Feel Worthy Podcast

16: Sync Your Cycle: How Smart Event Professionals Lead

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Strategic Event Leader Cohort: Complete Form
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Kayla Worthy sits down with Resa Meagher to explore how understanding your menstrual cycle can transform the way you lead, work, and care for yourself.

Resa shares practical tools for tracking your cycle, managing stress, improving sleep, and supporting your body through nutrition without overwhelming your routine. This conversation is a powerful reminder that your body isn’t working against you: it’s communicating with you.

If you’re an event professional navigating long days, high expectations, and constant output, this episode will help you lead with more clarity, energy, and self-trust.

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SPEAKER_00

Welcome to the Feelworthy Podcast, the space where we pour into event professionals who are pouring into everyone else. Today's conversation is honestly something I really wish I had earlier in my events career. You know what? Even in college, this would have been a game changer. If you are a female that has a menstrual cycle or bleeds, this conversation has truly the power to change how you work, how you lead, and really take care of yourself. Today I'm joined by Reza Maher, an integrative health and hormone coach who helps women better understand their bodies so they can lead with more clarity, energy, and authenticity. Even better, she's in the event industry. So this conversation is a perfect blend of two people who get it and have been exactly where you are. In this episode, we're breaking down what your cycle is actually doing throughout the month, how it impacts your focus, your decision making, and emotional capacity, and more importantly, how you can start working with your body instead of against it. No longer do you have to say, ugh, I just have to deal with it. This is what it is. We even chat about aura rings. This conversation is jam-packed, and I am so excited to share it with you all. If you have ever felt like I'm inconsistent, I'm exhausted and then frustrated, or I had energy last week, but I don't have energy this week. I really hope this conversation shifts how you see yourself and gives you the tools that you can use on site and even during the planning phase of events. All right, I'm super passionate and I'm excited about this topic. Let's dive in. Welcome, Visa. How are you doing? How are you feeling today?

SPEAKER_01

I'm good. It's Friday, um, the end of the month for me right now, depending on when we're we're putting this out. But yeah, I feel good today. How about yourself?

SPEAKER_00

Good. I'm a little tired. I had my five-year-old wake me up multiple times. But I feel really energized about this conversation and I've been looking forward to it. So I'll take the sleepiness with the my coffee. And honestly, I think this podcast episode will really like boost me up to like end the week on a high.

SPEAKER_01

So good, good. I'm glad I'm glad I could help do that then.

SPEAKER_00

Um me too, me too. Um, we started the podcast pretty much the same way for the most part, um, with every episode. So, what does feeling worthy look like to you in this season of life?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, you know, when I saw that question at first, I got teary-eyed. Um, and and maybe that was just part of my cycle. The whole point we're here, we were talking. I should have looked at it when I was looking at that. But um, yeah, I think this season, it's learning how to stay connected to myself. And what that looks like often for me is choosing what type of movement I do. Like, I'm a I love to work out and I will be that person who pushes too much and like listening to my body of like, do I just need to watch Netflix this morning before I start work? Or do I really want to get up and work out? And um, so yeah, it's really just kind of listening to my body and staying in tune there.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, that's beautiful. And I honestly feel like I'm in that season as well. Like over the last year, I've been there just trying to recognize the signs, so not just a cycle of what we're gonna speak about, but just in general and listening to my body, even like as every I'm sure millennial person in the world has an aura ring at this point, just trying to find another way to stay in tune and like something else to tell me, you know, you are a little tired today, or you are your your readiness score, wasn't maybe optimal, so maybe you do take it easy, is just helping kind of stay in tune. So I'm totally with you on that. And I love the answer.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and just had a little quick tangent on the aura ring. It's one of the things when I coach um clients too, these are all tools for us. We weren't taught how to listen to our body. And then even if we were like women, we constantly change, right? And so, like, it's a good tool, and whether you want to use it forever or partially, because it can get, you know, sometimes these tools can get toxic if we're just always looking at the data and it's too much, and sometimes that stresses certain people out. If it starts to stress you out, I would say stop using it, but it's such a good tool to be like, oh, I I was feeling that way, and it's reflecting here what do I want to do with that information? And so I do love it as a great tool.

SPEAKER_00

I'm with you on that, and I think it's just uh we we're gonna just dive right in. But in terms of like trying to make me not feel crazy when things are going on or my cycles in a particular day or time or phase, I I'm like, okay, I can ground myself in data to say, okay, now this is really like what my body's experiencing, and how can I kind of align with that instead of just kind of pushing against the grain and going past that? But I know people probably looked at the title and were like, I need to listen to this because I didn't know that this was an opportunity or an option for me to sync my cycle or just really talk more about it than what I've learned briefly in school. So, can you tell everyone a little bit more about like who you are and what the work you're doing is and why it's so important?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you. Um, so I've been in the event industry the majority of my life. Um, that's been in different sales roles, leadership roles, business development, and that often means long days, early mornings, lots of travel, long nights. Um, and it's not really an industry that's like set us up for success of like complete burnout. And it wasn't until the pandemic that I decided to go back to school for nutrition. And I actually was a nutrition major when I started college, and um I quickly changed because I just didn't love the college, like I didn't love college, and so and I didn't align with the program director at the time, the school I was going to, and she was like, everyone's gonna work in a nursing home, and like that was the last thing I wanted to do. Now I wish I would have known that 20 years later, like where the health and wellness world has evolved and what we could do. So, what did I do? I switched my degree to hospitality. I saw it as the quickest way out of school. Um, as you know, in our generation, it was get a degree, you'll get a job. And um, so that's what I did. I got a degree and um found a job in the event world. I'm loving it, it's great. Um, but then when the pandemic happened and a lot of us were um furloughed, it was like a good opportunity because I've always still been back into nutrition and wellness. And so I went back and got my nutrition certifications um and degrees, and then um through that process got um board certified through the health and um the national board for health and wellness coaches. And it was still then, I was still like working the ton, I was still optimizing my health through nutrition and sleep and working out, and I felt like I was doing all the right things, but I was still tired. I was exhausted, I felt inflamed, um, and I'm just like, well, what do I do? And that's when I met um a woman named Nicole Jardim. Uh, she has a book called Fix Your Period and went through her hormone certification um course a few years ago. And that's when I really learned a lot more of how to optimize your cycle and um wanted to tie that into my already nutrition coaching business because I was already talking to women about the same things that they were feeling. Um, and it really changed how I set myself up for success, what goes on in our bodies, because we didn't do a deep dive of this when we were young. I have a mom who's an emergency room nurse who is amazing, and I learned things from her by her putting pamphlets of information in my Easter basket. Like that's how she taught me about our cycle and women's health. And she didn't want to talk about it, but here's a pamphlet. Go ahead and learn on your own. Um, and and I think that's very similar to a lot of people's stories. We just didn't learn about it. So I now um work with women mostly in like these high-performing jobs, high stress jobs like the event industry, helping them learn how to track their cycle, helping them learn how to optimize it for um whether they're working out, their health, how to do leadership now is a big thing. Like, how can we actually use this information that we're getting as tools to perform every day and show up better for the world?

SPEAKER_00

We need more, more of you out there for this. Um, and I am with you on the learning about your period cycle, like through pamphlets or just conversations. My mom is also um, she's bit worked in like sexual health education and health education for different organizations and nonprofits. And I even at a young age, I was like kind of told and forced about it, and I was like, I don't, I don't want to talk about this. Uh but in school, it was not even a thought. Like I don't even remember I not because I just wasn't paying attention, I loved school, but I I really don't remember any sexual health education about like the hormones hormones or female cycles or any of that, none of that was came across my desk. Um, now is when I'm seeing more and more information about it. I think we know we have a period. But what are like what is it? Hormone and cycle were kind of like in its basic terms for everyone who's listening to that.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, great question. Simply put, it is learning about what our body is doing and then taking that information and using it to um optimize certain things. So all of our lifestyle things, um, how we eat, how we train, how we sleep, um, how we prepare for travel, how we prepare for big events that we're planning. Um, so really that's kind of the basic level, and um then being getting consistent understanding and learning your cycle and when to use um different different tools to help you succeed through those that process.

SPEAKER_00

Which is brilliant. I think I mentioned earlier, I felt like we just push through it and you just feel like you something that happens and you just have to just like deal with it. But knowing that there's an option to really work with it instead of going against a grain is I think a beautiful thing that we'll continue to explore in the conversation. But when we think about our cycle, like I read in books, I understand it briefly, but what are the four like or the stages of one cycle?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah. So there's two um like overarching um phases, follicular and luteal phase. And so sometimes you'll hear that they just talk about the two phases, um, which are I would say follicular first, luteal late, and that's kind of like a good way to remember it. Um, but our very first phase of our cycle is actually menstruation or the menstrual part of our cycle, and that is starts at day, that counts day one. So um in our world we call it cycle day one, cycle day two, can continue on. And so cycle days one through three to one through seven is your menstruation phase. So that's your first day of your bleed. Um it does not count any of the days that are like women think is spotting, and that's super long. We can chat about that another day of like what's going on. Um, so yeah, so that's the first days one through seven potentially. I'm gonna kind of go in like a 28-day cycle just for lack of better words for today, but um, a healthy cycle can be anywhere from like 21 days, which is the shorter side, to 35 days. Um, the second phase is the follicular phase, and that's then any like that can last anywhere between seven and ten days. Then the next phase is the mid-cycle, this is your ovulation period, and this is about three to five days. Ovulation itself is one day, a few hours, as we've learned that probably. Um, but the phase itself can last three to five days, and then the last phase is our luteal phase, and that's anywhere from 10 to 14 days, um, making up this, you know, 21 to 35 days of a particular like healthy cycle.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. So there's it's helpful to know, and I kind of just lay it out there that there are four phases, and just saying I have my period is a pretty big overarching statement, and it's probably a really big word for everything else that's going on. How are each of the phases different? And what does that mean? And like what does it matter beyond just saying, like, I have a period?

SPEAKER_01

I think so often like women and society has shamed women for having periods. It's really taboo, you don't talk about it. Yeah, I mean, I remember in middle school, right? You you you put like your tampon or your pad up your sleeve, and like it's embarrassing to go to the bathroom.

SPEAKER_00

Um and so I still yeah, and so at an event and they were like, hide that. And I'm like, I don't understand. We are like one among colleagues. And second of all, this is a normal thing that happens to us. And why are we shaming ourselves for something that naturally happens?

SPEAKER_01

Because we're we don't want to make other people uncomfortable, is typically what it is, right? Um, or ourselves, we've just been taught to, you know, be a little bit more prim and proper about it. And I get you don't have to scream it to the world, that's fine. Um, that's not the goal, but um, so I feel like there's been a lot of shame around that for a lot of people for a long time. And um our hormones and our phases is information, and it's information feeding us of what's going on. And so often, if we're not listening to the information, like you said earlier, we just push through. And um especially in the luteal phase, our bodies do not respond to stress well, and it leads to burnout, fatigue, inflammation. And so if we're not feeding our body the right way at the beginning of the cycle, we may have a really bad luteal phase, and that leads to like PMS and anxiety, mood swings, all of that. And that again is information of maybe what you weren't feeding yourself properly at the beginning of your cycle. Um, so that's why it's kind of important. And um, you know, ovulation is so important to our body beyond making a baby, which is really cool that our bodies can do this amazing thing, um, but it feeds how our hormones are working, estrogen and progesterone, what's happening? And we all know estrogen is such a big dominant um hormone in our body, it connects with our brain and how our brains function, connects with our heart and heart, heart function. So there's really this lot more going on than just like I'm bleeding.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, so how do the hormonal shifts like influence things like decision making and especially in these high stress environments? Does it play a part?

SPEAKER_01

My gosh, absolutely. I think um, you know, the the common theme is if we don't pay attention, we just forget um what actually happens. And I think so often I do that too. Sometimes like, oh, I was feeling this way and my period started, right? Like that's why. Um, but like our energy isn't meant to be flat, right? Um and it ebbs and flows, and that's really important throughout our cycle. And so, like, um during certain weeks, that is when we are more inward. That's when we refine, we protect ourselves, we protect processes, information, energy output. And then there's other times that we do push, and and that's when we need to learn too. And that's what happens with you know decision making and things like if we're pushing through these things, there's certain times that we can do it. Now, I'm gonna say this caveat and probably another time later in conversation, but I understand that the world that we live in and we work is not optimized for how our bodies are, but if we start to keep track of everything and kind of look ahead, we can prepare differently. And so, like how stress hits um with the event side, especially if we're not paying attention, like blood sugar, I'm gonna mention this again probably later too, is the foundation of stability in our bodies. And so when we are running around a lot, blood sugar dips, um, cortisol spikes, um, again, going back to P PMS, PMS is different. Um, and you might see that different times throughout the year and your cycle. You're like, what was different? And you're like, oh, I wasn't running a trade show last month during this part of my cycle, you know.

SPEAKER_00

Well, that has an impact. And for those that are listening, you're like, I'm overwhelmed. There's so many different phases, there's so many different like pieces of information. How do I get to be how do we begin to start getting myself kind of in sync over understanding the tracking? Like that can feel daunting. What are any like tips or suggestions or best practices that you have for someone who's like, I'm a little frustrated, and like, where do I even start?

SPEAKER_01

The biggest thing, I think most women nowadays have some kind of cycle app that they're using. It is a place to start. It is not the best source of information. It is an algorithm, it is going to tell you best case scenario. It will probably tell you the right things of when your period is gonna start or when to expect it, but it's not gonna tell you the other shifts. That is where you kind of start. You you keep keep a journal and just see how you feel every single day throughout that cycle. So you can start to feel like, was my energy on point? What's going on? I think it's a good place to begin. And then this is daunting, but if you work with someone like me or somebody else, temperature tracking tells us a lot. And that tells us when we start to shift into different phases. That has helped out me tremendously. So there's two major things when we are cycle tracking to keep track of. One is our basal body temperature, and another is our cervical mucus and how that changes throughout our cycle. Um, the viscosity and the texture and everything with that tells us what's happening in our body, and that's a good indicator. And you could just go off of that if you don't want to buy a different thermometer or another thing to track, like you can start there just to see what's going on.

SPEAKER_00

My mind is blown. Um, so this is where one of those like surprise questions will come because temperature tracking. I've noted that when I had the aura ring. So outside of the aura ring, are there other ways to track your own internal or what did you call it? Was it basal temperature?

SPEAKER_01

It's your basal body temperature. And so the difference with that thermometer versus just your regular temperature is it it tracks to the next degree. So you get shifts because it's it could be minimal. It's not a whole degree necessarily that you're seeing that shifts when you go into ovulation, it could be very minimal, but we're watching the track and the trends that happen with it and how long it stays up versus when it goes back down. Um, and there are different tools. So the aura ring uh connects to an app called Natural Cycles. The issue is they're both subscription-based things. So if you don't want more subscriptions, but the aura ring, if you if you have one and not connected to natural um cycles, it just shows you the temperature fluctuations. You can't actually see what the temperature is. Where once you connect it to natural cycles, you can see it's like 97.8, 97.6. Um, but also there's one called thermometer. You can get on Amazon that has an app that's just and you take it first thing in the morning. That one's great because it's free. There's another one that I like for people who travel, and it's called the Temp Van, and it literally you wear it while you sleep. Um, and so just like the aura ring, it does your skin temperature and you just wear it during during the night. Um, not a cheap tool, but really cool. I used to use it until my dog ate two of them and I decided not to buy it again. Um, but it is a really cool tool for people who travel to track their temperature.

SPEAKER_00

That's awesome. I mean, not the dog eating it because I have my own dog issues, that she does it sometimes, so I get it. Um, but the fact that the tool exists and that it's easy for travel. So we'll definitely link that in the show notes for anyone who's interested in what that looks like and where to get it. And then the other part of what you said before. I'm sorry, did you say cervical mucus? I'm again maybe butchering it, so please correct me.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, you are correct. And so um it is the fluid that comes out of our bodies every single day. Um, and you'll notice it changes throughout your cycle. Whether um the terms we use are like sticky, is it slippery? What are the colors? Is it more of a creamy lotion-y feel? Is it dry? Is that is it non-existent? Um, so those can tell us things as well.

SPEAKER_00

Fascinating. You see, who needs well, we didn't get the sex education or the health education when we were younger, so we're getting it now. I I think knowledge is power, but then applying knowledge and being able to like put it into our day-to-day life is is really where we thrive and also where we can just support ourselves to be feel the best version of ourselves.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, absolutely. And and we don't need expensive tools either. Like we live in such a tech-driven world, which is great, and I love like I said, I love the data, but there are ways to do it without having to go buy these expensive tools and products too.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Well, that's good, and that's helpful, especially for those that are like, look, this is daunting enough. Where do I begin? And also am I spending my entire paycheck on something like this just to just to know more. So I think that'll be valuable for the audience. But during intense seasons and which honestly is kind of always an event, right? It feels like there's always an event, there's always a traitia, there's always something we're planning for. Um, what are things that women can do to support their hormones and their cycle during these times?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I'm gonna back up a little bit just to provide some more context of each phase. Um, because you're right, it can feel stressful and daunting the entire time. And if we don't know what's happening in our body and we're constantly feeling stressed, we don't know how to apply things to fix it, right? Um, so menstrual phase, that first cycle, right? What's happening? This is when our body is at its lowest in our hormones. Estrogen's plummeted, progesterone is plummeted. Um, and this is our body releasing its previous cycle and starting to rebuild again. So that's what's happening kind of on a basic level inside our body. But this is where you may notice like lower energy, um, you're tired, just like you're just ready to relax, right? And you have a lot lower tolerance for a lot of things. Um, and stress is one of them. And the way our significant other chews is their food, you know, like that that's real. Those things are intense, right? Um, and this matters because this is our natural reset phase. This is the time to look inward, this is the time to don't push as much. Now I understand every Our industry, you may not have a choice, right? You may be in the middle of running down the general session aisle to go yell at the speaker because they didn't listen to you, and all of a sudden your period starts and you're just miserable for the next day or two. And that's out of our control. But if you kind of knew ahead of time what's going on, we can prepare a little bit differently, ground ourselves, do some other work, right? To like get there, or ask our team for support and you know, delegate, right? Like, hey, and that's one thing I want to work on with a group of women. Um, and especially women in offices, a lot of us are on teams of women. I mean, I work on the male, very male-dominated side of the industry, but a lot of the planning side, a lot of women, you can share this information and feel comfortable and confident sharing it, um, so you can get support in other ways. Um, but I digress, I digress on that. Um, so support for this phase, what it kind of looks like is obviously rest, like I said, gentle movement. This is a time to eat food that's more warming and really nourishing. So like sweet potatoes and like collard greens and like soups, even during the summer, like eat some really nourishing food during this time frame. Um, and this is hard too, but if possible, lower your commitments. Say no to things. If you do not have to do them, don't do them. So if you're on show site and you're running around and someone's like, hey, let's go out for that late dinner. We don't have to start late tomorrow. Why don't we go have a drink? Say no. It's okay. You know, that's just gonna set yourself up worse later in your cycle. It's okay to say no.

SPEAKER_00

Um that's the permission slip everyone needed to hear. Like, okay, it's I can I don't have to go out and get that drink because I one, I maybe just don't want to. And then second of all, like, I really just want to like lean into where my body's telling me and just take the rest. And I think so often we just don't know. I don't know, we're waiting for someone to say, go ahead and just just say no. No, this is I think this episode is it. Like, just it's okay to say no and take what you need at that point.

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely. Um, and then going into the next phase, the follicular phase, this is when estrogen is starting to rise again. So you're gonna start to see your mood to get be uplifted again, creativity come back, um, motivation is coming back. So that's what all happening that next um, you know, seven to ten days there. And you might notice like clearer thinking, the brain fog is kind of dissipated a little bit. Um, and this is this is a good part of the your phase to start projects. Um, it's really about you don't need to push forward necessarily yet, but this is the phase to start implementing and thinking, start building the strategy, start creating your show flow, start creating um the room diagram that you need to do. Anything that maybe you need to create that needs to be executed later is a good time to start in the follicular phase. Um and then ovulatory phase. This is like, in theory, for most women, it's this is what should be happening, and it doesn't for everybody, and that we can talk about another time too, but that's when everything is starting to rise again, right? Astrogen is at its peak, this is your great time to communicate, you're feeling super confident, like you your clothes feel really good on your body, like everything feels good at this time frame, right? And biologically, there's a reason for that, you know. This is um in the primal world, like this is when we're supposed to be getting ready to be like make the baby, and that is biological, and that is to excite things too. But there's a lot of things we can do, and as far as a leadership standpoint and work standpoint during that phase to keep going, hard conversations can happen at this phase of our cycle. Ask for the raise, have a hard conversation with a team member that maybe you don't want to have. This is a good time to have that here. Um, and then we go into the luteal phase. And so the beginning part of your luteal phase may feel still pretty good. Um, but as you start to get into your latal luteal phase, this is when everything starts to decline again. So all your um hormones are kind of shifting again. And um, this is a good time to again start to look inward, like work on presentations, do like really internal work, um, not as much collaboration, but more just what do you have to focus on for yourself? Um, and and that's a good time to have that here. And a lot of times this looks like more of a steady routine, consistency is really good here. Um, it's still a good time to like like at the beginning of your ludial phase, to like lift heavy weights, go for the extra walk, things like that until the end of your cycle, the late ludial phase is now when you start to look inward again.

SPEAKER_00

And I love the breakdown there because I think it's there's tips there for if you are in your ideal state, like you're home and you can just not have to worry about running the show, then there's ways you can maybe scale back. But if you are on site, like what can you do to lean in and ask for support? And I did want to ask because when we are in those phases where we're having more stress, we are in the menstrual cycle and we're already feeling fatigued. I remember being on site and like just starting to feel sick, like everything just started to like want to crumble, and I was like, but I have to keep going. I try to prioritize sleep as much as possible, but then I'm taking Tylenol to just deal with the pain and the cramping. It sounds like those are the things that I should not be doing. It sounds like I should be listening to my body more and maybe even elegating that's a great option at the point, even more so, maybe even relying on your team. Like flipping that narrative. What's one thing someone can do to slowly start to change that conversation of this is how I feel, and I just have to suck it up, versus what can I do to really start, maybe not explaining it, tell everyone at the pre-show meeting this is how I'm feeling. But even your teams, what else can we start to implement and during these times?

SPEAKER_01

The top thing I come back to often um is blood sugar stability. How can we manage our blood sugar first? Um, and often what that looks like, um, you've probably been there, I've been there. You wake up and you're like, oh my god, I have such a heavy day, I gotta go. So what do you do first? You drink coffee and you don't eat, you just hit the ground running. So the biggest thing we can do is set ourselves up for success with making sure we're getting protein and fat in the morning and having coffee, caffeine if you're drinking it, with food. Um, and that's just gonna help set you up for a long day and eating breakfast in general. And I know, like, if you're 80s and 90s babies, there was commercials all the time about how breakfast was the most important meal. Yeah. Now you could probably debate that both ways for a lot of different people, but for women and women who are still menstruating, it is such an important thing to start our day with a big breakfast. That sets us up for the rest of the day. And blood sugar management, you know, making sure whenever you're eating, you're eating some kind of protein with what you're eating. So oftentimes we know at conferences there's muffins and candy and things because it's cheaper, right? There's not a lot of protein options. So set yourself up for success and pack it, bring in the nuts, bring in the protein bars, whatever is easy. Um, I know a lot of planners that I know in their in their staff room, have a refrigerator, put some Greek yogurt in there with berries, whatever you can do. It's such a good, easy place to do it. And one thing that's been helpful for me is I literally set a timer on my phone of when I should eat to remind myself to eat. Because we go through these long days and sometimes like, oh my god, I didn't I didn't eat today. And it's almost like we wear this badge of honor that you went all day without having lunch, and that's not okay.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, I've been there too where I think we like, I'm just so busy and I didn't eat, and it's like almost like we should get an award, or like we're playing this martyr card, and I don't know that it's always intentional, but it starts to feel like I survived the day without eating, and I had a ton of coffee, and I'm fine. And I and the event was successful until you start to feel like and it's my podcast where I can say it like shit, and you're like you you're depleted at the end, and it's not just your cycle, but you're depleted at the end because you haven't eaten enough, you've just had three or four double shots of espresso for four or five days straight, and then on top of that, like let's say you add your cycle to the mix because of the timing. Now you're shivering and you're cold and you're taking emergency, like it's your job, and it starts to become the snowball effect. But I love the timer idea. I've actually done that just on at work, just having like blocking my calendar off, even if it's not always that I have lunch at 12. At least I see it on my calendar, so it's that visual reminder to eat. Things you said of like protein, like I've started to add in because you're so right. I was just on a trip, and even on the plane, it's cheese, it's it's sun chips, it's cookies, and there's no protein to be found, but there's alcohol and there's coffee. Yeah, um, so I've started to add in like protein, um, like the chomps or some little things like protein bars too. So it's just thinking about them ahead of time, right? Like being a little bit more proactive.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, absolutely. And again, these are tools, right? Like it you don't want them to be your diet when you're not traveling, but it's such a good thing to have when we are so busy. And wear your cute fanny pack. Lululemon made them uh, you know, like a piece of your outfit forever. So wear it and put it, fill it with snacks, you know. Um, my I have a twin sister, and we used to tease her all the time growing up that she only carried a purse for snacks. And it was a joke then, but now I'm like, girl, she has the snacks.

SPEAKER_00

It's funny, like I have snacks, I've always had snacks because I I learned early when I was younger that I get hangry and no one wants I don't want to deal with myself when I'm like that. But when I became a mom, people were like, Oh, you were always ready to I mean the planner self and me, yes, but also like I naturally get hungry, so I always need to have them. Yeah. Um, so I'm right there with your sister. It's a helpful tool to have, um just at a moment's notice because sometimes you're in the middle of nowhere and you need a little something.

SPEAKER_01

So yeah, yeah. And so I talk a lot about nutrition, but you know, you kind of touch base on another one that I think it's where we can kind of control some things. Um, sleep. And no, we can't always control it when we travel. I sleep horribly when I travel. Um, you know, I try to hack my way into it sometimes, like, oh, I'm gonna travel to the East Coast, I'm gonna take a late flight because when I get there at 11 o'clock at night, I'm just gonna want to go to bed. Never wide awake, can't sleep, right? But creating a nighttime routine, even if you do get back to your hotel room at 10 o'clock and you know you have to be back in the ballroom by seven or whatever it is, create that nighttime routine and um get an eye mask, wear your earplugs, bring a portable sound machine. They make them for babies now that are like this big and um that fits right in your suitcase, right? So think of some things and some tools. Um, I like to do legs up the wall pose um when I'm traveling, um, just to kind of reset myself. And if you don't have enough room, depending on your size of your hotel room, just use your bed and put your legs over it that way, um, just to kind of find some grounding and then stay away from screens at the end of the night. Like, I know it's really easy. You want to put on a TV show and just crash, um, but if that is the one thing we can do, put on some calming music on your phone to fall asleep to some meditation sound. Um, that's been super helpful for me when I travel. Um, and since we keep talking about coffee, like setting a boundary when you stop drinking caffeine. Um, it's really important.

SPEAKER_00

And um I've learned that myself just through naturally how I've started to feel having I've I've been, and I that's me. I've been the person that's taking two or three double shots of espresso a day on site, and then at the end I did feel not great until I started to recognize. But water has helped to balance that out, like really how trying to increase our water. We've talked about, I think from a sustainability standpoint, bringing more of the water bubblers on site instead of having just bottled water, but even if you do have one of those options, it's accessible to you. It's just I think that reminder to hydrate and wherever you are.

SPEAKER_01

An airplane that recycled air, like it dehydrates us. So there's a lot of brands out there of um electrolyte packets, pack those in your suitcase. They flavor your water, they make you drink more. Um, that helps keep you hydrated. Um, that will also help you sleep when if you're hydrated better, um, and helps with digestion too. So, you know, yeah, win-win on water.

SPEAKER_00

Is that a fact that movement can help in terms of feeling better or worse during your cycle?

SPEAKER_01

That's that's such a good point. I'm so glad you brought that up because um, you know, like I said, in the very first part of your phase, you may not be as energized, but you know, slow movement, walking, yoga, you can still do that during that menstruation part of your cycle. Maybe you don't feel great on day one and you don't want to, but like if you're on show site, can you get away? Can you go take a lap around the convention center, right? Um, five to ten minutes. A oftentimes we go right from our hotel room to the ballroom and we don't see sunshine. Um, so if you can get some sunshine in your eyeballs right away too, that helps reset serotonin um receptors and how we sleep too. So if you can just get out first thing in the morning with morning sun, maybe that's when you are eating your breakfast and um getting ready for the day. And then movement throughout the rest of your cycle, too. When you start to see your energy shift, I know for me personally, like I'm ready to start like moving again by like day three of my cycle. So that's when I can start to like do maybe heavier lifting, a little bit more intense workouts. And then obviously during ovulation, this is like hit exercises, really heavy lifting, and into the beginning part of your luteal phase, and then it will taper off again towards the end of your luteal phase again, and maybe looking more at that yoga slow movement, taking a walk, taking a stroll with a bicycle somewhere. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00

It's super helpful to you for those that like love hit workouts and like I need to do it all the time. But I I'm guilty of historically just not feeling my best at a certain point, and then I'm like, I just have to keep at my like height of how great I was doing and whatever the hit workout was before. But it's good to know that it you can take it in ebbs and flows. It doesn't have to be that all the time. With that, from a leadership standpoint, are the how can we be our best selves by thinking our cycle?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I love that. This is why we're here. Um, so again, I'll break it down to phases. Um and so in our menstrual phase, this is like big picture thinking. This is what's happening during that time frame. And and so if you can use that from like a leadership standpoint, this is your time to like not necessarily set strategy, but to get honest with what's happening. So, like from the leadership standpoint, um, uh let's just take an event for for um conversation sake, since we're all in the event world. Um, this is maybe your time that you need to review your program. Maybe you need to review um the show flow to see if it made sense from the last time that you did it. This is um what needs to change. Maybe this is when you're talking about like thinking about your team, like what needs to happen with your team to make it successful. This is where you start to implement that and think about it. You kind of go inward. Um, and this is like um drafting talking points for meetings, um, setting boundaries around things can all happen at this beginning phase of your cycle. Um, and so this could look like also creating that pitch deck. So if you're in sales like I am, maybe this is your time to start thinking about that pitch deck that you need to present, or if you need to present it to a boss, um, that this would be the time to also create that. Um and then moving into the follicular phase, uh, this is again more like of that building. You're still kind of just building on this, and it's a great time to design the solutions further. And maybe this is when you start to um delegate them more to your team. This is when you start to have those conversations a little bit. You're feeling a little bit more optimistic and you have this strategy in place that you can start to um put into place then. And then you move into your ovulatory phase. And again, like I said earlier, this is like where you are just feeling confident. You, this is where leadership, like you feel like there's a lot of visibility. This is when you can have hard conversations, um, whether that's with your team or your boss, your vendors, um, maybe this is a time you can set that here for people who are in sales. If you can schedule that discovery call during this this time frame, if you can somehow get lucky and it's during that week that you get to fly out to go see a customer and present some really cool solutions, this is a really good time to do it because you're feeling super awesome. Um again, like navigating those difficult conversations, you're more clear, your head's head is just kind of filled with all the right things. Um, and it's this moment where your voice is can be heard in a more clear structure. And then into the luteal phase, um, this is where again we start to go back a little inward. So you start to do maybe your event debriefs kind of happen in the luteal phase, follow-up emails, maybe you're like tightening timelines or looking at budgets, that can all happen here too. Um, and in addressing inefficiencies is a big thing that can happen in your little luteal phase, and that can happen with your team and lead them like, hey, this is what's going on, how do we restructure? So then when you get back into the menstrual phase, you start to develop a plan again. And so you start to lead your team of like, this is what's going on, this is what we need to do, and then you can start to rebuild again once you start over in your menstrual phase. Um, and again, in this late phase, this is when your tolerance levels start to like be heightened again, your stress levels start to go up a little bit more, and we start to criticize ourselves a little bit more. So it's also like a reminder like, be patient with yourself here, um, be kind to yourself, try to remember to be kind to your team and um people you talk to every day, your stakeholders, your members, your audience, your attendees, your vendors, like whoever it is, like just remember to like look at that and where you're at so you can start to speak with clarity again.

SPEAKER_00

And just to confirm, so you were just talking about the luteal phase, is that right?

SPEAKER_01

Correct, yes.

SPEAKER_00

So let's say you have like a big meeting and it lands right where your luteal phase is also kind of in the prime peak season. So I still have to show up as a great leader, right? I still have to present and this and also I'm sure I'm having some stress about other things at the same time. What are strategies I can do to show up as my best self? I can't push back the meeting and I have to still be that person. What are things I should either be cognizant of or maybe do to prepare myself if it's going to crash at the exact same time?

SPEAKER_01

So this is where we'll notice a lot of like um that stress resiliency is not there, right? And um anxiety might be building. First thing I would tell people don't drink caffeine during your late luteal phase. That usually just heightens our emotions a little bit more and the anxiety. Some people are really fine with it. I know for me, this is not a time to be putting caffeine in my body. I also know when I'm stressed out, that's when I want to reach for it. Um, so just be cognizant of that. But check in with yourself in the morning before your meetings, like, check in, how are you feeling? Are you feeling a little emotional? Are you stressed out? Have you did you just like blow up at your kids for no reason in the morning? Like, and that happens whether they're being annoying or not. Or like, do you yuck at your dog, right? Like, check in with yourself of really how you're feeling. And you know, a couple things for me, I wish I could show it here, but um, I know when my stress is high like that or my anxiety is high, everyone's like, oh, meditate or breath work, which are great, but if you're up here in your face and your throat and feeling really intense because of it, we're not gonna be able to breathe through it very quickly. And so that's when get some movement in shake, right? Like shake off your energy. I have a little mini trampoline in my office, jump on my trampoline. Get rid of some of that energy before you go into these important meetings. And if you get some of that energy out, maybe it's that walk we talked about around um wherever you need to go. If you're at an office, can you go outside quickly? Um, and then maybe you're calmed out enough or your system has reset a little bit that you can do some breath work, do box breathing, anything that really works for you, just to calm yourself and get into that. And like if you've prepared for some of these meetings ahead of time, according to your cycle, maybe you had started to prepare this ahead of time, um, that's when you you'll feel confident going through that again.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Okay, that's super that's I think incredible advice and things to look out for. And what it sounds like is one, if we track, it becomes like data points. We can use that to understand where the ebbs and flows of not just our cycle, but our emotions are and our hormones are, so then we can strategically put meetings, events, not that we always have that in our control, but these bigger moments where they're best suited best. So when we are in our ovulation cycle or when we are you say follicular? Yes. I'm learning too. We're learning while we're going. Um then you can have those best moments, but if you don't, then it's really understanding how you can kind of be proactive to support yourself, have those kind of guardrails in place if these things crash together that you don't necessarily want to, but they just have life happens, right? So it's really learning yourself and like you where your body is.

SPEAKER_01

It is, yeah, it really is, and everyone's a little bit different, and our mechanisms are a little bit different. Um, you know, everyone's home life is different, our travel is different, and so that all does impact us, and so we can really set ourselves up for success. And um, if you've never tried set tracked your cycle before in this type of way, it does take some time, and so you do have to be kind of consistent. And when I work with people, I'm like, let's give ourselves three months of just consistent tracking and journaling to see where we're at, and then it's another good six three months of just like getting those plans into place because okay, first day we're working together, great, day one, this is what's happening in my cycle, and this is when. And doom. Like you're not, that's not how you set up your strategy. We need to get the information, the data first so you can start to see how your body works. And it will it will ebb and flow a little bit month to month, which is the annoying part sometimes about being a woman, is it's it's not always perfect every single time. But if we start to implement some of these strategies of like blood sugar management, lowering caffeine, sleeping better, moving differently during different phases of our cycle, you'll probably see changes within your own body too, and how you feel throughout your cycle just by implementing some of these things.

SPEAKER_00

I think this is the breath of fresh air. I feel like I can hear an audience member just like okay, it's doable. Um and it's not an overnight fix, which is what it sounds like, right? Like it's going to take time where it's not a pill you can take and you're like, I figured it out, my hormones are in check, and everything is great. Um, it does take time to to understand. And you like you said, every month could be different. There's also different events going on, different months or or no events. So it's being kind and giving yourself grace to just understand the data points as within those first few months, and then being able to have an action plan.

SPEAKER_01

That's the one thing, right? Find what's doable for you. If my one thing that I want to focus on this month is creating a consistent nighttime routine, start there. I think a lot of us have good morning routines, and that was like ingrained to us because we had to be at work by a certain time. Like we weren't five minutes earlier, you were 10 minutes late, um, you know, that type of mentality. So that is such a good thing to start with. And same with that blood sugar management. And that could be a little bit trickier because maybe you're not really, you don't have the information or the education to know what that means. Um, and you don't need to go to a CGM, you don't have to be all fancy with it. Um, but those are the two biggest places I think are good to start with for sure.

SPEAKER_00

Is there anything else you want to leave the audience members with or anything that you think is important that they have as a takeaway from really being able to think through a cycle and lead better?

SPEAKER_01

The biggest thing when it comes to leadership and our career is like the more you start to understand your body and the physiology and how we work, the more your career is gonna become sustainable. The more your life is gonna become sustainable, the more you're gonna be able to delegate, the more you're gonna be able to put boundaries up. Um, leadership is gonna deepen, like your trust with your team will deepen when you can have these conversations. And you're gonna start to replace like the self-criticism with like really like self-compassion. And I think that's really, really important for us to do. And we're so hard on ourselves, we're so critical because we're overachieving, hardworking women in the event world, and the event world does not have much room for error. So be kind to yourself, and it will all fall into place.

SPEAKER_00

That was a beautiful way to end the episode. Um, and I totally agree. With all of this information, I think we'll be better equipped to like lead confidently and also really support our teams and for those who have women on their teams can better understand what they're going through to put this forward in a better light and a more positive future for all of us so that we're able to speak about it comfortably and not feel like it's something we have to hide.

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00

Well, where can everyone find you to learn more about this and ask any questions and learn how to work with you?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, absolutely. So you can find me. My website is reasamarie.com. Um, you can reach me through the contact us page. Um, I do workshops, I speak at conferences, I do one-on-one coaching. Um, one thing I'm doing more implementing this year is working with um teams. So, specifically a group of women teams and helping them understand. So, one thing that's really fun if you want to reach out is how to design your calendar so your whole team can kind of see when um different phases are and you can use that as a team. So if you don't want to talk about it, they can see it.

SPEAKER_00

That is brilliant. So, thank you for being part of the Feel Worthy Podcast and sharing your knowledge and wisdom with everyone. I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you so much. I'm so excited and can't wait to see you soon out on the show floor.