WomanCode - Interview with Alisa Vitti

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Hello and welcome. I'm Alexandra J. Johnson, and today we have a divinely delicious gift. Elisa Viti. She is an integrative nutritionist. She is also the best selling author of Woman Code and the creator and founder of flowliving.com and she has a wealth of knowledge. I love her book. I think every woman should read it. So amazing. And she goes into so many different topics that I think are so important for us goddesses. So welcome. Welcome, Elisa.

Oh, I'm so happy to be here, Alexandra. And hello, all the goddesses.

Yeah. Okay, so let's start off with hormones. You know, your book is on hormones. What are hormones? There's so much talk about hormones, and I hear a lot of women say, oh, it's my hormones. But a lot of times I'm like, what does that even mean? Like, what are hormones?

I know if we're not. Not only do we not know what they are, but then we usually think they're, like, for older people, right?

Yeah. The menopausal. Right.

Like postmenopausal. Then all of a sudden you have hormones, but you have hormones your whole life. And they really run the show in terms of the quality of your experience of, like, your everyday mood and energy and vitality. So hormones are just these chemical messengers made out of amino acids suspended in a lipid ring that float around in your body between different target glands in the endocrine, your thyroid, your adrenals, your ovaries, et cetera. And they talk to these glands and have them initiate behaviors that help you stay balanced. Right. And that's what your hormones are. And they all work in a very interconnected fashion. You can't spot treat hormones. You can't just say, oh, my thyroid's not working. Let me do stuff for my thyroid. No, if your thyroid's out, everything else in the endocrine system is out. And this is where a lot of women get frustrated because they go and they get this diagnosis about something's wrong with one hormone, and they try to spot treat that one hormone. They don't feel that much better. And so my approach, of course, is very integrative. Let's look at the whole endocrine system and treat the root causes of why your endocrine system and your hormones aren't making you feel luscious and juicy and sexy, which is what they're supposed to do.

Okay, I love that. How do we know if our hormones are out of whack? There's so many things. But how do we know?

I look at it in A couple of different layers. Most of the time, at the very beginning stages, it's hard to connect the dots back to a hormonal problem. For example, you might just feel a little tired and you don't think about, oh, what's my cortisol level right now? Or what is the state of health of my adrenals. You think, maybe I didn't sleep enough, or maybe I didn't eat enough, or maybe I need more coffee. Right. We don't quite look at why do I feel tired. Right. Or maybe you have a little breakout on your skin. Not just acne, eczema, maybe some sort of skin discoloration. And you think, well, maybe I need some new skincare regime. You don't think about what's my estrogen level or progesterone levels doing. So that's kind of, kind of stage one. Stage two is when there's like a conflagration of symptoms like the skin, the fatigue, the moods, and you just, you know something's wrong, but you don't know what. And then you kind of move to stage three where you have been going to several different doctors and you finally maybe get a diagnosis. And then you could put your finger on the map and say, okay, I have some hormonal problem, some problem with my period or some problem with the fertility or some problem with the sex drive. And you can identify, you can give a name to these symptoms. And that's kind of the different stages I see women go through. But the reality is, if you can start to do the work of making these tiny little course corrections, which I talk about in chapter six of Woman Code, as soon as you start to feel tired, that's the time to start treating your hormonal imbalance. Not when it becomes a condition, it's just much harder. It's more work, it's more frustrating. So I like to get women started in stage one, not stage three, if I can.

Right, right. So it's more of a prevention than a.

Well, yeah. I mean, the cool thing about your endocrine system is it's always in a state of flux, which works to our advantage. As soon as you understand the language, which I teach in all of our programs on flow l. As soon as you understand how this all works, it becomes as if you couldn't read before. Now every street sign you can read. And it's like, oh, now I know where I'm going. And so it's this sort of eye opening body relationship that develops where you say, oh, I'm tired today. I Understand why. And instead of having more coffee, which is going to make the adrenal problem worse and the cortisol pattern more problematic, I'm going to take a B12. I'm going to eat certain foods today. I'm going to up my fat and carbohydrate intake today, and I'm going to do some magnesium tonight and get to bed earlier. And then the next day the problem can be fixed. Like, that's how real time we can work with our hormones.

So cool.

It's great.

That's so awesome. Okay, so I am curious because I know I talk to a lot of women and they think this hormone's out or that hormone's out. So can people come to you? So if somebody's watching this and they're like, okay, I know my hormones are out of whack, what do I do? Do you recommend blood tests or saliva tests or just come to you? What are some options around the hormones and how we figure it out?

Everybody's different. Here's the truth. The truth is the degree of testing that you do gets you to a place where you can appreciate what's going on in your body at that moment. And if that's something that's important to you, that's really great to do. And saliva testing is the only valuable type of testing to do to establish hormonal patterns. Because for a woman, your hormones are changing every single day. And even to just test The Adrenals, a 24 hour Adrenal test, the only way to do that is with saliva. So find a good naturopath in your area. They'll ship you the saliva kits for free, and then you send them directly to the lab and pay for it directly. And then you get the results. Like, this is something every person has access to, right? Get that information. That's great. Don't worry about going to an endocrinologist. That might be your first line of how you figure out, okay, maybe it's time to do a saliva test. But blood work only lets you see in one moment of time. It's like a Polaroid picture of when the blood was taken from your veins. That's it. Whatever hormones were in there at that time, that's it versus saliva. The frequency of the testing is just more practical when you want to see where your patterns are off. But when we look at even the saliva testing and whatever diagnosis you might have, and this was the big discovery I made years ago when I first got started in this with my own hormonal health condition, as some of you know, I suffered from polycystic ovarian syndrome. And for those of you who don't know what PCOS is, it's a breakdown in the communication between the pituitary gland, which is located in the midbrain, and the ovary. So I wasn't ovulating, I wasn't menstruating. I was obese. I was covered in acne. I was like, what is going on with my body? And nobody knew, right? They were just like, oh, just take the pill. You'll be fine. I don't believe in taking medication if we don't know what's wrong, just on principle. But all my research led me to appreciate that whatever your diagnosis, whatever the saliva test results are, whatever all these little nuances of things that you're pinpointing about what might be off with your body, the solution, the work is the same because the endocrine system is the same in your body and in my body, right? We all have a hypothalamus and a pituitary gland and a thyroid and a thymus gland and the adrenals and the ovaries and the pancreas and liver. Those things are all inside of you. Whatever your particular genetic predisposition to develop PCOS or fibroids or endometriosis or fertility problems or compromised sex drive, whatever those things are that you might develop to get better, everybody, every woman, has to go through the same functional protocol to address what the endocrine system needs, not what the condition needs. I'll say that again. You need to do what the endocrine system needs and not what the condition needs, because the condition needs the endocrine system to fix it.

Right?

Not you. You can't fix a condition. You can only support the endocrine system to do its job, to remove the condition, Right? And that's a huge, important shift to make. If it's the only thing you get from our call today, that's it. That's the nugget. It'll save you so much time and money on. Because I just see it. And I went myself, how many thousands and thousands of dollars did I spend on trying different practitioners and trying different supplements and trying different, I mean, crazy things, and it didn't matter because at the end of the day, the only thing that matters is do you give the endocrine system the micronutrients that each target gland needs to perform optimally for you? If you do that in the right sequence, with the right foods, your condition can become a thing of the past. Yes, Is powerful.

Totally.

Yeah.

I love that. And I love that free. I love your story for that. And then I also have, you know, mine was skin and I was the same way, you know, and people who know me know that I've talking about my skin for 15 years, but I did. I mean, I've spent, I mean thousands.

And I mean like tens of thousands.

I don't even like going to everyone healers, you know, it's your skin, but it's amazing when you get to the root of it and you give the system like you said, that it's literally miraculous. Within like two weeks, my skin has like never broke out ever again. It's the secret.

It's not about going out. There's nothing outside of your body that is more geniusly designed than what's inside of it. I mean, I know I'm a science nerd, I know I get off on this stuff, but like, if you've ever seen the cross section of a kidney, it will take your breath away. How amazingly well designed just this one gland is in your body. All of them are equally extraordinary and they work together. And your hormones allow that conversation between them to happen. There is nothing that isn't already inside of you that wouldn't heal you if you worked with it, right? So it's a very cool thing, especially for women, because we tend to be, I don't know, a little mystified and overwhelmed and negative when it comes to our body's performance, especially around hormones, right? Our periods, we make jokes about our pms, like, oh, don't talk to me this week, I'm a bitch. You know, ha ha ha, you know, we really diminish the potency of our bodies and it's a slippery, dangerous slope because you start to sweep these symptoms under the carpet. The next thing you know, your body's really not working for you, and then you're more frustrated. And you know, we want to develop a different relationship, right? One where we just really understand the working parts and it's just very matter of fact, okay? This is how it works. And in order for it to work well on my behalf, I have to do certain things. No drama, no stress, no mystery, no overwhelm. And little things that change because let's face it, what other population aside from women goes through the extraordinary physical changes more so than women, right? Like from puberty to motherhood to post menopause and everything in between. It's not about just learning how to fix your problem. Problem today, right? Whatever condition you have today, it's Learning how to dance with your hormones over the course of your lifetime because they're going to continue to change. So you want to learn, you want to build this muscle, learn this skill. And that's why the book is so much and the online program is so much about training you in this language. By the time you're done working with our products, you're as fluent in hormonal language as I am. That's because every woman should be. Everybody has the same, you know, you have to have it so you could see. I feel just a little passionately about that.

I love it. I love it too, because you. What I love about your work in the book and the videos that I've seen is that you really, you do give a totally different paradigm for us women to navigate and to be with our bodies and our cycles. And it's such a beautiful. You know, I think most of us women haven't really thought about it. You know, I mean, I just got my period and then I stuck a tampon up and I did that for a really long time. I never really had a lot of cramps. It just wasn't a big deal. And I just had it. And now like I'm in my 30s and I'm a mom and all these things. And I just, I really love this vision that you paint of connecting to our bodies and our menstrual cycle. And our cycle. And that it's not. That it's not. Okay, so let's just talk about that, the cycles. Because I love this part in your book where you talk about sinking your cycles and the four phases of the menstrual cycle. And can you just talk about that?

Yeah, it's the next step. Right. So let me be fully disclosing here. I am not healthy and I do not practice the self care that I practice, which is extreme because I want to be healthy. My goal is not to be healthy. That's important because you gotta know what your goal is. Because if your goal is when your goal is just to lose weight, you get on that hamster wheel and you diet and you lose the weight, then you're like, time for chocolate cake to celebrate my weight loss every day. It's just a self sabotaging cycle. It's similar if you come into your hormonal healing with, okay, I just want to shrink my fibroid or I just want to stop having pms, you're going to miss the whole gem, which is you do the cleanup work, which is steps one through three of our protocol. So that you can get into what you're talking about the cycle syncing. Because I do all this work so that I can be more effective, powerful, creative in my life in a way that is a complete feminine paradigm that does not damage my female body, right? How many women, how many of you listening? Push, push, linear, linear force, strive, drive. And your body is like adrenals are crapping out, thyroid is crapping out, sex drive is crapping out, butt is getting bigger, periods are getting more problematic, fertility is becoming problematic. Sex drive. You know, all of these is not just oh, your body's just not getting in line and betraying you. It's your body saying, hey, the operating system that you are using to function in your life is, is not compatible with this body. We are cyclical creatures which by the way cycles are the most powerful kinetic energy in nature, right? All of industrial, the industrial revolution was based on a wheel moving water around a cycle, right? Like cars, bicycles, all of that steam engine. And we have that technology, that biotechnology inside of our bodies, inside of our brains through the neuro hormonal chemistry that happens as a result of all this hormonal patterning that happens in a 30 day period. And to just get healthy and then not start to leverage this neurohormonal patterning in your life is like, it's like getting to Shangri La and just saying, okay, I'm good, I'm not going to go into the gates. It looks nice you for from the outside. So I want every woman to walk through, let's get you all healthy. Clearing up hormonal issues is so easy. It's a straightforward process. Then living cyclically, that's really where the fun begins. That's really for me the whole point of why I do it. So let's break down these four phases. Okay? So just to call the names by the names, okay, we have the follicular phase of your cycle, which is when the many different cysts are forming on one ovary to potentially create one egg that's going to release in the next phase, which is called ovulation. And we have a surge of estrogen here. And this is a really exciting time. And the egg is released and that travels down the fallopian tube and hangs out for a couple of minutes. And then that's sort of where we're moving into the next phase, which is the luteal. And here it's split into two distinct parts. The first part is the buildup of the lining. We have lots of estrogen and progesterone here at A crescendo increasing. And then once midway through the luteal phase, there is no conception. Both of those hormones start to drop down. And that leaves us in the last phase, which is the menses phase, the bleeding phase, where your hormones become all of them, kind of at the lowest level of the cycle, and the lining of the uterus sheds and the cycle starts again. Okay. It's really important to call them what they are because, you know, people call them different things, and I think that's just confusing. Let's call our body parts what they are called.

Right?

We don't have to make it flowery. You know, it can just be what it is.

Science is sexy.

I think so. I mean, I feel sexy talking about science. So my husband tells me I'm really sexy when I talk about hormonal phases.

So, you know, it's good for him.

It'S good for us. Right? So what's exciting from a neurohormonal pattern, right. And this your body's doing for you. You don't have to do anything. Your body's just doing this. And it changes your brain chemistry each week. Right. So during the follicular phase, your brain chemistry is being affected by the introduction of estrogen. It's not at its peak yet, but it's beginning to be increasing in concentration. And estrogen is this really dynamic hormone in the brain. It makes us excited to try new things in the follicular phase. This is a time, for example, how I like to use it is depending on what I'm focusing on, but let's say it's work. This is a time where I love to project, plan for the month, or generate a bunch of ideas for things I want to write about or videos I want to film or projects I want to create. I really just, like, let my have the big brainstorming session because my brain is, like, firing on those types of cylinders. In the world of exercise, this would be a time where I would just naturally be more interested in trying a new tango class or some new form of exercise. Right. Something new sexually. This would be a time where I might break out the toy box and lingerie box and be like, what can I wear tonight? You know, this just. Just because it's stimulating to me and my brain is being stimulated by this estrogen. And I'm having this sense of curiosity and engagement this week. Very. And when you start to hear me break down these four phases, think about it in the context of the creative cycle. For those of you who are artists, this is how anything Gets created, right? And it's just, how cool is it that it's already happening inside of you and all you have to do is just pay attention to it and use it. It's there. You don't have to go get it. It's in you now. Yeah. Then we move into the second phase, the ovulatory phase. So here estrogen is surging at its peak. Also, follicular stimulating hormone also reaches its crescendo. This much concentration of estrogen in the brain makes us feel very social, very talkative, very communicative. In fact, your communication skills, your verbal skills are at their peak. So this is a great time to like, network, have an important conversation with someone that you work with that you know, you want to work something out. It's going to go beautifully. Not only are your verbal skills at your peak, but you're magnetic, effortlessly magnetic at this time. So things just feel more serendipitous this week. This is a great time to have important conversations in a loving, successful way, drama free way with your partner. Right. It's just a wonderful time to utilize this kind of communication focus.

How long is that?

Give yourself a week in each phase. Now, you know, I've had women who are like, but it's, you know, the ovulation is only a couple of days, it's true, but the effects on the brain last a little longer. So instead of us worrying about being so precise about, oh my gosh, how many exact days, and I want to be, you know, super geeky about that. That's beautiful. And for you, you may, as you start simpler, right? Give yourself one week in each phase, start much easier. And then as you practice and build skill around the awareness that you're having with your body in these shifts, you will find your exact little adjustment. Okay, My follicular phase is only five days and my ovulatory effects last seven days. You can expand and contract a little bit as you go, but you got to start somewhere. And to start when you've had no relationship with this force in your body, you've got to start with the basics one week at a time.

Awesome.

So then we move into the luteal phase. And this is technically the longest phase of the cycle. It's 10 to 12 days. So this phase, again, I just break it up into two weeks because the first half of the luteal phase, right, those first five to six days, you feel still somewhat of the effects of the ovulatory phase because estrogen is still surging. Right. But you also Have a new hormone that's introduced at this time in the brain, which is progesterone. And the effects of progesterone on the brain. So you're still in relatively a good mood at this time because of estrogen. But progesterone has this interesting effect on our brain chemistry. Makes us want to like finish things, bring things to completion, organize systematize, structure, you know, kind of really look at, you know, this is the only week of the month, for example, that I can get any housework done. First of all, I don't really like it that much. And second of all, it's the only time hormonally that I'm gonna do it.

That is funny.

I love, I like it, I dislike it less during this phase. But from a work standpoint, this is a fun time of the month because it's about wrapping up projects really. Especially for us entrepreneurs. We have somewhat a tendency to have never ending deadlines. How wonderful that you have this built in neuro hormonal technology that allows you to prioritize. Okay, let me get a few things done that are going to make me feel like I've accomplished some important things for myself. This because we do want to make progress and we do want to finish things and leverage this time of the cycle to help you do that. The second half of the luteal phase when you begin to have the decrescendo of estrogen and progesterone. So the concentrations of both of these hormones start to decline in the brain. So we start to, we can feel less in a good mood, we can feel less social. The extreme sensation of that has to do with how out of balance estrogen and progesterone are. So you shouldn't have pms. By the way, my husband was at a dinner party with some guys the other day and they were all kind of commiserating around the table saying, oh, my wife during her PMS week, I don't know what to do. And every man had this sort of same like I want to help, I'm afraid, I don't know what to do. And she seems to be suffering. And then they all looked at my husband and was waiting for him to chime in and he was like, I really don't mean to like sound like an ass, but doesn't have pms. And they were like, what is she eating? What is she doing? And he's like, just download the book now.

Oh my gosh, that's awesome.

The chapter on cycle thinking. But you don't anytime notice irritability mood swings, fatigue to an extreme. This is pms, this is estrogen and progesterone. In an improper ratio, this can be corrected, right?

Yep.

But in a normal ideal situation, you just feel a little bit less outwardly oriented and more inwardly oriented, which it's a nice transition into the next phase, which is the menses phase. And this is a very powerful brain time. This is where we have the biggest conversation happening between right and left hemisphere of the brain.

So cool.

This is so cool. Because it's your most intuitive time. Anytime you access more of your right brain, you know, that's the God side, that's the creativity side, that's the side where you just know what you know need to justify it. And that's now intermingling with the logical fact oriented side of your brain, the left side. And you can now analyze everything in your life. This is the, I think one of the most powerful weeks. And we, it's a throwaway week for us culturally. We say, oh, you know, I'm having my period, I'm just gonna get through it. We don't nice how valuable it is in my business. You know, this is a time where I look at how are we performing in different areas. You know, we look at reporting, we do, we do metrics analysis. But in my life I look at how's my self care this month? How did I do this month with self care? How did I do with my food this month, how did I do with exercise this month? How's everything going with my relationship with my husband? How's everything going with relationships with my sisters, the women in my life? How's that all going? And really the answer is very clear. Whatever it is, it is and you deeply, yes, there's no ability to kind of lie to yourself this week. And so this is a great time to just document what you're feeling and course correct and set yourself up for great brainstorming sessions. The very next follicular comes, I mean from start to finish, we have initiation, we have communication and collaboration, we have completion and we have analysis. I mean this is how anything in life is created. And it's this technology that's just because you have all these hormonal phases. I think it's thing since like I can't even fathom what would happen to planet earth if just the women in the United States and western Europe started living this way, operate using this operating system, how that would affect shift the balance of things in such beautiful, profound ways. But I like to try to imagine, even though I can't.

That is awesome. That's amazing. Okay, so I have like a testimonial for this after I read your. Well, I read your book and then I just recently got my period again after my psycho, after not having it for two years, being pregnant and breastfeeding forever. And I had this inspiration for this conference right in that, that first, what is it? The first phase?

Yeah, Follicular.

And I was like, yes, I'm doing it. We're doing it. Like, whoa. And then as we got closer, I did a declutter challenge on our online Oasis. Like that, as you were saying. And I'm like, okay, let's do a declutter challenge.

Challenge.

You know, I was like, oh my gosh, that is that phase. And then I started going into the phase before period and I was like, this conference is not a good idea. I am tired, I shouldn't do this. This is, you know, like I just had all this kind of like doubt and fatigue and reading your book, I had this Aha. And I was talking to my husband about it and I was like, that's just how I operate. That's how I always operate. And he was like, you totally do. You have like this burst and then you get a little tired. And so this was mind blowing for me.

Let's just zero in on because I want to just reframe the feedback that you were getting during the menses phase where you were like, this conference is not a good idea. The analysis of that, when you really sit with that feeling, really what I'm guessing because we were chatting a little bit before that, what ended up having to shift was your expectation of the timing and how long this was, how big of a project this was, and what bandwidth you really had and how long it was actually going to take. Now, so keep in mind that as you live more cyclically and in more of this feminine operating system, you are going to naturally, because we've all been culturized to operate in the masculine patriarchal way. That's our definition of success. So incorrectly so. But still you are going to bump up against that. So your, your initial idea was like, rock on, I'm going to do this conference, I'm going to get it all done this month. Woo hoo. And then your body feedback allowed you to analyze that by the time the end of the month happened. And you said, I don't want to, I don't like how this is going, I don't want to do it that way. And so your body always is going to steer you to do it in a way that serves you to be in most abundance in health and in productivity. And it's really beautiful because it instantly gets rid of all the ego stuff. For those of you who meditate and really want to, you know, put your ego in the right place, you know, there's no faster way for women to do this than to become deeply embodied.

Yeah.

And, you know, having a relationship with your hormonal patterns and your cycle and your body's little signals to you each and every day is just such a beautiful spiritual practice. It's my spiritual practice. Right. And it's a beautiful way for you to start to access what's true for you, what works for you, and what is going to allow you to do your best work. So now you've readjusted the conference. You're giving yourself plenty of time. Right. We're filming this in the spring. You might not be seeing this until the fall. So this is how it goes, how it should be.

Oh, my God. I have to thank you because I just had goosebumps. Since you're saying that the reason that this conference is going is literally your book like that. Aha. For me, during my menstrual cycle, I was feeling into it and feeling into it. I'm like, oh, this is just how I operate. And exactly that. I'm not giving myself the spaciousness where I can really thrive. So if I give myself the spaciousness, it's not a big deal. And the conference can go on.

That's right. I just got goosebumps. That's rare. I don't get them that often. I love that phrase. Everybody write that down, what Alexander just said, you have give yourself the spaciousness to thrive. And the way you're gonna do that, of course, from my point of view and now yours is by really syncing yourself up with your body's patterns, you will get so much more done. Right. Think about the distance that you would cover if you were just walking a straight line. Right. With your two little feet in, let's say, a minute, 60 seconds, put yourself at the same starting point. Like, I love math problems and physics problems. Right. Same starting point. Now you're on a bicycle, and you pedal for 60 seconds, the distance that you will have covered using cyclical technology. Right. The spinning wheel is much greater than you walking a straight line in the same time. So even though your left brain, the driving, striving, linear, masculine part of you, the conditioned part of you, is thinking, oh, if I live this way, I'm not going to get anything done I'm just going to be giving into my body, and I'm not going to have any discipline, and I'm just going to be this, like, hormonal person. I'm going to be a failure. You know, I'm going to just amplify what might be the little fear voices inside of all of us.

Right.

The facts are that that's not true at all. Not in nature, not in physics, not in science, not in biology. You will get much more done with much more ease, much more pleasure, much less strain on the body if you orient yourself this way. It's my operating system. I don't know how people. Everybody's like, how do you get so much done? Well, I don't do it in a straight line. That's how I get so much done. But I do it in a way that allows the vitality, the spaciousness. You said spaciousness for you to thrive and vibrant is the key.

This is so exciting. I get so excited about this. I mean, I've never heard of this, you know, I mean, I've heard of it in different ways, but the way that you say it and the way that you teach it is just like, aha. Like, of course. Why didn't I learn this when I got my period when I was 16? Like, what my life could have been so different. And it is what it is. But it's so exciting to know this. Okay, so how. Give us some steps or ideas of how we can start to implement this more into our life. Because for me there, I had that aha. And then the direct. Oh, my gosh. I saw it. But for a while, it was kind of. When I first read your book, I was like, yeah, it sounds like a good idea. But it didn't really. You know, it's like, yeah, it sounds like a good idea, but I got shit to do, so I'm not gonna, like, pay attention to that, you know, like, whatever. I can. I'm an athlete. I can do it, you know? So how do we make that shift mentally into that feminine? And what are some ways that we can start to cultivate this new feminine paradigm in a pretty masculine world?

Yeah. How do we jump out of the fishbowl into a different pond altogether? Yes. The big leap. Well, you know, I've been working with women for 15 years, and here, the truth, so far as I've seen it, which is we tend not to have the openness for the switch until our body puts us on our knees right now, that can be a positive experience, like motherhood and pregnancy. Right. But you are humbled and need, as the spiritual term is I need. Right. That experience of, like, oh, I have to have some space and time that is now logical as a result of this physical experience of pregnancy and motherhood. That wasn't logical to me before. So that's a positive way. And then for so many of the women who come to see us at flow living, they're being need by the body, right? Or led by the body to make this shift because their hormones have them in such a physical state of suffering that they have to start by getting better. And then, of course, once you start working with food, which is our primary tool to manipulate your hormonal biochemistry tool, in my experience, your brain chemistry starts to change. You are positively affected by your hormonal patterns, neurochemically speaking, and you start to have new awareness. So this is how I've seen it so far. But you made an important point a few minutes ago about, wouldn't it have been cool if somebody had shown this pattern to you during, like, period sex and class, Right?

Yes.

Well, many of you who are listening, I'm assuming, are moms. Maybe you even have daughters. What a blessing, right? Either way, you should be teaching both genders about this pattern as early as possible, right? Not all the technical parts, not the nitty gritty. But can you imagine if at 6 or 7, as a little girl, you were taught that you have this magical power, like, Disney fy it, okay, we have to Disney FY it. You have this magical power that your body's always gonna change and have this, like, ability to create out of a constant state of change, even just planting that really big idea at six or seven in a fun, Disneyfied way. Then you can follow up during the difficult pubescence years and say, let's fill in the gaps of what the superpower really is, and then the trajectory of that person, that woman, will be forever changed for the positive. And she might not. A whole new generation of women might not have to go through being brought to this state by physical suffering. But I would love to see. You know, and that's why I wrote the book, because for you, you didn't have any physical problems. You didn't have any hormonal breakdowns. You weren't having pms. You were able to get pregnant. You had a great pregnancy postpart, all of that. But reading the book planted the seed. And the lag time was a few months before it had a practical application. And then it was instant. Then it was like, I can't believe I Didn't see this before, and now it's so obvious to me how this has always been affecting me, and I could have been using this all the time, and now I'm just gonna keep using it. Right. So that was part of the reason for the book, was to also help expedite the positive way that we could come to making this shift. Instead of having to go through the route of suffering in the body, let's have a new positive influence about what this all means for us, this hormonal conversation, this hormonal patterning, and let it just sit there. You know, you don't have to buy it. You know, the concept for the first couple of months, be skeptical. I'm a New Englander, born and raised. I think they put something in the water up there. So we're, like, all skeptical. I love it.

Bring it.

Because the science does not ever lead me astray. So, you know, be influenced by the idea and then just start to observe. Just, you know, do a little observation, see what's true for you, see what's not, and see if you don't naturally come to the desire to jump out of the fishbowl into a whole new feminine pond of operating right. Because it should be natural. It should be, like, this joyful process.

I love this. Okay, so since literally today I started my menstrual cycle.

Congratulations.

It's so exciting. I woke up and I was like, oh, my gosh. I said, and I got my cycle. This is, like, it's happened. I was so excited. So since I'm in that space, I loved what you said. Like, kind of the mystical, spiritual. I love this idea of the magic, like, that we all have this magical power. Can you talk a little bit more of how we connect with that and really celebrate our bodies and our femininity and our sexuality and just all of it. I feel like so many of us have been conditioned out of this, like, celebration of this divine vessel.

So. Well, like you said, so many of us have been conditioned to fear the body and stay out. You know, we like to. We like, as a society, but also women, like, since that's what we're talking about today. We like to come up and out of our bodies, right? And we do this in various ways, like ignoring our feelings, stuffing our emotions down. That's one way that we kind of stay out of the body. You know, overuse of caffeine and alcohol. It's a great way to come out of the body. Even extreme cleanses, where you're just juicing for years at A time only juice. You're going to start to levitate a little bit out of your body, this type of thing. I'm being a little cheeky here, but we have to just start to get comfortable at home here. That's the first place to start. How can we start to tap into this magic? How can we start to live in the feminine? How can we really celebrate and fall in love? Well, falling in love is not a straight line. And falling in love requires oxygen and experience, right? If you ever think back to when you first started falling in love with whoever you're in love with now, you were likely walking in nature. You took some opportunities to go away for the weekend to get in nature. Oxygenating the brain, right? And being in the body is a critical part of falling in love. In fact, a lot of love and sex researchers look at this as like a key element, right? And even when you want to rekindle the romance, where do you go to, like, a cabin in the woods, right? Or to the beach? You got to get oxygen, right? So moving your body, taking a yoga class, going for a walk in nature, is a very easy place to start. Everybody can do that. And then simultaneously, instead of immediately associating anything that's physically going on with criticism, right? Instead of using that inner critical voice like, ugh, my body's fat. Ugh, my body's broken out. Ugh, my pms, Ugh, this. Ugh, you know, we instantly judge and attack and criticize every little thing about our bodies. Interrupt that pattern, right? Just interrupt it. Just say, oh, here's that little bitchy voice in my head again. I'm just not going to say that out loud to myself. I'm gonna just say, everything is fine. Everything is perfect. Whatever we have going on right now can get better. I'm working on it. It's great, and it's teaching me something, and I'll work through it. Even if that sounds like a bunch of bullshit when you first say it to yourself the first 17 times, okay, you still have to practice interrupting that inner critical voice. Because if. If that's really at play, it doesn't matter how much movement you do, how much in theory, you want to live in a divine, feminine architecture, you will be putting up this really powerful obstacle to getting there. Because to come home to the body is really about falling in love. And you got to fall in love with your elbows and your breasts and your smile and every little thing about yourself and your period and your hormonal fluctuations and the smells and sounds and things that come out of you. Like every little thing has to be like miraculous. And think about it this way, if we need a good analogy for those of you who are moms, first couple of months of your child's life, right. You actually celebrate the little bodily functions that they start doing, right? You're like, oh my God, look at your big poo.

Everything.

Oh my gosh, you had such a nice burp. Oh, that's so love. You, like in love with their squishy, smelly stuff, right? And then somewhere around puberty, as women, we learn to start really vilifying those things about ourselves. Like, oh my God, my body. We just really start to hate on it. And we don't have to. There's no reason to do it. It doesn't make any sense. It's not logical. But it's such a deep rooted pattern for so many of us that, you know, we need to find some new way to communicate about ourselves to ourselves. So try to use the positive language where you can. And then it just, it's like you'll fall into it. Just like you fall in love, you're gonna fall into doing all the things that I talk about in the book. You're gonna fall into cyclical living. You're gonna fall into great self care. You're gonna fall in love with your body. You're gonna be like, I am a divine goddess. I have a feminine power source. Like, you know, it's just gonna happen.

Yes.

Now this thing you have to do, you don't have to do it.

Yeah.

You just have to, you have to allow it. You have to express it. You are it now as we are speaking. Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, I love it. Okay, I know you gotta go, but I have one more question.

Yes.

I love that you talk about self pleasure in your body. I might be the only woman's health.

Book that's like, you must self pleasure for 20 minutes twice a week with.

Your hand and aloe cadabra.

No vibrators allowed.

Okay, so I. Okay, I want to talk about this. And I will make a confession. I'm a vibrator girl.

I'm gonna put you on a vibrator challenge, Elliot.

I know. I want to talk about this. I want to talk about this because number one, I think it's such an important topic and I'm so open about any of it, but it feels weird for me just to do it by myself. So I want to talk about this, why it's important, why women should self pleasure and. Yeah, give me a vibrator challenge.

Amen. I'm on it. All right, so let's talk about why it's important first. So I'm sure, I hope certainly this is not the first time you are hearing this important fact. But if it is, here it is. You have something on your body that's very unique. It's called a clitoris. It is unique because it is not a multifunctional tool. It is 8000 nerve endings solely dedicated to giving you massive pleasurable sensations and nothing else. It doesn't ejaculate. It doesn't do anything else. It's just there to make you feel good. Okay. And it's just for you, right? Your vagina, the canal, you know, it's a public space. Things go in there, babies come out of there. It's not only just for you. And statistically, from a sexual response standpoint, more women are capable of having orgasm from clitoral stimulation than they are from vaginal stimulation. So it's really important for you to develop a relationship with your clitoris and the pleasure that it can give you for the reason that it's designed just for you to feel good. Now, hormonally speaking, it's also extremely important because it helps secrete massive amounts of oxytocin and nitric oxide. These two hormones create in your body such health and vitality. It actually de ages your cells. It actually balances your hormones. These hormones actually improve your immune response. They do so many things. There's like a whole list in my book about what these two hormones do that you get there from clitoral stimulation. Now, why no vibrators? Because, listen, I have a toy chest. I have a lingerie. It's all good. I think it's all great. And more is more in the feminine archetype. So I say have everything. However, from a health standpoint, why you want to develop a relationship with your pleasure response without the use of a vibrator is because when you use a vibrator and you can chime in here, my experience is, and I break down in. I think it's chapter eight in the book where I talk about the sexual response and all the hormones involved. With a vibrator, you actually bypass the hormone beneficial stage. You go very quickly into climax, too quickly. Climax does not give you the huge dose of oxytocin and nitric oxide. The orgasmic plateau, the stage right before that where you're feeling good and you're breathing deep and your chest is red from all the blood circulating almost there. That stage that you really bypass with the Vibrator and you don't with your hand is the stage where you get all the hormonal benefits. And this is also the stage if you use just your hand that you can make last as long as you'd like. You don't have to finish and climax within a certain amount of time. I'll just do a little confession here. Since we're talking about sex now we know each other. I've had experience where I've been able to just again, just with hand stimulation. Little Ala Kedabra, my favorite lube. Everyone should get off the other silicone based is not good for the lady parts. The this I've been able to expand that stage for an hour. So not ever climaxing, but bringing myself up and down, up and down. I was in this particular episode. I had so much oxytocin, nitric oxide coursing through my body. I felt like my hands were going to pop off my wrists. So much life force in my body. Now, some of you may have heard of tantric practitioners. Here's the thing that I will tell you about them. If you ever see them. There are some that are just extraordinary. They're like 60, 70 years old. You look at them because I mean, I know how I looked after an hour of this. I don't think people look ageless. Why they are in such peak physical condition at ages where we see most people really declining hormonally because what is aging? Aging is the slow diminishing of hormonal production. And when you're using your sexuality, especially women, and you're using climax, you're using orgasm, not climax to help you. It will keep you young forever.

Honestly, I don't know what you could.

Buy in a that's more anti aging than what you could do with your hand. Wow. I don't know if I've convinced you, but I want you to take the challenge.

I think that's so. I mean I have more sex books than anybody I know, but it's definitely an area for me of like expanding. And I totally. I mean I can do the vibrator and I can have an orgasm like super fast like you said. But I've never heard it. You're just like opening me up to all these new things. I've never heard it before, like saying that there aren't the benefits, it's not the climax, it's before. So like all my vibrator orgasms, I think I'm like doing it up right and I'm missing.

You're short, changing yourself. You're shortchanging yourself. And by the way, once you have the skill to do both, right, to do this more slow, giving yourself the health benefits, then you can choose what kind of pleasure you want to have. If you want to have something quick and fun and you're in your ovulatory phase and you just want to have some climaxes, break out your vibrator, have that kind of sex, maybe you're in your luteal phase and this is the time where you gift to yourself a few longer self pleasuring sessions during the week. Because it really will help balance your hormones, it'll put you in a better mood if you're struggling with pms, it will open you up to more sexual encounters with your partner, if that's what you want to create at that time. And of course, it's just so health beneficial, you don't have to do it every time, but you have to develop the attunement to your body to know what you need, what you like, when you need it. And if you only have, you know, it's like you only eat Cheerios for breakfast every single day your whole life. And then I feed you something like, I don't know what I had for breakfast this morning, a coconut mint cream crumble with oats and goji berries, you know, it'll blow your fucking mind, right? Similarly, if you only ever do the vibrator, you're kind of really in for a treat when you try practicing it the other way.

Okay, so I'm totally in. I just want to clarify though, do you attempt a climax or you don't, you don't have to climax or you don't have to.

And every woman is different. Especially if you're struggling with your sexual response due to hormonal problems, you know, or fatigue, adrenal problems, you know. Even if you never climax and you give yourself some time to just be in the orgasmic arousal stage, the health benefits will get you to a place where within a very short period of time you can climax and you can have that response. So don't put the pressure on yourself to climax if you would like to. You can do that at any time. You know how to do that. You speed up a little bit, it's over. Right? But like, see what you can do to give yourself 20 minutes before you climax. Just 20?

Yep. Wow, this is exciting. I'm totally in. I'm totally going to do it. Okay, so the prescription for me and all you other goddesses out there who are interested in taking on this challenge is two times a week, 20 minutes. Right.

Ideally for one month. If you did this, it would change your life. And then you can move it into a place where you start to cycle, sync it. Right. So for me, I notice I like to have this slower approach, follicular phase and luteal phase, ovulatory phase. I think most of us are more into because of the hormonal patterns and the testosterone surge. We kind of like more of the 50 shades of gray, kind of, you know, more exciting, dynamic, just take me now kind of sex, you know, great, fabulous, you know, but you can't just have that every day or put the expectation on yourself that you should be ready to go like that. And I think that's another thing about sexuality that is so important for women. You know, the readiness factor that you had from a lubrication standpoint and a desire standpoint is very different. How that originates at 16, 18, 24. And it's very different. 30 to 45 and 45 and beyond. And if you start to practice getting intimate with your own body's pleasure response, you'll never be feeling like you're left out in the cold with your sex drive. Because all you do is just turn up the volume on foreplay and self pleasuring and not worry so much about, are you in the mood? Are you going to get there? It all happens. But you're really focusing on the right things and not. Well, I'm not wet, so I guess I don't want to be having sex.

Right.

Right.

Yes. Okay, so this is interesting with me. I've had low sex drive. Like, I mean, we've talked about hormones, but I mean, I'm a new mom, so that's typically.

So your sex drive is questionable at the moment because you have. You're exhausted.

Yeah, yeah, But I still use the vibrator. And then my husband, you know, like, okay, so my question is, I've been using the vibrator, but I have not been helping my sex drive at all doing that. I've been inhibiting it, so it takes me a lot longer. And I had painful sex from the beginning and it was dry and I was breastfeeding 24 hours a day. So this is really good to increase your sex drive as well, 100%.

And also to empower your partner. Right. Because you'll be like, okay, honey, I'm gonna need your help. We need about 20 minutes before we can have sex. So for those 20 minutes, I want you to do one, two, three things. I'm gonna lay it out for you get the lube, do this exactly like this. He'll be like, I'm on it. He'll be so into. Or she will be so happy to serve what you need. And then all of a sudden, you have had your partner stoke the fire of your desire, and then 20 minutes into it, you're like, not only am I lubricated, not only have I had a little orgasm or two, but now I'm interested in having vaginal intercourse. And it will be pleasurable, right?

Yes. This is. I love this, the readiness. Because so many women have this right. You know, because my husband sometimes thinks, like, I'm just not into it. And I'm like, no, it just, you know, it takes me a while. Like I don't immediately see an erection and like, whoa, let's hop on.

Right, right. But women often, not only do we confuse and judge, like this readiness with sex drive being low or missing. Right? But we then don't even do anything to help ourselves. We don't ask for support. You know, your sex drive changes over your life and depending on what's going on with your body, like especially around pregnancy and new motherhood. But if you can learn this skill at whatever stage, because it's going to come up again for you and everybody during perimenopause and post menopause, there will be big changes then. Can you imagine now bringing this awareness into that situation? In the future, you and your husband are going to have a great sexual experience because you're just going to take more time and have more lubrication next to your bed. You're just going to be better prepared. And it isn't going to be, oh, my sex drive is missing because I don't instantly get wet. That's what we kind of associate with. That's not about that. It's about you. Just as you go through life, you may need more time at certain parts of the month and certain parts of your physical experience where you need more spaciousness to thrive. To quote my favorite quote of the.

Session, I think that's a perfect place to end. I. We gotta honor the. What is it? Your protocol, the flow living protocol number one, Blood sugar stabilization.

That's right. It's time for me to eat. Time for all of you to get a snack.

Okay, so where do we find you? Give us your website or Facebook or wherever we can find more about you and sign up for your programs and.

All that and get access to all the free resources we have. We have this weekly very in depth article that I put out every week about different health topics. Not to be missed. It's the best women's health content out there and that you can sign up for free on our website, floliving.com that's f l o living.com youm can follow us on Facebook, which is just flow living. You know, Facebook, Flow Living, Twitter, same thing, Flow living. And then of course, if you're really, if, if this whole process of the protocol, you know, whether you've read woman code or you're all ordering it now as we speak, or whatever you're doing and you're really ready to sort of take your health in your hands and get yourself hormonally integrated, then we've, you know, just something I'm very proud of. I remember being ill and thinking, God, it would be so great if there was just something I could just follow and just it was all laid out for me. So I built that. And it's the world's only online hormonal improvement tool. It's called the Woman Code system online. And basically, if you like the sound of my voice, going to love the program. So it's basically three months where you're going very in depth, at your own pace, from the comfort of your own home, on your own schedule. I teach you the science of your body, the science of your hormones, what to eat, to fix it at each step of the protocol, how to live in cyclical harmony. The whole feminine energy conversation, all of it virtually so that you can just get better, start to thrive. And so for those of you who are ready, I invite you to join us there and really start to create that spaciousness to thrive as Alex so geniusly put to that.

Well, thank you so much for sharing all your flow goddessness.

Thank you for asking the best questions.

Thank you. Yeah, this is so much fun and I send you so much, so much love and so much gratitude and thank you.

Thank you, thank you for creating this beautiful opportunity for women to come together and learn and share. It's beautiful. Thanks for having me, everybody. Be goddessly. Go out and thrive by.