not of a lot of knowledge, I'm talking a lot about it to my daughter, yeah, so that she's aware of how normal and naturalized it is because in my household menstrual cycles are naturalized with my sons and my daughter. Um all of those things that uh women's rites of passage and like I I talk to my sons about mothering techniques and different things like that, so that they too can have the best of both worlds. They get the father's perspective, but they also then get the the mother's perspective, and I feel like they're that all my adult children are really rich in those spaces for the time and effort that I gave to invest in myself, the dividends just keep coming back in those spaces.

SPEAKER_01 43:17

Yeah, and the knowledge and being able to recognize and identify the changing seasons, no matter what season it is, and no matter whether it's you or your daughter or your sons recognizing it in a partner or a friend, is powerful. And I feel like if we can all hone in on that, me myself, like I I have a lot of work to do. I need to learn and recognise things, um, so that I can yet transition easier. And I think uh for a lot of women the transitions between seasons can be quite hard because we don't like change, and that's why we fight against. against it. And I think we want things on our own terms as well.

SPEAKER_00 44:03

I think the reason we fight change is because we haven't been taught that it's natural and normal. Yeah. And that's part of the problem.

SPEAKER_01 44:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:10

Because if we talk you know, we talked about burnout before. The burnout happens because we don't know about the cycle. And then we don't like change because we don't know about the cycle. So it's so far stretching. It's amazing how it just ripples out and turns up in most things. Yeah. And we don't resist it. We don't go, no winter, you need to fuck off and it needs to be summer all the time. We'd be over summer. How would we know what winter was if we didn't have summer in contrast? So I find it's been just so liberating being able to it's a permission slip to go, it's okay. Change is normal. Look at where it happens within our earthly context. Look at how it happens like when you and I are not sitting here yet in diapers but that is I'm not going to but we're not sitting there because we change we're not babies anymore.

SPEAKER_01 45:06

We change and we move yeah we're so resistant to it as adults it's kind of mind blowing isn't it yeah because we love watching our children change and grow but then we don't want to see it in ourselves. But we have to change of course because it's not linear. Exactly in our conversation today like you said it earlier it's giving permission for women to stop forcing things. Yeah. To let it happen find out more educate yourself stop measuring yourselves against I wouldn't say old fashioned models because old fashioned is what we want to go back to the day.

SPEAKER_00 45:44

How old fashioned we're ancient we're talking ancient I'm talking ancient fashion yeah I mean it would be lovely to go back to that but we don't live in that world. However bringing those ancient teachings and principles forward into the modern world and creating a new version of what that looks like because it's not going to look the same is it it's going to it's definitely ancient principles and knowledge for us as women but it birthing that into the new world looks different refreshing and liberating probably even more powerful. Yeah. So Joe what is your final nugget there's so many nuggets when it comes to cycles I think the final nugget is about the fact that you know whether you go to a woman's circle whether you do personal work whether you go to a workshop or you do something my advice is find out about your cycles find out about there's so there's heaps of literature out there. I'm going to put a some links in in the show notes about some resources that people could connect with spaces that women could connect with it's a place that I'm super passionate about helping women reclaim that knowledge so that they have personal autonomy and they can just relax and let them give themselves that permission slip to go oh hey like oh my energy's really low today oh where am I in my cycle oh I'm I'm nearly about to oh well that makes sense yeah oh take the pressure off you know or Jesus I'm slaying and everything I feel so empowered and I'm I'm so like onto everything like where am I in my oh I'm at ovulation I'm in my power cycle you know my power space so giving yourself just find out about your cycles you are not a lineal being and as women it's where our deep power lies our capacity to take ourselves to the next space um is it li that lies within the knowledge of the cycles. That's a good foundational space to start. For me the big thing is get curious.

SPEAKER_01 48:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:03

Get curious about huh I've seen you know I've got a mango tree in my yard and I see when it flowers and I see when the fruit grows and I see when we I know when we harvest it because it tastes good and then I watch it sort of almost look like it's dormant but I know it's not how does that work within me like look look for all the places and spaces where you can consistently confirm that cycle externally to reinforce the internal cycle and start to connect those dots together. Yeah. Ask yourself some quality questions like how do I find out more who am I becoming in this season? What am I being asked to release? And just remembering that we're not inconsistent we are cyclical and that is consistent. And when you stop fighting your rhythm you reclaim your power yeah and look I'm going to do that shout out if this has stirred something within you these are these are things that we cover in my up-and-coming workshop and she rose that I'm touring Australia and Canada it's a two-day workshop where women learn so much and these are some of the principles that they'll learn about along with so much more. If you are wanting to look at that or perhaps look at a more of an intimate one-on-one style work I've got my container called the embodied woman and we we go through those things but in a personal way what does each woman need in those spaces so there's lots of different uh options out there and also there's a whole world full of resources that people can engage in to start engaging. Yeah no excuses and when wherever you're at honour the season you're in any last words from you Caitlin yeah embrace embrace embrace it so this conversation today what is that is there a a felt sense of a shift inside of you like look disclaimer you're exposed to my work all the time as you're working in the background but that doesn't always mean that we're talking about everything although we do talk a lot in terms of the deep dive today in that space anything that's stirred or that you feel it shift?

SPEAKER_01 50:39

Yeah I mean I feel like I had already started to stir with acknowledging that that monthly cycle and using that for greater good um to benefit me. But I feel like yeah today's kind of like maybe emphasized a bit more that I I actually need to get in and start looking into some things because previously I've just been just going through the motions not knowing any different yeah and yeah trying to um block things instead of like letting it happen because it's supposed to happen. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:15

Amazing thanks for your insights Caitlin and thank you for joining us. No worries love that you've been here and for everyone out there in our listeners thanks for downloading and listening to our podcast we really enjoy chatting and trying to get to as many women as I can and we can so until I see you next time have a great cyclical rest of the month and I will see you next time on Every Woman and her dog. Bye bye firstly a deep thank you to our guests today for their honesty wisdom and the courage to have those real conversations. If something's landed for you today don't brush it off that pull you feel it's your next edge calling. If you'd like to explore working with me hit me up on my socials or on my website at joannelee.com.au until next time keep showing up for yourself because you're worth it with love. Joe