The Sacred Science of Women’s Cycles: The 4 Phases of Feminine Power

Women are essentially four different women across the span of a month. The female biology and physiology is the most complex and sophisticated biological system on the planet. We all come from the womb of the female body. And that is where we will also find the solutions for all of the dysregulation that's happening on this planet today.

Dr. Kayla Osteroff is a neuropsychophysiologist and women's health expert. Can you talk about being a woman? And the mental struggles that women go.

Through reach the peak of estrogen right around the time of ovulation. A woman's power, strength and endurance is also increasing as estrogen rises. This is where we set the standard for ourselves. This is also where society sets the bar for us at large. Because if we show up like that and we make sure that we want to be perceived and show up as superwoman consistently, it's not biologically possible. And that's why women experience burnout 200% more often than men.

What do men get to know about the difference between men and women hormonally?

So let me just pull back the curtain for everyone here.

Why are women 4 different people every single month?

I mean, to be more accurate, women are different people every single day because the physiological shifts, the neurological shifts, the hormonal shifts that happen are, are happening little by little every day and constantly shifting and constantly shifting physiological processes across the global biological systems.

I love that I was wrong right away. It's not every week, it's not every month, it's every day.

It's every day. So we say four because we're looking at major hormonal checkpoints. Because when the hormones, specifically the sex hormones estrogen and progesterone, which are the main drivers of the female physiology beyond reproductive mechanisms, we're talking about everything from the brain to the metabolism to the musculoskeletal system, to the cardiorespiratory system, everything, right? All the parts that men and women share, these are all parts that in the female biology are driven and set to the pace of the ovarian hormones, which is what is responsible for creating all these major shifts in the physiology as we go through different hormonal checkpoints. So this is relevant not only in the monthly cycle, which is a 28 day ish, you know, give or take, each woman's a little bit different. She could be 25 days, she could be 34 days. And that's just. We're talking about actively cycling women. Then we add in the complexity of the changes that happen in the female body across the life cycle. So now we have all these other different hormonal checkpoints where the hormones are so different across the lifespan that the woman is a completely different physiological being. So we're talking about pregnancy, we're talking about breastfeeding and postpartum, we're talking about perimenopause, we're talking about post menopause. We're also talking about all the different forms of HRT that are given to women throughout their cycling and non cycling years. That's everything from birth control to other forms of hormone replacement therapies. And then we have other women who have had things like a hysterectomy, which completely changed the physiology as well. But to understand all of that, we want to go back to that month long cycle and those ebb and flow of estrogen and progesterone that change the global physiology so much so that we can say that women are essentially four different women across the span of a month. And that's because of those significant changes in estrogen and progesterone at each one of those checkpoints.

I am so interested in this because I was raised by a bipolar mom. And so I got skewed from a very early age that in my unconscious there was a seed planted. And the seed said, all women are crazy. You can't trust women. And I've spent a lifetime unraveling that. Obviously when I say that out loud, it's like consciously I know that's not true.

Right?

All women are not crazy.

Yeah.

Women could say, based on their upbringing, that all men are crazy. And there'd be a valid reason why, actually. Because our early experiences, without the science that you bring, which is why it's so important for us to hear this today, those early childhood experiences can completely cover or cloud the actual logic behind what is happening.

Yes.

And so logic and spirit, or logic and emotion, energy in motion, deserve a seat at the table. So I'm gonna play the very uneducated man about women, because I am, and I would love for you to play this dynamic role that is PhD, Kayla, because the way that you came into this work, obviously was not just by chance. You came into this work because it was a calling. It was something very deep. So before we get into the more science aspect, which is super important, can you speak to the people that have had those childhood experiences that might men and women both, that might just say, oh, that man or that woman is crazy because they don't have the understanding of it.

Oh, 100%. And I'm so Glad that you bring this up. And I think that's part of where our resonance is coming from. I also grew up with a mom with bipolar and manic depression and other things like migraine and cluster headaches, lots of issues with joint problems, and eventually all of that manifested into a full blown addiction to pain medication, fully prescribed, by the way. And so as a kid, I also watched this struggle that my mom had with her mental health. And I also knew that the family line, the women specifically within my family line, have all struggled with mental health issues, including my mom's mother, who committed suicide when she was 13. And so there's a long line of women who have been completely misunderstood and mistreated through the medical system and been unable to be helped. And my mom's still in that category to this day because of the things that we simply don't know and understand about the female body and how things are different. And this is why it manifests in things like mental illness. And if you look across the board at depression, anxiety, mood disorders, these things affect women disproportionately. And these are also areas of science and research where we know the least about how these things manifest in the female body, specifically because we don't actually study women appropriately for these particular things that affect them more.

This is such a sacred calling for you.

Yes.

I mean, the flavor feels similar to mine. I mean, in your own unique way you experienced it. It's such a sacred calling because you could have taken on this mindset of, well, I'm actually not gonna learn about why I think people are crazy and why my mom was sick. And you could have gone that route. Was it curiosity that made you go the route of PhD?

Yeah. So what actually happened was while I was in undergrad, my mom had her first round of overdoses and she almost died. And at that point, I was completely blindsided because I didn't even know that she had an addiction problem.

She was hiding it.

She was hiding it? Yes. And she was very highly functional, held down several jobs, was able to kind of handle it all. Very superwoman type of woman. Had a big capacity to do so much for so many people. We had a bunch of us kids, and she was just working her butt off. So I had no idea. I knew she had pain, but I didn't know she was taking huge handfuls of pain pills just to get through the day and almost killed herself by doing that. And so when that happened, I was in my junior year of undergrad, and I was actually studying to become a physical Therapist at the time. And when that happened, I had to stop school for a semester to be all hands on deck and support my mom to get the help that she needed. Because we, our low income family, we had, you know, basic health insurance, whatever the most basic health insurance you can get. So that doesn't cover recovery and rehab for pain pill addiction. Right. And there were a lot less resources and programs then that was like 20 years ago than there are now. And so it was actually a very difficult process to be able to get her into some programs and get some support. And essentially we weren't able to find much help for her. And she had to kind of like cold turkey her way through, which didn't really work long term. So it's something that she's always struggled with and never been able to really get the proper support. But with that kind of shakeup of my whole world, I completely shifted paths. So from there I actually did not pursue physical therapy school and I went to get my master's in public health because I wanted to go work at the CDC on the opioid epidemic. Epidemic specifically. This was something that was just coming out into the media. Something that was just being.

Yeah, this is all the pill mills in Florida and the OxyContin.

Yes.

Which by the way, there's. We'll link it in the show notes. There's so much data on how it was just a criminal organization.

Oh my God.

Yeah, it was purely criminal. The OxyContin and the Pill mills.

Yes.

There was a documentary.

Yes.

Built about it.

Yeah. This was at the exact same time when my mom had her full blown addiction and she was able to go to like 10 different doctors and get prescriptions from all of them for way more pills than any other, any person would ever need. And then go and fill all 10 prescriptions at different pharmacies all around the whole city that we lived in. And so she had a whole process, but none of these were speaking to each other. So nobody. There was like no regulation on it. And when I kind of found out that whole procedure and, and how she set that up and how she was able to like get a fully prescribed, full blown addict, that was enough for me to say, our systems are broken, we don't know what we're doing. Like, we need real policy change. We need real opportunities for folks to move beyond some of these issues like depression, anxiety, pain. There's got to be better solutions than just pushing pills.

I could see how that was such a huge part of why you do what you do now.

Yeah.

Because it comes from pain. And this is the real mark of somebody that has wisdom. Right. You have wisdom to share. There's a reason why your social is growing and why you're growing as a speaker. Because when you have real wisdom that comes from pain and you've learned how not to have your wisdom be clouded by your wound.

Yeah.

It becomes so powerful because we can feel it on you. It's like my soul, my physiology can be like, okay, she's been through something, I know in my own way. And many of us probably, you know, hundreds of millions of people across the world that have struggled with a parent figure who is mentally unwell.

Yeah.

But it literally doesn't have to be this way. Can you talk about the being a woman and the mental struggles that women go through? Earlier you mentioned that it's traditionally more women. The percentage is higher for women that struggle with mental health issues than men. What's that all about?

Well, a lot of it has to do with something that any of my followers have probably heard me say a million times by now, but I'll never stop saying it until we create real solutions, which is that women represent the largest gap in our health science knowledge, data and research. We have not included women in clinical studies historically. This was the case since the beginning of scientific inquiry when the first universities opened up and we started doing human health research. We did not include women and female bodies in these studies because of the complexity that arises from the female physiology.

And some of the complexity you talked about when we started the podcast. It's not just the four people. It's these other layers of life as well.

So many other layers. And it's the constant shifting of the physiology that makes women almost impossible research subjects. I study women exclusively now, and it is terrible. It's a real nightmare because you have to control for so many more factors when you're looking at a female subject than when you're looking at a male subject, because the male subjects are biologically consistent day in and day out. So if you're looking from today to tomorrow to the next day, or today to someday next week, your biology works on a 24 hour system that resets and repeats every day. This is the case for men. And even though, yes, there are some changes that happen slowly across the lifetime, just like all beings. Yeah, it is easy to compare from day to day because everything is pretty much the same in a female body. That is absolutely not the case. Things, again, are shifting consistently every single day. And significantly as we hit these different hormonal checkpoints what happens in the research is it makes a study. For instance, if you want to do like a point in time data collection study, which most people want to do, because what do we all want nowadays? Fast, cheap data. The only way to get it is to study male subjects because you can do a point in time study. So let's say you only have so much in your research budget to collect the data. You need to get all the data from your subjects in one day. You can do that with male subjects, you absolutely cannot do that with female subjects. Not even possible. And all the studies that are doing that, throw it out, out, don't read the results. It's all garbage. Because women again are different beings at different hormonal states. And so we have to take that into account. So in order for the same study to be relevant for a female subject, we would need to collect her data at a gold standard level every day across the whole cycle if she's actively cycling. And then we.

It sounds more expensive than a mail study as well.

Now we're looking at a one day data collection. Now we've extended that to probably a 30 day collection, right? Okay.

But it's actually not an X multiple on the study.

It's not even a 30 day, it's actually 90 days because there's even variability between monthly cycles. So now you need to actually have at least three cycles so that you can make sure that your data is accurate. So now you're looking at a 90 day study, a 90 day data collection, which is not only difficult for the researcher and way more expensive and way more time intensive. And now you've got like a ridiculous amount of data that you've got to work through. But it's also really hard on the subjects and so loss to follow up. And getting the subjects to offer that data consistently, unless it's something that's more passive, is also really difficult.

And these types of studies, they're all across the board for all the different systems in the body. But which, which study have you found with the women being ob, obviously needing. It's funny, as I'm listening to you, I'm seeing pictures, which we'll talk about, I promise we'll bookmark that, your neuroscience education and everything you know about the brain. Whenever you're talking, whenever my guests are talking, I'm always seeing pictures about what they're saying. But I digress. So the complexity of a woman sounds like in science it's not only not being honored, but it's probably part and parcel as to why our Mother suffered as well because they were not seen as these individuated beings in medicine. And in honestly, the shambles that mental health care was in the 80s and 90s anyways, oh my God, it was a freaking graveyard. And so then you stack on top of that, the, the miseducation that you're now bringing to us, it just seems like there's a total overhaul that's needed in mental health, specifically for women.

Not even mental health, in all health, in all aspects, all education, in all research. But where do we start?

I mean, there's. There's all these things that need fixing.

Yeah. So we have to start from the beginning, which is our. The way that we do scientific inquiry. Right. The way that we ask questions has to be different. The way that we run studies has to be different. It's not just an inclusivity issue. It's not just, okay, now let's go ahead and do run a study where we have 50% males and 50% females. Okay, that's a great start. But for the female subjects, you cannot run the same study with them as you're running with the male subjects. It has to be a study that's actually designed specifically for them. There's a different methodology, there's a different data analysis that needs to happen, and there's a different way of reporting the findings that will be specific to the female subjects. And this is where we've gone really, really wrong. And we've wasted billions of dollars across the globe trying to improve the inclusivity of females into studies which we've made some progress. Still not great, not great stats, but we have made some progress. But then when you actually look at those studies and the way that they're run, most of them are not done properly. And so those findings are not accurate. Those findings can't be applied directly to women. This is why I developed something called the WIRS Scaler, the Women's Health Research Scale. This is to assess the quality and applicability of research, either a single study or a consortium of studies. So, for instance, like the studies that come out of the Journal of Women's Health or something like that, or cardiovascular studies for women or whatever it may be, to assess the quality level of that research as it applies to women specifically, but also as it applies to specific populations of women. So, for instance, another layer of complexity, another layer. And so this is what I'm saying. Even the way that we look at the data, how we analyze the data, how we report the data, and the way that that data channels into the pipelines and ends up in public health policy, ends up in standardized protocols. All of this has to be so different than the way that we're currently doing it. So luckily, with my background, I have that health policy background. I also have the medical science research background.

Yeah.

And so I understand it from a, from a bigger perspective and, and all the pieces and how they fit together. And really we do have to go back and start from the beginning. And I think we're starting to realize.

That and accept that there's an opportunity cost though. I mean, look at the mega structures that have existed. These ivory towers are multi deca billionaire structures. You can't just dismantle these on a Tuesday and pretend like they don't exist on a Wednesday. This takes a lot of time and honestly, even your work. And one thing I'm going to talk with you about later is this remothering concept. The world has been run a certain way. Let's get real with it. The world's been run a certain way by a lot of wounded men that didn't have a mom. And it's this vicious cycle that goes back and forth.

Yeah.

So really, obviously the science that you bring forth is profound. It's a, it's incredible because it speaks to the analytical right side of the brain. It's like, well, give me the data and show me the proof about why I should be an adult, why I should care about women, why I should honor and respect women differently than men. And then in our society, you stack on this whole gender dysphoria concept.

Oh yeah, yeah.

The ultimate act of patriarchy.

Yes.

For a man pretending he's a woman and then him inserting himself into women's sports, women's life, because he's so special. The ultimate, really plagiarism of womanhood. So we have all these things in society that are happening and we're looking at each other going, we already know what to do. We already, like, there's something in our heart and soul and body, our somatic intelligence that just knows. Just honor a woman and learn how to honor her in a way that makes her feel good. It's actually quite simple. But your entire branch of science has been created to teach us logically as to why we need to pay attention to that. I find it so funny. Do you ever, do ever find this ironic?

It is very paradoxical, the whole thing. And really here's, here's another perspective. So the female biology and physiology is the most complex and sophisticated biological system on the planet.

No doubt.

Had we dedicated to mastering that first before the more simple male biological system. All of us would be better off if we mastered the more complex one first.

What I heard from you is we almost did a shortcut at the beginning.

We did a shortcut at the very beginning. But let me explain why we did that, because it's not as like dark and intentional as I think people make it out to be.

Yeah.

And I know that, you know, I.

Don'T think all the patriarchy is bad either.

No, no, no.

I think it has a shadow.

It's not the patriarchy is what it is. I don't believe that it was. Most of it was not created intentionally.

Yeah.

And here's how we got here. Just kind of on a high level. So way back in the age of agriculture when that all started, and I'm not a historian, so I don't even know how many thousands of years ago that was, but thousands of years ago, right. This was when humans started settling. And what was required at that time was to put property into the ownership of somebody. And what happened was the property rights ended up going into under the name of the men who were working the fields, who were working the land. And so that's where kind of the male naming rights started. And that's also like the foundation of our modern day, like marriage and naming, how we do naming with children and women, take the male's name, all of that started there. And that was simply just to put a ownership of the land. And then what happened is that women and children ended up going under that name and ownership as well. So from that point we went to the age of Enlightenment. So during the age of Enlightenment, this is when the first, like universities opened up. This is when scientific inquiry was born. When we went there, most of the schools that were opened up, most of the scientists, most of the educators, most of the teachers, they were men. So they were the ones who were operating within these systems. They were also the ones who designed these systems because they were the ones who were there. Then we fast forward to the industrial age, right? This is when cities were born. This is when industry was born. This is when the modern economy was born.

Again.

Who were the players in this environment? Men. Women weren't active in this environment, not anywhere near to the extent as men were. They were the ones who were the main players there. Then we fast forward to the World War era. This is the first time in human history when women make an entrance into all of these systems that have been built for thousands and thousands and thousands of years. Where has been mostly men operating within these systems and been responsible for these systems. Then we have women enter in out of necessity because the, a lot of the males were off to war and so we needed the workforce. So we're talking only like a hundred years ago out of thousands of years of structures and infrastructures and policies and all of these systems being created by the men that were operating within them. And then women enter the scene and what happens is we're expected because of what we don't know to fall right into place with these systems and structures that are built on male centric data. Because that's the data that we had, that's the data that we had collected, but also the male experience because they were the ones operating within these systems. So it makes complete sense why it was set up the way that it was. Why these systems align well with the male biological rhythm, which is that 24 hour repeating system. Why our work days are consistent 9 to 5 every single day the same. Why the way we have our economies is set up works in the same way as well. If you look at Wall street and the way all of that works, right, it's all lined up with the male biology, physiology, nervous system, brain functions, right? That all makes sense. But when women entered in and we stayed, we said this is a place where we want to be as well. The systems and structures didn't then just automatically cater to us and expand and include us. It was just these are the way they are. So you either fit in with this or you don't fit in. And so this is when kind of the lost generation happened, which was our mothers. And the mental health crisis also happened. And especially for women, because they're being told they need to go and be strong, independent women and they need to have a career and also be the leader of the family, right? And that women can have it all. But they're feeling like actually this is really wearing me down. And I don't know why, and I don't know why I can't work consistently like my coworkers and, and I feel all the pressure. But you can't admit that because you don't want to be weak and you want to be a good woman and you want to be strong and you want to be independent, you want to be successful and you don't understand why you're not operating as easily within these systems. And so that whole crisis exploded. And then we enter into the age of information. Now what is our whole world based upon data. And that data is very, very male skewed because of this whole historical perspective that I just laid out. But also because we had not included women in our scientific inquiry, female subjects, for the reason that we talked about before and because of their reproductive risk, which was another kind of excuse of not including women. But because of that, we have this whole database of so much rich information that is very skewed to a male bias. Even if you think back, did you take like biology class or anything in high school?

Sure. It's been a long time.

Health class in high school or anybody you know who. Who in undergrad or graduate school took any health science classes. If you think back and you look, or if you still have your textbooks, this is kind of like a fun exercise. Go look at your textbooks and start thumbing through and look at all the images that are in there. All of them will be the male model, except for one area that is the only exception and that is reproductive health. That's the only time you see a female body taught about or introduced in these categories.

I totally can relate to that. Yeah. Even when I use gbt, it's like showing me a male. Because I was mapping the neural tree and I was like, interesting. It's just showing me a male body. Right. Yeah. I. I just want to give kudos to the history lesson you gave us. That was a badass history lesson because our mothers were a product of that lost generation.

Yeah.

So it would make sense that if you're lost, the best thing you could ever do would be just to stop and just to be honest about where you are. But women in that generation had no advantage of stop.

They couldn't.

They couldn't. Like, my mom was a single mom and she raised two boys, and so, like, she didn't have the luxury of stopping or of asking for help. And so the body's gonna break down at some point. What I'm leading to is this amazing history lesson you gave us. Here we are in the age of information that you talked about, and now it's like, all right, well, how can we just underst. How can we finally stop the war, the illusionary war of women need to fit in a man's workplace. And it's just like such an exhausting, really irrelevant conversation. It's just irrelevant to peacefulness and to wholeness, the real conversation. And a better question, a more empowering question would be, how can we just cohabitate in a space of mission driven initiatives that align with a woman's hormonal cycle?

Yes.

That's really. It's like, can we just go there Right now. What do you think that looks like?

Yeah, I have a lot of ideas of how this looks.

This is why you created her biorhythm.

This is why I created that. This is why you could wake the men up. I teach. Well, no, it's. It's not. We're not waking them up, Men up. We're waking society up because women don't even know this.

So it's waking men and women up.

Yes.

To the. To the rhythm.

Yes.

Okay.

Yes. It's. It's reconnecting women into that rhythm, that natural rhythm of their body, and it's inviting men to take a look at that and start to understand and be able to support that. And what we really need is not a whole. Let's throw out the old system. Let's just toss the patriarchy out with the bathwater. Right?

Yeah.

That's not really what's needed. What we need is a more flexible system. So we need to take this rigid system and include some flexibility into it, and we need to expand it to be more inclusive and more opportunistic for all people, rather than just for the males that it was really designed for and based off of. Yes, it all makes sense how we got here. And really, there is nobody to blame. It's not like this evil thing. Yes, of course, I believe that there are some evil ideas out there that have taken advantage of what has happened, of course. But it. It's really makes logical sense how we got to where we are. So now let's just be aware and let's make the changes that are required. Because what happens is we bypass the gifts that are brought in terms of leadership and in terms of, again, that biological complexity that is so sophisticated that females bring to the world. But if we keep ignoring that and we keep stifling it, then we're missing out on all of that opportunity. And it's such a waste.

Yeah, it's a waste of energy, actually, because the truth is there whether we want to look at it or not. I say that ad nauseam. That's one of my favorite phrases. It's there whether we want to see it. So we all feel the discontent. It's almost like there's this interstitial tension that exists in the world. And I think a part of that is men just don't understand women because they were never taught to understand women. They were taught to deal with women. And this is a hard truth to accept, one that I am accepting in my life, especially where I came from. Where you came from. So if we're going to open up the space of real questioning and empowered conversation around what does it look like to understand a woman without losing. And this is what I think men fear. If I understand a woman too much or if I let a woman do whatever she wants to do in the workplace, at home, whatever, then somehow I might be unsafe as a man or I might lose my masculinity, which is really just a fear based model. The empowered model that I'd love your opinion on both academically and also as a woman would be how do we have both? How can we make this a yes and conversation when it comes to understanding each other without the loss of productivity, without the loss of growth, without those bright red lines that keep us safe, that men really. I think I'll speak for men. We strive to offer these bright red lines, but how do we have both?

That's the question that we really need to be asking. We don't need to be asking what is wrong with the current system and do we need to get rid of it or who's bad or who's responsible. All of these are kind of wastes of time and energy. What we need to say is what is needed to co create together what is needed so everyone can be supported in the unique way that they need to be supported for their specific physiology and their specific biological needs. Because in a lot of ways, and of course we don't have it perfect for anyone, but in a lot of ways, the way that our medical systems are run, the way that our research systems are run, the way that our economies are run, the way that our policies, infrastructures, societies, rules, all of this stuff is running, is a lot more aligned with the male biology and it works pretty well. Of course it's not perfect. We have problems, right?

When you say biology, do you mean like the super cosmetic nucleus? Do you mean the sleep wake cycles? Do you mean something else like I.

Mean the, the rhythm of the biology. So again that, that 24 hour repeating cycle and system that is very consistent, that is very productive in the way that we view productivity.

Yeah.

I always say that the neurophysiological gift of the male biology is productivity. There are many, but this is like the big one, right? And this is something that we want to leverage. This is something that is so beautiful and absolutely needed. We need it. We need it especially in the way that our society is set up today, which is not going anywhere, right? Where it's going to be like this for a while. So we need to learn better ways to leverage the gifts versus Just ignore them or try to make everybody the same. The neurophysiological gift of the female biology is creativity or creation. Right. So if you even think about what is the purpose of the female body? To create new life. Right. That is what's responsible for all the complexity that makes us so confusing and misunderstood and not studied. Right. So we want to be able to protect that, honor that, and leverage it for societal progression in partnership in tandem with productivity production.

It's so good. I know you have many layers. I just want to speak to this one layer, and then we can get to 2 and 3 and 4. In my heart and in my body, it is such a painful experience for me to witness what is going on with this whole dysphoria conversation Now, I'm not here to feed it. I'm not here to shine light on it. And let's get angry at it. It doesn't need any of that.

No, no.

What it needs is a parent. It needs a parent. That movement, if you want to call it, is really just a sideways energy of. In the Bible, they call it the Jezebel spirit. We can call it sideways sexual energy. We could call it whatever we want to call it. But it's this confusion. Even. Even the term, the scientific term, dysphoria, there's a confusion, but there's actually no confusion at all. If you just listen to your body, I can see your hand on your stomach, right?

Yeah.

If we just listen to our bodies. Yes. We're here to respect everyone's preferences, and that's fine. If people want to go down that route. I don't wish that on anyone. I think it's a very hard route to go down. But I'm not going to sit here and cast judgment of people that are doing it. I am going to say, however, that when it comes to honoring and respecting women, that I am going to create a bright red line in the vein of being a man. And that bright red line says, you're not allowed to make me describe you as a cat. You're not allowed to make me describe you as a dog or as something that you're not. How do you think that humanity's evolution is experiencing this right now as a way, actually for us to be so pushed in our face by this sickness of our own behavior that we can finally learn how to respect women? I think that's what this is all about.

Yeah, I. It's an interesting thing to think about and watch unfold because it's been within our lifetime that this has come to Be we can't come to light. Right.

We also can't ignore it.

We can't ignore it. And I think what we need societally goes back to something you alluded to at the beginning, which is something that a mother offers, which is understanding, compassion, acceptance, acknowledgement. Right. I think what is responsible for a lot of this dysphoria, disillusion is that folks are not accepted and acknowledged and understood for who they are, not just who they decide to be in the world, but who they are on, like, a basic biological level. And that has not been okay, especially for females. It has not been okay or acceptable to be a female person with a female body, regardless of how you identify. Right. We're talking about sex, which is something that happens at birth and is at the chromosomal level. We're not talking about gender right now.

You think they're two separate things?

Sex and gender are two separate things.

How so?

Sex is what you're born as, again, at the chromosomal level. Right. And these are biological differences that remain with you through your whole life, no matter how you identify as whatever gender you might identify as. Gender is a social construct and it's a personal identification and it's more involved in the psychology of the person. And so I think both are extremely important and shape people into who they are. This is why I studied neuropsychophysiology, because we look at the neurology, we look at the psychology.

Why does gender exist then, if it's so different than sex? I'm keeping an open mind.

Yeah. Yeah. I think people get confused because they have made them the same thing, and I think early on they were the same thing. When we said gender, we meant sex. When we said sex, we meant gender. Now it's not. And so it actually is really important in today's context and the way that our society is now to delineate the two things. And especially for me as a researcher, I'm talking about biological females in the research that I do. So this means what is the sex that they were born as and how that impacts their brain development, how that impacts how their nervous system and how their immune system operates. Right. Because it's going to be different than a male's. Now, if that female then, for instance, transitions into a trans man. Right. They are shifting their biology with hormones, but the. It doesn't then change their sex, it changes their gender, especially the way that they want to identify, the way that they want to operate in society and gender roles. And all of that comes into play. And we have big questions around what all of that is anyways at this point. Right. But we can't ignore that they still have a female biological system. And the bigger question is when introducing the male sex hormones into a female biology. And it also depends on where they are in the development as well, because it'll be different. What changes does that create in those global physiological processes? Which I can't answer, nor can anyone, because we're not running studies or collecting data on this.

Why even. Why does this exist? And this has been my question since the beginning. I want to honor your views. I do. I truly do. And I want to honor everybody's views that has views about this. I also want my views to be honored. Let's honor each other's views without making each other wrong. Okay.

Yeah.

So I believe that. That they're. They're one and the same because we were created. And so just hear me out here.

Yeah, Yeah.

I believe that when someone is born with an XX or X Y, that was actually divine orchestration. It came from a place that whether you want to call it God, whether you want to call it Creator, we are created, therefore we live. You know, I am what I am. And so for us to have intellectual story about that, gender is one thing and sex is another thing, I think it's a yes. And I think there's always a subpopulation of all organisms that have a little bit of fluidity, and that's fine. And human beings being one of those, and those people do not get to be disrespected or anything like that. So I hold reverence for that.

Yeah, yeah.

But I'm gonna. Blake in statement for 99.999, the. The vast majority, there is this irrefutable understanding that we came into the world a certain way. And if we want to put mental story on top of that, that's fine. That's your trip. Go for it. You're going to lead a really hard life. And if you really. I'm curious from a research standpoint, if you really look at why people go into these routes of wanting to be a dog or wanting to be a cat or, you know, born a woman, but they want to be a man, I think it's actually a perversion. I think it's actually an entity or an energy that comes in and is teaching us how to come back to the center. So in other words, what I'm saying is none of these people are wrong, and none of this stuff that's happening isn't part of the design. I Just think we happen to be in a page in the story where it's all happening and we're trying to make sense of it. I'm here to say, with respect to your views and anyone's views, I'm here to say all roads lead back home. And when we come back home, we realize that a woman is a woman and a man is a man, full stop. There's no intellectual story about what that means. So I. I just had to say that because.

No, I.

That's my truth.

I totally understand that. And I support people in where they are. Whether I agree with it or not is irrelevant and not even part of what I include.

That's such a mature view.

Yeah.

Yes.

So gender, in terms of, like, the way that those terms are used for specifically, like health policy or research, we have to. We have to delineate between gender and sex, because gender, as we're using it today, is identification that you can choose and they're words. Sex is a biological predisposition.

They're words.

Yeah.

They're just words.

Exactly. So that. That's what I mean by those differences. But I do wonder how all of this would be different had we had a greater understanding of the female sex.

I think that's where it comes from.

Had we, again, mastered that more complex physiology from the beginning and had we honored the most complex, most sophisticated biological system on the planet and its ability to create new life. Oh, we'd be in a different place. We wouldn't really be having these conversations, I think around polarity and exactly this versus that, or even. I don't think there would be a need for people to identify as anything different than what they are because we would just be accepted for what and who we are.

I don't think tick tock would exist. I don't.

Which would be fine with me. I'm not on TikTok, so I think.

I think, like, this is what I love about you. We're just meeting for the first time.

Yeah.

We're able to share ideas and viewpoints without making people wrong.

Yeah.

And this is the part of humanity that I think we've lost the art form of just conversation. Which is why podcasts, they stick to your spine because finally we're having a damn conversation about something instead of just posting our wounds online. It's such a show.

Yeah.

So I love this because I do believe, and I think you're bringing the scientific understanding of how essentially all roads do lead back home, which is how can we honor men and women as different biological beings without Them taking away from each other, which is actually a very illusionary bifurcation. The bifurcation of men and women being at war is complete bullshit, in my opinion. It's a societal conditioning, if we want to get down to the word of it. What's your take on this?

I completely agree. Especially because, again, when we're looking at those, those neurobiological gifts, they fit so beautifully together. Right. What the male biology, physiology, brain, all of it offers is so complementary to what the female system offers.

It's a perfect fit.

It's a perfect fit and a perfect match, literally. Honestly, I'm currently in the process of writing a couple of books and one of the books that I'm writing is on female specific leadership and how it differs from male leadership, but how we need both in the world and we only have good examples of male based leadership, like male neurology based leadership. Right. And then even the women leaders that we have in our world are still trying to lead from a very male perspective, which doesn't align with their biology. And it's all dysregulated and it's.

They have the shoulder pads.

It's not. It just doesn't. It doesn't work.

Right.

And. But my perspective is if we had balanced, healthy individuals, which is the baseline of what we need in our leaders, should be a requirement. Unfortunately, it's not. But if we had healthy, balanced individuals, I think that it would be beautiful to have every world leader, every decision maker position, be a male and a female. That works together because it brings both perspectives and the world would change so significantly if we could do that.

I'm so on board with. Yeah, I'm so on board with this because this is the whole reason why, you know, in the podcast logo, it's on the screen right now, y', all, the triangle in the logo of my entire mission is to understand feminine energy. Yeah. In myself.

Yeah.

And to bring feminine energy to the table so I can learn from it. It's not rocket science. We've just not done it for quite some time. So, like, that's why most of the audience is women, and that's why the other portion of the audience is men that want to learn about women. And, you know, to quote young, the anima and the animus inside of us.

Yeah.

This is the duality of really leading us to a singular expression and understanding of that we're all one in the same.

Yes.

I've just come back to this point all the time. We're literally all one in the same. I mean, it almost makes me want to cry just even talking about it. So beautiful. We are literally. We come from the same garden. Can we just learn how to play with each other and respect each other as different? But one and the same. That's the core of.

We all come from the womb. We come from a womb of creation. That's right. We all come from the womb of the female body.

Yeah.

We all come from there. That's where it all started for all of us.

Yeah.

And somehow we forgot that. And somehow we don't honor that. And somehow we don't respect that. And somehow we don't realize that that is the key. And that is where we will also find the solutions for all of the dysregulation that's happening on this planet today.

Beautifully said. Look. Look at that key you just described. If the key was a key of wisdom, what is the wisdom that you're bringing? And how exactly in the. Her biorhythm specifically is this key unlocking?

So again, it goes back to this complexity, which, from a scientific standpoint, we have looked at as a problem. We have looked at as something that needs to be solved or resolved or eliminated.

Yeah.

And even across society, we try to make everybody the same. We want everyone to be consistent. How many times have we all been taught consistency is the key to success? Right. That's not true. Actually. It might be more true for males than females, but certainly for women it's not true because we're not consistent beings. Not in the way that we think about it. Right.

Sure, sure. You're consistently inconsistent.

We're consistent.

I don't say that as a knock.

We're inconsistent.

I don't say that as a knock. By the way, it's a beauty that women have that we don't have.

It's a beauty. So what if we could embrace that inconsistency and if we could embrace that complexity, if we could embrace that constant evolution and be okay with the discomfort of not being able to stand solidly on something, then we would evolve.

That just hit my body right there, what you said. All of us felt that. Because it is. That's why it's in the logo. Because I've just struggled so deeply, even looking at how we started this conversation, our shared understanding of our mothers. Right. And how that's playing out, you and I, as adults in our specific lanes of work.

Yeah.

And so there's beauty in the wound. There's beauty in us not honoring women. Actually. It's crazy. It's crazy to even think about, because we're part of this story that's leading us back to the understanding that we're all one in the same. But here we are. It's great if you want to listen to a podcast and somebody says, all we are is one. Just love, brother. But it doesn't. Yet. It's true fundamentally. And maybe at a different time, it'll ring true in a different way, but here we are. And so the key that you're bringing in this understanding of our biorhythm is so profound because I have, through my own conditioning, been so confused by my fiance. I'm just like, what is your deal? How do you. What's it going to be today, Carrie? You know, and so I was actually. Full transparency. One of my. I don't know if you know him, but he's. He's been on the show before. His name is Mike Zeller. No, Mike Zeller.

Yeah.

And he said, you would be very wise to bring on a female hormone expert to your podcast. And I'm like, okay. So I searched around in our entire industry, and your name just came to the top. So from a hormonal perspective, what do you. What is the overarching thing.

Yeah.

That we really get to understand as men. What do men need to know? What do men get to know about the difference between men and women? Hormonally.

Yes. So let me just pull back the curtain for everyone here, not just for men, but for women also, who are, like, feeling in their bones that, yes, this is true. I've not been able to be consistent. I don't fit into these. These structures that are so rigid. I do need more flexibility, but I don't understand why or how to do it. So let's talk about it on, like, a very. In a very structured, masculine way, which is my masculine. That comes out in the creation of what I put into the world, which is so beautiful.

Yeah.

Yeah. So, again, that big difference in that biological rhythm, which is all a timing issue, is hormones. Hormones are at the center of it all. And what creates all that beautiful complexity and that ability to create new life comes down to those ovarian hormones, which are not just ovarian hormones. They're also very potent neurotransmitters. They also are responsible for driving all kinds of physiological processes, including things like drug metabolism, which is very different in. In females because of the different levels of estrogen. So on every level, these hormones change our physiology based on the concentrations. So that's why we have the four phases over the month, which we're going to go through all four phases just at a high level, so everyone can just kind of get a taster, please. But then we also have all the different life phases where these hormones are significantly different. And so it's just a constant unfolding, constant evolution. And again, it doesn't give us that solid ground of consistency to stand on that we all want in order to feel comfortable, but we need to start becoming uncomfortable with a constantly shifting ground below us.

Damn it, Kaylee. You're making us get comfortable with the uncomfortable.

And that's my purpose, which is the.

Beauty of the chalice of renewal of the feminine energy. Go ahead.

Yeah, go ahead. So we'll start with phase one of the female energy.

I'm already feeling uncomfortable.

Yeah. Yeah. Good. Good. Yeah.

All right.

We like this. Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah. And as by the end, maybe you'll, like, feel more comfortable with that discomfort.

Yeah, let's lean into it.

Okay. So starting with phase one, which is, if we're looking at just the menstrual cycle or just the ovarian hormone cycle, we have these four different phases. We have the menstrual phase, we have the follicular phase, we have the ovulatory phase, and we have the luteal phase. But the female biorhythm is broader than just the ovarian hormone cycle. The female biorhythm is inclusive of the global female physiological shifts and processes that happen that we are honestly just starting to uncover. There's so much more to be discovered. So we'll go through these on a high level. But this is, again, inclusive of all those other systems that I mentioned. The brain, the nervous system, the metabolism, the immune system, the musculoskeletal system, cardiorespiratory system. All of these other systems that both males and females have in their body, in the female body, operate on a different rhythm this month long rhythm because of those shifts, those. Those global shifts that are caused by the ebb and flow of estrogen and progesterone across the month and across the lifespace.

Oh, yeah. And if you stack pregnancy and conception into that. Oh, my gosh.

That's a whole different.

That's a whole podcast.

That's a whole podcast. We'll talk about that later. Yeah. And, you know, post menopause or perimenopause, I mean, these are things that we need to have. This is why it's a lot deeper conversation.

It's on the screen right now.

Yeah.

Okay. If you're a woman who's literally so into this, but you've Been so confused by it. Just go right now to the program. Just tell them exactly what the program is.

Yeah, absolutely. If you go to herbiorhythm.com There's a few different offerings there, but one of the ones that we're actually about to start in a couple of weeks is the certification in women's neuropsychophysiology, where we get deep into all of these global differences across the female body that ebb and flow with the female hormones across the month and across the life phases, and those major sex differences that are much ignored in our society, that are certainly ignored and not included in our infrastructures, our policies, our systems, the way that we operate, our expectations, our workplaces, and how we need to integrate that information into all of these places. So it's kind of like the Female Biology Neurology 101 that we all should have gotten, like, in high school.

Thank you.

Or even whenever we took the first sex ed class. We should have learned about all of this stuff, but we never got.

I had to shout it out right now. And. And plus, you gave a discount, which is really cool. So if y' all head over to. We actually made a link for you. So it's joshtrend.com forward/her biorhythm. If you use the code Josh, you get 10% off. Now, I'm sure that. That women are flocking to this.

Yes.

Are there any men that are in a specific lane of service in life that require this kind of education?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. So any. Any health practitioner at all really needs this information. Any person who supports women in their work really needs to understand this information just at, like, the most basic level.

Yeah.

It would behoove any man who is in partnership with a woman to also have this information.

Okay. So basically what I'm hearing you say is everyone, Everyone.

It would help everyone if they had this information. And I am working to make it more accessible. This is curriculum that I'm working to get integrated into our higher education systems. But something that we really need to start with our kids on as well, to reform the way that we do, like sex education. It needs to include these basic things that we all really need to know that we don't know. Which is pretty ridiculous.

Sure.

Yeah.

Because they were taught from an old system, and it's not making that system wrong. It's just. It was archaic and stupid. It's like we all update our phones.

Yeah.

Can we just update science? Can we just update education?

Yes.

We need, like, the iOS 47 update for education. Right now?

Yeah, it's, you know, all I can think about is that little, like the wheel of loading. The loading wheel. Yeah, just like that's where we're stuck. We're stuck.

Okay.

In the loading.

Let's go back. I personally love ovulation. I know that's a very, like, you know, masculine thing.

Everyone loves ovulation.

Ovulation is my.

Women love ovulation.

Oh, my God, you're glowing. You're in such a great mood. You want to have sex, cool. But it comes with the other three that are important to understand.

Yeah, yeah. So I also want to make a note about ovulation because this is also the standard by which women hold themselves. And this is how we, we shoot ourselves in the foot. Because ovulation is only one to three days, depending on the woman out of that 28 day to 30 day cycle. So it's only a tiny little blip within that 30 day cycle. However, it. Because it's when women typically feel their best, unless they have some major hormonal dysregulation going on. But it's typically when we feel our best. We have our most energy, we are the most social, we have the highest emotional intelligence, which we'll get into all of the reasons why that is. Okay. But what happens is when we go through this phase, we feel like superwoman and we can do it all, and we literally can. And we have greater power, strength, endurance, all of this at this time. And so we set our bar, we're like, all right, this or better. But then we go into the other phases and it's actually not possible. We're doing that to ourselves, but also society is doing that to us as well, where we can see our potential, our highest potential come to fruition during that time period. And then we say this is the highest standard because it's the most productive. Right. In terms of what we value in society is productivity, again, which is very a male centric view of what is valuable in society. So let's go through the. All the phases because they're all beautiful and actually they're all my favorites. I always say this one's my favorite or that one's my favorite. But they're all my favorites because they all bear so much fruit, if you understand it. And if you give each one the acknowledgment and the support that it needs, there's so much that's available there. So phase one is the menstrual phase. If we're talking about the ovarian hormone cycle, but I call this the shedding phase, if we're talking about the biorhythm at large. Because not only is it a, yes, a shedding of the uterine lining for those who are actively cycling and have a period, which not all women do, but it's also, if you look at what's going on neurologically, metabolically, throughout all these systems, it's also a shedding and an opportunity to shed what no longer serves. It's a renewal energy. So what happens during this phase is on a hormonal level, this is when estrogen and progesterone, both of those two key ovarian hormones, are at their lowest level of the month long cycle. So what happens when those hormones are at their lowest level? There's kind of this global physiological downshift of everything across all systems in the female body. So what that looks like metabolically is a slowing of the conversions of macros through the citric acid cycle into the generation of fuel ATP for the cells. Also the conversion of fats and sugars and proteins into fuel for the body, those metabolic processes, all of that also slows down during this time. So even there's a change in caloric requirement, for instance. There's less of a caloric requirement when those hormones are low. But what do we actually do in society? We do the opposite because we're dysregulated. So this is oftentimes when women will say, oh, I crave sugar or whatever, and they're going for these, these things that are actually not in alignment with their requirements of their body at that time, causing further dysregulation. So there's a downshifting of the metabolism generally during this time, and there's less fuel available for the body, but also for the brain. What we also see happens in the brain is that there's a slowing of our excitatory and mood boosting neurotransmitters. So we're talking about epinephrine, norepinephrine, glutamate, serotonin, dopamine, all of those. There's a slowing of the activity of those in this low hormonal state. So that kind of sounds like a bummer and that women have to experience this every month. Like, sure, that's not fair.

Yeah.

However, it's actually beautiful and it's actually really interesting to see what happens if, for instance, we look at how the cognitive skills shift during this time. And what we see is that the female brain and cognitive skill sets shift into more of an introspective state at this Time and also become more sensitive. The nervous system is more sensitive, the immune system is more sensitive during this time. And if you look at the brain differences between men and women, it's also interesting to see that those processes that are responsible for the woman's intuition, which is a real thing that we can now actually measure with modern scientific tools, um, but that those cognitive processes are actually heightened during this time. So a woman's intuition is actually higher or heightened during this time period if she allows herself to slow down, go inward, be more introspective, and use her resources in a smart way. So I want all women, especially who are listening to this, to think about this as looking at resources and allocating resources in the most effective, smart way. We know that in this phase we have less of certain resources. Energy, fuel, neurotransmitters. Right, certain neurotransmitters. Excitatory.

This is the phase where there's the most crankiness potentially.

I wouldn't, I'm not saying it has.

To be, but it is. Or is it this phase? Or is it.

It actually might be right before this phase. That, that could be the possibility. We're taking notes, but it could be during this phase as well, just because of, again, that heightened sensitivity. So it really has to do with how well is this female body being supported and getting the biological needs met.

Yeah.

Then the answer to your question could be yes, if. If the answer to that is no. Right. So if we understand what the needs are, if we understand what the shifts are, if we understand what the resources are in each phase and how to allocate them in the smartest way, then we don't have to answer yes ever to that question. We don't have to say this is the dysregulated phase, or this is the cranky phase, or this is the. Whatever other negative symptom you want to mention related to PMS or whatever. Right. Yeah, we, we wouldn't have to deal with those things if women were being understood and supported and providing themselves, but also being offered the opportunity and the environments to take care of their body in the way that it needs to in alignment with their physiology.

I love how in the middle of your explanation of the four cycles, you're talking about the encapsulation of metaphysically why society gets to change.

Yes.

I like how you just slide that.

In there just a little.

I know we're talking high level science and the whole world must change.

Yeah.

Which is true.

It's true. Yeah. So from that phase we shift into a state where Estrogen is rising to a peak. So estrogen becomes the star player of the next phase, which in the ovulatory cycle is called the follicular phase. In the overall biorhythm, this is more of the planting phase. And so planting the seeds for success is how I kind of like to look at this phase. So during this time, as estrogen rises to a peak, metabolic or metabolic processes speed up and start to work more efficiently. And so we have more fuel for the body, more fuel for the cells, more fuel for the brain. At the same time, those excitatory and mood boosting neurotransmitters start to increase. We also get a hippocampal activation in the brain. A lot of other kind of complex brain changes that happen that we would need a whole other podcast to talk about. But there are some shifts that happen in a higher estrogen state in the female brain that also change our cognitive capacities. One of the easiest ways that women experience this is they have heightened, like mental focus, mental energy during this time period. They have a more stabilized mood or they have a higher mood during this time period as it relates to estrogen being upregulated. And at the same time, there's also this ability to communicate that is heightened. There's higher empathy, compassion, emotional processing and regulation that happens during this time. And so emotional intelligence actually increases as estrogen rises.

But there's a sweet spot, There's a Goldilocks zone, of course.

I mean, just like everything.

Yeah.

And it really doesn't have to do with the level of estrogen as much as in terms of like too much estrogen. That more has to do with estrogen detox, which is a whole other thing.

But so it's the. How the body lets it go. And if it stays on, the body.

Metabolizes estrogen and methylation and all of that. And that's how sometimes women can get into estrogen dominance. And what that actually means is that the estrogens are not being metabolized and detoxed. And so it does cause a dysregulation. Anyway, I digress from that.

There's so much cool stuff to talk about.

Yeah, there's. There's a lot. There's a lot.

But I really, I would love for you to continue on this high level so that then I can. This is a very selfish thing, but it's, you know, you're on my podcast, so I'm gonna go for it. I'd love for you to finish the high level of these stages so that us as men and women can really take ownership of them, that they exist. And then I would love to get people to the solution faculty of this. And also I have so many more questions for you.

Come on.

But please.

Yeah, yeah. So as we go through this state again, all of those things are kind of increasing. A woman's power, strength and endurance is also increasing as estrogen rises. And then we reach the peak of estrogen right around the time of ovulation, which is the phase three. But in the biorhythm, I call this the bloom phase because it's more like the time when a woman feels her best and she feels very socially connected, is able to communicate and empathize with others at a higher level, has this heightened emotional intelligence, again, has that peak of power, strength, endurance, has all the mental energy, has those mood boosting neurochemicals, so feeling really like regulated emotionally as well. And so again, going back to that kind of blessing and a curse of this phase is it's really great and it's awesome that we get to experience that every month and we can leverage it for our benefit, for leadership skills, for networking, for presenting, for pitching. This is how I use this phase.

You wait until I, I try to.

Line up my different activities as a CEO, as a researcher, as an entrepreneur with the different phases and the gifts that each one offers.

Oh yeah, that is so smart.

We'll talk. I can kind of give a little roadmap of that at the end.

Or maybe people just sign up for the program for that because that is just so good. I mean, we look at astrology and the stars like there's even the good timing guide that exists. Yes, but then of course, of course. Why would. It's so funny. I'm saying of course because many of the things you're sharing, they just make so much sense. Yeah, but I've never had this type of conversation about them, so. But please continue.

Yeah. So again, the blessing and the curse of this phase is that this is where we set the standard for ourselves. This is where we set the bar. And then we get disappointed if we don't reach that bar consistently every day. This is also where society sets the bar for us at large. Because if we show up like that, guns a blazing, and we hold ourselves to that standard and we make sure that we want to be perceived and show up as superwoman consistently, it's not possible. It's not biologically completely possible. And over time, it will lead to burnout. And that's why women experience burnout 200% more often than Men.

Have you ever experienced the burnout?

Oh, my God, yes.

And did it in some way help you understand the stages, the four stages, even deeper?

Yeah. This was kind of what put me on this path to understand the female body more intricately. In addition to seeing all of the gaps in our research and our knowledge and our data at my time at CDC and seeing how the information that we had on the female bodies and female physiology was so poor, yet we were creating population level standards and metrics and policies. And so that kind of really made me sick. But then I was actually sick because I was so dysregulated. I showed up the same way working in corporate, working at cdc, especially where it was highly competitive. And I was amongst. Amongst a lot of male colleagues working in a field of science. And I wanted to be the best. And I'm very competitive. At the same time, I was also competing. We talked about this a little bit before the podcast, but I was competing as a duathlete on the national level and eventually made it all the way to Team USA and was going to go to the world championships. And then Covid happened. Thank God. Covid saved me from myself. But while I was doing all of that, it was absolutely insane. I was holding myself to that standard of my superwoman self, which only was there occasionally, but I was forcing myself to work at that level. And eventually I completely burned out my adrenals and I completely burned out my sex hormones. Because that's what happens is first you burn out the adrenals and then the adrenals, which are the backup system for the sex hormones, and it's all interconnected. The sex hormones then take a hit and they start to get burned out. And when I eventually tested my hormones at the time when I'm competing at a national level like one of the top do athletes in the nation, my hormones were that of a 90 year old woman. And my doctor was like, this is not good. And couldn't even really understand how I was operating at the level that I was.

But it was sheer.

Well, sheer will.

Yeah.

Yes.

I have to ask you this, and I know we're all feeling this. What was the unhealthy fear? There was something unhealthy. There was something in dis ease that was driving you to compete at such a fierce level, both in the CDC and athletics, that what. What was the un. What was underneath that?

I needed to prove myself. I needed to prove that I could be better, really, than my male counterparts. I had to prove for my mom's sake, who always Taught me I need to be a strong, independent woman, that I could do that, that I could achieve, that I could be the best, that me as a woman could overcome the adversity of my childhood, but also the adversity of being a woman and rise to the top of my field and be the best one in my subject matter. That was what I was going for. And even in competition, I wanted to be the best, and I was.

Did you get kind of a kick that you were that?

Yes, of course. This is how I received love. This is how I received recognition.

Yeah.

And it was how I valued myself.

But at some point, the hormonal cascade took over and you couldn't sustain that identity anymore.

No, I couldn't. I couldn't sustain it on a physical level. Yeah. I couldn't get through the day without crashing. I had crazy mood swings. My hair was falling out, my skin was exploding. I was certainly not fertile at all. And. And I had all kinds of issues with my sleep, with. With everything and my relationship were suffering. The only thing that was succeeding was my career and my competition and everything else was crumbling behind the scenes. But everybody was cheering me on and saying, oh, my God, good job.

We love to see this, don't we? Like you said, we want women always at that one. What was the cycle, by the way? Just so we can be reeducated, the one that society wants women to stay at. What is that cycle?

It's the ovulatory phase, or that's phase three, the bloom phase of the.

Of course, that was the one that I said I love the most before you educated us. And I'm planting that seed. So for my own education, publicly, I just want to give my unconscious mind and all of our minds as men, specifically and women, the permission to just accept these cycles for what they are.

All of the phases, because they all bear such beautiful gifts once we understand them.

I was a surfer for a long time, and I lived in Encinitas, and it was wonderful. And I would. Some days I would, like, design my whole day and I would go out and there'd be no waves.

Oh, yeah.

And the tide would be out. And then some days it would be perfect and I'd be like, oh, this is so amazing, but this is a woman.

Yes. A woman is our reality.

A woman is the ocean.

Yes.

And I know I'm speaking to you as a man. Right. But. But I say this with, like, very sacred respect. A woman is the ocean. You cannot go on a shore and shout at the ocean and say, I need you to have better waves. I need you to change your. Your tide cycle for me. I need you. I need you. I need you. It just doesn't work.

It doesn't work.

So we can. I can get frustrated with my fiance about her cycles, but that's really why I'm here with you and why we're here with you and why this topic is growing. If you look at the. The research and the data, the reason why this conversation is so present on YouTube, specifically, is because we just don't know that. We don't know. We have unconscious incompetence about it. Right?

Yeah.

So it's so fun to have this conversation with you. It's even more fun to hear your really awareness about your own egoic pursuits of wanting love that paradoxically drove you to be a PhD and have a master's. It's so wild how you even got here. But now where do you go? And what's the fuel source that you pull from now that was different than the past? The story from your mom doesn't work anymore.

Yeah. You know what's really beautiful to reflect on and even makes me feel a little emotional, but so grateful is that I'm so much more effective and powerful and even more loved now that I have embraced my femininity, now that I allow the ebb and flow and I honor my body and I give it what it needs. I give it the breaks when it needs breaks. I push it when I have the capacity to push it, and I honor the cycles. And in doing that, I've also learned to have greater levels of compassion and empathy for all people. I've become much more of an accepting human. I was a very rigid person back then. And even when I did my own brain scans back around that time, I had what we call occipital rigidity, where it's like you start to get very rigid in the processes that happen in the occipital region of the brain. And this is where kind of those like, grumpy old people.

Grumpy old men, the movie.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But even grumpy old women, whatever this is, this is how it happens, is you start to get a little too rigid. So again, this goes back to what I think is the solution on a global societal level is enhancing flexibility, allowing for the discomfort of the constant shifting to happen, accepting and acknowledging that that is the case and stopping the expectation of consistency, stopping the expectation of sameness.

That's hard for me to hear, Kayla. I know it's really hard because I'm.

Like Because your body works.

I'm such a man. And I'm like, I don't want to hear that. But also, how can I let myself hear that?

Yes.

You know, how can I really hear what you're saying?

Yeah. Your life will become a lot easier when you can allow for the inconsistency of your female partners, whatever those are in your life.

Just one.

Yeah. But, I mean, you have a mother or. Or did have a mother at some point.

Yes. Yes.

And you have, you know, maybe aunts and sisters or cousins.

Oh, got it. So you mean partners, like, not whatever.

Yes. Any kind of partnership. Right, Got it. So when we can start to allow women to be inconsistent, but like you said, they're consistently inconsistent, to allow them to ebb and flow with their physiology, to allow them to lean into those different cognitive gifts that come online at different hormonal states and phases in their month and in their life. When we can embrace that, when we can leverage the complexity rather than look at it as a proportion problem that we need to solve for.

It's so good. There's so much here, and honestly, we're just scratching the surface. This is why everyone gets to do your program. It's on the screen again, y'. All.

So.

Joshtran.com forward/Herbbyhythm I cannot let you go unless I.

Well, we have to get to the fourth face.

Oh, we didn't get to the fourth phase.

No. Oh, my God.

Such a masculine thing that I did.

Yes.

I'll put my question to the side. The best one I'm seeing myself play out here. This is my own egoic teaching, so I'll put my question to the side. I know exactly what it is. Please continue for the fourth.

Okay, so the fourth phase. I always say this is my favorite, but really, they're all my favorites because they all are so beautiful and offer so much. But this is the longest of all the phases. It's called the luteal phase. If we're talking about the ovarian hormone cycle, I call this the grow phase. If we're talking about the female biological rhythm, because there's some really interesting shifts and changes that happen here that are so beautiful, that really need to be understood and leveraged in order for our world to be healthier and for our society to evolve and change, we really need to understand this piece. So it's the whole back half of the ovarian hormone cycle. It's about two weeks, and both of the weeks are significantly different from each other as well. So week one of this phase is very different than week two of this phase. Week two of this phase is the one that gets the bad rap. And that's where PMS might occur, or PMS symptoms is what I should say.

This is like the irritability, et cetera.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that might happen. If that happens for a woman, that happens in that second week of this phase. But this phase is marked by a totally different hormonal shift that happens, a totally different hormonal landscape. So now estrogen is low, but progesterone is rising to a peak. So progesterone is the star player during this phase specifically. So as it relates to estrogen going back down the other side of that curve. Right. And slowing down metabolic processes, excitatory mood boosting neurotransmitter. All of that is happening during this phase. But we're getting the benefits of progesterone rising to a peak. So one of those is that progesterone, as it rises, increases the activity of our global neurological downregulatory mechanism, the most powerful one, which is GABA neurotransmitter. So GABA neurotransmitter gets upregulated with the rise to a peak in progesterone. So what does that translate to? That translates to greater ability to get the benefits from restful sleep. The greater ability to get restful sleep and all of the neurological processes that happen, like myelination and activation of the glial cells, that happens when we're sleeping, all of that is more powerful when progesterone is heightened. And so it kind of gives this beautiful reset to the brain and it increases the capacity of the brain in certain ways. At the same time, we get a rise to a peak in brain derived neurotrophic factor, or bdnf, which is responsible for, not responsible for, but increases neuroplasticity and neurogenesis. So not only is the female brain literally growing during this phase because of neurogenesis, but it's also more adaptable. Adaptable because neuroplasticity is increasing. So what all of this translates to is a couple of things. One is greater memory consolidation and learning ability. It also translates to a higher cognitive state for adaptability. So adaptation, creating new habits, learning new skill sets. This is all a really great time to do this, those types of things. Because the nervous system at large is more resilient during this time. However, there's a caveat. The nervous system is also becoming more and more sensitive as we go back towards phase one again, back towards that low hormonal state again. So we have to pay attention because we all. We have all probably heard at this point the stress bucket analogy, Right?

Sure. The allostatic load.

Yeah, allostatic load. So the stress bucket in the front half of the ovarian hormone cycle from phase one, when it's at its lowest, it's the smallest, the bucket is the most sensitive. The nervous system is at the low hormonal state. As estrogen rises, the stress bucket increases. So we can handle more of that stress load.

I just got such a click in my own relationship when you were talking. This is the cheat code for men.

Yes, this is cheat code.

This is a cheat code for men. It's not a cheat. It's just a game code. Yeah, it's not even a cheat. It's just the game.

Yes, it's definitely a game. So then when we go back down the other half of the cycle, again, that stress bucket is getting smaller and smaller as we get more towards that sensitive low hormonal state again. So we have two things going at the same time. We're getting this greater resilience of the nervous system, this higher capacity for learning and adaptation during this time, and a greater ability for resetting and healing of the brain and the neurology, a growing of the brain and expansion of some of these capacities. Right. And the nervous system is more sensitive. So these are two kind of opposing things that happen. This is why the female body is so brilliant, such a masterpiece, because it knows that as we are going back towards that low hormonal state and the body is becoming more sensitive to stress in more of a sympathetic state, it gives us that. That nice boost in progesterone, which is like a natural anxiolytic. Right. So it's counterbalancing something that's happening that's creating more sensitivity until we get to the low hormonal state, where it is just simply more sensitive because both estrogen and progesterone are low.

That was so beautiful. That was the Goldilocks zone that I was asking about earlier. It's like ultimate perfection. The body's so intelligent in ways that our words can't even really describe. Honestly. I know you do a great job of describing them scientifically, but there's so much innate intelligence, like, even to think about the redox system that I learned about from Zach Bush and.

Yes.

How our enteric nervous systems are communicating with each other.

Yes.

Interesting how during the whole theater, it was like, stay six feet apart from yourselves. That's the redox System. You can just. There's a corollary there, so I want to give respect. Do you feel like we really covered the. The four stages? Obviously they're in the course. Yeah, we can touch upon them now. We can, we can get people interested. Yeah, they each deserve their own learning path.

Yeah, they do. And. And there's a lot that happens in each of these phases. And even as I. I didn't really give justice even just to that last phase, because it's really two phases within one phase.

Oh boy. More complexity.

Kayla, we can really talk about. All right. Yeah, there's so much more that we can talk about. But I think just to give people a little taster of this complexity that we need to start honoring and leveraging for our benefit that I hope paints somewhat of a picture that's interesting for folks to start asking more questions.

I mean, I was leaning forward the whole time, so I definitely know that we all were. My question I've been burning to ask you this whole interview do. It's around my course of work, emotional epigenetics and learning which of the epigenome turns off the different genes that are either from trauma or trust. And I found in my research, and I spoke about this at the conference, that there's the cherry blossom study that was done that showed the excitatory response of the rats that smelled the cherry blossom. And then they measured their nervous system for two years. That was two years impact. But then I found more studies and there's even more coming out that it could be actually four to seven years of impact on the neural tree. How it's pre.

Can I ask one question?

Yes.

Did they include female rats?

It's a great question.

They typically don't. Most lab animal studies are with males.

If I'm. I'll pull up the slide in my head because we think in pictures.

Okay.

I believe it was the cherry blossom study was only done on the male rat. However, I don't think they observed the sex of the offspring. So I do think that there wasn't that interplay that you're talking about. So they. Yeah, they could have done a mom and a dad and done them separate.

Yes.

Here we are like saying that the cherry blossom study could have been different. And I'm open to it being different. However, whether it was from the. The mom or the dad, in this scientific study, it was from the father. It showed that the neural tree was actually wired for hyper vigilance. So when it would smell cherry blossoms, it would react. And so this is my question to Bring it full circle to what your line of work is. I'm utterly fascinated in how we receive trauma and how we let it go. That is what I'm going to do and learn about and share about through my work and the life method for more than a decade. A decade will give it justice to start because it's complex, much like a woman is. But how we receive trauma in which genes get turned off and on. There's a supplemental aspect to this because you talked about the wiring in the brain and the different hormones that we're experiencing in your program. Are you addressing both of those things? Are you addressing people that have been through trauma and what type of supplements they could use and also how to supplement a woman as she goes through her four phases? It's a very big question.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the program that's available now again is more like the Female Body Biorhythm 101. Basic information that we all need to have. Still very complex, but it's kind of that foundational education that we all need. However, a very exciting announcement that I haven't announced yet is that me and a colleague of mine who is a licensed therapist, we have developed a women's mental health program based around the female neurophysiology and the female biorhythm. And these are the things that we are addressing specifically in that. So not only how trauma.

Yeah.

Occurs and is addressed and presents and is treated differently in the female system, but also things like medications that are used and the development of those drugs and how they either considered the female physiology or did not. And what are those outcomes that are happening for women who have challenges with some of these mental health things. So for a lot of women, they have an experience similar to like my mom, who has been given the gamut of every medication out there, every antidepressant, every anti anxiety, every antipsychotic, every pain med out there and has found no relief with any of them. But if you really look at how those drugs were developed and the policies around how we prescribe and the dosages and everything, it was developed around the male body. And even then it, it's. They're not perfected for men either. But these are things that are not discussed. And even when you look at the concept of trauma, when the trauma, whatever that event was for that person happened, what was the hormonal state at that point? What was the stress bucket size, what was the capacity of the nervous system, something that could register as long term trauma in one phase, in one hormonal phase? Might not in another. Also, the way that we're taking treatments and medications needs to be adjusted to these different hormonal states and phases, because you shouldn't be taking the same medication at the same dose every day if you're a woman. That's not how our bodies work, however. That's how all medications are prescribed except hrt. Right.

This is so good. There's a whole nother podcast. We're gonna have to do round two.

We're gonna have to do a round two, please.

I know you're moving to Austin anyways.

I'm moving here so it'll be easier.

I mean, if this doesn't spark curiosity in your heart as a woman or as a man, good luck. Because I'm, like, fully into what you're saying for so many reasons beyond just my upbringing and my life and my work. I feel like it took me 10 years to be able to sit here with you and really have an open mind to what you're saying. Took a long time. And I think the reason why it took so long is because the timing of the events that allowed me to conceptualize them as trauma was pretty severe.

Yes.

When a child is growing up, if. Even if you look at the neurobiology of what's going on, like how malleable the brain is from seven and below, specifically, though, four and below. I mean, it's just like a rose. Yeah. If you trample a rose that early. Physical abuse, sexual abuse, verbal abuse. There's a lot of work that gets to be done when they're an adult. A lot of work.

Yeah.

And we intellectualize this and we do our best as a society to give him a pill or give him a treatment, but it's a much more complex answer.

Yes.

And the reason why this is so fascinating to me and for all of us, is because the complexity doesn't have to be always so serious and always so hard. Like, we can bring playfulness to this work. It doesn't have to be so serious. There doesn't have to be this, like, shame and degradation about healing yourself. Like, how can we make healing fun? This is my last question. Question for you. How do we make it fun?

Yeah.

Because there's a lot of seriousness in what we've explored today.

Yeah.

But the levity is actually a medicine of its own. I feel like no matter what phase a woman is in, I can always bring my fiance levity. I can always bring her playfulness, and it usually is going to work out pretty well.

Yeah. It's funny because my dad Would always ask me as a kid, why are you so serious? And it's funny, because he's part of the reason why I was so serious.

You turn and be like, because you were man.

Yeah. Well, no, because my family was so fucked up that, like, I became a very serious kid. Like, I became an adult at such a young age.

Yeah.

But my dad was, like, the biggest goofball ever, and he never wanted to be serious. And I was very serious. And I was kind of very serious and strict with him. And then I. I ended up going into a very serious field of work, and now I do very serious work in global and research and data and these things that carry so much weight. But I completely agree with you, because my perspective of the world, again, because I've been able to expand my acceptance, and I've been able to expand my ability to sit in the discomfort and be okay with it and allow for changes to happen and not need to control every single thing, which I'm a recovering control freak. That has given me the perspective that nothing's that serious. None of it is.

Yeah.

None of it's that serious. And if we can just relax a little bit in terms of increasing flexibility again, get rid of that occipital rigidity that's growing in a lot of people and holding us back and creating so many limitations that are not required, that are not helpful, then we can make healing fun. We can actually not only just make healing fun, but we can make healing then possible for a lot of people who it's not possible for in this moment.

The best moms are the ones that know how to use playfulness. Yeah, those are the best moms.

So the best parents.

Yes, absolutely. Right now, I'm just speaking about moms, but for sure, they're the best parents. The best moms are the ones that can transcend their own limitations of their own mind.

Yeah.

And be able to offer playfulness to their child when their child really needs it, because that child. The developmental stages of a child, which. There's a whole nother podcast. There's like, four from what we're talking about.

Yeah.

It is so important to bring playfulness to the child because it allows their neural tree to relax. It allows them to feel like home is the same safe place. And that was something that. I'm not making them wrong. It's just. It was what it was. That was part of why I'm here with you.

Yeah.

Home for me never really felt safe, per se. It wasn't like where I could exhale right but in a beautiful way, it allows me to create in my home exactly the thing that I didn't receive. If I have. This is the caveat, if I have the wisdom to not let my woundedness cloud it. Yes. Because a lot of times we give our children so much of what we didn't give that we create an abnormality in them because we're over loving them or we're. Or we're even. You know, we got so much love as a child that now we're going to pull away from our children because they don't have to be loved that much. It all comes back to the middle way, no matter how we want to slice it. And I wonder for you, how do you then put that playfulness? You said it's just not that serious. I understand from a mental standpoint how you view it, because it is a serious work that you do.

It is. Yeah.

But how do you embody that playfulness yourself? And how do you carry that forward in your work, knowing that most likely your work's probably going to get more intense and there's more work to do? So it's like it's even. It's even more serious. How do you embody the playfulness as you step more into your work?

I kind of. I lean into the fun because there's a lot of fun that can happen with a greater understanding. So it's kind of like doing the boring work of learning ahead of time so that you can relax and have fun. It's kind of like that. But it can also happen at the same time. If we can accept that there is fun and beauty and magic in all of these different phases and states, and that, yes, we're going to shift through all of them, and some of them are. Are easier, harder than others.

Yeah.

But there is fun to be had in that ebb and flow, in that shifting, in that. How much fun can you have while you're standing on unstable ground? Right. How can you have fun in understanding that the solidity is not there, but that is part of the fun? Do you understand?

Yeah, I'm just. I'm just reveling in how different women and men truly are.

Yeah. And that is part of the fun.

Such a difference. Like, y' all want us to be like you, and we want you to be like us. But none of that really matters because the whole polarity that's created between men and women is such a magical thing of its own. It is that if we. If we behaved and had the same neurobiology as you, then There'd be.

Well, that would be boring.

There'd be no course of subject for you, and we wouldn't be having this podcast. So I really enjoyed the conversation today. Thank you for being my guest. It's on the screen again, y'. All. If you get to. You get to enroll in this program, especially if these things spark curiosity, like, follow the curiosity.

Yeah.

That's what we're doing here.

Yes.

And wherever that curiosity comes, keep feeding that. So I. I really appreciate you being here. Thanks for sharing your wisdom, and I think you did a really good job, and you'll continue to grow in everything that you're doing. I can see it. I remember when we connected years back, I think you had, like, less than 10,000 followers or something.

Oh, yeah.

So there's a reason, and I'm just acknowledging your growth publicly. It's because you're doing something that you really enjoy. And if we can learn from people like that, the world's gonna be pretty amazing. So thanks for being here.

I agree. Thank you so much for having me. This was a lot of fun. Fun.

It was fun.

It's super fun.

Share this. Share this podcast with somebody who is struggling mentally, who is in a relationship where they just don't understand the cycles, which is most likely all of us.

Yeah.

And share it from that curious place in your heart. Make sure that whatever you do today that you don't just listen to this podcast and then put your phone down or stop what you're doing. Take a breath and allow this stuff to sink in, because it's so important. It can literally change your life. Life. So until I see you again on another podcast with Kayla, we're both wishing you love, wellness, but most importantly, peace and power. You cannot have power unless it comes from peace. We'll talk with you soon.