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What if you could get more of what you want in life? But not through pushing, forcing, or pressure.
You can.
When it comes to money, time, and energy, no one’s gonna turn away more.
And Kate Northrup, Bestselling Author of Money: A Love Story and Do Less and host of Plenty, is here to help you expand your capacity to receive all of the best.
As a Money Empowerment OG who’s been at it for nearly 2 decades, Kate’s the abundance-oriented best friend you may not even know you’ve always needed.
Pull up a chair every week with top thought leaders, luminaries, and adventurers to learn how to have more abundance with ease.
Birth control was has been such a revolution for feminism and for the liberation of women. And, also, there's some big potential problems with it that I don't think the medical community potential problems with it that I don't think the medical community talks about enough. Welcome to Plenti. I'm your host, Kate Northrup, and together, we are going on a journey to help you have an incredible relationship with money, time, and energy, and to have abundance on every possible level. Every week, we're gonna dive in with experts and insights to help you unlock a life of plenty.
Kate Northrup:Let's go fill our cups.
Voice Over:Please note that the opinions and perspectives of the guests on the Plenty pod cast are not necessarily reflective of the opinions and perspectives of Kate Northrop or anyone who works within the Kate Northrop brand.
Kate Northrup:I have been sharing about cyclical planning in one way, shape, or form since 2016. And over those 8 years, which I cannot believe it's been 8 years, I've gotten a lot of the same kind of question, and they're brilliant questions. And so I thought it would be useful and efficient if I put the answers to the most common cyclical planning, meaning menstrual cycle and lunar cycle and cycle syncing and productivity questions all in one episode. Before I get to the questions, though, I wanna give an overview for those who, if you don't if you're not, like, fully know what I talk what I'm talking about when I talk about cyclical planning and cyclical alignment, I'm gonna give you the overview, and that is this. If you are someone with a menstrual cycle, you have 4 distinct hormonal phases every single month, and each week of the month, week ish, you have a particular superpower based on your hormones that particular week, and it makes you poised and primed to be really good at a specific kind of activity, and it primes your energy levels in a specific way.
Kate Northrup:What's really cool about our cyclical nature for those of us who do have periods or who have had periods is that every single way we would need to be in order to complete a project is accounted for in these 4 phases, and I'm gonna get into that. But, like, every ingredient you need to bring something to fruition is covered in your 4 phase blueprint. Now if you're somebody who does not have a period who maybe you used to, maybe you just don't right now, or maybe you never did, you still get to play because these 4 phases are also accounted for in the lunar calendar. Now this framework, this way of relating to time is really how to relate to time over the course of a month, because once a month, you'll experience these 4 phases. If you're tracking your menstrual cycle, it'll be more overt because it's impacting your hormones.
Kate Northrup:But if you're tracking with the moon, it'll be more subtle. However, we are all impacted by the moon's energy. It's responsible for gravity. It's responsible for tides. There's some really interesting data around the full moon and more incidences of crime or hospital visits during that time.
Kate Northrup:So just know that no matter who you are, if you have a body, you are in some way a cyclical creature because you are an animal, and your deepest connection to your animal nature is your body. And so when we look at the 4 hormonal phases, I'm just gonna walk through what they are, and I'm gonna tell you at the same time what the energetic equivalent is in terms of the lunar cycle so that those who don't have a period can play along, can can be part of this. And then I'm gonna go into the most common questions that I get. So every month, when you are in your reproductive years, if you have a period, you have a menstrual phase of the menstrual cycle. The menstrual phase is the time when you bleed, it is day 1.
Kate Northrup:Day 1 is the day that you start to bleed, and the menstrual phase lasts until you stop bleeding. This is the time of rest and reflection. Hormonally speaking, you are your most intuitive, you are your most inward, and your brain is primed so that the left and right hemispheres are the most interconnected during this time. It is the best time to make decisions. It is the best time to think about the big questions in your life.
Kate Northrup:And if you make a practice of slowing down and giving yourself extra space and time every single month when you have your period, maybe not for the whole thing, but maybe for an afternoon, maybe just lighten your schedule, give yourself a little extra padding time wise, you will find that your intuition will get louder, and you are able to make progress towards your dreams and your truth more effectively because you are making the space and time to slow down and hear your inner voice, hear your inner wisdom. Side note, in more traditional cultures 1000 of years ago, women who were menstruating would go to another area of the village together to sit in their deep access to their wisdom and to not have to do the cooking, do the cleaning, do all the taking care of the children. They would go and sit in the red tent as it were. Now that truth of our history has been misconstrued by a lot of different religious practices and just misunderstandings as menstruating women being dirty. That actually originated as menstruating women being sacred and needing to be left alone because the culture knew, the village knew that when a woman was bleeding, she had direct access to wisdom that she then needed to set aside her daily activities, go sit in community with the other women accessing this wisdom, and be left the frick alone to get the messages from the divine that were coming through her body.
Kate Northrup:So make your own version of that that you can in your life even if it's just for an hour. Okay. That's the menstrual phase. It is the equivalent of wintertime energy, and it is the equivalent of the dark moon. So next phase we have is the follicular phase.
Kate Northrup:The follicular phase is the day after you start bleeding until a couple of days before you ovulate, about 6 or 7 days. The follicular phase is like the springtime of your month. It is a time of high energy, and hormonally speaking, you're gonna have a burst of energy. In fact, in my cycle, I start getting that burst of energy around day 3 or 4. So I'm still bleeding, but I'm already feeling that new beginning energy.
Kate Northrup:So the follicular phase is about planning and initiation. If you're someone who has trouble taking action on things, double down, pay attention to when your follicular phase is, and get going on new things during that time because you're going to be hormonally primed to do so. It is the time to initiate. It is the time to try new things. It is the time to start new things or start new aspects of something you are already doing.
Kate Northrup:If you're somebody like me who just can be addicted to starting new things, we have to be careful during the follicular phase and perhaps dial it back and look at how could I bring this fresh beginning, new energy to existing projects and just begin anew with something I am already working on or maybe see it from a new angle. This is the same energy as the waxing moon in the lunar cycle, so when the moon is going from new or from dark moon to full moon, this is that energy. Next up, we have ovulation. Ovulation is the time when the egg is coming out of the ovary and hanging out in the fallopian tube. There's a whole I've done a whole episode on egg wisdom and and our body's ability to magnetize prosperity and abundance, and we can link to that in the show notes.
Kate Northrup:But for now, just know that this is your time around ovulation the few days before the day you ovulate and the few days afterwards. This is the time that you are literally the most fertile. Like, it is the time you can get pregnant, but it is also the time metaphorically that you are the most fertile. So this is the time you really wanna be in cross pollination in connection activity. This is the time when you're gonna be the most verbally fluent, the time when you're gonna be a high energy social, like, feeling like being around other people kind of person.
Kate Northrup:This is summertime energy. This is like the summertime energy of your cycle, And according to the lunar phases, this is like the full moon. So this is that peak fertility, peak cross pollination, peak visibility, and that is that phase of your cycle. Next up, we have the luteal phase. The luteal phase is the most misunderstood phase of our cycle.
Kate Northrup:Why? Because in our culture, we are told that we are supposed to be productive, peppy, optimistic, pleasant, accommodating, and doing things and outward at all times. And that if we are anything other than that, there's something wrong with us. So one thing I hear from women a lot is, oh, I don't feel like myself before my period. And listen, it is true.
Kate Northrup:PMS is a real thing, but it is a syndrome. PMS is not necessarily normal, like like, you don't have to suffer is basically what I'm saying. There are so many beautiful things you can do to support your body to heal your menstrual cycle, and I recommend a wonderful book called Fix Your Period by my friend, Nicole Jardim. So if you have pain around your menstrual cycle, if you have if you're struggling with PMS symptoms, if you're struggling with PMDD, go check out Nicole's book, phenomenal work. That being said, it is totally normal and healthy and valuable to have a stronger negativity filter during your luteal phase.
Kate Northrup:Your luteal phase is the 10 to 14, 10 to 12 ish, 14 days before you get your period. So you ovulate, and then a few days after that, your hormones shift again, estrogen drops, there's a bunch of changes, and you will have a stronger tendency towards seeing your life through a critical lens. This is a beautiful gift because it is our once a month opportunity to assess our life and look at what is working here and what is not working here. And the things that you gloss over or sweep under the rug the rest of the month will grate at you during this time. They will piss you off.
Kate Northrup:You will be more irritable. You will notice all the shit that sometimes you just ignore. This is great news because it gives us an opportunity to update, upgrade, and really shift and transform, which is what we are designed to do every single month. So I recommend that during your luteal phase, when you are more aware of what needs to change, don't try to fix it during your luteal phase, but write it down, take note of what's bugging you. And then when you go into your menstrual phase or when you go into the dark of the moon, sit with it.
Kate Northrup:As the women who founded the Red School say, bleed on it and go in and ask your intuition, what do I need to do this cycle about this, if anything? Is this what I'm going to focus my precious life force energy on this cycle? Is this something I need to fix or do something about? And your intuition will tell you. Your inner voice will tell you during that menstrual or dark of the moon phase.
Kate Northrup:But back to the luteal phase, this is the time when, hormonally speaking, it's going to make your brain more focused and detail oriented. It is our most persnickety time, which is great. We can get like tweezer brains. So I, for example, Mike will always know when I'm about to have my period because it's the one time of the month when I'm suddenly obsessed with our entire apartment being spotless. I will do things like clean the grout of the bathroom with a toothbrush, get out my q tips and, like, clean everything, finally put all the papers away, because I can be, like, a little bit of in a chaotic swirl the rest of the time.
Kate Northrup:But during this week or so, I'm like, oh my god. That has to be given away. This has to be put away. Let me file that. Let me organize this.
Kate Northrup:And so that is a time also when I'm more likely to wanna lean into doing all the little detail things like calling Citibank about this thing, making the appointment about this thing, returning all the things that I didn't return. Like, all that stuff, I do I try to do a lot of, like, the admin y type things during my luteal phase because my brain is more poised to do them based on the hormonal state. The luteal phase is like the waning moon phase in the lunar calendar, and the energy of it is autumn. It is a turning within. It is the time when the leaves are falling off the trees.
Kate Northrup:It is the time when we are preparing administratively and logistically for going within to be still again as we begin a new cycle in the menstrual phase. So that's the high level of what I am talking about here. So I get a lot of questions about this. Here's the first one. Well, I can't schedule my life around my menstrual cycle because it's not regular enough to know, like, I can't, like, book all my podcast interviews when I'm ovulating because it's too far in advance.
Kate Northrup:Am I supposed to actually, like, do you cancel things when you have your period? My answer is no. I do not get obsessive about scheduling specific types of things on specific weeks of my cycle because my cycle comes, like, every 27 to 31 days. So that difference month over month makes it impossible to know a a few months from now when what phase I'm gonna be at any given cycle. But what I do do and that I recommend you do as well is to not so much always change what you're doing, but to change the way you're doing it.
Kate Northrup:So for example, I'm right now in my luteal phase. So I knew that coming into doing these podcast episodes, I was going to possibly be a little less filtered with what I am saying. I also know that I'll lean into doing more copywriting because again, I care less what other people think during my luteal phase, so I just say the thing, which is great for somebody like me who has been working on being less filtered and less, like, controlled about worrying what other people will think. So that an example of when you're in your menstrual phase, how might you show up differently? Well, in that time, could you leave extra cushioning in your schedule?
Kate Northrup:So maybe you do have a bunch of podcast episodes, maybe you do have a speaking gig, maybe you do have an important meeting, but maybe also that night, you're not going to ask yourself to make a homemade meal from scratch. Maybe you could just leave the towels unfolded. Maybe you could get support on all the other things you have going on in your life so that the life force energy that you do have, the ability you do have to focus could be doubled down on just this one thing that you know you need to deliver, and you could give yourself a pass on all the other things. So we wanna really look at how we're doing things, not so much what we're doing given each phase of the cycle. The other thing I get a lot of people asking is, what if I'm postmenopausal?
Kate Northrup:What if I'm peri a perimenopausal? What if my cycle is not regular? What if I don't have a cycle anymore? What if I'm pregnant? What if I've had a hysterectomy?
Kate Northrup:Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. And, oh, what if I'm on hormonal birth control? So what what I will say to all of those categories is, what if I'm a man? I would use the moon. So if you wanna practice cyclical alignment, moon?
Kate Northrup:We could look 20 years from now and figure out what the lunar cycle is going to be on that day. So if you want to start practicing scheduling in alignment with the cycle, you can use the moon. Everyone gets to use the moon. And the way I do it is that what's going on with my menstrual cycle is the primary and is the primary energy that I'll look at for a week, but then I allow the lunar phase to inform also a little bit about the way I'm doing things. So for example, if I have my period, and it's also at the full moon, which I often get my period around the full moon, those are technically opposite energies.
Kate Northrup:So, the getting your period, the menstrual phase, is really an inward energy, but the full moon is really an outward energy. So what do we do with those? Well, what I what I know and also from studying this is that when we get our period at the full moon, we are getting those intuitive downloads. We are getting access to that inner wisdom on behalf of ourselves, but also on behalf of the collective. So when I am getting my period around the full moon, I know that the downloads I'm getting, that the processing I'm doing is for me, but it is also I'm getting messages that are on behalf of the collective, not just for me.
Kate Northrup:Then when my cycle moves back closer to the new moon, which is like double dark inward energy time, I know that I'm doing my own processing and getting those downloads more on the personal. They're more just for me and my own micro experience. So we can use the lunar phases as, like, a flavor. What else? So that's if you don't get your period on the on the new moon, I kind of just address that as well, but I will just say in addition to that, you're not supposed to get your period at the new moon necessarily.
Kate Northrup:There are different kinds of experiences you can have of a menstrual cycle at different kind at different parts of the lunar cycle, and it's definitely like an advanced practice to track your menstrual cycle and track the lunar cycle and look at those two things together. Some people really love it. It's a it's a really wonderful, practical, real world way to honor the divine feminine in us, So I recommend starting to track your menstrual cycle. I recommend starting to track your lunar cycle. There's, like, a host of amazing apps that you can use.
Kate Northrup:You can use the digital do less planner that I created. You can use a journal. You can use all kinds of tools to help you just become more aware of where you are in space and time according to these 2 different cycles going on, your menstrual cycle and also the lunar cycle. I find that it helps me feel held and safe, and, also, so much of our culture, has has conditioned us to believe that women are crazy and that we are unpredictable. Actually, we're incredibly predictable just in a cyclical way.
Kate Northrup:So as opposed to cycling every 24 hours like men or testosterone dominant people, estrogen dominant people cycle every 28 ish days. Anywhere between 24 35 days for a menstrual cycle is completely healthy and normal. So I love to suggest tracking your own menstrual cycle as a way of reclaiming your predictable, cyclical energy and as an act of reclamation in a culture that still makes a lot of sideways snide comments about women's hormones. And I just would like to say that there is not one human being here on Earth who does not exist because of a woman's menstrual cycle. This is where we all came from.
Kate Northrup:So why would we not learn about it? Why would we not honor it? Why would we not use it as the primary rhythm in our creative lives, in our work lives, in to organize our entire lives if it is responsible for our life at large. I will just say this one last thing, if you are on hormonal birth control, you are not getting a menstrual cycle, actually. It is like a pretend experience where you just get it's like a it's not a real bleed.
Kate Northrup:And so, you may wanna explore possibilities around what life might be like cycling in alignment with your own internal wisdom as opposed to with a pharmaceutical if you have capacity for that. The birth control birth control was has been such a revolution for feminism and for the liberation of women, and also there's some big potential problems with it that I don't think the medical community talks about enough. So I'm gonna encourage you to do your own research around it and just know that if you are on hormonal birth control and you have capacity to do that research, please do that research. And in the meantime, you are not having a menstrual cycle in the way I just described, so just use the moon because that is gonna be a great tracker for you in terms of getting more deeply into connection with your feminine rhythms and your deep seated access to your power and creative life force. I hope this was helpful.
Kate Northrup:Happy cycling, and I will see you next time. Thanks for listening to this episode of plenty. If you enjoyed it, make sure you subscribe, leave a rating, leave a review. That's one of the best ways that you can ensure to spread the abundance of plenty with others. You can even text it to a friend and tell them to listen in.
Kate Northrup:And if you want even more support to expand your abundance, head over to katenorthrup.comforward/breakthroughs where you can grab my free money breakthrough guide that details the biggest money breakthroughs from some of the top earning women I know, plus a mini lesson accompanying it with my own biggest money breakthroughs and a nervous system healing tool for you to expand your abundance. Again, that's over at katenorthrupdot comforward/breakthroughs. See you next time.