If you are in the horrors with menstrual cycle issues or you want to learn how to harness your hormones, then you are in the right place.

Welcome to the Period Power podcast. I’m your host Maisie Hill menstrual health expert, acupuncturist, certified life coach and author of Period Power. I’m on a mission to help you get your cycle working for you so that you can use it to get what you want out of life. Are you ready? Let’s go.

Lovely ones, I have some big news for you. The podcast is going to be changing very soon. I’ve been talking about this for a while, and it also relates to why I’m doing this particular episode now. This has been planned for some time but it’s finally happening. I am changing the podcast name and the artwork, probably keeping the music, I’m not entirely sure. We shall see. But all this relates to the shift that I’ve been going through. And the final stages of that basically involves me updating the podcast and then my website as well.

So, I recently had some new photos taken of me, it’s kind of involved in this process too. I’ve never had any pictures taken at our actual home. We always someone else’s or a location house, something like that. And for this one I went on a two day trip to a place called Hitchin which is a town in Hertfordshire. And it was just amazing. It was so good to be surrounded by so many trees because there aren’t many trees where I live in Margate. And it’s only when I go to surrounding towns or go somewhere else that I really get that sense of the leaves changing.

And we did the shoot back in October and it was really at the height of the colours changing and it was perfect timing for this photoshoot because it wasn’t all rainy and windy. It was still quite warm, but we also really captured the autumnal vibe. And the photographer that I worked with lives there, her name is Siobhan Watts who’s amazing. And I discovered her on Instagram a couple of years ago and I’ve been wanting to do a shoot with her ever since. But there’s a good reason why it’s taken me two years to do it and that’s what this podcast is all about.

Oh my gosh, it was just so much fun. We went to these chalk hills near where she lives, and we shot for three hours hours on the first day in the afternoon and evening as the sun was going down. And we got a bit wild up on the hills. At one point I was in my underwear, boots with a trench coat on top. And we were kind of, it was the end of the day, the sun was going down, we were getting a bit wilder with the shots and then I suddenly had this realisation, wait a minute, I’m in the bushes wearing a trench coat with underwear underneath. This could look a bit dodgy.

Does it look like I’m soliciting in the bushes? And then I stayed over at Siobhan’s, and we got up at 6:00am to do a sunrise shoot which was also very cool. So, it was a full on couple of days. And we took a lot of great photos. But beyond the photos being amazing these particular photos are really significant for me because they are the result of an identity shift that I have been going through for the last, I want to say couple of years, but I think it’s actually longer than that. It must be longer than that.

And it didn’t really hit me until I was driving up there for the shoot that the reason, I haven’t had any photos taken in ages is because I haven’t been ready to be seen. Because when you have your photos taken you are being seen by the photographer and by the people who see those photos. And I love that because I feel very at home in front of the camera because I’m so at home in myself. And I could have had the photos taken before now of course I could have, nothing wrong with being seen in the process.

But I think there was an unconscious decision to not do it whilst I was navigating this shift. And I think that’ll become clear as I go through this process with you. But I want to kind of backtrack a bit and talk about this in a chronological way because, well, please just remember that life isn’t as neat and tidy as we might like it to be. So, although I’m going to lay it out in chronological order, please appreciate that it may not be like this for you. It probably won’t feel like it even if it is this way. And it may also be a back-and-forth process.

But first of all, let’s talk about what an identity shift is. And this is a big topic, identity in and of itself, there’s lots of layers and nuances to that conversation. But for the purposes of this conversation, I am talking about how you see yourself, the thoughts and beliefs that you have about you. And then how those relate to your behaviour and influence how you show up in the world. Because your identity is your sense of self. It’s subjective, it really is so much about how you see yourself.

I have to kind of double underline that point because most of you and myself included, we make our identity about how other people see us. And that does come into it especially when we’re kids and we’re growing up because how we are perceived by others is the input that we receive about ourselves, whether that’s something that’s said explicitly or maybe the tone in someone’s voice, their facial expression or body language. So, we’re going through life having these social interactions and we pick up on things.

And then we assign meaning to those things and understand ourselves and the world through those reactions and responses. So, the beliefs that you have about yourself, and the world emerge through your experiences, which means that how others see you does come into it. But it’s a small part of the process, smaller than you probably think it is. And my story will hopefully illustrate that to you.

And remember that identity isn’t fixed. Our identities change, even the ones that you might consider permanent or fixed can evolve in some way. They might deepen, they might alter. They might become more or less significant as you go through your life. And your current identity, so how you see yourself, your unique traits, characteristics and the various roles that you play in your life, they’ve gotten you to where you are now. Your life is a result of your identity and your previous identities too.

So, imagine buying a device of some kind like a laptop or a phone. They all come with the most up to date operating system. But as you know, operating systems become outdated very quickly. So, it’s not long before you start getting alerts that it’s time to plug your device into a power source and update the operating system. The same with apps, new features are added, bugs get fixed. And you don’t get those unless you update them and it’s the same up with you in different phases of your life you’ve been running on different operating systems.

You’ve viewed yourself through a certain lens and that’s what’s determined your experience of your world, your inner world and your outer world, your experience of the outer world. So, if I have operating software that tells me that I don’t belong then every room I ever enter I will experience through that lens. And I coached a client on this once about work meetings that she was going to and her thoughts and feelings about the role that she’s in and how these meetings tend to go, her reflections on ones from the past.

And I asked her, “Well, what if you told yourself that you belong in the room?” And her mind was blown. And she just started showing up to those meetings in a completely different way. She literally entered the room as a different version of herself by using that one thought, that she belongs, she belongs in the room. That’s an identity shift. So, when you go through an identity shift, you’re updating your operating system. And that’s what enables you to unlock a different way of doing things. and every action that you take is building evidence of an identity of some kind like it or loathe it.

And James Clear has spoken about this. So, he says the more you repeat a behaviour the more you reinforce the identity associated with that behaviour. And he goes on to say that the word ‘identity’ is actually derived from a Latin word or two Latin words, one which means being, and another which means repeatedly. So, your identity is literally your repeated beingness, very cool.

But what I would add to his point is that it really depends on how you frame it. Because if you’ve decided that being physically active means running a mile every day or some kind of set amount of movement and exercise. That can be quite a fixed way of building an identity of someone who exercises especially if you’re a beginner. Whereas you could walk around the block once a day and decide that’s you being physically active and exercising because it is.

And there’s a lot of research to say that doing things in a minimal way like that is a really fantastic way of changing your identity and your behaviour. And of course, there’s also going to be some people for whom walking round the block would be a massive goal, that would be huge for them. So, it all depends on your unique body and life.

There’s also some interesting research in a book about stress, I wish I could remember the name of it now. I think the author’s name is Kelly something. I’m looking at my bookshelf trying to find it and remember it, but I can’t see it. There it is, The Upside of Stress, Kelly McGonigal. So, off the top of my head this is what is in the book. I hope my memory serves me correct but the point will be made either way.

So, she was doing some research where they worked with a group of housekeeping staff in a large hotel or several large hotels. I can’t remember the specific details. But the staff work long hours, most of them are women and they didn’t think that they exercised because they weren’t out jogging, or lifting weights in a gym, or whatever. But the intervention was that the researchers gave them a short presentation about how housework counts as moderate exercise. And I think they also put posters up in places, like in the staffroom.

But there was another group who didn’t get this information and I don’t know, a month or several months later, the group that got the information had lost weight, their blood pressure was also lower. But all that had changed was their perception and what they viewed as exercise. Because cleaning rooms and stripping beds, lifting towels and linens, I guarantee that if I did that all day, I would be sore. But they just hadn’t seen it in that way. So, it’s not just the action that you take, but the thought that you have about that action.

Now, I want to share the shift that I’ve been going through which honestly, it felt so big and huge as I was going through it. And now that I’m out the other end and looking back it really seems like no big deal. I’m genuinely sat here thinking, what was that all even about? But it was a big deal to me when I was going through it. So that’s lesson number one. It will feel massive to you when you’re in it, but you’re closer than you realise to it not being a big deal. And at some point, at one time you’ll just kind of laugh about it with yourself which is what I’m doing now.

So of course, as I’m recording this my brain is now telling me, don’t share this, everyone’s going to laugh. But I actually do hope that you laugh. I do think that some of you will find this hilarious. I’m sat here finding it hilarious, but brains are hilarious with their nonsense. So, in one sentence my shift was about going from being a menstrual cycle expert to a life coach. So, let’s talk through the stages and I’ll share more as we go through.

So, the first stage of an identity shift is almost indiscernible. There’s a push or a pull that has an effect. And the push could be coming from fed up-ness, from anger, frustration a need for things to be different somehow. Or it could be a pull, a desire for something different, a tug. But most of the time this is subtle. And sometimes it is sudden and it’s obvious. And sometimes this happens as a result of something happening to you that you weren’t expecting or perhaps that you wouldn’t choose or that you didn’t choose.

But for the most part it’s already started happening before you’ve realised. So, think about being in water or if you feel stressed out about the idea of being in a large body of water with a current then imagine a cartoon animation of someone in water like me. So, you’re in a body of water and it’s water that you’re used to. People are used to you being in this body of water, I don’t know, it could be a pond or something, whatever you want it to be.

And they’re also used to you being a certain way, but mainly you’re used to who you are in this water, like me as a practitioner. People were very used to me being a practitioner treating people and all that was involved with that, and I was used to that. And then I went through a shift, and I wrote my first book, Period Power. And people think that you write a book and become an author. And I’m sure that that is the case for some people, but I became a writer and an author before I ever sat down to write a book and get a book deal.

So, in actual fact, the year that I set the intention to get a book deal. My plan was to write a blog post every week to kind of amass a body of work that I could use in some way and to develop my skills as a writer. But Nelson was nine months old at the start of that year and we’d moved to Margate. I just wasn’t able to write in the way that I’d hoped I’d be able to and that I’d planned for. But the whole time that I wasn’t writing, my identity was shifting to that of someone for whom writing was vital and that I needed to write a book regardless of whether I got a book deal or if anyone ever read it.

I just needed to do it for me. So, I didn’t take any action in terms of actually writing for most of that year. But what I was doing was shifting my identity. And then it was only I think the final two months of that year that I got an agent, wrote a proposal and then we started sending it out to publishers. But I was able to do that so rapidly and with such success because by that point that’s just who I was. I had taken on the identity of being a writer and an author. That’s not actually the story I wanted to tell you today.

The story that I wanted to tell you about is what’s happened since Period Power came out because by the time it came out it was old to me largely because it contained everything from, I think, at that point it would have been the previous 15 years of my career. And also, the publishing process itself actually takes a while, so that affects things. Anyway, the book comes out and just as the world is discovering me on a larger scale than what I’d experienced before and getting to know me as an author and a cycle expert and all of these other things, I’ve actually already started to move on.

But I didn’t realise this at the time because I was just so busy promoting it and that year was very full on for lots of reasons. We’d found out my mum was terminally ill. She died that year. I’d been doing formal training as a coach. I was setting up The Flow Collective so there was, in actual fact there was all sorts of pushes and pulls going on at the same time. But a lot of it was undercurrent and that’s what this stage of an identity shift is like. There’s a subtle change in the current but it’s underneath the water and can’t be seen.

Or you’re just so busy kind of going through life that you’re not really paying attention to what’s going on underneath. And you may feel it, you may notice it if there’s enough awareness and connection available to you. And that might show up at times in your cycle or when you’re in certain nervous system states. So, you might notice a push or a pull happening in relation to your cycle typically when you’re premenstrual or your period is starting but it could be at other times. So, I don’t want to get too prescriptive with that.

It can also happen when you’re feeling irritable, resentful annoyed. And we think of these as really bad but they’re actually incredibly valuable. There’s a lot of information that we can glean from feeling that way. But in the beginning of going through an identity shift there’s a strong chance that you don’t even know it’s happening. And that’s what it was like for me but at some point, a threshold is reached, and you become more aware. Something wakes you up and gets your attention somehow.

And that might just be that something doesn’t feel right to you anymore or something really does feel right to you. And this is where you might feel excited or scared because it’s unknown. You just might feel unsure. And for me, I want you to think about having a career for 15 years and then eventually getting to the point where you publish a book that is the summation is your life’s work. And so many people are finding you and just being delighted. And it’s all brand new to them just like it was to me at many points in time, completely revolutionary.

But as that’s going on you can feel the current shifting and, on some level, you recognise that this isn’t it anymore, but there was nothing wrong with it, it was great. And I’m so glad that I was able to be in it all but as it was going on I could just sense a shift in direction. And when you’re at this part of the process whatever your thoughts and feelings about it are, curiosity is going to be helpful. So, can you get curious about things? And that doesn’t mean that you have to figure it all out. That’s more like work. I’m talking about play.

So can you just be curious about this shift because whether you want to or not, and whether you think you’re ready for it or not, the current is going to pick up strength, it’s inevitable because once this process starts it doesn’t stop.

And that’s the next stage, the current increases in energy and starts to pull you in a different direction. And you might let go and just go with the flow. And when I think about that, I think about when my brother was backpacking through Thailand and Vietnam. And he told me about this river where you start higher up a hill or a mountain of some kind, and they sit you on a huge inflatable ring. And then as you go down the river, there’s people on either side of the river with fishing rods, with rope. And if you want to be pulled in you just grab hold of the rope and they kind of fish you in.

And you can get a cold beer, buy them as you go down, probably end up very drunk by the end. Or you can get out and walk around, whatever happened. That’s what we want an identity shift to feel like. That’s not how it happens. And I think that’s a good thing. It feels awful when we’re in it, but it is better that it feels that way rather than just us gliding down, drinking cold beer throughout the process. So, it’s more likely that you’ll go along with the current to a point, not fully.

Or you’ll just flat out resist it, and fight it, and just try to cling to the edges and not go anywhere, just like, “No, let me go back.” Even though on one level you know that you can’t and it’s already too late. So why do we do this? Well, it’s because part of you recognises that moving towards something new and having a change in direction, that means turning away from other things like people, places. And you may be ready to release and let go or you might want to cling on or both, often it’s both.

So, there’s a tension here and it’s like you’re straddling worlds. And it might really feel that way. When this happened for me, it was when it was time for me to write my second book, Perimenopause Power. And by this stage I could recognise what was going on. I was head over heels in love with coaching, and running a business, and being an entrepreneur. So, one of my feet was in that world and the other foot was in the, I need to write this book. It’s so important, people need this. I have to write this.

And I had the choice of doing it or not doing it. And I don’t mean someone else presented me with that choice. I mean me within myself, I’m going to make that choice. And I’m not going to lie, I was close to not doing it because I really wanted to let go. It was so incredibly tempting. But at the same time, I also knew how valuable it would be for me to finish what I’d started and to see out the commitment that I’d made to myself, to my amazing publishers.

And to the people who would eventually read it because I’d already mentally committed to them without ever knowing who would read it or anything like that. I had just mentally committed to the people reading it who needed it. So, I made that decision and then the week that I was going to really get going with it all was when the first lockdown was announced. So, I ended up writing that book in lockdown with our kid at home, whilst running a business and coaching my clients in The Flow Collective, as well as my one-on-one clients.

And those four months, maybe five months, I can’t remember, four/five months whilst I was writing it resulted in a completely different Maisie. I decided that I would write a book without my mental health suffering, that I could write it in challenging situations. And I also got to tell myself a new story about myself that I’m good at staying, because I’m very good at leaving. The idea of walking away from a situation or a relationship does not faze me, and it never has. I’m very good at it.

And now I had an opportunity for me to be someone who sees out their commitments, not that I haven’t done in the past, but this just felt different, and it was so valuable for me to do that. But I also knew that I really needed to get going and write it, not just because I had a date to hand it in, but because it wouldn’t be an option to me for much longer because eventually the shift and current reaches a tipping point and then that’s it. So, I was like, “Okay, I’m straddling worlds here, I can do this. This is the time when I can do this.”

So, the current does reach tipping points and then there’s no going back. But before that comes acceptance and with that acceptance is the realisation that it’s requiring more of you to go against what’s happening, to resist. And that’s very similar to labour. When you go into labour the quicker you can get to acceptance of what’s happening the better, because then you just go with it. And that’s rarely a one and done event. There are multiple, multiple times during labour, and birth, and parenting where you will need to meet the challenge and accept it hopefully.

Acceptance is really important and what I mean by acceptance is just the recognition of what’s going on, the reality of it. Doesn’t mean that you have to like or love it, or that you choose it. And this is true for every type of labour and birth, including caesarean births. And I spent, at some point I am going to do a whole episode about my labour before I kind of forget the details of it.

But I spent the first hour of my labour struggling to accept that I wouldn’t be able to go for osteopathy in the morning because I had an appointment and then I was going to meet my friend Sam who was visiting from Australia. And we were going to have brunch together but my labour, I didn’t exactly ease into it. It just started and that was it. Contractions every few minutes and they were substantial. But I spent that first hour struggling to accept the reality of the situation. And I was also trying to text Sam and text the osteopath to let them know, which is a bit like writing the book.

I could have not done it, but I wanted to and at the same time I recognised there was a window where I still could. So now it’s about being in the current, that threshold has been met. Now you’re in the current. You’re going with it and feeling the release and what comes with that. So, what does it feel like to be in this experience? How does your body and your mind respond to it? Because you’re going somewhere else and you’re having a new experience on your way there.

So, this was me when I was coaching and running an online business. Once I’d handed in the first draft of the book I could just let go and it felt great to have both done it and to release and go with things. And then we move on to the stage where we’re submerging ourselves and going all in and just arriving in a different body of water than where you were at the start of this process, and to explore it, and to be in it. Because so much of it is the unknown, even if your life circumstances are the same because even if they’re the same who you are in them is completely different.

And then you get to emerge, you come out different and you are seen, you’re seeing yourself in this way, others are seeing you too, or at least you think they are. There’s a strong likelihood that they’re either not paying attention, or they’ve been seeing it all along and they’ve already adjusted long before you have. But it’s such a big deal to you because of the drama in your head. So, you think it’s going to be big news to everyone. So, I’m going to tell you some more about my drama, it really is hilarious.

So, the shift for me was about going from being a menstrual cycle expert to a life coach. And it wasn’t actually even about being those things, it was about being known as, being seen as a life coach instead of a menstrual cycle expert. Because the truth is I’ve always coached. It’s just in my blood, in my bones. And I remember coaching classmates at junior school. I coached my birth clients as a doula for over a decade. And all my treatment clients as well.

And some of them were coaches who literally told me, “You are a coach.” And I was like, “Yeah, okay, but I’m a doula.” I just couldn’t receive that because my identity was, I’m a doula. Because I made my identity about my job, my profession rather than who I was. And of course, I’d been coaching as I’ve been writing my books as well. So, this wasn’t even something new, but my brain was very busy telling me that everyone knew me as a practitioner, an author.

And then talking about myself as a life coach was going to be, I don’t know, a shock for people, hard for them to wrap their heads round. I mean it’s just so ridiculous. And I say this to my clients all the time. I’m always saying, “That’s just a thought.” Because we all need this to be pointed out to us. And for me, the way I was thinking I just thought it was factual based on no evidence by the way. But I was just so close to it, so in it, that I couldn’t see that these were just thoughts that I have. And I can’t really even tell you what they were, they were just there.

And what’s really hilarious is that when my colleagues and my peers who were also life coaches, would ask me about my work and I’d meet people for the first time online or in person and they’d ask me, what do I do, who do I coach? And I would say, “Well, I’m a general life coach in disguise.” People know me for my menstrual cycle work but that’s really just the beginning of my work with them because the cycle affects everything in life and everything in life affects the cycle. So, I end up coaching on anything and everything and all that is true.

But why on earth did I think I needed to be in disguise? I really hope you’re all enjoying this. Now, at some point in this process you realise that you’re unable to go back to being the previous version of yourself, it just feels wrong to do it. And you might not realise this until you’re in an environmental situation that maybe you haven’t been in for while or it’s associated with your previous identity. I’m trying to think of examples for you. Maybe meeting up with colleagues from a previous job or an old partner, that kind of thing.

And one of my clients asked this question. They said, “I want to get curious and experimental in imagining ways that I can recreate space for certain people, activities or ideas that are no longer aligned with the life I’m designing, but perhaps don’t need to be cut out completely.” And I was thinking about this for myself. And really what came to me was when I stopped drinking, when I stopped drinking alcohol. And actually, way before then when I became a birth doula my life really had to shift.

So, I’d be in bed early because you usually get called by clients between midnight and 3:00am. So, I stopped going out as much and I would still go out when I was off call. But life when I was on call was very different. And I wanted to see my friends but the environment and the time in which I could see them had to shift. And it’s like going on a lunch date with someone instead of meeting up with them later in the evening after you’ve had a few drinks. Have you ever had that happen?

It either goes really well or it becomes very clear that this isn’t going to work out. The same with friendships, is this relationship propped up by alcohol? Is this relationship contingent upon me being a certain version of myself or will it evolve with me? And think about this, as you’re going through this process you will also be asked to do things that the former you would have loved, or opportunities emerged that the previous you created. They’re a result of you being a certain away. But like me you’ll realise that you can’t, or you’ll at least feel torn.

And it’s like trying to stuff yourself into clothing that you’ve outgrown. You might be able to get into it but it’s not going to feel great, or you won’t like how it looks or it just doesn’t feel like you because it isn’t anymore. Even the stuff that still fits, it just doesn’t feel right, it doesn’t look right, it’s no longer your favourite. And I had to look at my personal life and my business and start making changes. And that’s why I had new branding done, and new photos taken, and we’re changing the name of the podcast.

And eventually there’ll be a new website too, it’s so exciting and so great to be on this end of things I have to say. This is the fun part, after being in the river of misery for a while, this is fun part. Another question one of my clients asked was, “How do you deal with people who remind you of your past self in ways that don’t feel right or if they keep talking or relating to you like you haven’t evolved?”

So, this is the stage where you’ve changed but it’s new. You’ve shed skin but there’s something a bit exposing and vulnerable about that because the new skin underneath is a bit sensitive so you might be too. And that’s what I’m picking up in this question and the use of exclamation marks. So, it might be a bit jarring for you when people remind you of a previous version of yourself. And this is what separates this from the next phase because in the next phase this doesn’t matter, you just won’t care.

But when you’re here you might be a bit sensitive, a bit defensive and you’ll blame other people for making you feel this or that. And it’s actually got nothing to do with them, everything to do with you but you just haven’t fully adjusted yet, especially if this kind of thing happens at an earlier stage of the process. I will be very transparent with you. For me this showed up as getting a bit annoyed at people asking me about their periods or wanting to speak at events that were about hormones and reproductive health.

There was a moment where I felt a bit resentful of being asked, I got annoyed. And that had nothing to do with the lovely, wonderful people asking me and everything to do with my thoughts about being asked. And remember, being asked to do these amazing things was something that the previous version of me created. At one point in time and for a long time they were invitations that I wanted. So, I was literally getting what I wanted and being annoyed at it. And we do this all the time as humans, this is really helpful to recognise that in ourselves.

And when this was going on I discussed it with one of the coaches that I’ve worked with this year [inaudible]. And he put it in this really amazing way. He said that when this happens it’s just like reminding someone that you’ve moved house. They keep going to your old address, that’s not a problem. But you just need to remind them that you’ve moved. So, for me that would be like, yeah, I used to talk all the time about hormones, and cycles, and pregnancy, and perimenopause, for almost 20 years that was my life.

But now I just remind people that I’ve moved, other stuff interests me and that’s great because it means that I get to do what I want to do. And there’s more space for other people who want to talk about those things all day long, there’s more opportunities for them. And they don’t need me to step away for that to happen, but I love getting to recommend other people instead of me doing it. But when things feel a bit exposing and new, you’ll probably unintentionally make it means things that they’re asking you, or making comments, or whatever the case may be.

And that’s just a sign that you haven’t fully embodied the shift yet. But the good news is that you’re really close. And this is where thought work is so useful as is awareness of your nervous system because it might be that when you see or hear from these people it activates your nervous system somehow and takes you into a response. And that might look like defensiveness, getting irritated, that kind of thing.

Okay, another question I’ve had was, “How do you lean and grow into this new identity whilst still having to live in old circumstances?” So, when you’re fully embodying your new identity, this just won’t matter so much. And I know that might be hard to kind of reconcile. But if you can just hold space for it as a possibility that would be wonderful. Because before you’ve gone through the identity shift, fully gone through it, external things will be more important whereas if you’ve gone through it then you’ll trust and know that change on the outside is inevitable.

But the other thing is that you will also just change those things either by your experience of them, which is simply your thoughts or by actually changing them. And this doesn’t have to mean big sweeping changes. It can be that, but it can also be the kind of small easy details of life.

Another question was, “Do you have advice on growing familiar with this new identity, so we don’t slip back into the safe zone?” There is no slipping back, that is just a thought. You can’t go back even if you want to. And I think probably in listening to this episode you can see that now. And really what is safe anyway? Is it safe to go back or is that actually the danger?

I think you suspect it’s the danger because you don’t want it to happen which I would agree with. So, it’s not safer, but is known and familiar. And that’s very different to safe. People staying in unsafe situations all the time because they are known and familiar, other reasons too.

This other question, I love and I’m going to offer some coaching on it as well. So, the question was, “My questions are to do with dealing with the changing identity in terms of realising I can actually be who I am, mind blown, whilst feeling stuck in circumstances that reflect how I used to show up in the world. These circumstances include big projects that drain resources but have to be finished, my living situation with a partner and my career.

I have come to realise many of these situations are not what I want, and I have been allowing myself to dream of the other things I want that I’d always pushed away. However, the change will be a matter of years, and this can feel overwhelming and actually wrong in my body at times.” So, I want you to recognise the successes already. You know what you want and what you don’t want. This is something we’ve been focusing on inside The Flow Collective because this in and of itself is a skill.

And the discomfort that you’re experiencing is important because that’s what will create change. So, if you find things to make it feel better then you’ll just remain in the things that you don’t actually want to for longer. If you’re distracting yourself with scrolling, and drinking, and whatever else, yoga-ing. Not that any of those things are wrong to do but there are times when we use them to get out of experiencing our emotions, again very understandable but there are other options.

And please also see the way that you’re describing things, that they’re a financial drain. I strongly suggest that you stop thinking that. I have spoken before about the strategic investments I’ve made in my business and that I continue to make. Imagine if I described those as a financial drain, I could but I choose not to. That just feels gross to me. And I know some of you will be thinking, well, it’s okay for you, it all worked out okay in the end. And yes, it did, but I decided that long before I had any evidence of those investments paying off.

My business could have totally flopped, and those investments would still have been worth it to me because now I know I can manage my mind at such a high level. I can operate at such a high level. I can create and build any business. I could pick another niche today and start immediately and I would love doing it because I know that I can. I know how to manage my mind. I know how to create results. And I can fail my way there without judging myself for it. See the difference?

You also mentioned that the change will be in years. And I don’t know the specifics of this but here is what I would love for you to consider. What’s wrong with it taking years? And I have no idea what your answer, you know, this person, I have no idea what your answer to that will be. But is it a problem that it might take years, and if so, why? If you can really answer that question, you will get so much gold out of it. And how do you know it will take years? What are you basing that on? How might it be possible that it will take less time than that?

Okay, now, the next and final stage of this process is embodiment. And when you’re here, people reminding you of what you used to do or who used to will be water off a duck’s back because you’ve come so far. And you just know that’s not you anymore, it just won’t matter. I think the only way it could matter to you in this stage is if you’re judging your past self or feeling some shame around who you were and what you used to do. I have a lot of love for all the past Maisie’s, I think they’ve all been fantastic. So that doesn’t show up for me here.

But at this stage of an identity shift you are fully embodying the newest version of yourself with the latest operating software but at the same time it’s also highly likely that another shift is already happening under the water, and you haven’t detected it yet. Being human is just so much fun, I love it. And that’s it for today’s episode on identity shifts. I have really enjoyed doing these kind of more in depth episodes for this one and the last one.

And next week we’ll just see what happens but I hope you found it helpful, the speaking about identity shifts has just been on my mind as something to do for some time and this is kind of laying the groundwork for what we’re going to be doing in The Flow Collective and on the podcast throughout the winter season so I look forward to continuing the journey with you in whatever way possible. I’ll catch you next time.

Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of the Period Power podcast. If you enjoyed learning how to make your cycle work for you, head over to maisiehill.com for more.