Episode 14: The Spring + Summer of Your Menstrual Cycle (Follicular and Ovulatory phases)
What if you could work with your cycle to feel more energised, creative, and aligned with your natural rhythm?
This week on Women of the Well, we’re kicking off a mini-series on the menstrual cycle with a deep dive into the follicular and ovulatory phases – the “spring” and “summer” of your cycle.
These phases are often when you feel most energised, social, and capable, making them the perfect time to focus on productivity, creativity, and connection.
Dr Thea, Dr Peta, and Sam guide you through the hormonal, physical, and emotional shifts of these phases, sharing practical ways to harness your natural energy and embrace a cyclical approach to life.
Please note: we apologise for the sound quality in parts of this episode, we are working on a fix and should have this sorted soon!
Listen to discover:
🌿 How rising oestrogen levels influence your mood, energy, and creativity – and why the follicular phase is often the “go-getter” time of the cycle.
🌿 How tuning into your cycle can help you work smarter, not harder, and bring more balance to your life.
🌿 The physical and emotional shifts that occur during ovulation – from peak energy to the occasional emotional overwhelm.
🌿 Why you might feel more spontaneous desire around ovulation and how this connects to your hormones and emotional state.
🌿 How to align your tasks, projects, and self-care with your natural rhythm.
🎧 Tune in now to find out how to embrace the energy and possibility of these phases.
Resources and Recommendations:
🌳 Unlocking the Power of Your Cycle Course: A comprehensive online program (guided by Dr Peta Wright) to help you understand and optimise your cycle – with education, tools, and practices to support you throughout the month.
📖 Florence Given’s Book – Women Living Deliciously: A bold and empowering guide to embracing self-expression, living deliciously, and doing life on your terms.
🌟 Stardust App: A menstrual cycle tracking app that aligns your cycle with the phases of the moon and provides personalised insights that your partner can access too.
We would love to hear from you.
If you have any questions about you’d like us to answer on a future episode of the podcast, please email them to hello@verawellness.com.au or contact us on Instagram @verawellness.com.au.
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Episode transcript:
Ep 14 – The Spring + Summer of Your Menstrual Cycle (Follicular and Ovulatory phases)
[00:00:00] Thea: Hello, and welcome to Women of the Well, the podcast for Vera Wellness. I'm Thea Bowler, and I'm Sam Lindsay-German. Welcome. Today we're going to do the first in a series of thinking about the menstrual cycle, thinking about the different phases of the menstrual cycle, what's happening physiologically and hormonally, what's happening emotionally, spiritually.
[00:01:19] Thea: And how we can really tune into ourselves throughout the cycle and I guess learn to optimize our cycle, for the lives that we lead and truly learn to live cyclically. when we talk about the menstrual cycle, it's important to say that we will feel the hormonal shifts of the cycle if we're not on contraception.
[00:01:43] Thea: So most of the contraceptives, that are taken orally or the implant on the bar in the arm or the depo, the injection in the arm will switch off all of these hormones, which is fine. Like for a lot of people, that is fine. What works for them, that is what really helps and that's 100 percent fine.
[00:02:00] Thea: But I guess what we're talking about here is a cycle that isn't switched off by hormones. So either someone who's not on contraception at all, or someone who might have an IUD. Because typically, for most people, the IUDs can lessen or switch off bleeding, but they don't switch off the hormones that are on contraception.
[00:02:18] Sam: , is that like a Mirena? Yes. Okay, is that what it's called? Yes. Yeah, when people talk about that, I often wonder what impact does that have on what you feel in the cycle. And so that would work the same as contraception or not as much?
[00:02:32] Thea: Not as much. No. So for most people, it can, for some people can switch off the hormonal cycle. So the switch off the ovaries making the monthly hormones, but for the majority of people, it doesn't. So we still have a hormonal cycle going on in the background. It's just that the IUD The marina or the chylina thins the lining of the endometrium so that there's not as much to bleed each month.
[00:02:57] Thea: So it affects bleeding that way, but it doesn't turn off the hormone in the background. should we talk about why we feel so passionately about?
[00:03:04] Sam: Well,
[00:03:04] Thea: I think what's very insightful.
[00:03:05] Sam: Yeah, exactly. Well as you were talking I was thinking if any of the women who have been listening to the podcast who thought wow, you know from all the stuff We've been talking about I want to try Coming off my contraception of choice.
[00:03:18] Sam: And then they start to go into having a menstrual cycle. It can be a bit of a shock. I've definitely sat with some women who've been shocked to have to come back to that. that can be scary in itself when we've forgotten. So I think it's, really important that we discuss this because it's something we don't discuss very often.
[00:03:38] Sam: And certainly when women are choosing. To change the way that they have been stopping their period or slowing everything down or changing the way they're caring for themselves to be more of a natural way. It's just important to understand that yes, this is what your body naturally has to go through, but it is quite challenging.
[00:03:59] Thea: It is when you haven't
[00:04:00] Sam: felt it for a while.
[00:04:01] Thea: No, that's right. Like I think to be in a female body, as we've said before, it's to be in a really, really dynamic system. We are every month, growing an egg, right? Preparing the lining of the uterus for the possibility of a pregnancy and then letting all of that go.
[00:04:17] Thea: that's metabolically demanding, that requires huge hormonal shifts across the month. And those hormonal shifts have real impact on our emotions, on our energy levels, on our metabolism and how we relate to the world. And you're right, when that has all been turned off for a period of time, the sensations that we feel in our body when they come back online again can be really, really significant, and I will always say that to my patients, you know, if someone's looking at stopping the pill, I will always say, you're going to feel your hormones and it's going to feel like a lot particularly that luteal phase, late luteal phase in the lead into a period, you know, when we often feel, you know, the dark side of the moon, the other side of the wonderful hormones that we have you know, that can often feel distressing, but it often is something that gets better with time.
[00:05:07] Thea: Okay.
[00:05:08] Sam: so today we're going to sort of start at that point after we've finished bleeding. So the point in which the bleed has ended. And that we're just starting that process. So I love to think about this as being the new moon time. So in relation to the moon, so those women that are no longer bleeding, we can still really relate to a lot of what we're talking about today.
[00:05:32] Sam: Not from an actual hormonal point of view, moving through the body, but just from an understanding of, or I can still relate to. experience these emotions with the waxing and waning of the moon. Absolutely. And that's really nice to know because, well, there is studies, I believe, to show that actually connecting to the moon and getting back in connection to watching the waxing and waning of the moon can help to regulate our cycle.
[00:05:56] Sam: Absolutely. With that connected. Yeah,
[00:05:58] Thea: absolutely. And I mean, that would be the thing that I absolutely love the most is the way that our cycles. truly provide proof that we are nature, you know, like it ties us into the tides and the phases of the moon and the seasons. And I think it really like, is so grounding in that, realizing that we are of the earth.
[00:06:22] Thea: And I love that about it. I think if anyone is contemplating, really getting to know their sacral, I would say that's probably to me, the most beautiful thing about it.
[00:06:30] Sam: Absolutely. And that's not to say though, that if you're not bleeding like on a new moon, that's not to say there's a problem with that because some women bleed on a new womb, some women bleed on, um, you moon or anywhere in between.
[00:06:42] Sam: It's just that we tend to move. Cyclically, so we can feel that waxing and waning within ourselves.
[00:06:51] Thea: And it's beautiful. Like, I can't remember where I was, I was somewhere recently and there was a postmenopausal lady and someone asked her where she was in her cycle and she said, Oh, I'm with the moon.
[00:07:01] Thea: And with the moon. And so wherever the moon was at that point, that's where she was. And it was really beautiful. Yeah. It we do a really quick summary of the menstrual cycle as a whole. Yeah, sure. Do you think? That's a great idea. And then we'll hone I guess what we term spring and summer, but that kind of late follicular when we're growing our egg to ovulation to the post ovulatory week is what we'll talk about today.
[00:07:24] Thea: And then we'll talk about the menstrual phase and the premenstrual phase. In another episode. Yeah. But basically we say that our cycle starts on the first day of bleeding. and while we're bleeding, our hormones, estrogen and progesterone are very low. Often we feel quiet, introspective, dreamy. We want to move less.
[00:07:44] Thea: and while we're bleeding, our body starts to recruit a whole lot of little eggs on the ovary. And we usually start to grow anywhere between sort of 10, 15. We'll all begin the process of responding to the hormones that are coming from the brain. And all start to grow. One will eventually win the race and ovulate and the rest will regress away.
[00:08:04] Thea: But we start that process of growing eggs while we're bleeding. And the process of growing eggs on the ovary makes estrogen. And so estrogen begins to rise, not so much during our bleed, but in the end. And then certainly after our bleeds finished, we have really increasing estrogen levels and estrogen increases the serotonin receptor in our brain.
[00:08:24] Thea: So it increases the activity of serotonin, which is one of those very positive neurotransmitters that makes us feel social, energetic, motivated. Like, we really just want to be out there in the world. And we'll often refer to this phase of the cycle as spring. So, period is winter, and then our hormones are starting to rise.
[00:08:43] Thea: We're coming back into the world. Emerging out of our cave and estrogens rising. Eventually estrogen reaches a peak and that's all involved in a cascade of hormonal events that leads to ovulation. So we've grown our egg and we've made our follicle around our egg, which is a little cyst containing all the beautiful growth factors and everything that are bathing our egg.
[00:09:03] Thea: And then we open the wall of that little cyst and we release the egg. Which is why sometimes we can get pain at ovulation because we're making lots of little inflammatory messengers, cytokines that open the wall of that follicle. And then we're releasing fluid into the pelvis that can irritate the nerves in the lining of the pelvis.
[00:09:22] Thea: So often at ovulation, when we have really high estrogen also helped along by a little surge of testosterone made by the ovaries at that time. And the purpose of The testosterone is to make us want to have sex when we're releasing our egg. It's nature's way of helping us to get pregnant every month.
[00:09:38] Thea: so we have peak estrogen plus a little surge of testosterone, which adds to that really motivated, really energized kind of feeling. Often people say they feel like they're on a bit of a high around ovulation and we can talk more about that. And then after we release our egg, we make a little cyst called a corpus luteum where the egg came from.
[00:09:55] Thea: And the corpus luteum controls the second half of the cycle, which is all about preparing the lining of the uterus for a pregnancy. So the corpus luteum makes more oestrogen and a big surge of progesterone. And oestrogen continues to do its serotonin thing in the brain.
[00:10:09] Thea: Progesterone increases GABA receptors in the brain, and GABA is more of a Calming anxiety reducing, sleep promoting sort of hormone, but estrogen and progesterone working together often make us feel abundant, giving, connected. We want to, be really connected within our circles, within our communities.
[00:10:29] Thea: The corpus luteum makes those hormones certainly for that first week after ovulation, and then it starts to regress away. And by 14 days after ovulation, it's gone. But as that little cyst starts to regress away, our estrogen and progesterone levels come over the hill and start to fall and we get the withdrawal of their beneficial effects on the brain.
[00:10:50] Thea: So that's the week that we can start to feel crunchy, crackly, more irritable, more quick to anger, often feel like a bit of a cloud descends and we can feel a bit black and a bit low. We want to eat more. We want to move less. And then we move into the lowest ebb of our hormones, the nadir of our hormones, which triggers shedding of the lining and we're back at the start again, starting anew.
[00:11:13] Sam: as we were talking, I was thinking, yeah, it's such a loss each month. Even if we're not trying to get pregnant.
[00:11:19] Sam: No. Our body really is. Our body's
[00:11:21] Thea: trying
[00:11:21] Sam: hard, yeah. And that's all it wants to do. it's almost like it's slightly going,
[00:11:26] Thea: uh.
[00:11:26] Sam: Yeah. You know, and I was just contemplating. how much we don't, appreciate or respect that or love
[00:11:34] Thea: that
[00:11:34] Sam: or, yeah.
[00:11:35] Thea: Well, Lucy Peach talks about that, but like, you know, when we start our bleed, it is that real letting go, you know, we're letting go of the possibility of life for
[00:11:45] Sam: that
[00:11:45] Thea: month.
[00:11:46] Sam: it's one of those things, again, in our society, we just don't talk about it like that. So therefore we can't actually really. speak to what it is that we're feeling at that time. No, that's right. But we can talk about that when we come to that part of the cycle.
[00:12:00] Thea: Yeah.
[00:12:01] Sam: But today we're on the,
[00:12:02] Thea: today we're on the shiny, like celebrity, red Ferrari part of the cycle.
[00:12:07] Sam: And we're on, we're on the maiden voyage. there is, An infinite amount of possibility and it's all there ready. That's right. And how that feels. And there definitely is.
[00:12:19] Sam: I even notice there's such a shift that occurs even once the bleed actually comes. And then once you get to that point where mine bleed doesn't last very long anymore, I don't know, how long is yours?
[00:12:31] Thea: about five days. But you I know what you're saying, which is that like you have the bleed bleed.
[00:12:35] Sam: Yeah.
[00:12:36] Thea: And then you're still in the dream.
[00:12:37] Sam: Yeah.
[00:12:38] Thea: And then suddenly you do get that feeling of like rebirth, reawakening. And
[00:12:44] Sam: you start to feel good. You just start to go, Oh, that's right. The sun's shining. Yes.
[00:12:49] Thea: Even though it's always been sunny.
[00:12:51] Sam: Yeah, exactly. So we, we start that kind of, Sun is shining everything's starting to happen again.
[00:12:59] Thea: Yeah,
[00:12:59] Sam: and we start to feel Hopeful and more energy and more vibrancy. Yes I think one of the things that I noticed the most is I actually Really start to notice physically I can start to do a bit
[00:13:12] Thea: more Absolutely. Yes. So this is the time when we'll feel like we can exercise more.
[00:13:18] Sam: And that's because of estrogen coming back in.
[00:13:20] Sam: Yeah. Yeah. The effect
[00:13:21] Thea: of the estrogen. And we often feel, you know, like we've almost been in a cave and we're coming out of the cave and we can start to do, and that might be doing in exercise, but it might be doing in life.
[00:13:32] Sam: That's right.
[00:13:33] Thea: Tasks.
[00:13:33] Sam: So this is the time when, if we were living a cyclical life.
[00:13:38] Sam: This is really the point where we start to make a plan for our month ahead. This is the point where we would start to maybe set a to do list, because we would feel that that would be possible. I mean, a page of to do is possible as the oestrogen is rising. It is, yes. so if we were going to go here,
[00:13:57] Thea: Here's some
[00:13:58] Sam: oestrogen.
[00:14:00] Sam: It will do this, this, and this for you. What's its magic?
[00:14:03] Thea: Well, I think it's different for every person but typically, you know, as we talked about oestrogen is acting at the serotonin receptor in the brain. And so serotonin is making us feel capable, motivated energized and, um, and Physically, the other thing that oestrogen does is it helps our muscles to work better, helps our joints to work better.
[00:14:24] Thea: And certainly, you know, there are studies in female athletes to show that injuries are more likely in times when oestrogen is lower. Yeah. Okay. we can do a page of to do lists in this phase. And so if you have things in life that you can plan. And you have a cycle that you can plan around, aiming to do those more challenging tasks in that time can be something that's worth doing.
[00:14:51] Sam: That's right. We really have that kind of two week window. After our bleed where let's look at it from a sort of work point of view, if we were going to do it that way, I could say, right, I'm going to really work on this project for two weeks. And my hormones are going to support me during that time in the same way that my body is preparing.
[00:15:11] Sam: to make a baby, I can use that same surge of energy to create whatever it is I want to create in the world. Whether it's to tidy my whole house or, pitch something to a new client, whatever it is, that's the time to be doing it.
[00:15:26] Thea: Absolutely. And it's not to say we can't do things at other times of the month, but harnessing that energy when you can, can be really cool.
[00:15:33] Thea: I mean, I don't have a cycle that can. be as regular as that. But I do notice that I feel really happy when challenging things fall in that time of the month. Peter said before she's got to do a talk this weekend. And she said, well, it's great because I've just realized I'll be ovulating when I'm doing the talk.
[00:15:49] Thea: And that's always a very reassuring
[00:15:51] Peta: thing.
[00:15:51] Thea: And so as we move towards ovulation, we should also say that like, We move towards ovulation and we have peak estrogen and testosterone, but some people actually can feel almost a sense of like agitation and anxiety at this time. it's almost like it's too much.
[00:16:07] Sam: I'm pretty sure I get a bit like that, or have in the past, not so much as now. you know, I might describe it, or would have described it previous to wanting to use those words now, but PMT ish at that time. What is that? That's the testosterone mixed with a surge of estrogen.
[00:16:22] Peta: think it's probably two things. Like one, I feel like the estrogen rising idea said that can be excitatory for some people because it can increase serotonin and be really excitatory. Like you feel like you're on a different plane of operating. And then I think There's a big link between developmental trauma and the sensitivity of our hormone receptors in our brain, and if our hormone receptors are super sensitive, even the rise in hormone levels or the change, the fluctuation can be enough to feel agitating or like unsettling.
[00:16:52] Peta: And then after ovulation, we get a little dip in estrogen before it comes up again. And I think some people are very sensitive to that dip. And that almost feels more like PMT or like, you know, really, post ovulation homicidal rage day.
[00:17:08] Peta: Um, because it's just like this, It's all been really good and then I can't stand anyone. And I think it's that dip in the oestrogen, so serotonin is coming down and it's kind of happening before progesterone is rising to sort of increase GABA and the oestrogen is rising again.
[00:17:27] Peta: So there's a couple of days on the other side of ovulation.
[00:17:30] Sam: Can you just talk about when you said Mine isn't as regular as that for me to clock that. What do you mean by that? Because there must be other people have the same as that.
[00:17:38] Thea: I just don't have a clockwork cycle. Like sometimes it can be 26 days.
[00:17:42] Thea: Sometimes it can be 30. Even 31 days which is normal but it means that you can't really plan around it as well.
[00:17:50] Sam: Yeah. But that's really good to say because it's normal that it doesn't have to be that clockwork.
[00:17:56] Thea: No.
[00:17:56] Sam: Because I think we are sort of told. To try and be clockwork. Women aren't clockwork.
[00:18:01] Sam: That's a very good statement to make. We don't rely on clocks. In fact, we don't believe in time. No, that's right. Only the moon. Yes. How do you feel
[00:18:12] Thea: at ovulation?
[00:18:13] Sam: I'm not even entirely sure if I am ovulating anymore.
[00:18:17] Sam: Maybe I must be because I'm still bleeding, but it's not really the same sort of bleed as I know. So it's a bit, it's a bit interesting. I used to get a lot of pain before. So I would know that I was ovulating because I would have extreme pain. And when I say extreme, it felt quite extreme to me. I would actually struggle to walk, but always when I was trying to get pregnant, I never really minded and I would just be like, this is good.
[00:18:39] Sam: Like having sex at that time would be painful, but a good pain, because I knew what I wanted to have sex and I knew I was ovulating, but it was just one of those things. So I always had that as I was, yeah. Ever since I, yeah, have been going through my sort of.
[00:18:56] Sam: Natural cycles. That's what I've experienced just up until the last couple of years. Every now and then I'll have a, and I'll go, Oh, I think that might be ovulation.
[00:19:05] Thea: What's very common in perimenopause to have. Cycles where you don't ovulate and you can still have a bleed.
[00:19:12] Sam: Yeah. But I do feel that sort of sadness of,
[00:19:15] Sam: maybe it's not there.
[00:19:15] Sam: Maybe it's not possible. Not that I want to get pregnant, but there's still that kind of, it's an interesting kind of, oh.
[00:19:22] Thea: Yes. Yeah. And what about emotionally? Do you, did you notice emotional shifts when you were ovulatory?
[00:19:28] Sam: Yes. I would definitely be a bit more like heightened and sometimes a bit aggressive, maybe a bit forceful in what I wanted, you know, sort of like, certainly when I wanted to get pregnant, I was like, we need to have sex now, you know, really interested in what you think, you know, it's that kind of forcefulness of nature that I would notice and just pushing very A desire more to push through rather than just sort of my body was maybe sort of in pain, but it wouldn't be a pain that I would want to be going.
[00:19:58] Sam: Oh, just rest.
[00:20:00] Thea: It was a
[00:20:00] Sam: kind of, quite a driving energy that I would have around that time. I think I've always felt good. And one of the things I always noticed is how much I and in struggling in my own body image through my whole life around ovulation, I've always found that my body image is much better and I can acknowledge that my body looks better around that time.
[00:20:20] Thea: Interesting, isn't it? we love the feeling of having those hormones around, you know, and it was interesting cause I was listening to Lucy Peach the other day and she was interviewing Claire Baker, who's another period educator, and they were talking about how these are the weeks where patriarchy lives, you know, like these are the weeks where we are the women that are acceptable.
[00:20:45] Thea: Yes. We're the women that are doing, giving. Being everything to everyone,
[00:20:51] Sam: high achieving in all areas
[00:20:54] Thea: on, on, and not necessarily noticing or having as much attention to our own. selves, you know, we're more out would
[00:21:06] Sam: focus it definitely. We always say it's the time when you can have whatever it is that you want Because normally you are so I mean you're more attractive They I think do studies on that like the way your eyes are the way your hair is the way your skin is You're more attractive.
[00:21:21] Sam: And so you definitely know how to use that charm to get what it is that you want. So therefore it could also be that we actually are more pleasing to the male eye and can get away with things that we don't get away with normally. I think quite possibly. I think that's true.
[00:21:37] Thea: Yes. And so I think, oh sorry, I think it's, that's, it's an important thing to realize because if we are doing too much and giving too much and trying to be too much to everyone in the time where we can do that, then often we are Roll into the end of the luteal phase where our hormones do start to fall and we have nothing in the tank.
[00:22:04] Thea: We have a crash. Yes. And that time can then feel a lot worse than it might otherwise if we'd taken care of ourselves during our due phases.
[00:22:14] Peta: I also think that's really interesting what you were saying, Sam, because while it is that period of time where we are maybe more pleasing to others, I think we have to be careful that we're not doing all of the things to please others and that we're using that energy to please ourselves in that time.
[00:22:31] Peta: Yeah. And then I think that is going to work to our advantage when it comes to the next part of our cycle too, because yeah, Lucy Peach talks about those, Um, first part's being the do and the give and then the next part is being that take phase which women find very difficult to do and the resting and the emotional and getting, and having feelings about things that might not be convenient for others.
[00:22:54] Peta: Patriarchy and society in general doesn't. Particularly appreciate or find acceptable and then we internalize that and don't find it acceptable in ourselves. And then there's so much repression.
[00:23:05] Sam: as you were talking, I just thought, yeah, I don't think I ever really thought about that when I was in the peak of my cycling. I'm pretty sure it would have just been a swing from one phase to another.
[00:23:16] Sam: And that's interesting, but I also feel what you just said is really powerful because yes. What would that mean if we were able to do everything? What would it mean if we did something for ourselves?
[00:23:30] Peta: Well, you know what it reminds me of? Like the embodiment of this concept would be a woman called Florence Given. she's a, uh, an author and she's written some really amazing books, but she's just this incredible young woman and she just like dresses for herself, dresses the way she wants, in like, you know, on her socials, she'll be like doing her hair and putting on like wild, Jewelry and like beautiful clothes, but just absolutely for herself for the pleasure of doing it and then the pleasure of going out and being in the world exactly as she is.
[00:24:04] Peta: And I
[00:24:05] Thea: think
[00:24:05] Peta: I'm
[00:24:05] Thea: doing things like going out specifically to buy pink flowers just to bring home and put in a vase.
[00:24:11] Peta: Yeah. Or, um, enjoying like the sensory feeling of eating an orange or Doing things that she particularly enjoys just for the deliciousness of it. Like her new book is called Women Living Deliciously and I think it's just like the perfect book.
[00:24:27] Thea: but you're right, like that is the perfect embodiment of the spring and the summer phases or the do and the give phases, which is, we can be vibrant. We can be out there in the world. We can be doing things for other people, but we can have those snippets of pleasure just for ourselves
[00:24:40] Peta: and do it in our own way.
[00:24:42] Peta: Yes. We can do all the things, but we can do it In a way that feels true and authentic and alive for us, rather than, wearing the suit and the corporate where it does it for you. That's also amazing, but you can do it the way you want to do it the way that makes you feel alive and, bringing that creativity and that spark into your day. Yes, the sparkle. Yeah, the deliciousness. And if anyone hasn't heard of her, they have to look her up on Instagram immediately and they'll know exactly what we think, what we mean by this. Yeah. She's
[00:25:12] Thea: very inspiring. She has
[00:25:14] Peta: bright pink
[00:25:14] Thea: hair, which I love.
[00:25:15] Peta: And
[00:25:16] Sam: wonderful. And yet. Also quite challenging.
[00:25:19] Peta: Well, it's where we can have the courage to be authentically ourselves. If we understand this, or even given that we're just actually speaking these words but I think when we live in a society that actually doesn't work by any of us being authentically ourselves and actively by women not being authentically themselves.
[00:25:38] Peta: It's a really challenging concept.
[00:25:41] Thea: I also think living cyclically really helps because when you Have gone through the autumn, gone through the winter, you've been inside you've felt the, you know, crunchy feelings, and then you've come back to life in the follicular phase in the spring. That's almost like more joyful, you know, that sense of like, Oh, it's me again.
[00:26:03] Thea: Here I am. I'm back in the world and being able to really harness those feelings and sensations in our body to be authentically ourselves, I think is really cool. Yeah.
[00:26:14] Peta: Did you talk about some of the physical sensations with You did talk about your experience, Sam, but with ovulation and why that is, yeah, you talked
[00:26:22] Thea: about that.
[00:26:22] Thea: Yeah. Yeah. Releasing egg. the other thing I wanted to touch on is libido in the cycle because lots and lots of women come to see us about libido and we will have a whole episode on that. But I think, some women will say, well, I never want to spontaneously Unless I'm ovulating.
[00:26:38] Thea: Have sex. Except for weirdly once a month. And that, I think, is entirely normal. So when we think about hormonally what's going on with the rise in estrogen plus the testosterone that we get at ovulation, for women that's actually naturally the time when we will want to initiate sex, that was the word I was trying to think of where we will actually have more of that spontaneous desire, more of that desire to initiate sex.
[00:27:01] Thea: And that's really normal, hormonally, for women.
[00:27:05] Sam: The other stage in the cycle that I always notice that I want to have sex is before I bleed, which I think is my, because my body knows it can't get pregnant. And I feel like it knows it's safe, which I think must be kind of primal as well.
[00:27:18] Sam: or is that a different hormone? No,
[00:27:19] Peta: I think it totally is that. And I get that too. And I also think it's like the. increased feeling like it's another reason why when you think about pain and pressure being contextual right I think those that crampy feeling before your period as well it can also if you know that it's a safe feeling it's your body doing its job it can also So it felt like this sort of pressure that's like an awareness that brings your awareness to that part of your body that maybe isn't there in other parts of the month.
[00:27:50] Peta: And I think that's part of the reason why, like, I feel like I want to have sex more at that time.
[00:27:55] Thea: I also feel like really alone in the world and like the world is dark and I want some, touch and comfort and companionship. I think that. It's part of that
[00:28:03] Sam: as
[00:28:03] Thea: well.
[00:28:04] Sam: it's interesting, isn't it? To think. About that and just going back to you know, the ovulation, the truth of the fact is that we want to have sex because we're
[00:28:14] Thea: ovulating.
[00:28:16] Sam: And that is actually what we're designed to be doing. And so it's actually correct that that's the time that we would want to have sex and it's not correct that we, Really would have the same desire when we're actually just preparing to get to that point.
[00:28:31] Sam: It's kind of like it would be a waste of our body's energy to be going through the process of doing that before it actually reaches the peak of its readiness state. I think that's one of the things I'm just saying.
[00:28:45] Sam: We. change, we shift, we have a change in our surge of hormones, and we only get that testosterone boost once a month.
[00:28:53] Sam: Whereas they have that all the time. All the
[00:28:55] Peta: time. 24 7. And that's the problem, is that the standard has been measured against men who have a completely different hormonal cycle.
[00:29:01] Peta: So
[00:29:01] Sam: It's like, we've got, this is a really nice thing. I was thinking of this for your partners. There's two weeks to court you, sort of a week of a half of courting. So if you are communicating with your partner, this is the end of my bleed.
[00:29:14] Sam: It's almost like if you had this on the fridge, he could actually see the window, which is around that day 12, where you're going to start. I don't know, moving slightly differently and feeling
[00:29:26] Thea: juicy.
[00:29:27] Sam: Yeah. And if he had been buying some flowers and some mangoes for you or whatever is your thing, You're going to be juicy and ready for that time. But it's like we need courting, which has always been a thing, rather than it being all the time and quickies all the time. We actually want that courting, and that's what that lead up to ovulation really can be. It's like that beautiful preparation, and that can be in a It's very, yeah,
[00:29:52] Thea: it's so beautiful.
[00:29:53] Thea: And the problem is that the world doesn't appreciate anything about
[00:29:58] Sam: this cyclical way of living. It doesn't appreciate waiting. We want everything now. And the point is we ovulate once a month and then we have to wait for the next great moment that it comes. And if we could actually start to appreciate that, we could really be in that moment.
[00:30:16] Sam: Here is that moment. And then it's gone. But we know it's going to come again until it doesn't sadly. But there we go.
[00:30:23] Peta: But that's the beauty of that cyclical way and the feeling like you have to do everything now, put so much pressure on our bodies and our nervous systems which make us completely stressed and dysregulated and not want to have sex as well.
[00:30:37] Peta: So that's Before we just completely change the topic into libido, which we're going to do a whole episode on, I was going to say another really cool thing about the follicular phase coming up to ovulation is our capacity for dealing with things, is increased or improved, but also like I wear this aura ring that tracks lots of things, and I find that so my heart rate variability, which is that marker of how well you're coping with stress, is always higher in my follicular phase.
[00:31:08] Peta: And I just love it, like it's just kind of cool science just to see that that's the case, like we actually have more capacity, more resilience during that phase and the second half of the cycle. And I think when you know that as well, it really does help you to plan, get things done at that first half of the cycle and then be compassionate to your body in the second half when you biologically are not as wired to cope with those things.
[00:31:33] Peta: And so you do need more nurturing.
[00:31:35] Thea: Absolutely. Like, I just think it's so cool.
[00:31:37] Peta: It's
[00:31:37] Thea: so cool. And that's why, like, I think cyclical living is so amazing because it does give you that compassion for yourself and it enables you to, hold the dark and the light, hold the energy and the fatigue, hold the happiness and the sadness all within yourself.
[00:31:53] Peta: And the just awareness leads you to notice what you're feeling in your body. notice the changes, sit with it without feeling alarmed be with it. And that is essentially regulating our nervous system. Every time we do that, every time we turn inward and just notice. And that is kind of what The world needs I just really want to say that even some people might be listening to this and think it's exactly where it is like living cyclically.
[00:32:22] Peta: It's just all some ridiculous head in the clouds philosophy that doesn't mean anything and isn't important, but it's really. It's just the noticing the impermanence of everything, and it's actually so important for our nervous systems. And also, I will say we are 50 percent of the population, and both men and women, as Sam alluded to, would be happier, and better off if we were able to sit and pay attention and work around what's actually happening biologically for us, rather than this complete out of alignment, out of balance way we're living.
[00:32:59] Sam: I think one of the things that's important, and we sort of spoke about this at the beginning, when the light starts to come back after. You know, we finished our bleed. We start to feel that lightness and that, that lifting, and this is the importance of being present with what we're experiencing then is that we understand that things pass because we have a tendency to sit and dwell.
[00:33:23] Sam: That's why it's never a good thing to have deep and meaningful conversations late into the night as a woman, because we'll go really deep and dark, we always really start to see things differently in the light of the morning. And so it's important. That's what we're experiencing at the beginning of that cycle.
[00:33:37] Sam: We see the light of the day and we go, there's possibility, there's hope it will change, I will evolve. And so in that we can really recognize that yes, our moods. Shift and change, and that we don't tend to stay in that same state for four weeks or 28 days or 32 days. We don't tend to, but also on that, it means that say you do start to see that over a period of three months, that your mood has stayed the same for, The whole of your cycle, if you're not on any contraception, then you can actually go with hand on heart and say, do need some help.
[00:34:15] Sam: There's something not right because I'm not seeing the fluctuations. Those fluctuations let us know things will pass and we will go down, we will go up and that's part of our natural cycle.
[00:34:26] Thea: And
[00:34:26] Sam: when we can work with that, That is going to give us the whole freedom as you're saying to actually be in our absolute truth, to be able to achieve what it is we want to achieve, resting at the time when we need to have rest.
[00:34:41] Sam: So we can really be fully functioning, but that's incredibly hard and would take, and when we say hard, I mean, it's hard to communicate to people that don't understand. So the more people that have the conversation like this, and that's why I always say with women who have corporate jobs, I talk to them about, start planning your diary around your cycle.
[00:35:01] Sam: Start saying, in your diary with your EA, I actually need to program in some time when I have some quiet time. These two weeks are really good for us to do a launch. This is a great time for me to do a talk.
[00:35:14] Sam: So If we start to work in that way, we will naturally also be educating others.
[00:35:20] Thea: educating the world, because what the world needs is not constant growth. It's not constant activity. It's not constant productivity. World doesn't need to be in spring and summer perpetually, but actually to appreciate that there can be cycles of rest, cycles of times when the fields are fallows, you know, cycles of times where.
[00:35:43] Thea: We're not growing and producing and that's okay.
[00:35:46] Sam: It is okay. But also 50 percent of the population are happy to keep doing that anyway.
[00:35:52] Thea: Let's let
[00:35:52] Sam: them. Yes, but we don't have to, I think that's the big thing. There is 50 percent of the population ready to just keep going the whole time.
[00:36:01] Thea: But I even think that's extreme.
[00:36:02] Thea: I even think there are a lot of men who would appreciate.
[00:36:05] Sam: the menstrual cycle to some degree, to feel permission. Don't they have that within their lifestyle? Well, they have that on the weekends. I mean, that's like, theirs goes over that whole life cycle, rather than ours being those little monthly cycles.
[00:36:21] Sam: And so, in a life cycle of the masculine, we can see that there is a dip in the testosterone, which should afford that opportunity to go more into that quieter season. Yes. If allowed to. Yep. And so I think it's just that understanding. We don't all have to be the same and not all women have to be the same.
[00:36:39] Sam: So our way of exploring the cycle might not be the same and it's all beautiful and wonderful, but it's that understanding that we're all individual. But. That part of the reason that we're all individual and that we all change is because of our hormone cycles. And it's
[00:36:54] Thea: just a real lesson in getting to know yourself, getting to know your body and like you said, Peter, really learning to sit with what is.
[00:37:02] Thea: And sit with any discomfort, sit with the good and the bad, knowing that it's not permanent.
[00:37:07] Peta: And then learning from what comes up. That's right. And you know, then you have the power to change something that you've noticed doesn't serve you.
[00:37:13] Peta: the other thing that would be good as you're talking about the chart for the man to court the woman in the follicular vase. Have you mentioned Stardust?
[00:37:21] Thea: No, but I was going to say that because I really wanted to say that because I feel like My husband is like the biggest fan of Stardust.
[00:37:30] Thea: So this is this app which we all discovered and we all are on here. It's not an ad, we just randomly discovered it and it's incredible. You track your menstrual cycle, it also shows where your menstrual cycle is with the phases of the moon.
[00:37:43] Peta: Good for witchy people like us. Great for
[00:37:45] Thea: witchy people. It also tells you the meaning of like when you bleed, so if you bleed with the full moon, or if you bleed with the new moon, or anywhere in between, it kind of gives you some meaning about that.
[00:37:54] Thea: And you can sync with your friends and colleagues. But it's, but it's lovely because then you can see when each other is bleeding and you can see when each other needs more TLC, more chocolate, more yoga, whatever it might be. It tells you, uh, partner.
[00:38:09] Sam: Well, yes, this
[00:38:10] Thea: is the most important thing. So I have a husband who's a doctor who has said to me before, what are you kidding?
[00:38:16] Thea: 50 percent of the population is experiencing this. I do not believe that. And I was like, well, that's true. And still like I've been a gynecologist for many years, still disbelieving until he got the Stardust app. Funnily enough, it was an app. that made him believe in what was going on in my body, but nonetheless, he now will like, send me little messages like, this is how you're feeling today, isn't it?
[00:38:40] Thea: I hope you're okay. Like more cuddles. And I think it really helps for them to understand, okay, this is when the hormones are rising. This might be a time that you might be more receptive to like physical intimacy and so on and so forth. That has definitely been a very profound shift as well as him being really attuned to my luteal phase and really like really sensitive about it now, just from, yeah.
[00:39:07] Thea: And
[00:39:07] Peta: you don't have to, well it's good because you don't even have to ask. No, you don't have to ask. My husband took my child away for an entire day, which was, would have been my like day 28, the day before I got my period, took the child to the circus and I didn't see them until 5 o'clock and it was just, I didn't have to ask him and he came home and he probably made dinner it helps them because then they feel like they're really helping you as well.
[00:39:31] Peta: And
[00:39:31] Thea: they understand you. Yeah,
[00:39:33] Peta: it's so, so good. And yeah, it's the best. Everyone needs to download Start Us. We have no affiliation, but it's a wonderful thing to, again, to communicate, to start speaking this language because the more we speak about it, the, greater understanding and the greater joy and
[00:39:49] Peta: that can be in the
[00:39:50] Sam: world.
[00:39:50] Sam: Yes. All right. Let's finish just by. Peter saying what her ovulatory stage feels like today.
[00:39:58] Peta: I feel like sometimes when I'm leading up to ovulation, I think I have to get all the things done because I know on the other side it's gonna be bumpier. So there's like, I need to have the time to get the things done but I'm feeling like I have actually done that and I've made use of that time. And yeah, so I'm presenting a talk on the weekend. I just kind of feel that, like, it's nice knowing that my hormones are on my side, if nothing else, and so it just Gives me more power to stand in the truth of my words is how I feel It's like this little confidence boost I think it's also going to be a full moon like a super moon or something How perfect a moon on a Saturday?
[00:40:39] Peta: Mmm, so hopefully it won't be a terrible talk. It's all aligned. Yeah, well the moon and the menstrual cycle, so it has to be good. Yes, so I think that was a really good exercise. exploration of this first half of the cycle. And we will be back to talk about the second half, which, although different in terms of its challenges can be equally as beautiful and definitely gets a bad rap that we want to Cast a different light on and in the meantime, you can find us on Instagram at VeraWellness. com. au. You can email us any questions at hello at VeraWellness. com and you can also go on our website, which is VeraWellness. com. au. And we have some resources. Um, we have this beautiful course called un Unlock the Power of Your Cycle, which takes you through all of the phases of the menstrual cycle with all the education, knowledge resources and practices to help support you.
[00:41:37] Peta: So if you're wanting to know more, you can find some useful information there.
[00:41:42] Thea: See you next time. Bye.
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DISCLAIMER:
This podcast is for information and educational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
