Episode 13 | How To Move Through Your Feminine Cycle: The 4 Phases

Welcome To The Womanhood Podcast.

In this weeks’ episode, we’re discussing the cyclical rhythm of woman, and I take you through the Somatic Movements and Approaches for each of the 4 Phases we cycle through - both for women who have a Bleed cycle (menstruation) and women who do not. You’ll discover how to embody this Womanhood Wisdom and integrate it into your life for lasting effect.

RESOURCES:

Book A Somatic Womb Session 🌹 With Me (Info Link): https://www.somaticbody.com.au/one-on-one-consults

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🌙 Moon Medicine Masterclass (Link To Access): https://www.somaticbody.com.au/resources-education

🌀 2-Day Portal Into Stillness Mini Course (Info Link): https://www.somaticbody.com.au/programs-courses

🌀 2-Day Portal Into Stillness Mini Course(Buy Link): https://buy.stripe.com/7sYcN48lz1IldjY5Rw5EY0j 

🌸 Feminine Harmony Starter Course (Buy Link): https://buy.stripe.com/8x23cu9pDaeReo24Ns5EY0o 

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With Love, Shannon

🔻 Somatic & Energetic Integration Specialist for Women,

🔻 Creatress of the Feminine Harmony™ Program and the SomaCycle™ Method.

🔻 Feminine Systems Educator | Reclamation Guide | Ritual Facilitator

🔻 Foundress of Somatic Body™ - a space devoted to helping women reconnect to their feminine bodies.

00:50 Introduction: What This Episode Is Covering

02:09 Women Are Rhythmic, Cyclical Beings

03:12 The Rhythms Of Woman: 4 Phases, 1 Cycle

03:59 Masculine & Feminine, Discipline & Devotion

04:23 The 2 Era’s Of A Woman’s Life

06:48 HOT TIPS: Resources To Tap Into Feminine Rhythms

07:54 Phase 1: Bleed & Dark

09:43 Phase 2: Follicular & Waxing

12:05 Phase 3: Ovulation & Light

14:40 Phase 4: Luteal & Waning

17:53 How To Integrate These Practices & A Somatic Cue

20:26 Final HOT TIPS Of The Episode

21:34 Finalising & Whats Next On The Womanhood Podcast

22:03 Revisiting & Summarising That Somatic Cue

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to the Womanhood Podcast. I'm your host, Shannon, Somatic and Energetic Integration Specialist for Women, founder of Somatic Body and creatrice of the Soma Cycle Method and the Feminine Harmony Program. And I'm here to inspire you to reclaim your rhythms, remember your wisdom, and root into your womanhood. Each week I'll be discussing topics centered around our womanhood from a multifaceted, somatic and energetic viewpoint, weaving together both science with spirituality and masculinity with femininity. We'll be talking cyclical natures and rhythms, intuition, instincts, ancient womb wisdom, and grounded embodiment strategies. Find yourself a cozy space and let's get started. As women, our bodies were never designed to perform the same every single day. You know, our female bodies are cyclical. So if we have female bodies, why is it that we expect to fall in line with consistency and discipline every single day? And then punish ourselves when we don't stay consistent. The thing is our bodies are cyclical by design. They are not linear day in, day out, predictable beings. As human biology, as well as mentally, emotionally, energetically, we are cyclical by design. And it's not to say you can't have discipline. I do love discipline, but there's also this waxing and waning with that discipline. We go from discipline into devotion, into discipline into devotion, into just resting, into full expression and power as well. There is a whole rhythm to us as feminine beings. And so if we have that rhythm, why deny it? You know? So this is what we're going to be talking about today on the Womanhood podcast. We're going to be talking about all things feminine cyclical energy, feminine cyclical rhythm, lunar cycles, bleed phases, how that all plays into one another, as well as a little bit of masculine and feminine, of course, because I love to talk about that as well. So let's get into it. So women are not linear beings, and we can even take the example of the solar cycle. The solar cycle in the sky is 24 hours, and a man's testosterone in their body is also on a 24 hour cycle. So we can look at the sun, and I talked about this briefly in many of my teachings, the moon medicine masterclass, in a few of my short videos on YouTube, a lot of my resources. I'll talk about La Luna and La Sol and how the sun and the moon are yin and yang, are masculine and feminine. And we really can see that direct correlation when we break down that mirror of 24-hour cycle of the sun and the 24-hour cycle of testosterone. It peaks in the morning, depletes slowly over the day, replenishes overnight, and that's that linear day-by-day cyclical nature of the masculine energy and of the sun. Then when we compare that with the moon, La Luna, the feminine, we can look at that as four phases, one cycle within a month. And that is directly correlated to our bleed cycle, our menstrual cycle. We are rhythmical beings. We have our two peaks, the dark moon, new moon, and the light moon, the full moon. We have our transit peaks, the other two phases, our waxing and waning, and everything in between. And so when we think about it that way and correlate that with our hormones, we also have our bleed phase, our peak ovulation phase, and our two transits of follicular and luteal. So you can really see that direct mirror there again. And when you think about all of that and take all of that in, you can really start to see that it's it's not about us as women having trouble with consistency, having trouble with discipline. It's actually just about us wanting to embrace our nature. And our bodies will fight back on that if we are disciplined, linear every single day, day in, day out. There is a time for discipline in the cycle, by the way. But there's also a time for slowness, for rest, for reintegration. And it's the same goes for a man, you know? They have inner masculine and feminine within them. It's just that the masculine is easier to tap into versus the feminine. And then for us, it's likewise. The feminine is the energy that we can easily access the most, and then the masculine's still there. And it comes and goes in phases, in rhythms. It's what we are as women. And so you are not consistent. You are cyclical. You are rhythmic. And we can follow this with two errors or two, I guess, roadmaps. We have the bleed cycle and our bleed error when we have our menstrual cycle throughout our womanhood. That's our bleed error. And we also have the lunar error, which is outside of that bleed cycle, we can follow the moon. Or you can follow both. While you have your bleed cycle, you can follow the lunar cycles as well. And so we really have all of that feminine energy that we can tap into, that real cyclical, rhythmical energy. And even just from the get-go, from the start of this podcast, me mentioning that, this is a way you can integrate more femininity into your world, especially in the moments where you catch yourself beating yourself up for being inconsistent, you know, punishing yourself for not having the discipline. Catch that. Question why it's presenting and if it has anything to do with the fact that you're feminine and you're cyclical, and perhaps you're just going through a different phase where you're not needing discipline right now, you're needing regulation or rest or a bit of a change. You know, we are cyclical, spiralic, rhythmical beings. I'm gonna keep saying that probably. Because I love it. And so these are the two pathways, the two roadmaps to feminine connection is by following those bleed and lunar cycles and embracing the bleed error in your life while you have your bleed cycle and embracing that lunar era outside of when you have your bleed cycle and embracing when you can combine the two, which is what I tend to do. You know, for example, right now I'm in my pre-bleed phase, so I'm in that transit into bleed phase. I am pre-period, so I'm just coming off the back end, the tail end of that waning moon internally, so my luteal phase, but it's also coming off the back end of the peak full moon as well in the sky. So I take into account both of them. The fact that like I'm coming down into that dark moon energy, that bleed energy myself internally, and that's the bleed cycle I'm following. But then I also follow the lunar cycle. What's happening in the sky is we're coming down from that full moon peak. And so that's just where I am right now. Obviously, different timing to when I post this recording, but that's where I am right now, and that's what we can use as an example. You can bring those in and integrate them into your world. And the more and more you explore that for yourself, not just in a research, methodical, I'm gonna read about it way, but also starting to embody that for yourself as well. And the ways you can do that are, of course, looking at my masterclasses, looking at the tips, looking at the free resources I have on YouTube, looking at my free mini courses. Portal into stillness is a great moment to pause, to take you out of that masculine energy, that moment again where you catch yourself punishing yourself or shaming yourself for being inconsistent or for not having the discipline. But it's like if you realize you're in that moment where you need rest, that two-day portal into stillness is a massive game changer when it comes to giving ourselves the permission to pause and rest and come into our feminine. And also within that, I've sprinkled in little elements of exploring our masculine and feminine in a somatic embodied way. We have somatic practices and somatic audio journeys in there too. I also have the Pain Body Decoder course. If you need a moment to check in with your body because your body's screaming at you, that's a seven-day mini course. There's lots of stuff on my website you can use as resources, easily accessible financially and time-wise, that you can use. But I digress, let's come back into the lunar cycles, the bleed cycles. And we're going to be talking about now that we've covered all of that, the somatic practices you can do within all of the four phases, both lunar and bleed. So let's get into the juiciness of this podcast now. So, starting with the first phase of our cycle, we have our bleed cycle. Or if you follow the lunar cycle, that's our dark moon, our new moon. And within that, it's our winter energy, our energy to pause. That two-day portal into stillness is a great one for this time. And our energy is at its lowest, at the peak of it, the start of it. And this is where we have that sense of introspection, of deep intuition, deep energetic sensitivity. Sometimes off the back end of the luteal phase or the waning room, we have that deep emotional sensitivity as well. And this is where we crave, in terms of somatic practices, and this is where you can start to integrate stillness, womb holding, just room heart practices, as simple as holding your room while you meditate, slowing down your breath, some diaphragmatic breathing, expanding the breath in all directions in the tummy, to the sides, to the back, not just to the front. Some spinal extension and flexion as we do that. Inhaling forward, exhaling backward. You know, bringing in those restorative movements like child's pose, like deep restorative hip stretches. Yin yoga is really great for this point as well. And this bleed phase or this dark moon, new moon phase is not a time to push, it's the time to listen. It's like that peak feminine energy. So we have the two peaks of our four phases. As I mentioned earlier, we have the dark moon, the bleed phase, and the ovulation, the light moon, the full moon. And this is our peak feminine energy of resting and honoring our feminine bodies, all four bodies, physical, mental, emotional, energetic, especially energetic. This is where we feel it the most. Then we come into the waxing phase from there. And the waxing phase is that springtime energy. It's the rebirth from the death, and it's where we reawaken, we have that rising energy, that innocence, that playfulness within us. We have motivation and drive starting to build as we build up to the full moon or ovulation. This is a transit phase. It's not a peak phase. You know, I mentioned the two peaks. This is the transit from bleed into ovulation or from dark moon into full moon. And in this transit, as we're rebirthing from the death and rebirth, as we're rebirthing, reawakening, and bringing in that playfulness and curiosity, we start to expand. It's a very expansive opening up energy. Springtime, think air. It's a breath of fresh air. We begin anew. It's like turning a new leaf. And so some practices that you can instill and integrate for this phase is forward movements. So think like walking, running, some cardio-based stuff, bringing in that breath, that air element again. Some light strength and activation. So starting some Pilates or some lower weights at the gym, for example, if that's your thing, or some more strength-based yoga, whatever it is, just implementing a little more strength, a little more forward momentum. And this is also the time for intention setting. It's coming off that energy of the new moon, that peak of the dark moon, then goes into new moon, and we're coming from that. We're starting anew. So this is the time to set intentions and start to embody and live those intentions. And then we can also implement some gentle nervous system up-regulation. So in somatic practices, we talk about downregulating and upregulating. And an example of this would be say you're feeling a little low and in that more depressive state and you want to be re-energized, you can start to speed up your inhales with some breath work. That's like an example, or just introduce some movement, wake yourself up in some way. If you're feeling really overstimulated and your sympathetic nervous system is on overdrive and you're a little bit stressed or anxious or in your head, you can down-regulate and start to look at some slower breath, some longer exhales. The opposite of lengthening your inhales, longer exhales, bringing your energy down. And so when we're in that waxing moon phase or that follicular phase, this is where we can start to look at some upregulating, again, bringing in that movement. Then we have from there, so we've got bleed phase, dark moon, waxing coming into springtime, our follicular transit phase, into the peak of the full moon, the ovulation phase, the peak energy. And this is actually, despite it being our center of femininity where we're creating and it's the peak of the lunar energy, which is feminine. This is actually the peak of our masculine energy in the sense that it's where we're creating, we're building, we're in our power. And this is where we are more mentally resilient. So we have that strength and discipline coming in. This is where we can start to bring in discipline. We can invite that in. It doesn't, again, it's not binary. We're cyclical, rhythmical feminine beings. If we aren't optimized in our cycle, sometimes ovulation isn't going to feel like our most powerful. It's going to feel a little crappy. And we need to question that and log that which comes into waning, and Lutil will get to that. But that's where we reflect and log what's happened over the other phases as we get to the Lutil phase, the waning phase, and start to look at where we went wrong. But not in a punishing way, just as an insightful way. So we can learn how to be more rhythmic and create more of an easeful way of living. It's what we really want. So it should come from that place. But I digress, coming back to that full moon, that ovulation phase, that peak of masculine energy more. So as I mentioned, this is where we have more mental resilience. And so this is where we're at our peak social battery. Like we tend to socialize more, so we can start to invite that a little more into our calendar. This is a way to somatically bring it in, some somatic practices is being more social, networking, getting out there, presenting. You might feel more aligned, more high energy and more confident in that way. You can also start to bring in some real expressive movements, some really intense movements like dancing, singing with your voice. It's kind of a performance. Creativity. This is where we take bold action, action that gets us out of our comfort zone. This is where you could start to implement my seven-day meeting your edge challenge, which is where you wake up every morning, perhaps during the peak of your ovulation. You wake up every morning and you check in with like, what's my edge? What's that one thing I'm resisting doing? And I'm gonna do that today. I'm gonna take a step forward to doing that today. I'm gonna take some action on that and really embracing that boldness, that masculine energy while we're in our peak ovulation or our peak full moon. And so, yes, this is a time for connection, building relationships. We are at our most mentally like clear and mentally resilient as well. So it's a great time to socialize. And that's one way we can actually start to embody that somatically. A somatic practice is socializing, is expressing through dance or voice and singing. It is through being social and creative. And then from there we come back to that transit. We're coming down to the waning moon phase, the luteal phase. And this is where I talk about it being more reflective. We start to, and this is where the real sage and inner wisdom in us comes in. We start to really reflect and think about everything that's come over the previous cycle. So from bleed to follicula to ovulation or from dark moon to waxing into full moon. We start to reflect on those previous phases and learn more about ourselves from that. Again, not from a place of punishing and what can I do better, but from a place of like, huh, that's interesting to note. Now I know what would impact me better or what would serve me better, what would support me better. And what happens during that transit of luteal into bleed or waning into dark moon, we collect that evidence, that data. We reflect. That's the waning moon, that's the luteal phase, data collection, it's harvesting. Think autumn. And we start to drop back down into more of a grounding energy as we prepare for the bleed, which is where that death comes in, that death and rebirth. And that's where we start to instill and integrate the insights from those reflections. And that's where that rebirth really happens, that change. How can I make my life more easeful? That's where that change occurs. And so during this phase of the waning moon and the luteal phase, we can start to bring in more slowness, more heightened awareness, more truth, because this is when we are most emotionally receptive. Our emotions can come out a little more, especially if we're not giving it that time to slow down, to reflect, to harvest and collect. That's like whenever we see ourselves irritable in this phase, we can note that and go, am I giving myself enough space right now? Do I need to slow down more? And just give myself, devote myself to a little bit more time because we're coming back into that feminine energy here. And so this is where we can start to look at in terms of somatic practices and integrating that energy. Whether you're following the lunar cycle or the bleed cycle and you're in luteal or waning, you can start to look at some boundary setting. So just really prioritizing some time for yourself, letting people know and communicating that is a boundary in itself. So getting better with your communication in this time is really going to help you to create the space that you need. And giving yourself the permission and feeling that you truly deserve that as well is something to overcome or invite your body to work through. And then giving yourself that space to emotionally process. This is another way you can integrate in this phase is some somatic practices, bringing in some emotional processing, some emotional release breath work, some emotional letting go, like inviting the letting go and inviting that insight, because we're we're collecting pieces of information here. We're decluttering. And so you can actually, that's another thing you can do in this phase is declutter mentally, energetically, emotionally, physically, declutter the room, you know, start to give away things, start to throw some things out that no longer serve you. You can do that in this phase. It's the best time because this is when you're harvesting, you're nesting, you're preparing for the dark moon or the bleed phase. And so there are a few practices you can bring into in the waning moon phase or the luteal phase, depending on what you're following, if you're following both. Now, when it comes to having a bleed cycle, you might start to think, okay, I'm going to start with exactly what Shannon's just gone through, those four phases from bleed to follicular to ovulation to luteal. But then what you might want to do once you give yourself some time to embody that rhythm, you can start to invite the correlating or corresponding energies of the lunar cycle. And so we're coming back to that example I gave you at the start of this episode where I talked about how I'm coming into my bleed phase. I'm actually at the end of my waning moon, my luteal phase internally. That's what's happening in my body. I'm luteal into bleed right now. But the full moon was in the sky. And so we can start to bring in that dynamic and start to cue to ourselves how do I feel in my body right now? And what phase do I most resonate with, first and foremost, and start to consider how that's impacting you. For example, I'm coming into my bleed cycle, so I should feel really like chill, really mellow, like I really crave some alone time. But I'm also feeling quite energized and quite high energy. And that's because we're coming off the peak of the full moon. And so we can start to consider that and how that's going to affect us physiologically. I'm in my dark moon phase or coming into that from the waning. I'm at the end of my waning phase. But astrologically, we still have the lunar energy that's going to be affecting us. And we can start to bring that in. But I would encourage you doing that later down the track. Once you're familiar and you are physically embodying this with ease, then you can start to consider how the lunar cycles are affecting you. That's if you have a bleed cycle that you're following right now. If you don't have a bleed cycle at all, it's made quite simple. You just follow the cycles in the sky. You follow the lunar cycle. You're in your lunar era. You don't have a bleed cycle. And so that's pretty much what I would cover in terms of how to integrate all these practices through the four phases, is by starting with the era that you're most predominantly in right now. And that's coming back to those two main eras of woman. We have the bleed era and the lunar era. And I'm going to be covering this so much more in my Soma Cycle text. There's a set Soma Cycle text that I'm going to be releasing at the end of the year, or hoping to release at the end of the year. We'll see. It might be next year in 2027. But I'm going to be covering all of this where we talk about the bleed era, the lunar era, all four phases, how this works, how we can integrate it all in so much more depth. So stick around until then, because then you'll get to see where my text is coming out. And I'm really excited for that. It's my jam, all of these chats on feminine energies, lunar cycles, bleed cycles, and how we can become more feminine within our yin and yang internally. And so yeah, that's everything I want to talk about. I think to really drive it home, I just want to reframe that your cycle is not just biological, it's energetic intelligence as well. And this is where the lunar cycle comes in with the bleed cycle. It's not just a biological, linear, predictable thing. It's even in our biology and our chemistry, it is cyclical, it's rhythmical, and it's a it's an intelligence of its own, that feminine energy. And so is the masculine energy within a man. And we, again, we have masculine and feminine within. It's just we as women tend to access that feminine energy more in our own unique ways. It might not be so obvious as dressing really feminine and presenting really feminine and sounding really feminine. You know, we have our own unique ways of tapping into our own feminine energy, just as much as our own masculine energy. And the same for a man. They have their own unique ways of easily accessing their masculine energy, but also tapping into their feminine as well. And how that presents on an individual level, you know, you just gotta take what resonates, leave the rest, and just embody it in a way that feels right for you in any given moment because we're continually evolving as well. And so I'm I'm really glad that I did an episode that deepens the topic of somatic practices and how to integrate and embody the lunar cycles and the bleed cycles. Because I did do an episode at the start of opening this podcast, at the start of 2026, the start of this year. And I feel like this episode just builds on that and it really helps create more of an integration. So ways that you can start to integrate this into your life. And so, of course, one more thing I'll do is On an integration cue, a reflective cue. And I like to do this at the end of most of my episodes, but this reflective cue, just to finish off, is which phase am I at right now? So you can ask yourself that. You can even place your hands on your womb, on your heart, on your tummy in your womb, like your so your solar plexus and your sacral. And just ask yourself, where am I at right now? What phase am I at right now? And what is she asking of me as in my body? What phase am I at right now? And what is my body asking of me? What is she asking of me? And just really taking some time to listen to that and taking some time to soak in this episode, take what resonates, leave the rest, integrate it in your own timeline. Everything's happening as it's meant to. And I'm going to be seeing you next episode where we're going to be talking about emotional numbness and dissociation and what that means from a psychosomatic and energetic perspective, of course, from the lens of everything I know. So stay tuned for next week if that sounds like something you're interested in. And in the meantime, I'm just going to pop all the resources that I feel are relevant to this topic we've covered today in the caption below. See you later. As we finish this week's episode, remember that you are your own rhythm keeper. So just keep listening for that rhythm and keep coming home to you. Until next time, with love, Shannon at Somatic Body.