This is episode 4 of the new paradigm intimacy podcast brought to you by Victoria read Bard somatic sexologist and founder of The Institute of new paradigm intimacy. I'm your host Lauren Renee. I lead alongside Victoria in The Institute and I am a sexual empowerment coach and I am deeply passionate about sharing the messages of new paradigm leaders that are absolutely making epic changes all around the world in their own unique way. And today our guest is Gemelli. So Gemma is doing amazing work around helping women confidently reconnect with their bodies and find their unique flow all month long. She's an expert woman's cycle Health educator and she guides and supports women one-on-one through coaching intimate events Retreats her well woman podcast and the well, An academy self-paced course for women craving to awaken their body and reconnect with their menstrual cycles. She has over 13 years experience as an ayurvedic coach and in ancestral health and her training allows her to bring her work to life around the areas that she's passionate about which is menstrual cycles and women's health. So I know that this is a topic that is so dear to my heart because getting back in touch with my menstrual cycle. It's such a huge part of my Awakening and I know that Victoria has been journeying this as well recently coming off contraceptive and reconnecting to her body in this way. And I truly believe that having the education around this for both men and women to able to be able to really get in touch with how we can be more connected to the Natural flow of life in ourselves and in our relationships and how we operate day-to-day just Holds so much power. So in this chat we talk about the tubu that is around periods and how powerful periods really are and the different phases of the menstrual cycle and how women can reconnect to this part of themselves so they can operate from a place of thriving rather than surviving. So welcome jemi to the new paradigm intimacy podcast. I am feeling just really excited about this chat because it's personally a topic that is something that is very close to me and my journey we are going to be diving into all things period and menstrual cycle. So on this podcast, we are so much about breaking down. Subaru so that we can step into this new paradigm and actually be able to thrive in our lives and understanding the menstrual cycle and what periods actually are is just such a big piece and not just women to understand that men as well because we're also deeply affected by this. So we're going to jump straight into this chat and Gemma I would love to know the juicy question. When was your last self-pleasure practice? And what did that look like for you? Thank you so much Lauren. I'm very excited to be on the show great question. I've actually just returned from traveling through India and Sri Lanka alone for just just under six weeks and my last self-pleasure practice. I just finished my last cycle or the start of My First Son of my current cycle. So it was probably about three or four days before I left to come home just after after Christmas between the Christmas and New Year's. Area of the year and being alone for that time of the year and it being quite festive. I was feeling quite lonely and for me, I'm really big about physical affection. I'm very affectionate with my family and my friends. So for me, I self-pleasure practice was really it started off with just what we call an Abbey onion massage in our Aveda, which is a self not self-pleasure massage, but it's an oil massage that covers your whole body and I was in need of some touch. That's also what a lot of women crave in there in Autumn stage of their menstrual cycle anyway, and that's where I was in my cycle. And so yeah, it was um, it wasn't really planned. It just felt natural and it flowed that way and it was just me all by myself. No toys no pleasure items. Just my body beautiful. I love that. I'm a big fan of absolutely covering myself in oil. Myself pleasure practices. It's so nice and just going in for the soft massages. That's probably my point that I always go back to and I love that you mentioned where you're at in your cycle during that time. Where are you at today? I'm curious. So today is day four for me. Hmm. So day 4 of my cycle. I landed in from Sri Lanka on Saturday and my period arrived when I landed home. It actually happened the same. It happens a lot with my trips as soon As I get home or as soon as I get to a place where I'm on holiday, it's like my body's like all right. Now we're ready to shed and let go. Yes. I'm on day 4 of my soccer today. They will today will be my last day of bleeding. So I mean my in a winter which is my more reflective and inward like introverted stage of my cycle. Yeah, that's where I'm at beautiful. I love this because it's so nice to even just have a conversation like this to be able to awareness to this topic and yeah, like same thing for me, like I recently it's amazing how our bodies just adapt to when we feel safe and and all of these kind of external things because I recently had a period that was seven days late and I was getting frustrated with and I was like, why is this late and as soon as yeah, I got to this new place I was moving to and I was relaxed and went for a swim in the ocean then it just came and so when we have this level of self-awareness, it's Like yeah, we can we can surrender to what needs to flow through our bodies and there's so many different reasons why period or Administration can be delayed or early and what you were saying that you love had like you love that we're talking about this and the way that I'm like I brought in the seasons, but it's just part of my life. You know. I came home from Sri Lanka to participate in a five-day yoga intensive, which I do every year I've been doing this is my sixth year and I'm yoga practitioners are really dry. It's like the one I feel it's one of the best ways to kick off a new year and the start of a new I guess exploration of my practice through yoga and a guy said was that was with you yesterday morning day 3 of my cycle. Normally I wouldn't go to a national under yoga practice on day three, but I just know when to rest in each posture if I need to to help with keeping the blood flowing rather than stagnating the blood flow and after the class he turns to me. Me and he says like oh bit tired from your trip. I saw you resting I said, nope just on my period I said, yeah it's day three for me. So I'm just taking it easy and he's like, okay because he knows the work that I do. So I just openly talk about it and I'd love everyone to do that. Hmm. Absolutely. Yeah, I do that now two men too, and it's interesting to see the response because it's important for us to open up these conversations. I think us as women actually being comfortable with that is what helps the rest of the world start. Comfortable with it. Would you agree? Yes, totally. It's something I'm the oldest of four. So I'm from a family of six. My parents are still together and all of my siblings are partners and let me go for family dinner, you know, if I'm in my in a winter my sister, I've got two brothers and a sister my sister can generally tell she's done my program. You know, I made her do all of the things that I teach so she knows about it for her body and she's like, are you and your winter and I'm like, yeah, I'm menstruating. And we're at the dinner table out in public and my brothers are like, why do I you talking about this but now, you know a couple of years on there like totally used to it and I think that wouldn't no matter how you bring it into a conversation. It's going to be new for some people around you and the more you bring it into your day-to-day life the more that they'll be able to accept that part of you and it's been a real interesting Journey for me in the sense of dating because I'm a single woman. I'm meeting people are in Spain interesting like hey, what do you do for work? And it's just hey, I might as well tell them straight up with this is what I do and that I talked about it a lot and it's just my life and it's interesting how different men because I'm like a heterosexual. So therefore had different men relate to that and some like throws them right off and others lean into it and I'm like, oh my God tell me more I guess is really fascinating. So it's a very interesting Journey. Hmm. Absolutely, and I feel like with you being so immersed in this space you'd have this level of awareness like where this like stigma where the taboo is. Like, what do you feel are the biggest like misconceptions or stories that people have around the menstrual cycle and periods right. Now that is like affecting it in, you know keeping women quiet around this topic. That's a really great question. I feel that one of the biggest taboos. All the misconception is probably the better word to use here is that periods of painful and that your menstrual cycle is painful. I think it's it's really just been adapted that it's okay for us to have Peru pain and it's okay for us to have mood swings and it's okay for me to have excruciating headaches and back pain and you know my period to be heavy this seven days consistently for those seven days. I spoke to her. Girl yesterday who's joining who was inquiring about joining me on retreat in India, and she's got injured meet Rufus and I asked to look share with me what your signs are. I call them cycle science, not PMs and so she was going through the signs and she was like look and I just, you know, I only prude every two or three days and I just thought that was normal. So I never mentioned it to anyone and then you know, I would skip my period on the pill and I just thought that was normal so I never told anyone but now for five years down the track. She's like I see that it wasn't normal and what people think is normal is a misconception around the menstrual cycle. I really feel learn that are not enough women understand that if something feels uncomfortable in your body or something that you would complain to a friend or a partner or a family member about like I've got such a bad headache today or you know, I'm really I'm feeling really constipated. I don't want to drink alcohol today. If it's something that you're going to complain about or something that that is annoying you and it's in the Forefront of your mind. It's not normal. Our bodies aren't designed to feel this way. And if it is feeling this way the way that I work through ancestral health is I like to describe it as your body is knocking on your front door saying knock knock knock we have this thing going on here. Are you listening? Like I'm trying to show you you listening and if you don't listen, I just get potentially stronger pain or bigger Challenge and then it ends up. Maybe blowing out of proportion when we could have looked at that a little bit earlier on and being like ahh. Okay. I've been getting headaches at this time of my cycle every cycle. What does this mean for me? Mmm Yeah, and I feel that in itself like normalizing the pain normalizing these symptoms to make us feel like that's just what we have to put up with like this is such a symptom of the old conditioning that we're shifting away from to and I would love to Like open up this topic around the pill because even that in itself, like we've just shifted into this new decade and it's so much about like the feminine rising up and this there's like this Paradox with the pill and I journeyed through this because when I was you know, 15 years old, I had, you know some breakouts and it was starting to be sexually active. So I was straight on the pill and I stayed on it for just over ten years and it was like But those 10 years it was like that was what I thought was empowerment like yeah, I can control my body. I can choose like I can go on holidays and I can just skip my period and not bleed and all of this stuff was like made us like made us believe that we are empowered through putting that into our bodies and now there's this movement of women actually being like no, I don't want to do that and there's so much more power in me being connected to my cycle like and for me when I came Off the pill after those 10 years and got my body back into balance. So across about you know, three to six months. That was when I felt the most magic drop into my life and the most like yeah this this drop in of feminine empowerment that I had not experienced before came in for me. So I'd love for you to just speak to that like even from your own personal journey and what you've witnessed like how women navigating all this conditioning around contraceptive. And shedding that away. Like how do we really deal with this process? And what kind of comes up in that? Such a great question again. It's like five star questions. So I'll start with my journey and how I guess I became a menstrual cycle educator is I started menstruating. I was a late bloomer you could call it. I was like 15 and 1/2. So my friends had already started shaving it legs and already got their periods and I was really tomboy, you know, I never got education for my mom about love her, but I just never got Location I didn't even know how to use a pad or a tampon and I remember the first cycle that I had after my actual first cycle. So my second period ever I had a swimming Carnival and I was a swimmer and you know, I had to like figure out from Dolly mag how to use a tampon and put a tampon in and I just took one out of my mom's draw and you know, that was the start of my menstruation and me getting to know my body. Was really just figuring it out myself and that's not good education for a young girl. So for me, I about a year later. I started seeing a guy through my school and my mom wanted me to go on the pill so it wasn't my choice but it was a supportive Choice like a parents like we don't want you to fall pregnant. It could an inverter bracket ruin your life. Not that that's what happens when you have children, but, you know a parent doesn't want you know a child. Have a baby early. So I understand the love and support from my mom. You know, that's so I went to the doctor. I got the pill and I never really thought about it. I just took it now interestingly reflecting on this now is I never had. Challenges at the time. I didn't have super bad acne. Like I was Adolescent and my hormones were shifting and changing because I just got my period and that happens for the first few years of menstruation. So as your body and your endocrine system pattern into this new phase of your Life events training regularly and so I decided General acne as a black as a teenager. I had a little bit of extra weight because my Easter dream is rising in my body, but I never really had super painful periods. I got them regularly, but I still went on the pill and so talking about the pill there's different reasons why women go on the pill and so mine was purely for contraception and I ended up staying on the pill for 12 years throughout that period that time of being On the pill I probably only skipped my period maybe four times. I was really like I didn't like skipping my period I felt really bad. Like I was holding on to shit in the sense of like not going to do a poo when your body needs to do a poo you're holding on to it. I always had this inner knowing I guess that I just I didn't like me seeing it. So I stayed on the pill for all that period of time I did experience some sis on my ovaries which were quite debilitating and I was on antibiotics and I used to get colds and flus a lot and then it wasn't until I was at a health conference. I was working in health industry already. I've been working as a coach for probably about two or three years at this time. I've been working in nutrition for probably about eight years at this time and I was at a health conference in America and one of the speaker's was talking about like detoxification and the toxins in our body and they shared that the average baby is born with 286 chemicals and toxins in its body. I've tested from its umbilical cord before it's taken its first breath and I was like, oh my God, like I just healed leaky gut something I didn't mention but I like he got so I I was living a very clean life and I was like the last step for me in cleaning my body up was stopping the pill like ending my journey with the pill and it was that moment at that conference. I was like, that's it as soon as I came home. I finished the end of the pack that I had and I just stopped. Kind of you could say went cold turkey and I didn't get a period for 9 months had a bit of spotting around the 7th month Mark and my body just went into haywire and that's when I started to realize. As already a health educator and working in the nutrition space that wow, as a female. I really don't know that much about my body. I was relying on the pill and I got a period but I didn't realize that it actually wasn't a period so when you are on the pill you'll bleed is not a menstruation believe it's a non oscillatory bleed. So you're actually not ovulating so for 12 years, I wasn't ovulating. So no wonder when I came off the pill I wasn't ovulating and then I wasn't getting a period so I had to really reconnect that whole process that your body goes through as a At Wayne or teen in starting to menstruate for the first time that initial connection where your glands in your brain and communicating with ovaries and you know, the thyroid and all these other like organs or you can say glands in the endocrine system. I had to reconnect all of those. It was like a broken spider web app to be reconnected and that set me off on the Journey of looking after my own health. I got diagnosed with PCOS. And yeah that was in 2014 and all of the clients. I was working with really we're just presenting themselves to me with a lot of challenges around their menstrual cycle all their endocrine system. And that's when I just started to I guess lead down the track of becoming a menstrual cycle educator and you know studying other things around that and here I am today. So I hope that answers a part of your question about the pill. I guess. That's my journey and that's how Got here, but before I share anything about specifically the pill, is there anything you want to say or ask about what I just shared. I just thought for a long time that was just coming through for me is like so much of it like so much of the process of discovering this information and like realizing that all these years like we weren't even having a real period and like that whole process. It's like this Reclamation of power like even for Me it was like that in itself was so big and I remember going to the doctor and being like I want to come off the pill and that'd be like will know you don't and trying to like still disempower me like you don't need to be often. It's like well, this is my choice. And so even energetically that whole process in itself like this is what the truth the truth is and this is what my truth is and this is what my body wants and needs like that's so big in itself. And I know that that's so challenging for so many women. It is and it's scary to like the lady that I spoke to yesterday with endometriosis. You know, she was very just feeling quite feared because you know, her doctor said you need to have surgery you need to do this you need to do this and she was like, but she's feeling torn do I do what the doctor says but a part of her and this is why she reached out to me is it she intuitively feels there something else she can do but because He's felt fear and I'm not saying that doctors put fear into people on purpose or that's like part of their you know, what they do, but that's just the feeling that she felt so she was feeling really confused and feared but we need to understand and I really believe for everyone listening to this is I for those three ways we can care for a health we can do what the doctor says we can do what we intuitively feel is best for ourselves or we know what to do and the third option is we can do a mixture of both. I don't believe you can't do a doctor say and that's Western or Eastern doctors. But I do believe that eastern and western medicine does have a place with your own self care and your own self health. So it's about really understanding okay for you as a beautiful woman. Where are you at in your health and this applies to men too? But where are you at in your health? Okay, what's frustrating and confusing you? Okay, what are all of your options? You know, you wouldn't just by a house off the like the first house that you saw you saw that was for sale. You would look at your options and you look at different suburbs and you'd look at different types of houses. You look duplexes and apartments and actual big houses and you would actually do your shopping. So to speak with your health. We can sometimes feel a bit feared and just pick the closest thing or the thing that we get maybe not pressured into but we feel it's the only thing we can do and If you feel lost or confused with that, you need to just take a step back. You need to take a few long deep breaths remove yourself from the environment get outside and nature connect with yourself and ask your body. Like what does my body really want me to do right now? And listen, that's sometimes can feel really confronting me saying that for someone who's never done that before because they're like well, how do I do that? How do I know what my body's saying it takes time? And that's why I believe working with a coach can be really beneficial because a coach can see stuff in you that you can't get seen yourself. Hmm, and that's just because of cloudiness. So in Arrow beta which is one of the things that I practice which is traditional Indian medicine, Is that we have either clarity or cloudiness to clear or cloudy and when our body is cloudy and that can be through toxins in food through the things that we drink through what we put on our body through the Cloudy toxic nurse in our mind all of this creates cloudiness the more we clear this up over time and it won't happen in two weeks. It takes a bit of time. But once we clear this up your intuition heightens and you're in Self knowing about your own health strengthens, and that's when you go. Oh, yeah. Well, you know what? I do need to have that extra glass of water today or no. I'm not really feeling cold to have cold foods today. I bodies asking for this. I don't you know what I'm I don't really feel like going to the gym today. I'm just going to rest I'm going to just do something. I wouldn't normally do and that's your inner knowing hmm. Yeah, and I feel this is so big. Like in all areas of the new paradigm is like how can we receive information outside of ourselves and then feel that in our bodies and take what we need from it and Trust ourselves as to what comes through from that? Yep, you're spot on and that's why I like with the pill or any contraception whether it's like the marina or an IUD or it is the pill. For women we can be really confused. But if I'm not on contraception then I will fall pregnant. Mmm, but what if you understood your body in such a beautiful way that you could do your own self planning and they actually call it Family Planning where you know, when you ovulate therefore, you know, when you're going to menstruate and you can track your cycle and know when you can have safe sex practices with with intercourse and the methods that you can go about to ensure that if you don't want to conceive how to not do that. Hmm. But it comes down to for me like in my story when I was just saying before I just felt this is the time. I just knew I just knew this is the time. I didn't go to the doctor. I just stopped taking it. Hmm is that your body will tell you when the right decision is and so when I'm working with women and and even if they're interested in working with me as a client and they're like, oh, I don't know they're thinking about it. They're not feeling it and I always say that I'm look it's this, isn't it? In part of an ancestral, I guess theory about the theory of can expansion and contraction is if something feels expansive if it feels really bright and a luminous and just you're leaning into it. I like to use the example of like when you go on a date and it's a first date when you're on this date with that person better them elephant doesn't matter your you're either leaning into it and being like yes, this feels good. I don't like this person we have Good connection, you know like my animal instincts are on fire. My senses are like booming that's expansiveness contracted ness's when you're like, oh my God, how do I get my friend? Call me right now so I can get out of this situation as constructiveness. And in our health. It's exactly the same. We weren't comes to making decisions. We are just so cloudy because we're so consumed in our minds that we don't truly understand. Okay. What is it that my body really? It's right now and your body will lean into I think this is I'm going to come off the pill and I work with clients who are on contraception and I always had look at the time. You know, when the time is right for you, you'll just know and they all know but I don't tell them what to do. They know because I've you know, I've guided them into listening to their body in a healthy way that they've not been able to do before so contraceptions the same so if you're listening to this and you're thinking I need to come of contraception, but I'm Leon sure when or how to do it is that trust your body and listen to her she will guide you and most importantly ask for support because it gets it can get a little bit crazy and confusing. So don't be shy and allow yourself to be vulnerable and reach out for help and say Hey, I want to come off the pill but I'm not sure how to do this. And that's why I created the academy that I run. Mmm amazing. I loved that description of expansion and contraction. I think that's so perfect. Because once we can tune into that we can make such empowered decisions and I love like one of my mantras for this year is like if it's not a full full body. Fuck. Yes. It's a no, like if you can filled out in your body like wait until you can lean in and feel that full expansion around your decisions because that's when we take empowered choices in our life. Yes, and I could talk about this topic like the expansion contraction theory for a long time because it's something that I In bed our entire body expands and contracts boobs expand and contract throughout our cycle out over. He's expanding contracts are other cycle. That's why we think we're bloated when we menstruating but did you know that your uterus actually just nearly doubles in size our pupils expanding attract our lungs expand and contract bodyweight expands and contracts in the 24-hour cycle and our life is expensive and contracted the moon expands and contracts. Full moon New Moon the oceans and the tides expand and contract the weather expands and contracts daylight expands and contracts like everything expands and contracts. And so when you understand that that's when you can understand the expansion and contraction of energy and you could look at it as feminine and masculine energy is that we are all feminine and masculine but at some stage your femininity might be expensive and your masculinity might be a little bit more contracted and then Roll will flip and your masculinity will be expensive and your feminine will be contracted when you need and pull on those different energies at different times. So it's okay to know that one day you might want to you know, drink smoothies and go to yoga and the next day you might want to just lay down and rest and have a nice bowl of soup. That's okay. If you're listening to your body. Mmm, and this is totally the new way. We cannot be the same every single day. Like I remember one thing that really blew my mind is like men like we like women we're on this menstrual cycle, but men are on a daily cycle like their Lines of the same up and down every day. I was like what but yeah, but women have been caught too kind of function that way too but it's not realistic for us. It's totally not and that's such a great point. I'll just I'll make a note on that because it's something that I share a lot of is that men run on a 24-hour cycle so and males hormones at 8 a.m. In the morning 12 noon and 6:00 p.m. At night is the same every day. Now as they age once I get to maybe 40 45, of course, it's going to be a slight adjustment and they might change. Ang but it's going to still be the same every day women's bodies run on a 28-day cycle. Now a lot of people get caught up on the 28 days because their Cycles 30 days long or it's 26 days long, it's just whatever your length of your cycle is for you is perfect but we just use 28 as an example because it's the same length of as a lunar cycle. So we'll just say 28 days just for the story sake but that means that Your hormones as a woman today listening to this just think of how you felt today. Think about the food that you've been craving today how your body's wanted to move today your energy levels, but your digestive systems being like today in the sense of have you got a little bit of bloating. Have you been to the toilet having not been to the toilet how you are today is only going to happen another 12 times in the next 364 days. another 12 times and this is why doing the same thing every single day doesn't work. Mmm and that's why I work with so many women Lauren who have a fear of not exercising because I'll get a fat ass or they'll you know, they won't get to reach their AB goal or whatever. It might be but you need to understand that your hormones are shifting and changing every single day as you move through your menstrual cycle and therefore different phases of your cycle in this four of them. Will guide you into wanting and craving different types of food in each phase and then different types of movement in each phase a different lifestyle in each page or feel different emotions in each phase and when you feel a certain thing, it's actually happening for a reason. So when women go through what they call the PMS mood swings, that's actually not I don't feel a mood swing. It's just you're not understanding the hormonal. Shifts that are going on in your body therefore you get cranky you might even get angry and you might snap at someone because of a particular thing, but if you realized a new that your body's actually just craving more physical affection and more time in nature and you did those things at that time of your cycle. Maybe you wouldn't have the mood swings. Sorry powerful. And what comes up through that is like giving all this information like receiving all of this. How do we take this and like create our life around that like, what is the what is this way of living look like when we're in tune with our cycle and how what like, what do you think the ship's need to be in the way that we're doing things now in order to allow this to really like Bring the magic through that is following your cycle. Mmm. That's a really great question. So I'll answer the first one in the sense of what does it look like when you're living I call it living in tune with your cycle. It's kind of like when you're looking for a radio station. You need to tune it right like to get to the right point. So when you're living in tune with your cycle you I like to say you let your body be your guide. in the sense, you need to be really driving your own car, you know when you're driving down the road. So I use a lot of analogies in 2019 because I help you know, when you're driving down the road and you just like you're in the right hand lane and Australia which is the fast lane but there's a slow person the lane and he like I wish I could just jump into their car and drive their car for them and get them out of this lanes that I can overtake. You can't drive other people's cars. You can't drive other people's bodies other people can't drive your body only you can drive your body. But how committed are you to trust in that your what Your Body wants is what you can give your body and I'll use the example of like Christmas. We've just gone through the Christmas phase is going to a party. Are you? Okay not drinking alcohol. Are you okay, maybe not eating a particular spread of the meal that they have there because it's not what your body is really asking for it might stagnate your blood flow. And therefore you might have more spotting and then brown spotting next cycle. So understanding and living in tune with your cycle is really just waking up every day and going how does my body feel today honoring how it feels and doing that in each moment around your choices around how you move how you eat or what you eat and also your lifestyle factors like do I really want to go for a two-hour hike today is my body really feeling up to that and if it's not filling up that honoring it and for those who are listening who are in a relationship. Romantic relationship be either with same-sex or heterosexual doesn't matter. It's really important to communicate this when you communicate what where you are in your cycle it empowers your relationship tenfold. And it's funny because in the program that the academy that I teach which is like a weekly and monthly thing. I have a guide specifically for your romantic partner. It's called the flow with me guide and so that they can see how they can support you at any day in your cycle and that helps one you feel confident when you the people around you are supporting you because that's a really important thing if you feel unsupported and most likely not going to do it and just fall into peer pressure so living In tune with your cycle is ultimately just trusting your body and listening to her and when you're starting to get your thought understand your cycling through brand new at this it all starts with learning to track your cycle. And please don't just use an app apps of fantastic, but we're so disconnected when we use our devices today. So getting to know your cycle is a connection practice. So we need to disconnect from technology. And this is why I have a printable tracker. It's free and has videos that covid the teach you how to use the tracker but using a written tracker to start and I recommend do minimum three Cycles will teach you how different you feel at different times of your cycle? And then you can compare the different Cycles together. So it's like the starting point and if you've been using an app and you like I track my cycle, but you've never written it out. Give it a go like everyone who does the written tracker by the end of the second month. They're like, oh my God, I never realized how important it was to you. The written track off. I've been tracking on an app for years. So when it comes to living in tune, it starts with tracking your cycle and listening to your body. Like that's the most important thing and it is possible and then the next thing you met you asked Lauren was around. Hang on have I forgotten it was around. Yeah, how do we how do we break down the way things are now like okay. Yeah when we can know all of this, but Society hasn't met. How do we do it? What up with this? How do we create a normality around living in June without cycle? Awesome? I like to say it's quite simple because it is but our mind makes it really freaking complicated. So it's a really simple process it starts by how you treat your body and this is really simple on a daily basis. So if you're thinking all right, I've learnt all these great ancestral wisdom about the four seasons of our cycle and how we have in a winter in a spring and a summer in Autumn the different motions of each phase. This is what's going to be happening. I'm ovulating in this is what's going to be happening when I'm in my luteal phase and then you like crap. How do I put all of this into my Modern Life still work full-time still be a mom of two kids and still want to like go to yoga or go to the gym and enjoy myself with my friends. How do you do that? It starts by simply knowing where you are in your cycle and it is simple with food every time you eat eating in tune with your body. So just like the moon has a bright moon and a dark moon. Your food is going to look maybe bright and maybe darker different times of recycle and what I mean by that is it might be slop and really well cooked like a stew or it might be like a smoothie Bowl that's colorful and very bribing full of fruit that it is possible to have both so looking at your food and looking at your movement. So a lot of people go I need to live in this mode. Full 24 hours of this particular day because this is what day 11 says I need to be doing of my cycle. But if you're just eating in tune with your cycle moving into motorcycle, and then the third one is knowing how you feel. And is this in alignment with my cycle or is it out of alignment with my cycle? So an example of that is after you've ovulated it's I call this the void and if people are listening to this may want to know more about About the different days of your cycle. I have highlights in my Instagram bio for every day of your cycle with in-depth stuff for each day of your cycle. So you can go and watch them. It took me a whole month and many hours to put that together, but it's free. You can just go check it out and what they are my own flick to the day click on it and it will give you an exact story of what you'll be feeling on that day, which is in alignment with your cycle. So after and I talked about the void there so after you meant Nice try. Sorry after you've ovulated if you haven't conceived your body actually is letting go of an egg that it's it's an unconceived egg. So the body is going through what I feel like is a little bit of a loss and it can feel like a void. That's where you get a little bit more Snappy. You can feel a little bit more frustrated a little bit more uncomfortable. You'll be more needy. So we more needy like my friend hasn't replied to my text message and my partner didn't give me a hug this morning and he or she is like, but I did hug you You and you like but no you didn't it's because your needs are just so much higher at that particular time because of your emotional state with the hormone shift going on in your body. So if you've been if all morning, you've been really Snappy and then you sit down to have your lunch and your like how am I feeling right now? And you're like, I'm feeling really frustrated and he was like in a little huh, which happens to me right happens to everybody. I'm feeling really frustrated as I just had to right now and that ask yourself. What day of my cycle of my own and you're like, oh, Day 17, huh? That's a turtle normal day 17. Yeah Wonder I've been feeling like this. Oh, so I actually am normal and I'm not just this angry person. No, you're not. Okay great. And then you just literally your mood changed straight away your knowledge how you've been feeling and you move on. Hmm. So I just going to say it's so funny you said day 17 because that's what I'm on today and I had a really good yesterday and I'm like, yeah, I'm going into the void. Yeah, and that's it's true and depending on the length of your cycle this time of year cycle be different. So like in the academy every woman has a different length cycle. So some women. It's 26 summer 28 summer 32 and it's what's healthy for you right doesn't have to specifically be 2829 every single cycle. There's a lot of women who have conceived very naturally very healthily and they've always had a 30-day cycle. That's just how their body works. So there's no perfect cycle length. There's only what's perfect for your body in your body. So with you saying that you're on day 17, it makes sense, right? Yeah, and you'll be so surprised. I have girls in the academy group. It's all one on Facebook and they check it's like a daily check-in they come in they check in like all this happen today and this happened and then, you know yelled at my boss, and she wanted to leave work early and then I realized it was day 22 of my cycle and I totally felt normal and so it helps you. A woman feel that you're not out of control in your body. You know that feeling when you like I hate being a woman and being moody and having all these things go wrong for me and I kind of just be a man who's just straightforward does the same thing every day and it just works for them. It's really beautiful that you're a woman if you know when you are and where you are in your cycle, it'll help you so much in understanding. Ah, so this is why I wanted to do five yoga classes. Today and I had heaps more energy than what I did last week. This is why I don't want to go to my friend's party on that makes sense. And then can you honor yourself by not going to the party or can you on yourself by going just for an hour or two? Hmm, and that's that's it takes time and it's good to have support, you know in making these decisions over a period of time but I used to push myself and I'm sure you can contest to this to learn that push myself when I was bleeding to do things. I really want to do, you know? I would push myself to go to the gym and I would push myself to eat a strict particular type of meal and I do the really long work days instead of being awesome. This is Mike, you know winter and this is when I'm really reflective and I needed to take some downtime and me being on day four of my cycle today. This is exactly what I did. When I landed in Australia day one day true. I just did not think you know, I didn't even open my computer. I just spent time laying outside in the sun. Acting with myself and just really coming home. Literally. I was coming home like a physically but my body was shredding and I was coming home to the new cycle. So it was perfect timing but can you honor that? And if you can't yet don't stress don't be mad at yourself or get caught up on it. Just acknowledge us. This is maybe something I could try next time Mmm Yeah, and it's totally shifting away from that like victimhood to empowerment from survival to Driving and this is totally what we're all going through in all ways. I think that's just so powerful. I would love to really just touch and I know we've spoken for a while now and it's there's so much we can jump into but what I really love to hear from you is like can we like can we really talk about the power of our periods? Like what actually is a period and we're seeing women like getting in tune with their cycle and all of a sudden even know for me like celebrating a period and not just because we're Not pregnant, but actually like really embracing the power of it. So one thing that I really love is like regardless of all of this, you know, patriarchy and different things that have happened in society and contraceptive women are still bleeding once a month and it's so like tribal in that sense. So yeah, if you could share like what actually is going on when we have a period and why is that so powerful and how can we really start celebrating that part of ourselves as a whole? Elective awesome. That's a great question. All right, let's A lot of women don't understand it as four phases of their cycle. We understand that where there's menstruation which is a pure like the time of your period your menstrual cycle is the whole cycle. So it's the whole month. And it's not a calendar month. It's whatever the month is for you and with these four phases the true, they're important. Well, they're all important. But the two that stand out for menstruation is obligation and administration and these happen at the polar opposite stages of your cycle. So if you think of the moon's New Moon full moon, they happen at you know, Polar Opposites roughly the Fortnight apart your ovulation you menstruations the same we menstruate Cause we ovulate so if you have a challenge with your menstruation, we need to go back and look at your ovulation. So if you think of that story that I shared where I came off the pill and I wasn't menstruating it was because I wasn't ovulating so we menstruate the like the lining that would have been the home for the baby and we shredding all of that out. So when we menstruate we're not shredding out the egg, we're actually shredding out and if you use a pad or a cup ideally not a tampon or you're just a nap. It'll flow bleeder. You'll see it's kind of like it's discharge. It looks of the texture is similar to discharge in the sense that it can be like egg Whitey. They could be quite like sheath like your period your menstruation. Your menstrual blood is like that it is actual discharge, but it's blood color and that blood color can actually tell you a lot about your health and ancestrally your mental time when you're menstruating is your monthly health check. It's your monthly. Time when your body is saying here, here's a Health Report of what's going on in my body. So how you bleed your texture of your blood? How long you bleed for how you feel when you bleed did I mention the color and all of that actually is your monthly Health Report? It can give you an overview of your hormones. You can give you an overview of the past month as I've been too stressful for you. You push yourself too much. Have you been fatigued? How's your sleep cycle being all of that can actually be seen through menstrual blood surprisingly. And that's why working with a coach can be helpful. If you want to know what that means. So we menstruate because the ovulate and I menstrual time happens four different women in different lengths. So some women bleed for two or three days some bleep for five to seven its individual to the person. I believe a healthy bleed is one that's not Painful, it's okay to feel sluggish and heavy like more because you're grounded towards the Earth. But anything that's painful anything that's like tensor has tension. It's assigned to say hang on. There's something not right here and specially are bleeding time is like The Red Tent time or the bleed cave you could say and they would send the women out and they would sit in these caves and they would bleed and are bleeding time as the time of Coming Back To Nature and when we're coming home. Home to Mother Earth bleeding for her you could say is that such as women are most intuitive time of our month. So it's the time where we might have thoughts or emotions come up that we haven't been dealing with or we might have visions or might have ideas and it's just a great time to journal them out make note of them and you might play them out later in your cycle when you come into your creative phase or your your our action phase. Oh your expressive face. So your menstrual time we can take these old traditions that have been used for centuries that have been somewhat lost and forgotten about over the last few hundred years and actually bring them back into our day-to-day Life by just acknowledging that for 5 or 10 minutes whilst you're menstruating each day. And yeah, there's lots of other little things you can do, but they're kind of a little bit of an overview of the ventral time for us. Mmm, amazing. I love it and yet so powerful when we can actually take that break and listen and I love like even when I'm bleeding now, like hanging out with all the girlfriends that are bleeding and just being in that space together and allowing it to be so accepted rather than something that we resent and seeing that when we actually honor that time of the month that adds so much more value to the rest of our cycle. Hmm. It sure does it's genuine. Ali how you feel when you ovulate can be a reflection of how you treated yourself when you menstruated and if you're on day 10 of your cycle and you're not treating yourself in alignment with day 10 in roughly two weeks time, maybe 10 to 14 days time, you will maybe feel out of balance at that time of your cycle. So everything affects everything just like you can see with nature. You know, how the Sun is and the like the weather effects. Planet and so it's the same in our cycle. Yeah, that is so powerful and it's just like the power of awareness alone in that is incredible. And I power to the period And for those who currently feel like, oh my God, my Purity is death. I wish I never had to have a period ever again. I chant. I want to challenge you to learn a little bit more about your body in general and then your menstrual cycle in general and your menstrual cycle involves your entire endocrine system. Not just your ovaries and bleeding learn about that because when you get to know your body and your period along with your menstrual cycles of the whole cycle, it can be Really transformative in the sense of things in your life start to clear up you might end up having you creativity. You might realize that you're doing something that you don't enjoy or you're in a relationship. That's very challenging you all of these messages actually come through a difference times of a menstrual cycle if you're connected with your body, so it starts with tracking your cycling getting connected. Mmm. Absolutely. And before we wrap up I would love for you to mention. I know before we dropped into this chat. You said that an area really? What about that you're willing to step into his actually like changing the set like the education like stick sex education sexual health education for young women around this. And so I love you to sort of talk about like what what is that Vision look like for you and how do you see this like changing the world? Thanks for asking. I'd love to share. It's a side project for me. I've been teaching in some schools already around what I call period And you know, they talk about sex ed but there's no real period education and it's the parents along with students. I believe they should be educated separately like in separate areas or sorry separate times because as a like a 14 year old girl, I did not want my mom or my dad sitting next to me while some learning about period so we'd like we teach them separately but it's important for women as young teens and tweens to know what their body is going through and that each Normal to feel puffy and it's normal to you know gain weight along with maybe have a change in your skin health and where all these changes come from and I like to think of it as period education because it teaches girls around their whole their whole menstrual cycle. And so some of the schools that have already been teaching in with the senior students. So use 10 11 and 12. It's changed how they push themselves through exams. And then head there for how they feel at school so they can go to school with their period going. You know what I'm just going to sit on my own for lunch today or I don't want to go out and play or I'm not going to be that loud vibrant person that everyone knows that I am it's okay for me to be a little bit more introvert event and to want to just withdraw a little bit while still at school and when you're at school and school age, you know, that can be seen as all you're depressed or you're so sad all the time, but for girls when you understand and at a young age I had this is my body and this is what I'm going through and it becomes part of the conversation within the different girls at school. It's very empowering that the girls will support each other and they end up feeling so much healthier in their overall bodies because they understand their cycle better. So they feel more in control than out of control. So that's the vision. It's a project that will be torn in two schools. Ideally from roughly the a Is a seven to eight upwards because as young as seven and eight-year-olds demonstrating these days that's not the topic altogether. Yeah and teaching them how how amazing their cycle is and the ancestral Traditions that aren't woohoo. They're not which like so to speak that we used to live by and we used to celebrate girls and I'd love to put together a festival, you know, a yearly Festival where girls four of you know, started menstruating that particular year they come together and we celebrate them as Becoming of age becoming women it's something that I've got a big vision for it's just finding the right people to collaborate with to make it happen. That's beautiful. I love it all so much. It makes me so happy like that. We've been able to just make these cultural shifts in our lifetime and that we get to be leaders in this and just that that in itself like bringing that into school it translates into all of sexuality as well. It releases so much allows us, you know, Which which shows up in the rest of our lives it allows women then to film just more confident in all of who they are as well, which is like it's going to bring through so much. So thanks, I think you're welcome. I think the biggest thing too is if you have a look around if you're a woman or a male listening to this, do you know someone in your life that's been challenged with their menstrual cycle. It could be your sister. It could be a friend. You could be your partner could be you. We have such an endocrine challenge at the moment. But the number of women challenge with their endocrine systems and Demetrius is PCOS fibroids, you know missing like if at ility challenge even just that alone if we had had a correct education as teens and tweens when we started menstruating, what would that maybe look like now if we hadn't had that back then so that's the that's the purpose of bringing for the education to help a lame. Leave these challenges so that women can be more empowered. But yeah, thanks so much for having me. Yeah, and when women are empowered the world changes, it's a god. Exactly the whole field of the world like the Earth plane changes the energy shift its yeah. It's really transformative. Yeah, amazing. Well, I feel like this has been an incredible conversation and yeah just feel so grateful to be able to get your message out. So is there anything that you would like to close with? I would love to know like what's alive in your body right now, too? Look alive in my body right now. I'm feeling really inspired having just come back from being overseas, you know, finishing off some ayurvedic study and spending time on myself to come home to like really blow into this new decade in New Year. I'm feeling really alive with I guess my biggest passion this year is really getting the education into schools because I just know how much transformation can can happen in just tracking your cycle. It's such a simple thing just to track your menstrual cycle, but I'm really driven and inspired to support women in that way and it's really it's kind of like a bright light inside me and every time I talk about it, I think about it my Yoni just feels like it's shining so to speak so I am it's yeah, I don't know how I got into this work and what my what the purpose was, but I'm just yeah, I'm trusting my intuition with it and letting it shine as much as possible issue. Mmm, it's a very very potent purpose and I was definitely feeling so much magic move through my body during this conversation. So, thank you so much. We will ya we will include any extra information that you want to share in the notes in this episode as well and also linked to where people can find you online because I think you're just offering so much value to the world. So thank you so much. You're welcome. Thanks for having me.
Jema Lee is an expert women’s cycle health educator, a plant nutter and the only thing that pulls her away from the beach every morning is her devotion to helping women confidently reconnect with their bodies and find their unique flow - all month long! Jema guides and supports women one on one through coaching, intimate events, retreats, her Well Woman Podcast and the Well Woman Academy self-paced course for women craving to awaken their body and re-connect with their menstrual cycles. An ancestral health and Ayurvedic Coach with over 13 years experience in the health industry, Jema’s training in Ayurvedic Psychology, Nutrition, Women’s Health, Wellness Coaching, Emotional and Spiritual courses are some of the professional qualifications and tools bring her work to life. In this episode we talk about How Jema became a menstrual cycle educator Period taboo and contraceptive myths The impact of living in tune with your cycle How women can start their own journey's to deepen their connection to their bodies Follow Jema Lee Instagram: @wellsome_jemalee Facebook: Wellsome by Jema Lee www.wellsome.com Join the Well Woman Academy Follow Lauren Renee Instagram: @laurenreneeintimacy Facebook: Lauren Renee Intimacy Follow Victoria Redbard Instagram: @victoriaredbard  Facebook: Victoria Redbard Somatic Sexologist victoriaredbard.com  Apply for the Institute of New Paradigm Intimacy February 2020 intake 