Welcome back to the Moon Cycle Series!

In case you need to catch up:

Part One: I talk about my journey to making peace with my period

Part Two: Your connection to the moon and breakdown of the 4 phases of your cycle

Part Three: Incorporating ritual and self-care into your moon cycle (+ sea sponges!)

Part Four: Eating for Your Moon Cycle {video interview with Nadia Munla}

As I’ve been getting your feedback about this series – reading and listening to your own stories of your relationship with your moon cycles, birth control, hormones, and everything that comes with it – I’ve noticed a theme emerging.

Trusting Your Body

As someone who used to struggle with an eating disorder and inexplicably heavy, painful periods, I know a thing or two about feeling like your body is against you. I remember when I came across the idea of trusting and loving your body in order to take care of her and thinking, “well that sounds well and good…if you don’t have my crazy body!”

But when you come into a place of love and body trust, you can start to understand the signals she is sending you. It’s like a secret code that you can start to decipher. One of my body’s secret codes is expressed through skin. When my stress levels get high and my self-care practice drops, my skin gets rashy and broken out. I’ve learned to recognize the signal.

I want to introduce you to my friend, Nicole Jardim of Fix Your Period. Nicole is an amazing Hormonal Health Coach that specializes in young women struggling with their periods. After seeing six different doctors and spending thousands of dollars on tests and medications for her symptoms of gut issues, low libido, barely there periods, joint pain, and melasma, Nicole took her health into her own hands and was able to rebalance her body’s hormones and find peace in her body again.

In Nicole’s own words:

Rather than focusing on how bad I felt or the fact that I had been having these problems for what seemed like forever, I decided to take more personal responsibility and focus on the fact that I was indeed on a healing journey and I was exactly where I needed to be in that moment.

My big revelation throughout this process was this:

It is important to maintain the perspective that we can trust ourselves to take care of ourselves.

In the 20-something years I’d been on this planet, no one had ever mentioned this internal guidance system or that I had the ability to tap into it when I wanted. It wasn’t until the doctors could no longer fix my problem that I was forced to think about alternatives.

The first intuitive message I received was “get off the birth control pill”.

I don’t even remember thinking that it was connected to all my health issues (well at least not consciously) but I had this “knowing” that this was the solution.

All of these health issues weren’t happening to me, they were happening for me. They were all signals from my body letting me know that things were a little off kilter and I needed to right the ship.

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So here’s the most important thing to remember:

Everything is interconnected.

The endocrine system is like a series of highways and hormones are the cars, moving vital information to different areas in the body. When there is a breakdown, it can affect the flow of traffic throughout the system. In other words, hormone imbalances don’t happen in a vacuum. Symptoms are just signals of an underlying imbalance. They are your body’s very own language. In order to begin understanding it, all you have to do is start paying attention.

Tracking Your Cycle

The easiest way to do this is to begin tracking your menstrual cycle with an app like Kindara, Clue or Glow. {Note from Becca: I’ve also heard very good things about MyMoontime, which tracks your period with the lunar cycle.}

Your period is like your monthly progress report and abnormalities mean that there are deficiencies somewhere along the way. You don’t have to experience menstrual symptoms that disrupt your life each month.

Understanding your own unique hormonal landscape will enable you to start working with your body rather than against her. Over time this builds an intuitive trust between you and your beautiful body that will serve you for the rest of your life.

Stay tuned Thursday for the final post in the Moon Cycle Series, where I’ll share some beautiful herbal remedies to help your moon cycle. Time to get dabbley!

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Nicole Jardim is a Young Women’s Hormonal Health Coach and creator of Fix Your Period, a series of programs that empower women to reclaim their hormonal health in a fun and sassy way. She runs a successful 1-on-1 and group coaching business and has helped thousands of women from all around the world who are struggling with PCOS, infertility, amenorrhea, PMS and much more.

Sign up here for her free 3-part video training series, Take Control of Your Period, Take Control of Your Life to discover the top secrets doctor’s don’t tell you about your hormones, your symptoms & how to finally fix them.