Ditch the Hustle: Why Women Thrive When They Honor Their Natural Rhythms with Rebecca Rankin Part 1

Let's Do This Together 💚

Monica 

Anything written or said about health and diet are my opinions, that I have formed over the years, through trial and error, study, reading, listening and observing. What worked for me, may not work for you. I am not a doctor, nutritionist or dietician and all medical advice should be gotten from a qualified professional. Product recommendations are based on what I used during my infertility journey or wish I had.

Full Transcript: 

00:00 Hello beautiful and welcome to the Finding Fertility podcast. 00:10 I'm Monica, your mentor in uncovering the hidden layers of your fertility journey. Together, we'll discover the right path for you within the six essential steps to creating the family of your dreams. We'll ditch the overwhelm, tune into your intuition, and build a vibrant foundation for your fertility. Whether it's through gut health, subconscious healing, or energetic alignment, you can unlock your body's natural power to get and stay pregnant. 00:37 Your fertility journey is all about radical responsibility and deeply believing that your body is on your side. It's time to stay consistent, embrace trust, surrender, and create the transformation you deserve. 00:51 Finding fertility does not diagnose, prescribe, or treat any fertility issues. What we do is empower you to take control of your health by uncovering the root causes, holding you back. Let's do this together. Happy Friday, y'all. Welcome back to another episode of Finding Fertility. I'm your host Monica Cox, and I am super honored you're here with me becoming the conscious mama you were born to be. I have a really exciting guest on today, Rebecca. Welcome.

01:18 Oh, thank you. Thank you. It's so good to be here. Yes. I was I had the honor of being on your podcast and I loved how you started off with a little mini meditation and I would love the listeners to be able to experience that. So if you would kindly do us the honors of leading us through a little meditation. Yes, absolutely. It's something that I do with every guest that I have on my podcast, the Women's Men Wisdom Podcast. And 01:47 It is just a beautiful check-in point. So I invite all of us to, if it feels right, to lower your gaze, to close your eyes, and just take a moment, let yourself arrive.

02:03 feeling even the sensation of your feet on whatever your feet are touching, whether you're standing or seated, just feel your feet as a connection to the earth. Feel that as a way to ground in and perhaps even using that visual, visualizing roots growing down to the earth, whether that's actual roots that you're picturing or perhaps cords of light, and feel that connection to the earth. 02:33 with deep gratitude, we give thanks. And then feel the connection of the earth meeting you, traveling up to meet you, traveling through you. 02:45 And at the same time, sensing into that awareness just above the crown of your head. Feel this awareness as your connection to your higher self, your connection to all that is. And perhaps visualizing just this white golden light coming down through the crown of your head, through you. And feel those energies kind of circulating through the heart.

03:13 and I invite you to shift your awareness from the chatter of the mind, from the head space. Just drop down into your heart space, that area of your body as you breathe. 03:26 and feel the expansive quality of your breath. With each inhale, feel the expansiveness. And feel with each exhale, your ability to bring your awareness inward. So you're just beginning to untether yourself from all those external things that are pulling at your attention always. Feel yourself untethering and coming back home to yourself. 03:53 As you sense into your heart space together, we're just gonna take some clearing breaths. So taking a breath in. 04:02 and just feel the expansiveness of your breath, pausing in that fullness at the top, and part your lips and exhale, and feel yourself letting go of whatever it is that you have put on hold to listen to be here. Just feel yourself letting that go. 04:24 taking another breath in, filling your lungs all the way to the top and kind of pausing in that fullness. And as you exhale, letting go of whatever it is that's on the to-do list for the day ahead, letting that go for now. 04:41 Taking another breath in. 04:46 And as you exhale, letting go of whatever it is that you have been monitoring in the back of your mind, even if you're excited about it, especially if you're anxious about it, letting it go. And we know that letting go doesn't mean that we're getting rid of, just means that we're letting it be. And offer up those things that you're letting be, offer them up to your higher self, so they're in good hands. No.

05:12 All of those things are in your highest and best. They will still be there for us when we're complete here. Is there's no need to give them the power to pull you out of our time. There's no need to drag those things into our time here. 05:29 And then just feel that each inhale you take is a way to reclaim the parts of you that you left scattered. All the parts of you left scattered this past week, this past month, this past year. And feel with each exhale, feel yourself arriving in whole. Taking just another breath in. 05:53 Letting it go. 05:57 and as you feel ready, as you feel grounded at present, then opening your eyes. 06:05 Thank you. That was so beautiful. So simple and so necessary. I know. So necessary just to check in, right? Check in with yourself over and over again, untether ourselves from these external things that are calling at our attention always and to like come back home to yourself. Come back in, come back home. That's always the invitations, come back home. Yeah, exactly. 06:34 So Rebecca, tell us a little bit about you and what sets your soul on fire. So good. A little bit about myself. So I have been in the kind of wellness industry for healing space for nearly 20 years at this point. I am a E-R-Y-T 500 Y-A-C-E-P. All these fancy acronyms that just say, I've been teaching yoga for...

07:02 since 2006 full time. So for a very long time, I'm a Reiki master sound healing ceremonialist and a women's holistic wellness coach. And they specialize in cyclical living, cyclical living. And yeah, what sets my soul on fire is really helping women see that they can be the driver of their life and not 07:32 those chauffeur of everyone else's. And really allowing them to have a greater sense of power and confidence and ease like within themselves to make more mindful choices, to really prioritize their own health and wellbeing. And in all the different facets, whatever that looks like. And it really kind of boils down to, in my field is like how we care for ourselves. 08:00 And that's where what I love to share about psychical living, like living in alignment with our natural rhythms within our hormones, but using it as a way, just as a tool to make more mindful choices, be more conscious about what we're choosing to do, who we're choosing to interact with, and seeing it as a reflection of everything that's around us in the natural world. I think...

08:29 Sometimes we forget that we are nature, that we're a part of nature. And the natural world is giving us cues all the time on how to live in better alignment with our true North, our true nature. And the more that we can see ourselves reflected in the natural world, the more we can make really mindful choices. And I love the saying as above, so below. It's like, if you can see that, you reflected in the natural world, 08:59 How can you then live in alignment with that? And if you can live in alignment within yourself, it's gonna show up in the external world. It's gonna show up in the environment around you. It's this beautiful symbiotic relationship. As you do the inner work, it shows up in your external field. Yeah. Did you have a come to Jesus moment to get here? Back in the early 2000s before you started this journey. 09:27 I find that most people, either they were raised this way, but even then, they still have a hardship to kind of push them forward. But I think most people just have lived life normally in the 70s, 80s, 90s. And then all of a sudden, the early 2000s or mid 2000s, it was this like, maybe their health deteriorated because your body was like, I can't keep healing because you're not giving me what I need. 09:56 Yeah. Good question. I feel like I've had several. You know, it's like, I think we all, you know, we go on these like healing journeys and these spiritual awakenings, and then it's all of a sudden we're met with this other thing that we have to, this other layer that invites us to go deeper. You know, my first initial one was I, you know, I have a degree in architecture from University of Michigan. I graduated from college, moved out West.

10:26 worked at a firm in San Francisco for a short bit and was absolutely miserable. I was so out of alignment. And, you know, in my early 20s, like I didn't know, and especially at that time, it was the early 2000s, I didn't know the terminology, but I knew that I was so unhappy. And I looked around in my environment and was like, I don't want to be these people, like looking at my colleagues in their 30s, 40s, 50s. 10:52 and it felt so lost. And at the same time, yoga and meditation came into my field as a way to kind of cope with feeling stress, feeling anxious and everything. And I kind of dove into it as just this life raft to be like, oh my gosh, I feel like I need to just be saved from this life. And then of course I quit to become a yoga teacher, as you do. 11:21 living in San Francisco, easy transition architect, yoga teacher. And so that kind of led me into my like first initial step into just wellness and healing. And as much as I was on this spiritual quest, I have to admit like in hindsight, there was still this disconnect from in a way it's like a lot of us live from our neck up, right? We're like not in touch with the rest of our body and 11:51 live in this spiritual life and more mindful life and yet be still disconnected from, you know, from our humanity, from our physicality, even though we're doing Asana practice and we're doing these things with our physical body. It's like we're searching for this, you know, elevated higher consciousness. And part of our human experience is to have a human experience.

12:21 you know, go on the journey of starting a family, growing a family, that I realized I had a very disconnected relationship with my cycle. You know, prior to having kids, it was always like, oh, live in the dream. And then like the week before my period started, and I would be just miserable and feel inconvenienced and feel annoyed and had such a negative narrative around it because in a way that's what you were taught. 12:49 you're taught like, oh yeah, it's shameful, it's the curse, cramps, all these things are expected. It's like the byproduct of just being a woman. And so I bought into that. And so I kept that narrative. And then I remember just having this awakening of like, what am I doing? I cannot talk to myself like this. I cannot, and the more that I started to learn about 13:16 just living in alignment with my cycle and just understanding my cyclical nature, the more I was like, this is badass. This is actually amazing. These hormones are actually when you sink into them are like your mystical superpowers. And that really healed this relationship with my own cycle. And then just seeing it reflected as I healed that and starting to see other people living kind of unaware of that and starting to 13:45 to bring awareness to our cyclical nature. I saw how empowered other women felt too. And so that's when I was like, okay, this is also part of my journey here is to share this with other women and to help other women just lean into that. And it comes back and I said it in the meditation, it's like, comes back, coming home to yourself. Yeah, yeah. Well, I, only the last like maybe year,

14:13 I noticed that I was doing all the work, right? And like a lot more work than other people. And then you're still in this like seeking and searching mode. And what I noticed, the yoga studio that I was going to, vegan, everyone had multiple letters after their name, and no one could look you in the eye and say hi or have a conversation. 14:44 And people that you saw weekly, right? They knew your name and they could not even look up. And I was like, whoa, okay, how am I contributing to this in my own life? And I had to like, and that was that radical responsibility of coming home to yourself and just being honest. Okay, it's great to do Reiki and yoga and acupuncture and reflexology and breath work when you're on the mat for that hour or when you're on that table. 15:14 you're forced to look within. But the other 23 hours of your day, what are you doing? What are you running in your head? What are you cycling? And then you wonder why you aren't getting what you want or what you think you want because it dramatically starts changing the more you tap into yourself. Like, no, I actually don't want that. That was a program from society that I was running. 15:42 But coming home to yourself and living, it's funny because it's so basic and yet so like people just don't, they are like, no, that doesn't make sense because of our programming. But we have four seasons, right? And I think women having those seasons every month, like you say, when you're able to tap into it and honor that. 16:10 that's when the empowerment, the intuition, the surrender, all the things that are actually gonna get you your ultimate goal come into play. Yeah. And it's, you know, the more that you can see these reflections, like I think using the seasons to like, you know, in combination with our, to look at the seasons as a way to look at our own cyclical nature or looking at the lunar cycle, the moon cycle as a way to kind of 16:40 menstrual cycle on it, it's these beautiful reflections that show you that we're not meant to be perpetually productive. Like we're not meant to be the same person day in and day out. That being said, it's going to give you so much more grace for like, let's say you'd like to work out. I love movement. Movement is my like thing. And there's times right when we realize, oh, I don't have the energy. And instead of being yourself up being like, I'm so lazy. 17:08 like I didn't do my run or didn't lift weights today. It's like, well, actually, if you understand your cyclical nature, if you understand that maybe in your luteal phase, you literally aren't going to have as much energy, not going to have as much capacity. So when you understand that you give yourself grace and in a way it can turn down the volume of the inner critic that comes online. The, you know, the tone of voice that we use with ourselves can be really harsh. Like we would never use it with a loved one or anyone.

17:37 And yet like the person we talk to the most our whole life is ourselves. And when we can understand the nuance of our ebb and flow of our energy, the ebb and flow of our capacity to do more or do less, we give ourselves the grace to give ourselves the grace to be like, okay, yeah, clearly I'm not going to go run a 5K PR the week before my period. Like obviously, but it's not obvious, right? Because we're not taught that. 18:07 there's so much narrative even just around just like the period and not looking at it like the whole month. So we're like, well, I get it. If I'm bleeding, like I kind of understand why I'm not, you know, gonna do it, but I still feel like I should, you know, like the shoulds come online. Like I should be doing this. I should be, you know, working out still. I should be, you know, whatever it is that that's your, your path. When we can recognize that our hormones reset every 28 days or so that's like, 18:36 not going to live like a man. A man's hormones reset, they live on a circadian rhythm. We have a circadian rhythm. They have a solar rhythm. We have both a solar rhythm and our lunar rhythm. We have our circadian, you know, rest and digest. We have our sleep-wake cycles that are run on the solar rhythm. But when we can understand that we have this longer hormonal reset, we're not going to compare ourselves to our male counterparts or even just 19:04 the part of us that feels that we've bought into the, the patriarchal notion of like, in order to feel self-worth, I have to be able to check off all these things on my to-do list. Like if I don't check them off, then like, oh, my day was a crappy day because I didn't get these things done. How many of us like, right? Like, we're like, how was your day? Well, I did this, this and this. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And I think too, like, if you bring it into a fertility journey,

19:31 you are like, you have this huge to-do list and I'm doing it all, so why am I not getting pregnant? And the ironic thing is all that shit is literally destroying your rhythm, your circadian rhythm, your endocrine system, your hormone system, so it's actually doing more harm. Then you move into motherhood. Holy shit, when I started unpacking the stuff I had to unpack during motherhood, I couldn't sit with my kids and I had 20 years early education experience. I should have been motherfucking Mary Poppins. 20:01 Right? And I was not. Like I wasn't awful. Don't get me wrong. But I was like, why can't I just play? Why do I feel like I have to do all these things? And then I had more time because I was a stay-home mom. And I got to travel and I got to hang out with my mom. And I was like, oh, yeah, there's my, you know, 65 year old mom who's retired and can't read a book because she's feels guilty that she's not doing something. 20:30 And so you start unpacking those patterns of the type A that OE's doing. And if you wanted to get into conspiracy, maybe the whole movement of equal rights or women can do just as much as men and do it better and do everything else that women have to do for society. It pulls you out of your empowerment. You don't make the right decisions. You're in anger. You're pissed off. You're in fear. 20:59 And you just can't come home to yourself. So therefore, the power that women actually do have, and I think when you pull in these physical things of the period and the cycles and all that, the energetic side of that, the power that the woman has when she's in complete flow with herself, that creativity, we are the creators, right? And the men are the builders. And we all have. 21:28 some of the both or some of the same and some of the both or whatever I'm trying to say. But I think when you're just completely always overdoing talking to yourself negatively, that's it. You're not in your empowerment and then they can control you better. 05.00 Yeah. And it's something to be said about the initial suffragist movements, initial women's rights movements. Yes, in a way, they had to suck it up.

21:57 quote unquote, to like, get a seat at the table, right? It's like, they, so I'm like, I get it, but we're not there anymore. Like now we get a seat at the table and we also get to like live in alignment with our cycle. We also get to have that because that is our true power. And now that we're, you know, here at the table, we can show up authentically as ourselves and be like, you know what, my rhythm is this. And this is my, you know, if I want to be more productive, 22:24 it actually is listening to my rhythm, my cyclical nature. And if I lean into those ebbs and flows of hormones, I'm gonna know that I'm way more like mentally sharp and like able to like network and be on point near ovulation. I mean, it's like a biological fact. It's like, that's, I mean, it's the time that you're attracted to your mate, like your testosterone gets that little woof. Like, so you're on. So knowing that, like leaning into that, like I'm gonna show up to whatever. 22:53 spirit is, if it's work or family or relationships, you know, any of that, I'm going to be able to show up in a different way than like during my cycle. During my cycle, we all feel the time of like, it's like introspection, right? It's our time. It's like, I don't, I just can't with anyone else. Yeah. Don't go to Thanksgiving dinner if you're on your cycle. 23:15 Or know that maybe you're just gonna like hold some boundaries around yourself and be like, you know what, it's not about conversation. I'm going to like hold my piece because I'm an observer. Yeah. And I can like ask questions of other people, you know, like hold space for them, but be like, I'm, I don't need to. And knowing that about yourself rather than pushing and trying to be the, you know, chatty person personality when you're like, I don't feel like that. Or knowing that like that time is

23:43 heat time for introspection. It's a great time to lean into your intuition, a great time to do inner work that maybe during like your ovulatory phase, you're going to feel more outgoing. You're going to feel the pull for outsourcing your engagements. And that alone is just empowering. And I think like when you live like that, that all of a sudden you're like, oh yeah, I'm way more productive and way more efficient. Yeah. You know? Absolutely. 24:13 Okay, so what is your take on being able to get there in the first place, right? Because we have this like, I think it's on its way out, but like you have that whole toxic positivity type of thing, like just think happy thoughts and it will happen. Then you have the spirituality of like, just manifest, just think it, you know, just do continuous meditation. What I believe to be true at the moment is the unpacking. 24:42 Right? There are subconscious beliefs, subconscious programming, subconscious emotions stuck in the body due to physical situations that I believe if you don't unpack that at your own pace and use your own modalities, it's much harder to show up for yourself and come home for yourself because you have all the conscious knowledge, but subconsciously you're running that. So where do you take? 25:11 your clients, if you see that in them and you're like, no, we need to start from the beginning and move our way into that. Because I think a lot of people probably get frustrated in any element of like, okay, I'm going to do those four steps. I'm going to go. And then like two months later, they're like back eating Doritos, watching Netflix at 11 p.m. Yeah, I think. So I'm going to go really like entry level point. 25:41 is, as far as my line of work is, note like recognizing your cycle to begin with. And this means like, and this is like super basic, but charting where you're at in your cycle. Like, you know, it would be great if everyone can know like where they are at in their cycle. Like I know right now I am in my follicular phase. I know that in three days ish, I'm in my 40s. So I'm starting to.

26:10 lean towards perimenopause, the things are a little bit shifting, but I know in a few days it's gonna be ovulation. So I always have people, right from the start, is start tracking your cycle. And I'm talking, you can do apps, you can do all that, but I'm a huge fan of using, if you're already journaling, using some sort of physical paper to chart your cycle, where you're at, and then just start to write out 26:41 any like overall for that day, your energy, your mood, recognize this, cause then if you chart this for a few months, and if people are trying to conceive like, for the most part, they're probably already tracking. So if you add on the layer of your mood, your energy, you're gonna start to see cyclical patterns. And when you recognize these cyclical patterns, you're gonna recognize when you can lean in and do that like inner work. 27:08 And other times when you're like gonna feel, ooh, I just don't have the space for that. And knowing that you're gonna be able to, get more out of and be more efficient at kind of unpacking all the layers, the programming that we've bought into. And I think like part of it is also when you recognize your cyclical nature, like when you recognize, oh yes, I do have this. And oh yes, I see how my hormones shift and how with it, 27:38 you know, mood, energy, creativity, all those things shift as well. And when you can recognize that, it makes it just much more, yeah, just much more potent work. And you're gonna like give yourself the grace. I keep coming back to that. It's like, you're gonna be able to recognize that that is actually part of the equation too. Cause I think part of us doing the inner work, doing all this programming, we can kind of feel like it derails. 28:08 at times a lot of clients can feel unmotivated, whatever it's like, well, where are you in your cycle? Right? Like that drop in estrogen progesterone in your late luteal phase, yeah, if you're not feeling up for trying something new or shifting new thought patterns, yeah. Like give yourself grace. Like the inner work is probably gonna be a little more challenging then. So at that point it's like, what boundaries do you need to set for yourself to just be with yourself and not take on? 28:38 anything else. And I think that's like a beautiful starting point. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's really good. And it's just that radical honesty. And the thing is, most people won't do that because it's not fast enough. It's not like almost tangible enough. Well, I feel like I'm doing something where I feel like my life radically shift. And this is only, I mean, I've been doing this stuff for over a decade, but this is only really in the last year and a half.

29:06 that I've gotten radically honest. Why I'm washing the dishes? Why am I feeling like this? Why do I feel like it's always me? I'm Cinderella, I have to do this. And it's just like, oh, okay. Let me unpack that when I have the space and time. Let me choose a modality that is in alignment with what I'm feeling. Do I wanna scream it out? Do I just let it go? Get in a whole brain state? Things like that. And... 29:35 all of the money and time that I spent on the doing modalities, I'm like, oh. But it's a journey to get there. And we're going to leave it here this week. I know I promised you guys another episode of Monique, Monica, and Mabel, but I was actually off in the mountains. 30:01 I'm telling you guys, what I am writing is pretty close to home. So I hope you have enjoyed this episode. We're going to get the second half next week and then I promise you Monique, Mabel, and Monica will be back after that. 30:19 So have a lovely weekend and until next Friday. Thank you once again for tuning in and becoming the conscious mama you were born to be. Remember, I wasn't some magical unicorn who stumbled into fertility success. I stayed consistent, I put in the work, and I made it happen. And guess what? You can too. By discovering the right path for you in the six essential steps, including diet, rest and recovery, energetics, awareness, mindset, and surrender. 30:49 you can create the family of your dreams. I know you've already downloaded the amazing free guide but if you're ready to really truly step into real action, make sure you either grab the six steps to boost your embryos or look into Fertile Body for physical support, Fertile Mind for mindset and energetics, and if you want it all that's where dreams the online course comes in.

31:17 Make sure for personal guidance, you can join a community session or book a one-to-one private call. And remember this, transformation happens when you stay committed to yourself. Trust your body, follow your intuition, make it possible. Oh, and if you're still here and you love this podcast, please take some time to leave us a review. It's like literally the only way other people can find this podcast. So help a sister out.