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.

Hello folks. I’m feeling very passionate about today’s episode, so get ready because today is all about summer which of course applies to the summer season of your cycle and the season of the year. And we started feeling our way into this on last week’s episode which was all about self-confidence. And we’re going to continue to explore the qualities of summer today because we are so close to the beginning of summer. It officially starts on June 21st which is the date of the summer solstice.

So June 21st is the longest day of the year, it’s the brightest day. Well, maybe not the brightest especially if you are in the UK and British summers typically aren’t wonderful, fingers crossed for this year. But it’s certainly the day where we have the most amount of daylight hours. And with the change of season comes an opportunity for you to join The Flow Collective because we open the doors around the time of the season shifting, that way you’re able to join us in time to take part in our summer workshop which is happening on July 9th.

Our workshops are epic. They’re only available to you if you’re a member and they’re currently included in the price of your membership. So when you sign up, you’ll come in, you’ll make yourself at home within our community and start familiarising yourself with the tools that we use. And then we’re going to go deeper during the workshop. And we just continue to hear how transformative the workshops are.

Someone recently shared how they just watched the one from the spring and they found it so valuable in just helping them to focus and take some time to reflect and tune into themselves and what they want and make decisions. And because everything’s recorded, they were able to watch it when it made the most sense for them too. So I would love for you to take part as well and come and join us because the doors are currently open. So when this episode airs that means you can literally join today, get started now. How fun is that?

And we’ve got a call happening tomorrow on Thursday and you can come to that. But do bear in mind that we only keep the doors open for a week. They’re going to be closing on Monday June 20th at 9:00pm UK time. So don’t snooze, don’t forget about it. If you want to take what I share here on the podcast and you want to go deeper with it and use the tools, really get to the know the simple but powerful tools that I share then come and join us.

Our summer program of workshops and coaching calls are going to focus on the qualities of summer and that’s what we’re going to be talking about today. So think about confidence, connection and intimacy, joy and abundance, resources, feeling resourced, expansion, risk, and underneath of all of that, self-trust. Because here’s the deal. I want you to stop holding yourself back and blow your own mind with what’s possible. You don’t need to worry about the how, we’ve got you covered on that front.

You only have to decide if you want to let go and go for it. It’s that simple. And this is one of the qualities of summer, desire. And that’s something I’m going to be asking my clients a lot over the next few months is, what do you want? This is such a powerful question because we are socialised to think about what we should do and what we shouldn’t do. And that other people’s needs take priority over our desires and our needs. I hear it all the time from people. They might say something like, “Well, I’d really like to do this, but I should really do this other thing that I don’t actually want to do.”

And you know that in your body. Your body recognises the incongruency of it. And that moment of going against yourself and that inner knowing that’s there. And all those little betrayals just add up and it makes it so much harder to then trust yourself because then you build an identity around it. Some of you might already have that, I certainly did. Just it was handed down to me from my mum pretty much. And the identity is that you’re someone who takes care of other people, you prioritise other people instead of you.

That’s a neutral statement but it can become a negative way of describing things or it can even be viewed as positive, and someone takes pride in that. And that’s basically a slippery slope to becoming a martyr. And I know that maybe even just the idea of doing what you want can feel so risky, maybe impossible. But if you have a cycle then you might experience this moment in your cycle, often in the summer season when oestrogen and testosterone show up and they peak together. I think of it as double trouble because testosterone can give you some va va voom.

Do you remember that very sexy car ad where Thierry Henry says, “Va va voom?” He says it much sexier than I am. For those of you who don’t know it, Thierry Henry is a hot French footballer, testosterone does increase desire. I am blushing over here. So when testosterone shows up in the cycle you may find yourself more likely to engage in risk taking behaviour. And there’s plenty of research around that as well.

And it makes so much sense for that risk taking behaviour to be there even if you don’t follow through on that urge or desire that might be there because that’s the time in the cycle where you’re fertile and you’re about to ovulate. So your hormones are always driving your behaviour. And when you’ve got testosterone wanting you to take a risk, that’s all about you ultimately having sex with someone and trying to procreate. But taking a risk doesn’t have to be related to sex. It might be about dating which can of course lead to sex.

But it can also be about having conversations that you usually avoid whether they’re personal ones or professional ones. Risks can be about doing things that are just a stretch for you and maybe there’s a degree of discomfort with them. And this is where your hormones can just help you to say, “Okay, fuck it, I’m doing it.” But then of course what happens is you ovulate, and your hormones plummet and your thoughts turn to what the hell was I thinking? What have I done?

But that’s okay when you know that’s what’s going on hormonally and especially if you know how to manage your mind using thought work which is what you’ll learn how to do in your first 30 days of joining The Flow Collective. But this is why I love that run up to ovulation. There’s just an expansiveness to it, just as there is during the summer in the year. And you can feel that in your body, at least I hope you can. It is there, you just need to pay attention to it.

And so often when we think about what we want, what we want to create in our lives, there’s this logical step by step approach to doing it. And there’s huge value in doing that especially when you’re creating a foundation on which to build from and that then allows you to take a leap to do something risky that just catapults you forward. And I’m guessing that as you’re listening to this, half of you find the idea of that very exhilarating and for half of you it’s terrifying, or maybe it’s a bit of both.

But this is what the summer season is all about, it’s taking that leap forward and knowing that you can catch yourself on the other side, that if things don’t work out, that if there are mistakes, if there are failures that you will love yourself through it.

But what’s interesting is what’s ‘risky’ for most of my clients usually isn’t risky in the grand scheme of things but it feels so big to them. And that’s what I mean by risk. I don’t mean a mathematical calculation that shows us the odds. This is solely about it feeling risky. And there’s plenty of research out there showing that boys are socialised to take risks, they’re encouraged to do so but girls aren’t. And please forgive the gender binary here but this is just what the research has been on so that’s the language that I’m using.

Girls are taught to be safe, be careful and so then of course even straightforward things can seem risky. So I was talking to Paul the other day about how so many women that I know personally, professionally, clients struggle to get paid in all sorts of ways. And I’m really good at helping people come up with the language for them to use when they’re talking about money, whether it’s in their business, whether in their place of employment, in their relationships. And I never used to be by the way.

Years and years ago I would just avoid talking about money at all costs. And it literally cost me a lot of money. But I’ve done so much work on my money mindset and I started doing that in my late 20s when I actually hired my first coach. And it’s something that I keep returning to because it always pays off. And we’re going to have a money mindset workshop and coaching happening in The Flow Collective over the summer because remember how I said that resources and being resourced, and abundance are qualities of the summer.

Those qualities extend beyond money and we’re going to be exploring them in different ways, but we are going to be focusing on money because money matters and we need to talk about it more. So I was talking to Paul about a phrase that I gave to someone so that they could use it with a client of theirs. And basically, they were increasing their rate, what they charge for the service that they provide, and I guess they were nervous about communicating that to their client. And they were unsure how to do that.

And it’s important to put this in the context of how we typically underearn compared to men and that that gender pay gap also will increase if you’re Black or a person of colour. So we’re already starting off on the backfoot. We’re already earning less than our male counterparts. And we probably aren’t used to talking about money. And I don’t even mean that in a complex way, I mean it in very simple terms.

Most women I know are terrified of asking for money, whether that’s for work that they’ve already done, and completed, and maybe has been six months that they’ve been waiting for an invoice to be paid or asking for a salary increase and there are so many reasons for that. And we’re going to be looking at what those reasons are and how to move beyond them in the workshop. But for the person that I was speaking to, their increase, and what they charge might not even end up equating to what a man in their exact same position would charge.

And I have no idea of the details but just looking at the gender pay gap figures across multiple industries, I think it’s likely. I also want to say I think it’s amazing that they decided to do this. And whilst I’m sure it was a big deal to them and I know this because I’ve been in the same situation myself, it’s also not that much compared to what is really available. And if you’re telling yourself that more isn’t available, I really want you to know that that is just a thought.

And you have no idea if that’s even true, even if you’ve been told more money isn’t available by a client or your employer, that doesn’t even mean that it’s true. I have lots of thoughts about this. We’re going to be getting into it all in The Flow Collective. Anyway where I was going with this is that when I was telling Paul about the suggestion I gave this person he was just very confused because this is the kind of thing that he says all the time in his work, and he’s done that for over 20 years.

And what we were talking about was that it’s radical for most of the women I know to do this, and it feels risky to begin with, that part is important. Because it’s just a muscle that once you start flexing it will become your new way of doing things. But to begin with it’s going to feel a bit different, might feel a bit weird, maybe risky, or even unsafe.

And again I mean that in terms of how it feels in your body. Because cognitively I’m sure you know that once you send an email about what you charge is very, very unlikely that the person on the other end of the email, the receiving end of the email is going to storm into your room and attack you. But that’s the story that your nervous system might have, and this is where being resourced comes in. Remember how I said, being resourced can be about money and resources that are available to us. But it goes beyond money.

Being resourced is about how you support your nervous system so that you can stretch yourself a little or a lot and take some risks. And in fact when you are resourced, and regulated, and maybe you’ve had some coaching along the way, you’ve done some self-coaching. It may not even feel risky to you anymore. But this brings us back to that all important question, what do you want? This is the time to move beyond what you think you should or shouldn’t do, what others expect of you, what you expect of yourself.

Who do you want to be? What do you want? And you’re already you on the inside. But does that match how you show up in the world? Is there a disconnect? If there is, then it’s time to do some work on loving and accepting you as you are. This is what we can help you with and then you just get to show up as your fabulous self in the world. Because all of this, being honest with yourself, being honest with others about what you want, taking a risk, that requires you to be able to create safety for yourself.

And if you’re unsure what I mean by creating safety, this is all about tending to your nervous system, noticing when you’re in a stress response and feeling safe and being able to create safety for yourself. For example, let’s say you have a job interview coming up and I know many of you love to time these around your cycle which is of course wonderful to do when you’re able to do that. But you can’t always rely on being able to. But it doesn’t matter if you can create safety for yourself.

Because creating safety just means noticing that you’ve moved in the part of your nervous system where it’s fight or flight, or the part where you just freeze and withdraw somehow. And in a job interview that might look like just wanting to run out of the room and get away, or defending yourself in your answers to their questions, or just kind of giving up and resigning yourself to it not working out. Maybe not even being able to take in what they’re asking you, things like that.

But when you can create safety for yourself, you’ll be able to work with your nervous system and you’ll be able to do things that help bring you back to feeling safe and connected to yourself and to the world around you. And it’s the same in your relationships because when you can create safety for yourself you can stay connected to what’s going on both within you internally and also be connected to the other person, whether that’s your kid, your partner, your sibling, or your housemate.

And that doesn’t mean lovey dovey. It can be. But connection is about being present. You can feel anger and sadness and feel connected to someone else. But more than that you can feel connected to yourself and your experience of that emotion without it feeling like the world is ending. Because as you partner with your nervous system, your capacity for experiencing emotions increases and it becomes safe for you to embody them. How cool is that?

Now, I talk about all of this a lot inside The Flow Collective. One of the first webinars that you get access to once you’ve gone through Harness Your Hormones, which is our foundational course where you learn all the tools that we use in the membership, once you’ve gone through that there’s an entire webinar about creating safety and working with your nervous system. There’s also a guided exercise that I walk you through, supportive worksheets, and coaching calls that are all focused on creating safety because this is important.

And we’re always considering the nervous system alongside your hormones and what your brain is up to. I just cannot emphasise enough how much this will change your life. And as I’ve said, creating safety is what leads to connection and intimacy. You can’t do those things if you don’t feel safe, survival trumps everything else. Connection isn’t important when your nervous system is screaming at you to run. That’s why you can’t take in what your kid or your housemate is saying to you when you’ve just read an email that’s made your heart race.

It’s why sex is off the cards when you’ve had a stressful day, although it can be a fabulous stress reliever and I know plenty of you know that. But you might need moments of connection with your partner in order to regulate, or maybe time alone so that you can then open yourself up and be ready for connection with another. And that just all makes so much sense from a physiological point of view.

So these are the qualities that we’re going to be leaning into over the summer, confidence, connection and intimacy, joy and abundance, expansion, risk. And all of these qualities require trusting yourself which is what The Flow Collective is all about. The menstrual cycle awareness and support is only one part of it and it’s an important one. There’s so much value in understanding and working with your cycle. But it’s just one of the tools that we use.

Ultimately, I want you to just have an amazing relationship with yourself and that’s what self-trust is all about is you will treat yourself with love and compassion. And I don’t just mean when you’re having a great day or when you’re ovulating and it’s easy to feel good about yourself. I mean when you fuck up and when you make a mistake, or when you behave in a way that isn’t really how you’d like to be, like maybe snapping at your kids or your friend.

And it means being able to take care of your own needs and safety. Instead of going through life trying to control everyone else around you so that you can feel okay. And that means other people can give you feedback, and you can actually hear it and take in what they’re saying. Imagine your boss or your partner telling you something that’s important for you to hear. But you don’t go to defensiveness or complete collapse. You can stay present in the conversation because you can create safety for yourself.

And then you can get curious about what they’re saying, and you may not agree with them. But you can stay present and be connected to yourself and the conversation. This is what I want for all of you. And we’re ready to welcome you. So come and join us, come, and join the party. You can use the link in the show notes or go to maisiehill.com and head to The Flow Collective tab. The doors are closing on Monday the 20th, so this is your chance to join us this summer.

And I really encourage you to join now because the summer solstice is the longest day of the year, but it also means that the days are about to start getting shorter. And I know that’s weird when it’s the start of the summer but for me the solstice is a great time to check-in and think ahead to those darker months and what I can do to support myself then. And this is what we do in Chinese medicine too, we always work on things, consider things as season or two in advance of that season happening where the symptoms and the issues show up.

So think about what you can do now to ensure that your autumn and winter are taken care. It’s the same in the cycle. You hear when I speak in my book about batch cooking, using some of the energy of ovulation to just get some batch cooking done so that you know you’ve got good nutritious lovely meals in your autumn. That’s what we’re talking about here.

Okay, folks, that’s it for this week, have a fantastic week and as we head into summer, I just want to invite you to blow your own mind with what’s possible for you. It’s time for you to expand, and take up space, and have some fun. I’ll see you next week.

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.