Want to supercharge your life? Start by understanding the wisdom of your menstrual cycle. Yes, we are going there today.
Over the last several months, I’ve been reveling in really getting to know the cycles of my body and the moon (they are totally linked!). This has changed everything for me.
So when I came across Nicole Harlow I just knew she had to be on GET GUTSY. Nicole and I have a powerful conversation about one of my favorite topics – our cycles – as well as these juicy topics:
• Life as a digital nomad and settling down on the Malta beach
• Living in a van for 3 months while running a web design business
• Being a serial entrepreneur which included stints in burlesque, yoga, digital marketing, design, astrology, and menstruation, hormones and fertility issues
• The creative process
• Understanding and capitalizing on who you are instead of comparing how you work to how others work
• The importance of committing to yourself and monetizing your ideas
• Tribe building and allowing your community to grow with you as you evolve
• The wisdom and power of our bodies and working with our cycles
About Our Guest:
Nicole Harlow is a Hormonal Sexologist, Integrative Hormonal Health Expert, Cognitive Behavioral Therapist, and yoga teacher, with a Master of Arts in Sexuality. She is the author of international bestselling book Chakra Detox, host of top-50 iTunes self-help podcast The Spirited Entrepreneur and creator of Your Year of Radical Transformation, Namaste MBA + Unlock Your Cycle™ online programs. She is the founder of The Center for Menstrual + Sexual Health™ and Creative Director of Nicole Harlow Design Studio. A Philly girl by birth, she currently lives on the sunny Mediterranean island of Malta.
xoxo
Jenny
P.S. Subscribe to the podcast + leave a review + rating to spread the GET GUTSY message far + wide. Means to world to me! We are all in this together.
get gutsy episode number 192 with Nicole harlo unlock your [Music] cycle welcome to get gutsy I’m your host Jenny fennick and I am so excited to be on this journey with you a cuttingedge show blending business and spirituality get gutsy serves up a potent blend of stories lessons and tips to help you make a massive impact in the world through your Soul’s work and your inspired D life no more going in alone no more excuses the world needs more Brave women saying yes to leadership are you with me good let’s get gutsy [Music] now hey everyone Jenny here welcome to the final week of April 2018 OMG it’s here we are cruising April is interesting month for me because I’ve got two birthdays for my kids I have three kids two of them have birthdays in April my sister Julie’s birthday is in April those of you who know me know that she passed away many many many moons ago more than 20 years ago and uh yet I I honor her every every day but certainly every April and her birthday and then we typically have spring break for the kids we live in Massachusetts we have both winter break and spring break here which is which is really fun we homeschool our boys so like we can take breaks when we want to but my daughter has been in um Nursery School this year and so we’re on that like Traditional School schedule and it was really fun we just had spring break last week and I love taking time off just like not having well I had a couple of things sched Ed on my calendar but very very little none of it was you know like related to working in my business it was me just you know having play dates with my kids friends and going on adventures to museums and I did have one particular call with a new vendor that we’re going to be working with which is really exciting but that was all just you know intentional things to look at for my life and the future of you know where this business is going so make sure you take those that that time for yourself it’s so important you can’t be working in your business all of the time that will just break you it’s not fun it’s not sustainable and it’s really not necessary which um I’m going to be diving into listen if you’re listening to this episode the day it’s released heads up I am hosting a free online Workshop today it’s the first online Workshop that I’ve LED for free all year and that means I’m I’m pulling out all the stops on this baby I’m really pumped about it and it’s all about doing less and making more I think you know when you move into the entrepreneural space you are excited you feel fired up you’re passionate you’re ready to change the world and help people and then it’s easy to work way too much and be doing all of the things that you feel like you are supposed to be doing your colleagues are doing or you were told you are needing to do and it’s just honestly that sucks and you will eventually fall out of love with your business you may fall out of love with your relationships in your life because you’re not nurturing them and you’ll kind of just wake up one day going WTF what happened why why why I can’t keep doing this maybe I need to go back and just get like a job so I can be off you know at the end of the day and uh have a vacation and have a weekend and you know all those sorts of things so that’s why I wanted to lead this this Workshop because I have figured some stuff out and I really had to it was through sheer necessity especially as I started you know homeschooling gosh we’ve been doing this now for about a year and a half now and I had to get really really intelligent on how we were going to pull this off and I’m very fortunate Stephen and I we share this responsibility we both work from home we essentially create our own schedules and we’re able to do this we we truly do work as a team to give our kids what they need and to give our work what the work needs so come to my workshop will you Jenny fig.com slw Workshop that’s Jenny fic.com sorksh I’m going to be sharing five steps to increasing your Clarity confidence clients and cash flow by celebrating doing less and making more all right so that’s that and I am going to be opening up applications for my two Flagship programs um these programs are really the the lifeblood of my business and and my calling I have a few other offerings too in my business but these two are you know big kahunas if you will but yet they have a very intimate feel um I like especially for these two programs to have a very tight-knit Circle um you know women that I can really get to know really support deeply I’m not called uh with with these programs for them to be like Mass Appeal or as many as we can fit in it’s really this curated group of leaders who step forward into either my Mastermind or my coach certification school so um if you want to talk to me about being a part of one of those programs we are going to be opening up the doors and I’ll be accepting applications and really interviewing candidates over the next few weeks you can go to Jenny fig.com apply Jenny f.com apply all right so I am so pumped to share this episode with you today oh my goodness Our Guest is Nicole harlo she’s spectacular like I had a blast talking to her a blast the theme of this episode is unlock your cycle and we’re gonna go super real with you because we’re going to be talking about the wisdom of your menstrual cycle and you should still listen to this episode even if you aren’t cycling anymore even if your cycle is irregular this is all about supercharging your life and I wish I would have been taught this in school you know when I started my period back in middle school there was no kind of beautiful ritual around it there was no like Women’s Circle that came together that said oh my goodness you know like really celebrated what was going on I feel like back then it was like this you were excited but it was also shameful and you would try to hide that you were going to the bathroom on your period while you were you know holding your purse and you Norm you know it was just this like weird time and there’s so much wisdom contained in our menstrual cycle and certainly wisdom of the Moon the lunar cycle and these things are totally linked and I’ve been really diving deep into these Cycles over the last several several several months is I just realized that this is everything and in fact I created a program earlier this year called intuitive power that that dove into this deeply and so when Nicole Harley came across my radar um she came across actually like a year ago or something and I just kind of didn’t do much with um she really pitched to be on the show and then I came back because I was like I like her energy I like her story and she since she had written that you know kind of desire to be on the show back then had stepped more fully into her calling on unlocking the wisdom of your cycle so everything just lined up beautifully in terms of when I could get Nicole onto the show and what she was focusing on in in her work and so I know you’re going to get so much from this episode we’re going to be talking about well obviously that but also um her crazy awesome Journey which was she’s been living as a digital Nomad and she eventually has settled down on a beach in the country of Malta and she’s not originally from Malta she’s originally from Philadelphia she lived in a van for 3 months while running her we web design business she’s been a Serial entrepreneur she’s been involved in so many different Ventures and she’s just like interested in a lot of things she’s also a Gemini as am I so we just oh my God it was like we understood each other yes and we talk about the importance of committing yourself um to your work and monetizing on your ideas and also allowing yourself to evolve as you do allowing the work to evolve as you evolve so I know you’re going to get a tremendous amount of value from this episode with Nicole harlo all about unlocking your cycle enjoy Nicole harlo Welcome to get gutsy thanks so much for being here today hi it’s awesome to be here with you Jenny yeah okay so you originally from Philly and tell everybody where you living now because you’re not in Philly yep the United States I love that introduction so yeah I’m a Philly girl at heart born and raised East Coast in the city now I live on the tiny Mediterranean island of Malta which is one of the smallest island nations in the world it’s like 12 miles by 12 miles it’s how did this happen how did this happen so um I have always been a traveler at heart and my partner and I he’s British we’ve been together for like 13 years now and uh we’re both digital Nomads and for me digital nomading and location Independence was like a goal for pretty much like since I was a teenager you know I knew I wanted to be able to like travel I wasn’t quite sure at the time what the vehicle was going to be or even the the business or even the topic you know the thing that I was going to be doing that would get me there so um my partner and I we lived in the US we lived in England for years and we had come back to the us about three and a half years ago and we decided to sell everything and move into a van we flew from Philly to Portland we bought a custom van we did like the whole like hashtag van life experience a van down by the river exactly yes so we did that for like three or four months while working like digital nomad from the van you know picking up Wi-Fi wherever we could yeah lots of McDonald’s parking lots random fact if you ever find yourself living in a van you can get free Wi-Fi and Dick Sporting Goods so we would I like Dick Sporting Goods for many reasons too just like side note on that um I am a fan of sensible gun ownership I personally don’t own any guns but I don’t know if you keep tabs on what’s Happening Here in the United States but we have an issue with guns okay big issue and um Di Sporting Goods came out in the last we’re recording this in in March they came out um they’re not they raised the age uh that you have to be to purchase a gun in dicks used to be 18 now they raised up I read that to 21 and they’re not selling um some of those assault rifles that they used to sell and so anyway I was thrilled and of course some of some gun people are not thrilled but anyway I’m like Dick Sporting Goods like and they have Wii H random plug for Dick Sporting Goods for several different reasons yes so anyway so we were doing the van life thing and we did it for a few months and it was starting to get a little old living in a van um I have to say I was kind of craving mod consons and we didn’t even have a bathroom I mean we were living in this wasn’t a camper van this was like a c was like a 1980s like that have those vans yeah like a van like a custom van that we ripped out the seats we put Pergo flooring down we got a little futon mattress anyway did you cooking it did you have like a kind of a kitchen thing or not really no no no no we were we were eating cold food you know we were it was rough we were roughing it like okay but I’m so glad I had this why did yeah but like so why were you called to do that was it just this thing you just had to do it yeah you know what I just wanted the experience I wanted to see like what would is it what was it going to be like working from a van could could I still maintain my business could I maintain my sanity what was your business at that time CU I know yeah yeah at the time I was doing web design okay which was actually pretty convenient for the van experience because Web projects tend to be over a longer period of time right right rather than say if I was having coaching clients where I had call so you could work projects whenever you had Wi-Fi and like whenever that worked for you and then you deliver you know your piece of project okay yeah so if it took you know I would do one big day for example or two big days in like a Starbucks or something and kind of hash out the work for the week so the work I was doing at the time worked perfectly for what I for band life basically and you know I said after like three months I felt like I had done it you know Tak it off my box like did it so I said you know I’m really craving to go back to Europe and I said why don’t we pick a new place so we actually picked Berlin and we started off a few months in Berlin this was about three years ago and we did a January and February in Berlin and um cold you know cold and gray I’ve been to Berlin in December it’s beautiful in December because they all those little Christmas markets up yeah January and February why you yeah exactly what you janary where are the markets like where are the pretty markets yeah so we went from like cold rainy Pacific Northwest in a van to like nice flat in Berlin cool City but it’s still cold and gray and I said babe if we can be anywhere in Europe right now can we please pick like a sunny warm beautiful place and so what we did is we got a bottle of wine we pulled out Google Maps we made a list of like pros and cons for different places that we could go to neither of us had ever been to Malta and Malta came up on the list is this place that was like beautiful cheap it’s super cheap to live here there’s a lot of like for such a small place there’s quite a lot of like creatives digital Nomads from different countries like it’s it’s a small place but it’s a Melting Pot you have a lot of like Swedish tech companies here Norwegian tech companies um so we surprising to both of us both of us Malta came up tops of our pros and cons list and anyway so this was uh on a Saturday night yeah and we booked tickets and we moved on a Wednesday of the following week I love it that is rad so we went from like making this decision on Saturday we didn’t know anything about Malta neither of us had ever been here all we did was watch some YouTube videos about like that’s all you need yeah I mean we just like Googled the crap out of it yeah we moved on Wednesday and now we’ve been here for 3 years wow and so when you got there was it like love at first sight were you just like yeah this is where it’s supposed to be were did you ever have any second thoughts once you arrived or pretty much feeling Lo in terms of landscape I was like yeah in terms of like price convenience and Landscape I was like for sure because like we’re right now we’re paying like a third of what we paid for for a crappy studio apartment in say Philly for example right and we live on the beach like we’re I mean it’s like it’s beautiful you know and then you have the mediter sea and wow I love the Mediterranean you know like it’s just so natural the climate is amazing it’s sunny almost all the time wow it’s warm almost all the time like you don’t even really need a winter coat wow but I have to admit that I did have a little bit of culture shock because Malta even though it’s still in Europe is the foundations are quite different than other European countries because there’s a lot of Arabic influence to malah the language is really different the just even the way that the buildings look are really different so there’s a little bit of culture shock initially but um what language is spoken so they speak maltes and English say malti yeah I was like I know it’s like a a dog is that a language I’m like yeah language it’s malti it is a really interesting language too because it has like Arabic influences it has Italian influences it’s really different than any language that I had heard wow so they speak maltes and English you can get along with just knowing English or have you had to learn some uhuh no I just I to just do English a few terms okay wow okay so you you like get there and are you still doing your your web design business at that point like what what kind of work okay so that’s what what got you there yeah so yeah so you so you were able to you know continue on with those clients and then I know you’ve you know you’ve like evolved in terms of of what you doing that’s always like I love to you know talk about with our guest is is the evolution of your work and sometimes like our location influences that or our lifestyle we go through all of a sudden I know for me when I like turned 30 it was like a big turning point and then last year I turned 40 and it was like I can’t do some of those things anymore like I’m just moved on so what has happened for you in terms of the work now that you’ve hunkered down in Malta oh I I love this question and kind of like to answer that I feel like I have to go back a few steps even because since I became an entrepreneur which probably going on about 12 years now 12 or 13 years and um I could be what some people call A Serial entrepreneur so I’ve actually started and dropped and ditched lots of different businesses and I actually the first business that I ever started out was burles teaching wow and you know which is a really like the thing is like all the businesses that I’ve done have been quite different to one another but there’s always always been this core This Thread that’s run through all of them which is women have always been the core of it yeah yeah and so whether that was working with female entrepreneurs in my design business 100% of my clients have been women over the last six years I don’t you know it’s not that I I would say no to a like a male client but they just don’t come to me it’s not in my the vibe that I’m putting out you know yes very much like so starting off with the burlesque I wasn’t a burlesque dancer I had never performed on stage in that way again I’ve always been a bootstrapper by Nature so turned to YouTube figured out how to put together some choreography and really I did it because I wanted a way to communicate to women about their sexuality so this is another core piece that starts to weave its way into a lot of the work that I do is females bodies female sexuality female empowerment and self-expression but over the years over you know 12 years it takes a lot of different turns so it starts off with the burlesque it morphs into yoga and meditation and dance but of a more kind of like five rhythms ecstatic dance rather than like the brasque and then it starts to kind of weave its way again you know and then I get more into at this phase you know I’m getting more into like digital marketing I’m getting more into um design in general and again like the boot like I said about the bootstrapping it’s like I didn’t train in design that wound up becoming that wound up becoming another facet or another pivot point in my career yes because as a bootstrapping entrepreneur I never had any money so if you see something in my digital Arsenal I have made it you made it I’ve recorded it edited it built it from logo you know and that’s actually how I really touched on that as a business because through this process of being a a Serial entrepreneur and being a Gemini so having this kind of a lot of air influence and a lot of like you know the dueling twins I always think of you have to make sure that both twins are happy oh yeah and so for me that’s a lot of like in the work that I do you see a lot of dualities you see oh I’m going to create a course about astrology okay now I’m going to teach about you know something that’s very scientific or analytic or we’re going to talk about marketing metrics so there’s a part of my personality that loves having those dualities having lots of different textures if you would to play with and it took me years to get to the point where I realized that what I was actually craving was not this serial entrepreneurship necessarily but I loved that first burst of Creative Energy yeah I love loved naming business I loved logoing I loved the whole like for me being able to like get a whole new set of colors and crayons to work with it’s basically what it felt like you know yes and and it took a while for me to finally have that light bulb moment that like oh do you know people make a career out of this they make a career out of other people saying hey this this is my toolbox like what could you make out of this so I did so I see I see it as that Evolution as like you know the first part of my business journey and this was really around being in Philadelphia being in the city was um trying lots of different things to see basically throwing everything against the wall and seeing what’s stuck and I was finding myself you know just scrapping a lot of ideas no to location dependent no too resource intensive no not I can’t see myself being interested in this for the long term so there’s a lot of ideas that kind of Hit The Cutting Room floor those are things like food based product base you know ideas of that would keep me really tied and like I said location Independence was a huge factor and all of this but I realized that like I I was just loving that creative process you know but there was another way to do it and I could get paid at the same time uh and that’s when the evolution moved moved into like a More Design marketing uh putting together like opt-in quizzes for people’s business um setting those up for myself too um like I said always female clients so there was still this huge thread of empowerment and working with really conscious business owners um and then in the last few years now we’re getting to this next transition which is um working with women with hormonal issues working with the menstrual cycle um and bringing it in a way back from back into the body but like what I’ve realized with every single pivot is that within the pivots you start to bring the lessons of the last one with you right so I feel like everything now that this is the core of the work that I’m doing right now and what’s really inspiring me at the moment that’s not to say that it won’t never change in the future just I’m a changeable being you’re a Gemini girl Nicole did you know that I am too oh you are oh yeah saying like yes yeah so you get it and no one understands a Gemini like another Gemini does and it is it’s that dueling Twins and and um we get bored easily you know for I mean I’m I’m speaking for myself but yeah when you feel like you have learned all the lessons that your ment Learners like the van you’re like I’m good we’re set you know um I can’t just keep on doing this even though like it could work more whether it’s like the van thing or for me it was being in the careers being like I am good at this but I have learned everything there is to learn here and the longer I stay the less engaged I’m going to be I knew at my last corporate job I was like I got to get out of here because a colleague and I we both were done and we you had to figure out what you’re going to go into next you know and what we had started saying to each other was IDC IDC like the letters IDC which meant I don’t care and that’s not okay with me to like not care that’s that’s that’s not going to work long term and so I think it’s important that you bring that up and for people to really understand their astrological sign I think there’s a lot of wisdom in our signs and um obviously our menstrual cycles and the moon and like all of this like Universal wisdom for us because you can’t compare yourself like I have a friend who’s a Virgo and like she can do one thing and like do that thing forever and like rock it out till the end of the Earth and be like uber successful and to me I would be throwing up with boredom like it just I can’t like I just can’t do it I have got to be moving into some new terrain because that is what keeps life interesting for me yes yeah and my partner is a Capricorn so I see him getting up every day and like going to work and like and he and his his capacity to just like focus on the same thing like day in and day out for years is astounding to me because but but you know but like it’s it’s wonderful the skills that we bring to the table and now that we’re talking about the Gemini thing it’s like you know honestly I think I beat myself up over this for years me too and I could just be happy why can’t I just stay with happy like why can’t I stick with one thing yeah this is an issue and it’s like it’s just not the way that we’re made and I think there are people out there who are very intrigued you know like we have this this air of like mysteriousness I had a a friend recently I reached we reconnected she’s like have haven’t you like you know introduced a few new programs lately I’m like yeah I’m in this like creation phase like I you know sometimes when I’m um it just depends I have three kids and I last year in particular it’s just kind of where we were plus I had a big thing that was going on in my personal life with with my um Capricorn son and um I need to put my energy there like my energy had to go there so I didn’t have the space to and create all these things in in like my work work you know and then this year I feel like I’ve gotten things you know they’re kind of stable you know um and so I had all this like burst of energy to like bust out these new programs that I was interested in that um like you said they’re very much this Duality and I hadn’t thought about it in the way that you had described but to me they just makes so much sense I’m like yeah like it’s just because I have this wisdom inside of me and I have this expertise and I want to take you on this journey with me do you want to come and you know and that’s what it is and I think whether it’s through astrology or just just the the sheer fact of knowing who you are and not comparing yourself to so and so who does it like that and why can’t you be more like that it’s just because you’re not that’s just not you so you’ve got to to capitalize on what makes you unique I mean that’s the core of branding I was talking to a client earlier today and and I’m like you these photos that you take are So Glorious they’re like as soon I look at them like are they even real like she lives in this really awesome place in England and her photos are like glowing and there’s this like magic to them and I said she’s going through you know a branding process for her business and I’m you know guiding her through it like that’s what I want to see in the photos of you like I want to feel that magic in the way you’re showing up because that’s how you see the world I want the people to see you that way because that’s that’s what makes you special so that’s what I want you know our listeners really take in you got to know what makes you special you got to know um how you move through through life and and and don’t dim that don’t don’t be ashamed of that don’t try to like you know edit that out that’s that’s the stuff that we need yeah yeah and I and I just wanted to add something about like working in this way you know and if I could impart any hard-earned wisdom onto listeners here especially if you’re the type of Personality that has lots of ideas find yourself kind of flitting from one idea to the next the two things that have worked the most for me one is making a commitment like I will tell myself you can create this you can I can I feel I’ve given myself permission to create anything that takes my fancy anything that’s up for me in the moment as long as I commit to putting great systems in place to make sure that that sells passively for for good because there are things that I’ve created that like okay so I created a course on astrology even though we’re talking about it right now it’s not necessarily what’s up for me in my business I would right I like at this point I want to be talking to women about hormones I want to be helping in my clinic but like my commitment to myself is make sure that this is a passive course that has a funnel where I like I am literally still giving out that message and I am like creating that so that was my promise to myself was that I would be smart about monetizing the ideas because once I’m done with that I rarely want to go back to it again yes yes so it could still continue to work for me so I’ve I I’ve committed to myself that you know I promised myself that what’s up for me I will follow that as long as I’m committed to making sure that that continues to work for me me and sometimes I’m not always the best person to do that and so that might be mean hiring somebody who’s great at Facebook ads who’s great at putting sales funnels together who can help you with like a passive income strategy for those ideas now this only you know I I’m not sure how this translates into every business but for me that’s been the best part of it is saying you know how will this continue to work and then the other piece of advice here and what’s been really helpful for me in my business is to find the tribe like create your tribe love them hard support them and a lot of times what you’ll find what I found is that my community is willing to go with me wherever I’m going so like per like I started a tribe of my yoga students some of them wound up being female entrepreneurs they then wanted a website for me now website clients are coming to my clinic for me to help them with their hormone issues and you’re doing your clinic online yeah online and then I have um an inperson Clinic here in Malta too which is nice because it’s the first time in years that I’ve really started to like integrate that in person piece but I still want to make sure that the core of my business is digital I mean that’s that for me is non-negotiable I I want to make sure that I can always pack the laptop and get the Wi-Fi and still maintain my business you know I wonder if that’s like a piece of the Gemini thing too you know so I don’t ever want to feel like I love it here but I don’t want to feel tied down anywhere yeah yeah I don’t even want to feel tied down within me being here like like to my schedule here you know when I think about wait I have to be at that same place every day of every week like wait hold on you know like I don’t know I mean it could be so awesome but just the thought of that it’s very um yeah it doesn’t it doesn’t feel good in my body because I the Gemini were’re we’re like the the butterflies we like to be able to move and groove and I and you have to understand that you know and and to like really the willingness to say no to an opportunity because that’s just GNA clip your wings even if the opportunity is G oh my God you’ll you’ll grow your audience and you can make this money and it’s like because it’s not worth it it’s really not not worth it to somebody who’s who needs that freedom who needs to be able to say you know what for the next few weeks like I’m not taking any appointments because I’m going off to do this or to do that and that’s critical to get it really is and I that’s honestly what drew me to to entrepreneurship to begin with is I just wanted to be able to decide how I want to design this thing and and to be able to do it um I love what you said about you know the tribe so how do you now in terms of like tribe building what is it that you’re doing to um communicate with your tribe to you know love up who you have and then to invite new people in ah okay I love this question because it’s something that I love doing and things have shifted a little bit for me recently um I started a YouTube channel with a web series and I’m creating content now every every week like doing videos talking about different topics but kind of fun things as well so like natural makeup challenges like swapping out like uh different products in my makeup bag that are like chemical toxic endocrine disruptors with like natural things and so sharing that um but as well but also kind of like getting down to like the nuts and bolts of like hormone imbalance endocrine disruption um things like you know infertility at hormonal acne things like that so I’m really loving creating the video content and again it’s something that like we we’re so blessed to live in this the technological advances that happen right now because all of that I do myself you know it’s a tripod it’s my camera it’s my lighting setup I edit it myself so it’s it’s not a team you know people can you can really start from where you’re at you can really start with with your iPhone you know and start creating this content um in addition to that I have a private Facebook group girl Mees body which is what the channel is also called Girl Meets Body H so people can kind of come into the group and we do like things like exercise challenges every month I give a playlist I give um like a hormone friendly diet plan nutrition plan like a meal plan basically like a calendar of meal ideas and then I have like a subscription um service that you have or is that like no it’s totally free totally free okay so you’re doing Tri tribe thing and then so and where’s the revenue where do the revenue Pieces come in with with what you’re doing with with hormones now and really spreading the word about that oh so that is um I have an online course it’s called unlock your cycle and um it goes through all the facets of hormones it goes through fertility awareness so how like because for me so if I can kind of dig into it like a little deeper of my psychology I’ve always been someone who’s been really interested in noticing patterns observing patterns and figuring out how to tweak them so if that’s as you know sometimes it’s astrology like learning more about myself because the desire really and the core is to like optimize my own performance or optimize my own life so right you know if I find out oh okay a Gemini with this if I could put these together into a pattern then I can start to use some of the principles to like know how I work best for example and the hormones was just in the menstrual cycle was another piece of that like it’s another facet of saying hey you know what I’m really into astrology and the patterns that I see here and then I kind of look over here and I’m like wow there’s like a scientific basis for you using the menstrual cycle to empower I think every single aspect of your life yeah yeah it’s not just about getting your period it’s not just about getting pregnant or managing symptoms although that is part of it and that’s often the way that women find me through the clinic or through the online program is to mitigate symptoms I have hormonal acne I’m not sleeping at night but what they find it’s kind of like the Secret side effect and this is what I teach in the program is how can you use this to supercharge every aspect of your life so we have facets of the program about sexuality there’s a facet called unlock your business that’s part of the program unlock your business with your menstrual cycle yes unlock your schedule unlock your lifestyle and so I go through systematically and it’s you know it’s a DIY program you can go at your own pace but I go through systematically showing women how you can apply this the principles of your menstrual cycle to every aspect aspect to be better at your relationship to exercise more wisely to um have more pleasure you know what like and to to really kick ass at your business too yes yes I love I love how you’ve just gone there I mean nobody really gave you permission to do this you just did it right it was just one of those like I’m interested in this and I’m learning and I feel like I can help people so I’m going to help people yes and and I saw the way that I was applying the principles I mean very short verse because I don’t want to get into this I know we don’t have a lot of time but I um have polycystic ovarian syndrome yes I didn’t get so I’ve known this you know I was on the pill for years you and me both yep got the doctor brush did yep got the doctor brush off nothing’s wrong with you your symptoms are all in your head um went off the pill gained 45 lounds never got my period was like anxiety depression constant companions in my life um and thought there’s got to be a better way the gynecologist said oh your only way is to go back on the pill and I was like I don’t believe that and so what I create and and this the work that I’m doing now I’ve been working on this for years right this has been your own personal Journey exactly and so you know got myself to a place where I’m cycling normally I get my period every single month I’m at a good weight for my body I feel great athletic healthy have lots of energy so I applied the the nutritional supplement healthy lifestyle principles first to my body yes yes saw that they were working continue to learn and research so I have used myself as this research you know like like I have been doing the research project right right over a decade right and once I saw okay these these principles work then I started to apply the principles to other aspects of my life and once I got to the place where I was using it for my business and my creativity and I saw how my just on all different levels like how my output was increased how I was getting better results month over month just by plugging into the system I was like I have to teach other women this yes and it was also because I was at the time you know this was a few years ago I was to ask the women in my life like did you know this like like one real world example like I was like did you know like when we’re in our ovulatory phase that we’re like statistically more persuasive that we’re more likely to get a raise to close a deal yes that’s power it’s connected to yes the full moon it’s connected to the full moon and it’s like yeah we should have been taught this in school and we w why don’t we know this about our bodies we were it was to we were it was dirty we were on the rag you had to hide you you brought your little purse to the bathroom you’re like oh God everyone knows I’m like on my period right now because I never bring my purse unless I’m on you know and so yeah it’s just I I’m so glad that you’re teaching this and um you know there’s just so much I want to say about that that book The Red Tent was like a big eye opener for me and then I read a book um I don’t know if you’ve read this book Wich by Lisa lisst oh she’s a friend of mine yeah oh my go book like really changed my life um a few months back I read that and it was like everything clicked in it was just like like boom it like filled in the gaps inside of me and um it inspired me I told you in the pre-show like I I wanted you know I’ve been I got into astrology when I was in college I did a persuasive speech on it speaking about persuasion topic astrology because like I got the I was yeah this purple book The only it’s called the only astrology Book You’ll Ever Need by Joanne wolfolk it’s so good and we got it in college and I remember reading it after coming home late one night from like part A partying partying like partying and um I cracked open the book and I was like oh my God it was just all this wisdom in there and um and I’ve just been really following that ever since but like mainstream Society doesn’t talk about this doesn’t want you to know about this and then once you especially as a woman go in and realize we have this it’s inside of us like we are the moon we have the same cycle as the moon why aren’t we working with that and like you I said I want to teach women this and so I I created my own program where I realized um you know like yeah our Cycles can they don’t always sync up with what’s happening in the lunar cycle but you can make those correlations and really be intelligent about when you’re you know making deals or when you’re like you know what I really can’t do calls this week because this is when I am bleeding and I need to be in my you know I need to be in rest I need to be in renewal exactly and it’s we should be doing this and I’m really glad that you’re teaching it yeah and there’s you know what talking of protection like I have a few days in my cycle um and I I invite women listeners especially if they’re cycling if they’re still cycling um rather than being postmenopausal but I mean postmenopausal women still have a hormonal cycle it’s just not as pronounced as menting women but for me it’s usually those like the time it’s as I’m moving into my follicular phase which for listeners is like after you stop bleeding but before you’ve ovulated so nature kind of gives us this window of time it’s like when we’re at our maiden like we’re not bleeding and we we haven’t moved into that ripe fullness yet of ovulation nature gives you this window where your body is actually not focused on getting pregnant so your biological imperative is not to necessarily like be likable lovable sensual voluptuous in the way that we are at our fullness at population that’s why we’re so persuasive I mean our even our features we feel better about ourselves we look better but when you have the follicular window for me I have noticed that I get more done during that four days like it’s for me it’s about four days three to four days I get more more done during that time period than I will for the rest of the month wow almost cumulatively probably not quite cumulative cumul cumulatively but pretty close you know so for me that’s a protective time that I guard like so fiercely so does that mean you’re not scheduling other things it’s like that’s when you’re producing during the that’s yes that for me is high intensity of creativity time okay so usually every month what I do is I’ll set myself a big project sometimes it’s big and Technical like this month I’m working on perfecting a sales funnel okay and if anybody’s ever put a sales funnel together it’s like can be like a head trip you know because there’s all these moving parts and you have to think about like oh at what level do I want them to see this offer and is this m right and and then just getting the all the tech pieces to work together you know so so that’s the project that I’ve set myself for this this month but sometimes it’s making a course you know sometimes it’s putting together like an ebook sometimes it’s just like batch uh batch writing a bunch of blog posts or batching a bunch I wouldn’t necessarily do interviews during that time right just needs to be more internal yes I mean what what I think in most women I think some people are outliers but for the most part the women that I’ve talked to and just reading the literature about it during this time you don’t actually feel very social you feel in a good mood yes like you feel good but this is that very much like close the door I’m pulling an all nighter yes and I’m getting this done you have you have high energy and it is a little bit easy to burn yourself out during this time because you can just go go go go go but again you know this is something where there’s usually two nights of the month that I can’t sleep very well it’s during this part of my face got it I had one that’s actually where I’m at right now just on tail I’m moving into ovulation so this is a great it was a great time to talk to you today because my energy is high and I’m starting to phase out where I’m actually becoming more social right and a few days time I’ll be at the height of my social but that’s actually hard for me to pin me down in terms of focus because I want to text I want to call I W to go out and see friends you know so I have to move with that energy too right when I’m in this phase what am I most likely to want oh this is when I’ll record YouTube videos because I’m G to be chatty conversational verbose outgoing but that follicular phase the days before for me it’s a lot of times it’s like shut the door and if that energy is keeping me up at night and this is when I have some of my best ideas it’s like right where do I want to be in my business in five years okay 2 am you know I’ll sleep good for the rest of the month but so so you ride that energy you’re like you know what feeling guilty I’m staying up because I get these like twice two nights a month and then I Gotta Wait again for another month that’s really good Insight because sometimes you know it’s like I I feel bad I’m up and I I should be sleeping right I got three kids so I can’t like sleeping in the morning so I got I got to deal with that you know it’s the whole that whole game but um you know I I identify that very much and I remember in college I used I could like stay up and study I because for me that was that was like the puzzle I was putting together all right I’m gonna have this exam tomorrow and I know if I kind of figure out these elements I’m gonna get like a really good grade and that was that was the fun game for me and I still am able to do that I don’t want to do it all the time in my business but I have those moments like you said and I’m going to do a better job tracking that now to see when does that happen um where it’s just I I can’t help it I have got to just ride it and my husband be like what time you go to bed I’m like it’s fine you know like just don’t do something I don’t know something in the twos that’s why you’re an entrepreneur that’s why I’m an entrepreneur but if you can start timing it and see does it fall within the predictable window with me it’s usually days six seven eight in the cycle it may be a little bit different but but you usually find that it’s around that time like cool somewhere between like 6: to 10: you may have like a night or two where your mind is just up and if you’re an ideas person and your business thrives on writing out a list of blog posts or who do you need to contact I I now I give myself permission to like if the energy is there I’m EMA them at 3 in the morning yeah uhuh yeah yeah I used to be like you know what I’ll like schedule it so it goes out at 9: in the morning I’m like I don’t care you know I’m not trying to hide this is it you know like this is the truth and I you know I uh I just think it’s so important for us to be in this and as women too to share this wisdom that we should be sharing but you know again in Lisa’s book um which we were persecuted for this way way back in the day and so some of that is still within us you believe in former lives like I do I mean I I was burned at the steak I like know it and so it’s still kind of we’ve got to shake that off like you know and and be able to share this wisdom so that we can work with these energies so that we can have this beautiful stuff that we create that changes lives and that we’re not trying to do it that goes against our body that we’re not just taking other people’s opinions which is what those doctors and you know OBGYNs were telling you remember when I got off the pill you know I was on it for all those years and then I actually wanted to have kids and I’m like okay wait hold on this is this is switching and I remember after my first son was born I went back like on I had this thing called the mini pill and I like took it for like a month I’m like I’m done I don’t want to put anything else in my body I am just not doing it it just felt wrong and I haven’t gone back ever since you have to do your just understand what game is being played and ask yourself if you want to be in that system there’s other ways to you know take charge of your body and to you know be clean like you just you need that to like really tap into your most innate wisdom yeah and you know like birth control pills and that’s a whole another conversation that we could probably spend another hour talking about from the side effects to Big Pharma and all these things the one thing I will say about birth control pills for women to know because this is not something that we were taught I mean I was on the pills pill for years and what I didn’t realize is you know ovulation is not just about having a baby or getting pregnant yes ovulation is a pinnacle moment in your cycle that affects not just like whether you’re fertile or not it affects how you feel about yourself it affects your libido it affects your creativity yes and the way that this moves throughout the month you know like not so for some people it feels like a roller coaster that means your hormones are imbalance it should be this gentle wave you know we go through a wave throughout the month we have period where we have lots of focus we have periods where we’re feeling social we’re designed to to have this natural flocks but when you go on birth control pills you Flatline yes because you don’t ovulate you cut off that range of experience okay maybe you’re not having you know the full highs and the lows but I will take them while we’re feeling flatlined exactly because I would rather feel the full range of human experience as a woman as it flows throughout the month right and get that beautiful burst that I get in ovulation absolutely get that beautiful burst during the follicular phase where I can create where my brain is on fire with ideas totally totally totally and to trust that like there’s a reason why I mean there’s a reason why we have the new moon and then you know the waxy Moon into absolutely raining Moon and once you really go into that and you can feel the energies that’s why I created a program this year called intuitive power and that’s what it was rooted in I had a blast leading that thing it was like so easy for me it was so fun the women I mean what happened as a result I was just like and I was creating it as I went you know which as I I teach that principle too because I teach about you know program design and you know getting it out there and filling your programs because I’ve been doing that for so long that was such a joy for me because it just came from within and it was spread that wisdom that we have as women and I I just want more of this to be happening in the world there’s you know entrepreneurship is doesn’t have to be corporate um it doesn’t have to be so like fit in the box and nice and neat that’s not how our bodies are made that’s not how the universe works and the more that we can to like really be in this and and spread it the more sustainable this life is going to become otherwi you’re going to burn out you’re going to get sick you had poly cyric ovarian syndrome right PCOS that is what’s going to happen I’ve seen it with so many people I’ve manifested my own stuff which luckily I’ve moved through because you have to clear it and you have to realize that you just been living under somebody else’s system that’s up and you don’t have to anymore you just don’t have to anymore so Nicole where can people find no oh my God we’re not lar that’s you know that’s not as wom as women we are cyclical beings and the planet is C the Moon is the seasons and you know there are so many of these not even just the seasons but who it was um make sure you tell Lisa that her book impacted me so much um I learned about sabbaths she yeah she mentions them in her book and then I met a friend of mine in Salem you’ll get a kick out of this I went to Salem Massachusetts earlier this year because I read the book I like I have to go to Salem and you I live in Massachusetts so yes and um I went to this really awesome little store they’re called the um the coen’s cottage oh my gosh so cute and they had this amazing little Library there and they had this book called sabots and I got it and I’ve now I’ve been kind of bringing these out with with my people you know with like little programs like oh it’s inbk oh it’s belting you know it’s really fun and it’s it it feels good to work with the Earth and yes okay Nicole where can people go find you where do you want to okay so you can find me on my website it’s the cms.org uh that’s the center for menstrual and sexual health and on the website I’ve actually put together this quiz it’s a really cool system it’s called the hormonal archetype quiz it’s one question it takes less than two minutes and it will let you know if you have any hormonal imbalances nice and it’s totally free like so people can there’s a PDF that gives you like a four four-part protocol there’s a video that explains it so that’s the first step like go to the website take the quiz see what’s going on with your hormones because a lot of women have no idea that their symptoms are linked right and the thing is we could have these symptoms for like our whole bleeding life right and think oh that’s not a symptom when actually it is yes like PMS mood swings are a symptom they’re not they’re not necessarily supposed to be part of yeah we we we just have had it for so long that we think oh that’s just part of it it’s not so go there take the quiz then you can find me on um Instagram on Facebook and YouTube Girl Meets Body so Girl Meets Body is the Facebook group Girl Meets Body on Instagram and Girl Meets Body check out the YouTube channel too because I give a lot of free videos there with different content love it I love it okay everyone’s gonna go check your stuff out awesome I enjoyed our conversation very much me too oh my God I can talk about this for hours and hour I know it’s super fun it’s super fun well I want to know you’re very gutsy you’ve done a lot of gutsy things what is your response oh hey Kate we’re almost at my next guest hey Kate we’re almost finished I’ll I’ll talk with you in a few okay all right she’s like what okay um y’all I this is my little technique too is I batch my I batch my and so I batch every I batch work every now I just go and that’s me maximizing my my cycle my energy and all that stuff okay totally I do it all the time what is the answer to our finale question what is the gutsiest move you’ve ever made and how does it Inspire your life and work today great okay so we talked a lot in the beginning about gutsy moves physical moves that I’ve done um all throughout the world Europe Malta doing it on whim but I have to say probably the gutsiest one was the very first move the one that kicked it all off and that is when I was 22 I went to Temple University in Philadelphia I did my last final I literally handed in my final got on a flight to Greece for the summer uh where I was going to work at a yoga retreat never went to my college graduation or anything and that was one gutsy because no one in my family had ever traveled you know it was totally like I was breaking the mold basically yes getting the passport leaving the system like leaving the university and that inspired literally everything that came Beyond I met my partner there my whole bouncing around the world location inde dependence all came from that one gutsy move of like I want to follow my heart to do something different rather than like the what I saw around me was the traditional like go to college get the job pay back your student loans I was like f all that yes I’m doing something different I’m I’m charting my own course totally I I don’t know the path is leading but totally led me here to Mal and it will lead me somewhere else Beyond here too because I know my chapter maybe this chapter will come to a close and there’ll be a new pivot there’ll be a new place to go to yeah and everything started from that one gutsy move that one guts move where in Greece were you um on an island called skiros okay okay I my husband and I went to Greece on our honeymoon while we did a cruise through the Mediterranean didn’t stop in Malta but um I love Greece I will go back it’s my favorite place yeah gosh I’ve doneo mag roads very magical very magical I love that you did that that was very very bold and I can hear your philly I have I have a good friend of mine and I’m gonna share this episode with her even before it goes live because I know she’s gonna get something from it um she’s originally from Philly and and um I know she’s in a midst of like there’s some kind of transition going on and so I I feel like she’s is going to get a lot of um energy and insight and wisdom from this conversation today as will all of our listeners today so thank you so much Nicole aome it was great you could never you could take the girl out of Philly but you never take the Philly out of the girl and we just this year we our team won the Super Bowl and I stayed up till 4 in the morning watching it that’s right yes yes it’s you know it doesn’t matter how far away you still feel connected I know feel I’m far from home because I grew up in Florida and Georgia and I’m in like New England now and that feels like I mean it’s you can’t there’s like a glare but I have a huge like snow fall behind me there’s so much snow and I it’s like it’s still snowing it’s snowing right now so yeah you have to be willing to just follow those nudges and like you’ll figure it out you know y’all you will figure it out stop making it so freaking complex in your brain you’re freaking smart end get there and then things will show up for you and then you’ll do this thing and then you know if you decide you don’t like it you’ll go some place else it’s fine and the more that you trust I notice the more that things work out the universe always like hooking you upes yeah univ I gotta live in that trust and yes live in that gutsy way that’s right that’s right Nicole well you’re amazing everybody tuning in you’re amazing too this is Jenny fenx sending you so much love light and Faith as you get gutsy see you next time hey this is Johnny Dumis of EO fire and you’re listening to get gutsy with Jenny fenig gutsy leaders unite and ignite I hope you enjoyed this episode of get gutsy as much as I enjoyed creating it for you are you responsible for leading and growing your spiritual business if so I have a free tool for you that will help you spread your message like wildfire it’s called The Sacred marketing puzzle and it’s a one-page PDF guide that simplifies the often mysterious and confusing world of marketing when you use sacred marketing tools to amplify your message you’ll provide huge value to your tribe and grow your business what are you waiting for go to Jenny fic.com sluzzle to get yours instantly that’s jenny.com 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