The Power of Women's Intuition A Journey to Balance Hormones

Hi beauties, I have got the divine Jodie Louise here today who is an intuitive detox coach. And Jodie's my first guest on the Women's Collective, what we call these sacred conversations, and it's something that's been in my awareness and in my dreaming for such a long time to, to host calls like this with women that I feel I'm inspired by and have magic to share out in the world. And Jodie, I'm just so grateful to know you first and to have you as my first guest.

So happy to be here.

Thank you, sweetheart. Um, I have a few questions for, for the women because You know, we talk a lot, and Jodie and I both live psychically. So what that means is we both really do tune into our monthly cycle and follow our menstrual cycle's energy for ways that we can truly live our life abundantly, creatively, and attuned to those energies. And things like intuitive eating really does come into that. So in a moment, I'll really invite you to share more about that. But there's a few questions, because menstrual wisdom is my thing, that I'm asking every woman that joins the calls so that these calls have a kind of correlation and they go together as a Yeah, so my first question would be, Jodie, could you— can you remember back to the first time you bled, the first time you got your period, and how was that for you?

Yeah, well, getting my period was something that I was waiting for for a really long time. I was 15, and I remember when my best friend got hers when she was 8, and I was waiting and waiting, and when am I gonna be a woman? Because I was quite lucky that my mum raised me knowing what it was and understanding. I was always prepared, and I always had some pads and tampons in my bag, and it was in a little beautiful little pouch. And I was so excited for the day. In fact, I actually lied to most of my friends and told them I got it when I was earlier because I thought it was cool and I was more of a woman.

Wow.

And I actually used to do classes at school In my lunch break, but all the kids would come, all the women would come sit with me, and I'd tell them what their period was, and I hadn't even had it yet. I've been waiting for that day for a long time.

Were you also like someone that would wear like tissues shoved in there?

Yeah, I used to wear a different color bra. No, no, I used to wear a hair tie that was the same color as my bra, so all the boys would know what color my bra was.

Of course you did.

Yeah.

So this moment in your evolution as a woman, where you were like really sharing what it would be like for the other girls in your school class to have their period, to have their bleed, how do you feel that this actually connected you to your first bleed at that moment? Like everything you're sharing, what you felt at that time?

Yeah, well, I think— oh, I'm just getting tingles right now on my body, like, because I've not been asked that question before. But I guess it feels to me like I knew that it was something big, and I knew that it was going to be connecting with another part of myself that I didn't yet have that with, you know. Now, on the first few days of my moon, I'm so connected. So I hide myself away and I can write and channel in messages from wherever they come from. And I think I was tapping into that at a really young age because I was always very connected to fairies and otherworldly things. And I think I knew it was something special. So yeah, I'm really blessed that from witnessing some of my friends where there was a lot of fear around getting their cycle, a lot of scared it's gonna hurt. And I remember some of the kids at school, they'd look at the teacher and they're like, she's gonna have an explosion in her pants! What's gonna happen if she explodes? And I didn't have that. So I think having that awareness really allowed it to be a beautiful unfolding, and probably now why I'm so passionate about my cycle and working with so many women that are too, and having beautiful friends like yourself that live the same way. Yeah.

Yeah, darling, I'm wondering, before I move on, I just want to zoom in on this a little bit. So this is something like super special to— is this an innate knowingness, or was it something that was handed down to you from your mother that this time was potentially super magical?

Yeah, well, my mother never said this time is magical. But I think by the way that she kind of educated me on my cycle, it allowed me to know. I felt it. It was a feeling of knowing it was special. And I was like, I'm going to be a woman. And I think—

Yeah, this is it.

Even though it wasn't like saying you'd be more connected and more spiritual at this time or more conscious at this time, it was just, I'm going to be a woman. And I think I felt the power of what it would mean to really be a woman. You know, we are magical beings, we create life, and I think that feeling, I just always felt it from my mother, even though she had quite painful periods. And so I always had that idea, wow, it's going to be painful, but there was still something more behind that that I felt.

So yeah. Thank you for going there. I'm wondering if you could share, you mentioned that you might go within on those first, what or 2 days of your moon. If you could share what some of your moon time rituals would be. Like you said, you get creative. Is that something that you do regularly as a practice?

Definitely. It's something that I'm continually reminding myself to do. I always weave out in my diary when I know my moon's coming, and I weave out those days because I'm a very, very busy woman. And if I don't leave time out, they It's just too much. But sometimes when my moon decides to come a bit earlier and I have a day full of meetings or something scheduled, sometimes I still do push myself, which is something I'm really striving not to. And I encourage every woman, if you can, to really block off the time and sometimes tell people no. And that's what I'm stepping into more and more all the time. So that's my number one, always making time, because if we're so busy we're missing out on this truly sacred portal that can be created where we can tap into what our heart really wants and what our intuition really shows us. And that's why writing for sure is one of my most powerful tools. Sometimes I just write and write and see what comes through.

Yeah.

And then start to get creative writing blogs, sharing information, writing posts that I want to share for the month on my Instagram. Ah, good tip, thank you. You're welcome. But I think the key also for me is the week before my cycle, I start to feel that slowing down, and I find it's important to really gradually, day by day, slow down. Otherwise, my cycle comes and then it's too abrupt. It's good to just really slowly slow down and just then slowly come up again, not so like Instant is definitely my— yeah, yeah.

That's really working with that autumn energy, isn't it, where we're starting to, uh, prepare for the inner journey. I feel myself like I start to want to, um, buy at the supermarkets or the markets here things like pumpkin and sweet potatoes, and I'm just intuitively wanting to, to make soups and stews and things like that. So would that be something like as an intuitive detox coach, you find that really helps throughout the month and especially in that transition?

100%, yeah. I feel like the week before the cycle is the time to start really nourishing. It's the time to start having more cooked foods, sweet potatoes, things that really ground us and are really mineral dense. So things like dates, seaweed, sweet potatoes, I brought more mineral-dense foods, as opposed to the weeks before when you can eat a lot lighter.

Right.

The body needs that nourishment, and if you start to go in slowly, by the time your cycle comes, it's actually, well, for me, it feels like a wow. It's this big, it feels good to get my cycle, 'cause it's that week before that we're starting to feel it. But if we don't, if we're having a lot of salt, sugar, caffeine, our cycle can be really painful. And mine used to be 7 days of extreme cramping and pain. My cycle is now 2 days and I love getting it. Like, I love to get it. Yes, I feel more tired and slow, but it's the most beautiful time of the month for me, to be honest. I love it more than ovulation.

Beautiful. So being an intuitive detox coach, and I know you well, and I know that you live like this. I'm wondering if there's anything that you could share to the other sisters that are watching the playback of this. Of, um, okay, the first thing is like, when are the right times of the month to detox, um, if you're wanting to live psychically? Psychically, and such a funny word because it's both, right?

Yeah.

Um, so yeah, if you're wanting to live psychically, Do you have anything there that you'd love to share? And yeah, that's my question.

Well, number one is always listen to your body. If something doesn't feel right, listen to that. If you're craving something, listen to that. But the only thing I will say on cravings, that is, if you have a really toxic body, sometimes the cravings can be off. So it can be a bad bacteria or parasite that can be telling you you need to eat this. So that's why cleansing in the middle of the cycle, so around weeks 2 and 3, and with the peak of that being ovulation, that's the time to do some type of a cleanse to really support the liver, to detox, and also to bring down estrogen because estrogen's going crazy. So it's a good time to kind of start to detox that. If we're not doing that in the middle of the cycle, then comes a time when the cravings kick in, which is that week before and during our moon. Sometimes the cravings might be off. That's why I really do encourage, because we naturally feel like we want to eat lighter, and most women just haven't tuned into that. But when you actually start to have awareness, and that's my kind of second point of having awareness, you start to notice. So you can keep a journal. There's many apps. You can use as well where you can start to plug in. Oh, I'm not feeling very hungry today. I slept a lot. I didn't sleep very much. I feel really energized. And you'll start to notice that you are in flow with what you might read in a book, or— and then you're actually experiencing it for yourself as opposed to reading like, you should eat sweet potatoes this week before. It's like, well, maybe you should, but when you actually experience it, experience it for real, and then you can kind of compare it with the science, then you're intuitively connecting instead of just being disconnected and just reading something and doing it mindlessly. And that's not becoming empowered. Like, as women, we are generally more intuitive because we have babies, and we need to know what to feed our babies when they can't speak. So we have this gift, and it just, it just takes time. It's like a muscle when you go to the gym. If you Don't do legs for a month, then it's going to be really, really hard. And it's the same with connecting to your intuition. So yeah, it takes time though. It definitely takes time.

Yeah, yeah. I found for me it's about 3 cycles of journaling before I can get a good amount of data or information so I can see my, my patterns. Yeah. Do you think that's a good amount of time?

100%, yeah, and things are always shifting and changing, and it's really important to note the stress, because stress, if we're stressed, our hormones will go off balance. So it's really good to pay attention that, I had a really stressful week, and I noticed then my next cycle was really painful. Well, that's showing something.

Okay.

So yeah, plotting it for 3 weeks, always putting in like how you feel that day, if you felt happy, if you felt sad. And there's some really good wellness trackers out there. I actually have a really good one. I'm not sure if you have one, but I'm happy to share that with you.

I don't, but I journal and I use and I share very freely. There's about 5 questions and one is like, what's my outward expression? Am I feeling joyful or am I feeling irritable? What are my cravings? What's my energy levels like? Yeah, so, and that way I do, I make, I'm kind of old-fashioned, but I like to make this thing called a moon map or a moon dial.

Mm-hmm.

Where I fill in the information and I can look at it and see each day of my cycle what my energy was like and the answers to these questions so I can see a pattern and a flow. And that in itself is probably very similar to what the apps do. However, doing it in this kind of analog way— is that right?

Analog?

Yeah, analog way— I've really connected to it quite deeply and it's become a craft project. You know, it's, yeah, it's super cool. I'll share it with you another time.

Yeah, I'm sure many people would like to see that.

Yeah, super cool, super cool. So is there anything else? Because I want to keep this kind of Yeah, really condensed, like a short little glimpse of what you do. Is there any other nutritional or herbs or essential oil support that you could recommend to really nurture and nourish yourself throughout your cycle?

Especially the moon week. What was that?

Especially the moon week.

Yes, yeah, well, during the moon week, it's all about nourishment and a lot of mineral-dense foods. So pretty much loading in all of the superfoods and anything that's blood-building. So I love to make a drink with goji berries and dates. So I soak them in hot water and I add a bit of ginger, because ginger is really anti-inflammatory, and you can even add some turmeric too. And having it, it's warm, it's nourishing, and it's gonna build up the blood. So that's a really good go-to. Spirulina can be good in moderation, not too much because it's cooling, but a little bit of spirulina because it's really mineral dense. All of your seaweeds are really, really good if you can find a way to— some people don't like them, but if you can start to like them, they're honestly one of the best things you can have. And then when it comes to herbs, there's many you can take. I use a blend by Ming Herbs which is called Female Balancing. And that's got a nice mix of liver detoxing herbs in there. It's got like dandelion, burdock root, and then it's also got chaste berry. I think you say it's chaste berry or vitex is what most people know it as. Agnus cactus is the other name.

Okay.

And that's really powerful if you're getting swollen breasts or painful periods. It's really great to have, but it's one herb that shouldn't be taken ongoing. It's definitely one you need to cycle. But pretty much the Vitex, definitely not to take ongoing.

The Ming Herbs, there's 2 formulas. There's estrogen dominant and then there's— is it progesterone dominant?

I'm not sure. I know one's estrogen dominant, but I think we— I'm not sure about the other one. Yeah.

Yeah, I take the one.

Yeah, the one.

And it's brilliant.

Yeah, it really works a treat.

Yeah, before we go, what's the best time of the month to drink cacao?

Definitely around your cycle is definitely the best time, it really is. And I do really recommend when taking cacao, it's really good to also be taking any type of medicinal mushrooms as well. That's around that time of the month because they're adaptogens and So for some women, like cacao can be, if you have too much, it can be really stimulating, but it's so good for you around that time. It's got all of the vitamins and minerals that you need, but having it with the mushrooms can make it like flow into the body in a much more feminine way. So that chaga, chaga. Yes. Yeah.

Well, my angel, it has been Such a beautiful time to connect with you. I'm inspired. I feel like I have learned a lot today. Thank you.

Thank you.

And I hope everybody enjoys this call. And please, if you feel the call to connect with Jodie, maybe we can share your details on where we post this. And we go— I go deeper into a little bit of the nutritional work As far as taking care of the liver around the time of the ovulation phases on sacred moon. So again, I might chat to you closer to that time, Jodie, and just double-check everything I've got there is aligned and you agree with it. But for now, my angels, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. So much love. And I'd love to see your shining, gorgeous self again really soon in person so I can give you the biggest hug.

Yeah, I love you.

Much love. Okay, so stop.