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.

Hey folks. Here I am back with another episode. To you it won’t seem like I’ve been away because I recorded some shows in advance of a trip that I had planned on taking, planned, being the operative word here. I was due to go to Mexico for a five day work event but very sadly I didn’t go because a few days before I was due to fly, Mexico moved into the red list category for travel here in the UK.

Which basically means that when you get back to the UK you are escorted from your plane to a government assigned hotel where you have to quarantine for 10 days, and I just wasn’t up for that. So I didn’t go. Instead I took part virtually and it was still an incredible experience. I basically spent five days with my business coach and a room full of predominantly female CEOs thinking about the problems that my clients face. And by the way, whether you’re in The Flow Collective or not, if you listen to my podcast I consider you my client.

Many of you have told me that the content I put together for the podcast is really helping you. And it’s always my intention that what I share here with you is worth my time, money, and energy that I put into it and that it’s also worth listening to for you as well. And because of that I think of you as my client. And you get to decide if you see me as your coach or not. So I spent five solid days staying up till 2:00am or 3:00am because the event still happened in Mexico. So it was running on Mexico time.

And I just spent the whole time basically thinking about the issues that you all have and how I can help you to get results and improve things. And having that dedicated space of not needing to do anything other than think in a very focused way on particular things and to get coached by my coach and by my colleagues. It was amazing. I came up with so many ideas, so many things to teach my clients. And I got very focused on the impact that I want to have on my legacy. So it was incredible.

And there was also an award ceremony, and my coach gave me an award. And you know how when someone get an award at the Emmys or the Grammys and as soon as they get to the mic they just burst into tears? Well, I now know and understand how that happens because that’s exactly what I did. And I couldn’t see everyone who was in the actual room because I was just on screen. But when I was giving my little speech, apparently my friends and colleagues started crying too which really meant a lot to me, all of it did. The whole event meant so much to me.

But especially as I’ve never met any of them in person, but I know these people so well, but I’ve only gotten to know them through being online and being on the phone. Some of them I would say I know intimately, and they are my closest friends because we’ve bonded so much over the last year. And I was so upset not to see them in real life in Mexico. But I know that I will eventually. And yes, in case you’re wondering, I’ve had a lot of opportunities to process my emotions these last couple of weeks.

Anyway today we are continuing in this responsibility series. We started with being overly responsible. Last week we looked at where you’re not taking responsibility, where you’re abdicating it. And with this episode we’re landing in the middle with self-responsibility, what it means to be a self-responsible person and what it is not. Are you ready? Let’s do this.

So as humans we tend to hang out in extremes. We’re prone to all or nothing thinking and also all or nothing behaviour. And that applies to responsibility too. So we swing one way, taking far too much responsibility for things that are not our responsibility. Or we swing in the other direction and don’t take responsibility. But neither of these actually feel great. They might feel comfortable because they’re familiar to you.

But you’re either detached and not connected to the results in your life because you’re not being responsible. Or you’re consumed with worry because you’re busy thinking about the lives of others. So neither of those actually feel great. Self-responsibility on the other hand feels solid, and grounded, and powerful. You’re not in victim mode by making everyone else responsible for how you feel. And you’re not blaming others. You’re not blaming yourself either.

And you’re also not people pleasing by making yourself responsible for other people’s thoughts and feelings which are actually their responsibility. Instead you’re taking responsibility for everything that is yours to be responsible for. And your brain might resist doing this because I think we can have an expectation that being so responsible is going to feel awful, really dreadful.

And in fact the only reason you wouldn’t take responsibility is because you think that taking responsibility will involve you experiencing a negative emotion which by the way isn’t a problem when you know how to process emotions. And you’ve heard me say before on the podcast there’s no such thing as negative emotion. But the reason you’ll feel like shit and be experiencing what we refer to as negative emotion is if you’re blaming yourself and that is different to being responsible.

Blame means someone is at fault and it doesn’t feel good. It’s very disempowering. If you’re blaming someone else then you’re making them responsible for your life. See what I mean by disempowering? And when you’re blaming, and judging, and berating yourself that results in shame, humiliation, self-pity, the list goes on. So of course your brain would resist taking responsibility if that’s the association you have if that’s what you’re used to ending up feeling. But this is the blame and shame cycle. It’s not being self-responsible.

And you’ll know you’re being self-responsible because you’re able to own what’s going on in your life, even the not so great stuff. When something happens that’s undesirable, an outcome that I didn’t want to happen, I’ve trained my brain so that my go to question is how did I create this result? I’m not blaming myself though, I’m just observing from a neutral position by being curious, or fascinated, intrigued, even amused actually.

And the same question, if it was asked a slightly different way like how did I do that? That would result in a different emotion for me. It would be very disempowering, and it would put you at fault. But when I choose to be curious that creates a very different experience because I’m able to look at things without beating myself up in the process. That’s how I can end up feeling amused. So that’s how you’ll know if you’re being self-responsible or you’re blaming yourself.

The same goes for when something desirable happens, a positive outcome. I ask the same question, how did I create this result? I take the time to unpick it and figure out exactly how I created that result. And I ask a lot of you in The Flow Collective to do this as well. And there’s two reasons why I do this. The first is that we always want to be able to replicate positive outcomes. And if you abdicate responsibility, which I see some of you doing by making a positive result about having a good day or oestrogen being on your side which I’ll admit, I’ve been prone to do as well.

Or whatever your version of that is then you’re preventing yourself from being able to replicate the same outcome or create an outcome in another area of your work or your life. Recently we’ve had several members give family members some boundaries which is amazing. But it’s easy to put that down to the timing being right or being in your summer, or whatever season of your cycle. But if you believe that then that means you can only repeat that when the situation is the same, which is very unhelpful. Do you see what I mean by disempowering?

But the second reason I am always asking, “How did you create this result”, is that I want you to see that you created that result, not me. Yes, I gave you tools and coaching, and those things may have enabled you to then approach things a certain way. But you are the one who has created all the amazing results that you’re getting. As your coach, as a business owner there are things that I am responsible for like coaching at my best, creating concepts and tools that you can use, producing valuable content to share with you through the podcast.

I take on the responsibility of being able to influence your results through those things. And I take that very seriously. But ultimately you are responsible for your results. So that’s why I’m always asking you how you did it when you’re celebrating your wins in our community is because I want you to see how you have used what I teach and coach on to create such amazing results. And I want you to fully own it so that you can replicate it. And so that you are raising your view of yourself in the process.

Taking responsibility is a skill, but if you do it, if you practice this you will get more and more positive results in your life, I promise. But it’s not just about creating the life you want or achieving your goals. This is about improving the process to get there too because when you’re being self-responsible you’re not living in the extremes of being overly responsible or abdicating responsibility. You’re living in the middle and it will feel powerful and solid. It doesn’t mean everything will be rosy all the time, that’s not the point and it’s not achievable.

But you won’t be blaming yourself, or blaming others, or blaming life. And you also won’t be overly concerned with things that have nothing to do with you and are not your responsibility. I want you to imagine for a moment how much energy and mental space this will save you. How much more sleep you’ll get. How it will free you up to problem solve from your highest ability because you’re rooted in being responsible. How it will influence your relationships and your work life. I am telling you, self-responsibility is where it’s at.

You are human, you are imperfectly perfect. And the more self-responsible you are the more resilient, the more courageous you will be.

Okay my lovelies I will see you next week. Have a good one.

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.