WITH MELISSA RODRIGUEZ
“And we’ve been told by society, and by so much of the personal development world as well, and personal finance, we’re told to be perfectly consistent in that have a perfect morning routine, and have certain actions, just decide the actions that you need to take on a daily basis and repeat day in and day out until you get results. It’s a very masculine approach. And for most women, it doesn’t work.”
About This Episode:
Do you feel like you’re always working against the flow? As women we’ve been taught to work in a world designed for men. And that does not always work with how a woman’s body functions. Today I’m chatting about our menstrual cycles and how we can work in ease and flow when it comes to syncing our business with our cycle.
Melissa Rodriguez is a Cycle Syncing Biz Coach. She helps female entrepreneurs lead with more ease, fun, and flow by syncing their life with their cycle.
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Transcript
Andrea Crisp 0:00
Today we're talking about a whole new way to approach your business, and that is through understanding your body by syncing your cycle with your business. And my friend, you are going to love this episode with Melissa Rodriguez. So get ready to learn how you can start understanding your body and listening to your body more so that you can be more productive, and have more ease and flow in your life.
Melissa Rodriguez 0:30
So much of it is worthiness and worthiness around what work justifies certain results. And we've been told by society, and by so much of the personal development world as well, and personal finance, we're told to be perfectly consistent in that have a perfect morning routine, and have certain actions, just decide the actions that you need to take on a daily basis and repeat day in and day out until you get results. It's a very masculine approach. And for most women, it doesn't work.
Kate 1:01
You're listening to The Couragecast a show to equip and empower women to live bravely. Each week we'll share coaching conversations and stories of women who are willing to face their fear and pursue their purpose. Here's your host, life coach, author and your secret weapon.
Andrea Crisp 1:17
Hey there, welcome to The Couragecast. My name is Andrea Crisp, and I am your host. And friend, do I ever have a treat for you today. We are going to be chatting with Melissa Rodriguez, who is a cycle syncing business coach, which we're going to get into and you are going to love her. Honestly, this has been one of the most pivotal things that I have done for myself in the past few months, which is taking a look at how my body is working, how it is designed, and how I can move in ease and flow in my life and business when I am taking a look at my menstrual cycle. That is not anything I thought I would ever talk about here on The Couragecast. But here we are. And you know what I've realized that our bodies are so beautiful and created so intricately. And really, we are working on a cycle that is different than men or those that don't don't have a cycle. And so we have to learn how to work with our bodies. And, you know, really lean into those energies that fuel us, whether they be masculine or feminine, or even just leaning into our own divine essence, which is something I am also learning about. So you're going to love Melissa Rodriguez, you're going to love all of the things that she has to teach us today about cycle syncing about how you can do that with your business. And one of the best times for you to be planning and launching things in your life in your business. And this is what I'm working on right now in my own life and taking notes every single day about how I feel, and how creative I am and all the things. So you're gonna love this. So I'm so excited for you to meet Melissa Rodriguez.
Andrea Crisp 3:24
Melissa, thank you for joining me on The Couragecast today. I'm super thrilled actually to have you back. Not only were you a guest already, but I lost the episode. And you so graciously are back joining me from Spain to chat with me again. And so thank you for being here.
Melissa Rodriguez 3:44
Thank you so much for having me. I am, I'm sure the universe had its reasons. Although I can imagine it was still very frustrating. And apart, I'm very happy to be here talking to you again.
Andrea Crisp 3:59
So you're a cycle syncing business coach. And I have had a lot of conversations since our last one with other people who have been really you know, interested in, you know, how our cycle, you know, works with our bodies and how it works with our businesses and just all the things especially even as we age and how things are shifting and changing. And so, even since our last conversation, I have even been thinking about it more and more and more. But someone listening to this right now maybe like well, what is that? Like? What exactly is that? Like? How? So why don't you just go ahead and tell us a little bit about who you are and how you serve people in your business.
Melissa Rodriguez 4:42
Okay, amazing. I would love to. So my name is Melissa Rodriguez, and I am a serial entrepreneur. I started a few different companies in my life and currently I run a few different companies. One of them is a company in the real estate service industry in the UK. One of them is a digital marketing agency. And the other is I just said cycles syncing business coaching for female entrepreneurs who want to incorporate their cycle into their business and their lifestyle. So they can run their business with more flow, with more ease, have more productivity and basically do things and optimized time. As women, we know because we've done it that we can do things, we can do anything, right? We're superheroes, and we can do anything at any time of a month. But there's so much power in knowing which times are good for which things, and using that, leveraging that for your business.
Andrea Crisp 5:39
Now, I'm very curious, like, how did you get into this? Like, what was the catalyst for you even to become interested in, in your cycle and how it it works with your business and in yourself?
Melissa Rodriguez 5:52
Sure, okay. So I think on my path, as an entrepreneur, I definitely had a lack of feminine energy in my life. I'm also, I come from an immigrant family. I was born in Venezuela, but I grew up in the UK, my mom was also an immigrant, she, her family moved to Venezuela, from Spain, right after the Spanish Civil War. And if you if you know, any immigrants, you'll know that there's a certain kind of hustle culture. Because you know, when you move to a different country, different culture, there seems to be like this, this culture, and it's often true, they have to work harder than everyone else to get anywhere in life. Okay, so that was kind of very much ingrained in my family that was very much ingrained in the way I grew up in it, I felt that it was something that was much more prized in my family than feminine energy, and we all have masculine and feminine energies. And they work best when they're in balance, right? And I believe I, because of a myriad of different reasons, I grew up in a household with a lot of love, I felt very loved. I don't want this to sound like oh, I wasn't raised right, or anything like that. It was definitely a lot of love in my household. But I definitely felt that there was I somehow ended up with a lot of excess masculine energy, and not enough feminine energy in my life. And that was kind of leading me to burnout, to not feeling satisfied, find it very hard to be creative.
Melissa Rodriguez 7:13
And it was actually, but four or five years ago that my finances, my personal finances, were in a mess, okay? And I ended up working with a finance coach. But she wasn't just any finance coach, she was a feminine finance coach. And she taught me many things about bringing pleasure and bringing feminine energy into how you handle your finances. And one of the many strategies and tools that she introduced me was, and it wasn't something that she specialized in or anything, but she kind of said, you might want to look into working with your cycle as well, or maybe even just taking off the days that you're on your period, those cycles syncing is so much more than that. And it was her suggestion that got me reading got me investigating. And yeah, after experiencing the positive results, that brought to my life into my business, then I wanted to help other women with this too.
Andrea Crisp 8:04
You know, I find that fascinating, because, you know, when you thinking about finances, like my first natural inclination is not to think about my cycle. You know, but when we think about our, you know, our business, in our finances, you know, like, I have never really thought about that. I love that you bring up money, because I don't think about money when I think about my cycle. But it makes total sense that it would have something to do with, you know, our finances, how we feel about money, how we feel about entrepreneurship, how, you know, we are kind of living in that space. And, and so how did it? How did it shift your own view of money, and also how you were incorporating that in your life, like when you're talking to her, like, you know, implementing these strategies, you know, with your finances, and then through your business as well.
Melissa Rodriguez 9:07
Sure, so I think the key there is remembering Andrea, that we are emotional beings, okay? And although we tend to approach our businesses and our money with this, society tells us that we should approach it with this hyper rational, just make more money than you spend, just look at the numbers kind of approach. And obviously, that's important. But we must remember that we're, we're emotional beings, and generally when we have money issues, or at least it was a case for me, it wasn't a case of not knowing how to handle a spreadsheet. It was more of a case of I had limiting money beliefs that were probably related to how I viewed productivity and business in general. So there were fundamental beliefs that were affecting my money, and that were affecting my productivity. And, and the work that I did with her and the strategies that I, you know, I use with her and then with other coaches that I worked with, and the books that I read, the inner work that I did was all about going to those, those core beliefs, right, that affects every part of our business of our lives or finances. And still working on this, I'm 100%, not perfect at this, but just going going to the core of those beliefs. And so much of it is worthiness and worthiness around what work justifies certain results.
Melissa Rodriguez 10:37
And we've been told by society, and by so much of the personal development world as well, and personal finance, so many things were told to be perfectly consistent, right, perfectly consistent in that have a perfect morning routine and have certain actions, just decide the actions that you need to take on a daily basis and repeat day in and day out until you get results. It's a very masculine approach. And for most women, it doesn't work. For most women, it's especially true for men, it doesn't for a few men won't either. And maybe for some women it does, as I'm generalizing here, but for those of us who thrive off of feminine energy, it doesn't, it doesn't work, it gets to a point where we either get bored or burnt out, or simply our hormones get in the way, because our hormones affect so much about how we feel emotionally, and how we view risk and how creative we are all these things. So how can you be perfectly consistent during an average four week cycle, when you have inconsistent resources to work with? Right? It doesn't work that way. So instead of trying to be consistent with inconsistent resources, and not saying it's impossible, how about you just work out when you're going to have different resources, and sync the things that you need to do with those resources. So you're optimizing things and you also feel it's easier. Because if you're, if you're trying to be consistent, do things the same things, day in and day out. It's an uphill battle. So it's a battle against yourself.
Melissa Rodriguez 12:05
And it implies this massive lack of self awareness as well, that you're, it doesn't make sense to expect consistent results, when you don't know where you are, how you're feeling, what, where your best is going to serve that particular day. So in the same way that you probably wouldn't set a meeting at 3am, right? You wouldn't set a meeting at 3am, because you know, you know, you have a daily cycle. And that daily cycle involves hours of sleep. And during those hours of sleep, you're not particularly suited to meetings. And I'd say you could do them, you could probably do a meeting, if you set it at 3am, if you really wanted to, you could set your alarm, you could get up you could do your meeting. I'm not saying you couldn't, but what would that do to the rest of your day?
Andrea Crisp 12:47
You know, it's interesting you say that, because well, the first thing that comes to my mind is I have a voice student that I have at 7pm. And it's really funny. It's kind of like our compromise, 7pm at night, because he is a night owl. And I work in the day and he's my last student. And I never take anything usually past that time. But I noticed in the winter, I would get exhausted because his actual lesson in the winter was 7:30 to 8:30. By 8:30, I was done. I was like I'm done. You know, because I would get up early in the morning, I would have all my really good energy in the morning, I would be productive. And then I'm you know, holding off until 7:30 to actually hold one more lesson. And then feeling so exhausted and depleted. Even though he's a great kid, I love teaching him, nothing about you know whether or not you know, I want to be teaching him, it's really just my own level of energy at that time is very, very low.
Andrea Crisp 13:56
And I've even noticed, you know, because we've talked before I did a launch. Well, I did a couple of launches in a row. The people who listen to my podcast, they know that I just kind of like tell the things as I go. But I did three launches this summer. And launch number one was was kind of an organic type feel. I filled the group with eight women, it was amazing. And then the next one was following it right after right at the end. And I filled it with six and it was again it was really good. Got to third launch. I'm exhausted. I have now launched two different groups. I have spent a lot of time just doing that. But here's what happened. I got into a scarcity mindset. I got into, I need to get this done, you know, we're on a roll. I should just do it, you know, make sense. And everything on paper that would say okay, we'll launch during this time and I looked at the calendar as far as like the dates and will it match up for holidays and all these kinds of things. And I decided I was gonna launch. Well, I'm not sure what's going to happen. We still carts open for another week. But I don't have a person in it, not one.
Andrea Crisp 15:09
And the first two sold out right away. And the third did not. And, you know, so of course, my first inclination is to sit back and go, "Okay, I could easily go into that scarcity mindset again." But I also realize I'm like, "Okay, I'm obviously, what I'm putting out. Is, is not I'm not energetically aligned with it." And I feel like I wasn't paying attention to working in my masculine and feminine energy in a way that would serve me best. And so here I am, thinking, Oh, no, what have I done? And what am I going to do now? And I'm, I'm at this like, kind of crossroads, honestly, where I'm like, okay, like, I don't want to not learn the lesson. I feel like the lesson is actually more important than anything at this point. For me to go, How do I operate optimally, as best as I can really, in my own business, when I'm, you know, trying to think about my cycle, my masculine and feminine energy, and you know, especially as entrepreneurs, when we're launching programs, or we're working with clients, or we're, for me recording podcasts, or speaking events, all sorts of things like how do we where do we even begin? I mean, I know that's a loaded question. But that's kind of where I'm at. So I'll just leave it with you.
Melissa Rodriguez 16:34
So I think a good place to start would be to start with that self awareness of, you're telling me or you're expressing a vision of what you would like it to feel like, to look like, and to feel like, and first of all, you need to know like where you are. Okay, so where are you right now? What strategies focused on the positive and celebrating the positive? What strategies do you have that you're doing really well, right, which, and you probably have those, you'll have a few that are masculine and feminine too there. So, I would start with like an inventory of what's going well, what do I feel is missing, and then an exploration, it's not something somebody can tell you, it's something that you need to experience for yourself, because it is different for everyone, you can obviously have guidance during the process of somebody suggesting and helping you evaluate. And that's what I do with my clients when I coach them as they navigate this in their businesses. But it is a case of, "Okay, so if I identify that there are certain business activities that are draining me, first of all, do I need to do them? Do they need to be done? And if so, do I need to do them? And if that's the case, then what would it look like for this activity to be in the feminine and not the masculine? Or what would it look like for this activity to be pleasurable? And sometimes it can be something as simple as a ritual you do before the activity, or where you do the activity, or even what playlist you have on during the activity. These are all little simple things.
Andrea Crisp 18:03
Really?
Melissa Rodriguez 18:04
Yeah.
Andrea Crisp 18:05
So like you can like say, "Okay, like if this is something that right now I know I need to be doing." Or then I can switch up something about it to like, maybe put me in a different energetic space to hold hold that.
Melissa Rodriguez 18:19
Yeah. Sure. So for example, what, do you have any activities in mind that you're, you're thinking of right now?
Andrea Crisp 18:28
Emails are still a big part of what I do, writing, during the copy. And I find for that particular task, I'm either in the flow in the zone, or I am not. And it's like I can, I can know right away. If it's like, oh, yeah, it's coming, type type type, I can do three emails, like to just bang them out. Or I could sit there for an hour and go, What the heck am I gonna write, I should have bought the Copy Care from Marie Forleo, you know, like, go through the list of like, things that I you know, like, I should have bought that, that probably would have helped me. But I think that I like you said being self aware, and taking inventory of those times that I have had success in a way that feels really good like for writing emails, it's like, oh, well, when did I write them? What was what time of day was it? You know, what was where was I? Yeah, where was I in my cycle? What was playing? I never thought of any of that, to be honest with you.
Melissa Rodriguez 19:34
All that is going to influence how creative you feel, and I'd also add just if if you know if you because you already know before you sit down, you know, I'm gonna sit here for an hour. And anything I write is, because you already know, you can already feel it in your body when you're not in that right flow state and there's nothing wrong with that. So A: do not beat yourself up over it and B: Don't even try like it's more productive at that stage, go for a bike ride, like, go for a walk, go buy yourself flowers, go dance for 15 minutes, call friend. And you never know, maybe within 10 minutes of that, you'll actually be on your bike riding, okay, I need to stop because I'm, like, going through these fields. And I realize that I know what I want to tell my community and you write down a couple things in your phone, that's going to make it easier for you next time you sit down, like, Okay, I already know what I want to write about. Or you talk to your friends and, and you know what, maybe the hour passes, and you don't write anything, you don't get out of that, that energy state. But if you leverage the times that you are naturally in that energy state the most, then it's not going to matter the times that you're not, because you'll have produced enough content and enough emails. You have written enough emails in the times that you were naturally in that state, or that you did things to get you in that state.
Andrea Crisp 20:59
Okay, that makes a lot of sense. Because then I also feel like even yesterday, I went in the morning, because, you know, I was dealing with this whole launch thing and thinking, Okay, we've got a week left for cart closes. And it's Thanksgiving Day here in Canada. And I'm going through all this in my mind. So sat down, and I, one of the things I wrote down in my journal was today, I really want to be a powerful creator, and co-create beautiful things in my life. And where most of Canada was taking the day off yesterday, I had things scheduled, I had a podcast recording, I had two connection calls. And it was fine because I was feeling good. I was like, you know, I was in the right. I, I blew through those calls, and was like, "Oh, this is great." I had enough energy for the things I needed to do. I went and had a beautiful dinner at my aunt's house and had some great family time. And at the end of the day, I remember thinking to myself, you know, this is what I want it to feel like, all the time, or as many days as I can, where it feels like I, and one of the things I did, and I even did this this morning already, is I left my phone upstairs, and I have my my Apple Watch, which you know, if I need, you know, something right away, and somebody needs to get ahold of me, but other than that, I'm like, I don't have the distractions of getting on to social media, you know, sitting after something and scrolling and you know, shifting my energy by checking something.
Andrea Crisp 22:29
I can stay in that flow state, and accomplish the thing that I want to accomplish. without consistently going back and forth, you know, in and out of different things where I'm like, "I don't need to post on social media right now. I can post on social media when I'm feeling it." And I need to, I don't need just to be looking at it and like having almost like energy leaks and just draining my energy. So I really kind of feel like that coupled with knowing what my cycle is, will be helpful. But one of the things I do want to ask you, because we talked about this last time, and I'm super interested, is you talk about it in seasons. And you talk about your cycle in seasons. And I'd love for you to tell us about like, what does that mean when you're looking at your cycle, and the other thing you said, which I still have thought about lots is that it doesn't necessarily pertain to men and women, and i it pertains to how you identify. Because some, you know, whether you are male or female, biologically, you can identify a certain way and have that energy. So can you talk a bit about both those things?
Melissa Rodriguez 23:45
Sure. Okay, so I'll start with the seasons. The reason I like to talk about it in terms of seasons is that many people, when you think about when you first hear cycle syncing you probably think, Oh, my cycle is three to five days that I got my period, right? And that's and that's it? Well, but the cycle is 28 days on average cycle, where you have four distinct stages, like the four seasons of the year, the weather, so and they actually bear similarities in the characteristics they have and the way that we go through them. So I'll go through the four seasons, just briefly so that you understand what what I mean. And I am going to relate this to the biological side of this, because for those of us who work with our cycles in this regard, we're not just working, you know, with our feminine energy, we are also working directly with our hormones because our hormones affects how we feel about things, how we view things.
Melissa Rodriguez 24:41
So we have your winter, which is when you get your period, and the time for resting, for hibernation is time with increased intuition where we can tap into different gifts like being able to evaluate things in a different way. It's not a time for taking action, but it can be a time to have some life changing reflections about your life and your business. Then you have your spring, after winter comes the spring. So there's that new beginning, that kind of energy where things are starting to speed up to warm up a little bit, you have more energy, it's a great time to learn new things, to start new things, to set new sessions to set new goals.
Melissa Rodriguez 25:16
Then you have your summer, which is a great time for enjoying and for communicating, and for really being in that kind of outward energy with your clients and with your team and with your community with the world. It's when biologically you are you're ovulating, okay? So if you are a woman who ovulates, your body is saying, "Hi, I'm ready!" And that comes through in different ways, right, that comes through in the way you talk, there have been studies and that show that women even walk in a way that men find, that heterosexual men will find more attractive during this time. And that even that are faces are more symmetrical or more attractive. And I do not know how that works. Do not ask me, but basically, more attractive during this time. And that's not something you know, unless you are looking to be impregnated, and that's great. But if you're not, if you are just looking to move forward in your business, you can use these, this magnetism of the summer to make leaps in your business, or in your life,
Melissa Rodriguez 26:16
Then comes a fall, which is a little bit of a longer season for, it's a longer season. And it's a season for getting into the nitty gritty of things, for attention to details, for actually following through and all the intentions and goals that you set. And for it has a different sort of creativity, you have different sorts of creativity. I mean, creativity is feminine energy, in a very pure form. But it comes in different kinds of ways during this time, the creativity comes through in spring is more of like an ideas kind of thing. It's not a following through creativity, and in your Fall, you've got more of a following through kind of creativity. I would suspect that, for example, if you're writing emails, then you're early Fall is a great time for that. And then you're back to Winter. So those those are the four seasons that that we go through every month, and that we can really lean, if we lean into them and look for ways of embodying them, we can really leverage those superpowers that are available to us in each season.
Andrea Crisp 27:15
Yeah, that's really fascinating. Yeah. So how does it work with the, you know, with men and women then in that, that context?
Melissa Rodriguez 27:22
Okay, sure. So, in what what of what I've been referring to is a very much a hormonal context, okay? If you are a woman who does not have that hormonal cycle, because of menopause, or because you just don't have it, or even birth control, birth control, hormonal birth control, IE the pill affects the cycle, because essentially, it stops ovulation. Okay, so if for any reason you do not have this cycle, feminine energy still has the cycle, because essentially, it's a cycle of creation, right? It's a very natural cycle, I have a client who does not have a period yet she identifies as a woman, what we do is we work with the moon. So many, many ancient cultures, and even a few studies have shown that we're, we're somehow went to the moon, I think it's something that we haven't yet understood. But it's there. And it's there if for other species and animal kingdom as well, but the moon affects their fertility and things. So it's there's, there's a connection there, and leveraging that. So leveraging, you know, new moon intentions, and rituals for the full moon and all these things can help. That's that's how I usually work with people who do not have that period. I haven't worked with men on their feminine energy cycle at all, I'm just here, top my head. If a man maybe does identify more with feminine energy, than with with masculine energy, then again, you can either take the moon approach, or you can take the really diving into that self awareness approach. If you really dive into that self awareness and start tracking how you feel every day for like, three to six months, you might see patterns, right? You might see patterns, you might see the seasons without even noticing. And then you just might know for yourself like I have a Spring that's 10 days long, and then I have a Summer that's five days on you hurt you, you might be able to see patterns in here. And that's what I would suspect if you are kind of looking to use that feminine energy that you you'd see it that way. However, I do believe that that a lot of men and a lot of people will thrive more of that masculine approach of that, you know, day in day out consistency approach, if especially if you are a man who has a male permanent cycle, you have that testosterone high in the morning just gradually increases throughout the day, then you might thrive off more just going with that biological imperative that you have in your body.
Andrea Crisp 29:44
It's so fascinating to think about how different biologically men you know, their cycle, their 24 hour cycle, versus our female 28 day cycle. It's so different because once I started to learn about this, and I mean, obviously, I feel like I'm just like, you know, scratching the surface, even with this conversation, but, you know, thinking about how we are functioning in a world that is very built for men, you know, especially if you have a job, and you work outside the home, you know, is built for, for men to thrive and women not as much. And so it's really interesting to think about how we can become more self aware, and, and start learning our bodies and listening and being a little bit more intuitive to what our body is telling us. And, and even for me, it took even after having conversation with you, it took an instance in my life for me to kind of get to the end be like, Okay, this is really just not working. And for me to go, "Okay, I need to slow this down. And I really need to start listening. Because I think that if I listen to my body and become a little more self aware, I will know when the right times to do different things will be for me, you know, to help." And it's like, I think you've said this before, but maybe not today. But it's like there's some things we just know we do, do on an everyday basis. Like those are things that we we do, we get done, we you know, if you have a family, you feed your kids, you know, like, there's certain things that just have to happen. But but there are a lot of other things where you know, especially when it involves creativity, and that really can be best served, we understand our bodies.
Melissa Rodriguez 31:29
Sure, or even for the things that we have to do every day, you said the example of feeding our kids. What if you meal prep, when you have more energy? Do you know there's going to be a week where you are going to be more tired? Can you make meals and freeze them? Is it, I mean, there's not going to be a way for everything you cannot you know, batch brushing your teeth, for example. And I'm not suggesting that there are definitely ways that we can get creative, even with the things that we feel that we have to do every day. And I invite you to ask yourself, "Do I really? Or is there a way that I can make this easier on myself when I know that it's not going to be easy for me? Is there a way? Is there any way that I can ask for support? Or is there any way? How can I set this up differently?" So I think where we sometimes got stuck in boxes of how things have always been set up, or how we've always done them, or how everyone else, quote unquote, does them. And just you know, taking a step back and asking yourself like, Okay, first of all that self awareness? And then is there another way that I can achieve the same or even better results without having to do this without working against myself?
Andrea Crisp 32:37
Now, one question, you know, especially for women who are working in teams. So if you have someone that works for you, and you know you're doing a launch or whatever, and say you've got a OBM and you know, they're in one part of their cycle, where you know, like, how does that work? Like, how do you try to like navigate working with other women when you're cycling, and you're?
Melissa Rodriguez 33:02
Sure, so it's interesting. I think there was one point where I literally synched up with 80% of my clients and my team. It's funny how even when we were working remotely end up syncing up, we're also synced up with the moon at something super interesting that happens when you when you're like in a specific type of alignment. So I guess I've been mostly lucky in that regard that I've been fairly synched up with the woman that I work with both my clients and my team, but let's just take the hypothetical scenario that you're on, but completely different schedules, your OBM is, you know, she is ovulating whilst you're on your period and vice versa. So when you most need her support, because you're in that outwards, launch kind of mode, she's in that rest mode. Okay. So there, I think it really is just about planning ahead. Okay. So planning ahead and making sure that, that you have other people in place for things that are most important in the case that you, that you are asking your OBM to to work those days, you don't have a choice, you know, these are things that cannot be prepared in advance, these are things that cannot be done better. And whilst then it's how do you have that self care? So that person is ready to give 100% on those few tasks that cannot be they cannot be moved. Okay, so how do you make sure that person, how does that person make sure that at the end, it's a personal responsibility? How does that person make sure that she's taken care of, both before and after that extra self care that extra, like, I'm taking naps, or I'm resting, doing the things that fill my cup, so that when I do show up for those few things that you need from me on these days, then I will be there 100%.
Andrea Crisp 34:46
So there's a lot of having conversations, right, like it's a, cause, I mean, this I would indicate to me that there's a lot of conversation around our periods, talking, you know, things that we've not always talked about, really openly. Because I mean, if you know, you're synced up with your clients and people you work with, obviously, then you're having conversations about that with them because they're your clients. But, you know, like, especially I'm thinking like, I don't know, like, I don't know, if I'm synced up with people. You know, I know that when I spend time with people a lot, with women a lot. But one of the things you said, really piqued my curiosity, and you said, syncing up with the moon. And that that's almost like a, and then he's, I can't remember the word you use. But can you talk a little bit about that? Like, how do you sync up the moon? How did you know you're synced up over the moon with the moon?
Melissa Rodriguez 35:37
Okay, so back when we lived in smaller, in small tribes, like 150 people, and we were also very committed, we didn't have this artificial light and everything, most women would sync up their periods with the moon, like accident, that they didn't mean to obviously, they didn't say, "Hey, let's sync up with the moon." But naturally, they would find that they were bleeding either on the full moon or the new moon. As you know, the the moon has 28 day cycles, thanks, can't remember is 28 point something 27.4. It's not exactly 28. Otherwise, rolls be a full moon and same day of the week, it's not exactly 28. It's something point something around 28. And the average female cycle is also 28 days, and we would sync up with the moon in a natural way, and get this, right, women would, for those days, and on many tribes, they would go into a tent, and they will just have be on their periods together.
Melissa Rodriguez 36:29
And they will use that time to really like let go, okay? So they would like leave them and do their thing. And they would, they would let go, they would use that time to like cleanse and do different kinds of rituals around their period, all these things. And interestingly, the so some woman would sync up with the other moon. So if you didn't sync up with the full moon, you'd sync up with the new moon. And they would be the woman who would take care of the others. Right? So during that time, so there's also benefits, like we were saying right now. So if you're if you're on your period, when your OBM is ovulating, or vice versa, it's also I'm going to take care of you, and then you're going to take care of me kind of thing that used to exist in times with with these tribes, the moon in the period. And it's interesting that many women affectionately call their period their moon, because there's there's definitely some sort of relationship there. I'm not, I don't know what it is, I think, would be super interesting, if science, you know, decided to study it more. But yeah, it's interesting. And I do think there's one study that shows that when woman are more connected to nature and have less artificial lights and live in place with less artificial light, that's when they most start to sync up with the moon.
Andrea Crisp 37:40
So fascinating, that I now I'm gonna totally like, pull my app out afterwards. See where I am at.
Melissa Rodriguez 37:48
Get, so, get this app called Stardust. And I recommend this app. It's a great app, it's called Stardust. And it's kind of a cycle tracker, and also tracks moon. So you go into it and tells you where you are Kind of hormone wise. And it tells you where the moon is, as well. So I highly recommend that.
Andrea Crisp 38:06
Okay, that, you know, because even I've noticed, like, as I pay more attention to my body, like in the summertime, like, here in Canada, I'm in the northern part of Ontario. So it's lighter, longer. 5:30am it's light and 10:00, it's still light, but then the sun goes down. And I noticed that like, I wake up, right with the light. I'm up. Whereas now right now it's like seven o'clock, and I used to like set my alarm and be like, Okay, I'm going to still get up at 530 in the winter. And so like, I can't get up in the morning, I'm a morning person. But I have let myself sleep until I wake up instead of making and it's really interesting because I noticed even with the, the light and dark, how my body is, if I don't manipulate it, and I'm doing it mostly just to see like, what happens if I'm just letting my body you know, when I tired I go to bed, you know. And when I wake up, I wake up and just being, being more aware because if I do you want to have a life that I really, really love and I want to create a business and a life I love. I want to do it feeling really good. And I want to do it feeling energetic, and I want to feel like, feel all the amazing things that life has to offer. And also do it in a way that you know I can support myself financially because I'm productive in the moments I need to be most productive. And, and I think that as women is something that if we pay more attention to, then we will have, have a better understanding about how we can do that and not just operating fully full on masculine energy. Like as you said before, so so fascinating. I think we there's so much more we can talk about and really even continuing to dive into this work? How do people work with you? Like, how does that work? So let us know.
Melissa Rodriguez 40:09
Sure, can I just add one more thing that came to mind while you were saying that?
Andrea Crisp 40:14
Absolutely.
Melissa Rodriguez 40:16
Because I totally resonate with you there that you want to feel good on the journey. And it's so important because how you feel during the journey and in the process, is how you're going to feel when you get the result. So sometimes we tell ourselves that we're going to feel better when we achieve X, or Y, or Z, or whatever. And that's not the case like those when people talk about having reached certain goals, and that they weren't as satisfying as they were expecting them to be, I'm willing to bet in most of those cases that they didn't enjoy the process of getting there. I think it's amazing, I think it's, it's beautiful that you are prioritizing that because that's going to mean that when you get there, it's going to feel, it's going to feel great. If you feel great during the process, it's gonna feel great when you get there. Just wanted to add that in, because I totally resonate with that.
Andrea Crisp 41:05
I love that. Thank you for adding that.
Melissa Rodriguez 41:08
And yeah, and that's mainly, you know, this is what I help my clients with, you can find me on Instagram. My handle is @melissa.r.j, can go to my website, melissarj.com. And yeah, at the moment, I do have spots for one on one cycle syncing, business coaching. So whether you just want to incorporate this into your business, or you have a launch coming up and you want, you know, this strategy in your launch as well, I do have a marketing agency. So I love combining these things, cycles and marketing for launches. I absolutely love that. And I do have spots available for one on one coaching for that. So just just get in touch and we can hop on a call.
Andrea Crisp 41:49
Well, thank you so much, like this is, it's fascinating, super fascinating. And I hope that we can talk again, and you know, learn more and even as you're working with more clients, and you find out more information. And please come back and continue to share because this is super, super fascinating. So thank you.
Melissa Rodriguez 42:10
Thank you. I love love joining you again, Andrea.
Andrea Crisp 42:15
Okay, wow, I never thought that I would be talking about my period on The Couragecast, let's not something that was in my mind at all. But here we are. This is where we are now. And I'm so glad that I did. And honestly, friends, like this has really been a game changer for me, because I have spent the past probably several weeks since I talked to Melissa, writing down how I feel every single day, what my cravings are, how I'm feeling to feel creative. I mean, some days I forget, and I, you know, just keep picking up the next day and start writing it out. But it's really made a difference because I'm being more aware and conscious of like how creative I feel, or do I have energy or when do I have energy when the times in the day I have energy. And it's really making a difference in what I'm doing and how productive I am because I feel an ease and flow at different times depending on how my body is working. So I want to encourage you that if this is something you're really interested in, please connect with Melissa because she would help you to go through that process of discovering how you can start tracking your cycle, to work with your business and your flow. And I will leave all of her links in the show notes and so you can get a hold of her.
Andrea Crisp 43:38
Before you go today, friends, I have an exciting thing that I want to share with you as well. You know, I have just created a brand new text community. And I would love to invite you to join. You know what so often we can feel discouraged and not take those steps have courage and bravery in our own lives. And so I want to encourage you every single week through a couple of text messages. And so if you want to join my text community, and receive encouragement, how to create intentions for your life, and even some guided meditations along the way, I want you to go ahead and text me at 647-424-2429 and I will leave that link as well in the show notes for you, so you can have it and you can text me the word COURAGE and we'll be able to connect with one another there. Until next time, remember you have everything you need to live bravely.
Kate 44:36
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