Own Your Cycle with Period Coach Stasha Washburn

This is no halos here hosted by Jen Lang and Jane Stark, the place to inspire a change in your consciousness to elevate the world. We're to heart centered business owners nourishing our inner rebels while growing our respective businesses.

No halos here is the result of bringing together an opera singer turned spiritual mentor and a marketing professional turned well being coached to meditate daily. Together we unite physical, mental, emotional and spiritual energies into a powerful presence to lead, heal and inspire. We love exploring the shadowed edges of life, the universe and beyond through honest and thought provoking conversations. Let's dive in.

Hi, everybody, and welcome back to another episode of no halos here with Jen Lang and Jane Stark. And today we have a really awesome guest really good friend of mine and fantastic person all around is Stasha Washburn, aka the period coach. So I'm actually going to hand it right over to Stasha to introduce herself because she does it best. So welcome to no halos here. Welcome, Stasha.

Hi. Thank you so much for having me. I'm super excited to be here and have this chat with you. I love you all. can I say? I'm sorry for the period coach the bloody guides.

Right? make that distinction up front.

Yes. People to be cured. You know, I don't like them to be in the dark. Let's just get into it right out of the gate. Definitely, yeah,

I work with menstruation and I have spent most of my menstruating life In fact, trying to understand periods because mine was horrific, right out of the gate, and, and it was crappy, and I hated every minute of it. But I figured some things out along the way. And the more I learned, the more I was able to help other people. And the more I started to figure out stuff for myself, the more I realized, we were terribly misinformed about periods and the menstrual cycle and how they're supposed to be and what it's supposed to be like and all that. So it really made me very angry. And so I had a, I had a different business at the time. But as I was trying to suss out what to do with my business and who my audience was, and what my niche was, I kind of came to the realization that it just made me so mad that I really just wanted to focus on menstrual awareness. And that's when the period coach was born. And yeah, and I've just been working on furthering the awareness around menstruation and the menstrual movements ever si nce.

Wow.That's definitely it's, it has become more of a movement, would you say?

Yeah, you know, when I started doing this, I had a hard time finding people in general, I remember trying to do a summit six years ago, maybe might be more now, that certain point you go might be further in the past, and I think they're trying to do too much

The last eighteen months doesn't help that either.

No, or does not know. Yeah, I had a really hard time finding people who could speak on different parts. It's at one point, I remember thinking, Oh, God, I don't even care anymore. If they can just talk coherently about reproductive hormones at all. I don't, I don't even care if there's somebody who works online. I really wanted to do it to help promote people who are online businesses and educate at the administration awareness at the same time, but at some point, I was like, Okay, well, we'll just got to find some brick and mortar people to I don't know, so. And then all of a sudden, it just started to boom. And that was kind of awesome to watch, actually.

Yeah. So you've been kind of really good. You almost say you're, you're kind of one of the pioneers in this place.

Yeah, it was very lonesome out there for a long time. And that was lots of friends.

And you're also you have a very distinctive approach, you know, the title of your book, which is called the revolution will be bloody is, is definitely a title designed to grab attention and to poke those places that people for so long. I like that the white washing of periods. This book does not feed into that it's definitely meant to, like revolutionize the way we talk about our cycles or menstrual cycles. And to approach the and address the lies that we were told, or the half truths even that we were exposed to growing up. And I mean, it's obviously it's multi generational because we learned or not from our from the women older than us, and they learned or not from the women in there, sir. So I'm wondering if you can sort of describe for us what brought you into this space, you referred to your horrific periods when you were younger. Tell us a little bit more about your story around that, if you don't mind.

Yeah, I am. I had bad periods, pretty much right out of the gate. And I'm, I don't really exactly remember when I got my first period. And I don't know if that's because the very first one was sort of not terrible. And then I had a terrible one. And then that's the one that I remember. Or if they were to steerable, right out of the gate, I started music, I think I may have blocked out some of the memories. But I, they were pretty bad. And they were bad in high school. And I was blacking out, I would send maybe the week before I would get my period, feeling really faint and really weak and really tired. And it would be painful. And I would start having cramps days before I get my period. And they would get worse and worse and worse until at some point, I would just break out into a cold sweat burn just on polish. I'm already a pale lady, but boy, I got even paler. And then I would just fall down and blackout. And sometimes I come too quickly. Sometimes I woke up in the nurse's office a little later. But as I would wake up just drenched in sweat and realize I got my period and you know, it took a one or two was not long for me to realize that was the connection there. And then I started knowing that that's just how it was. And I would spend the next three days basically just throwing up from the pain. So it you know, I remember being in the, whats that

Sorry I interrupted, I just I can't imagine how traumatizing that would be. Especially Oh,

I'll be honest i i do EFT to this day with a practitioner because I am 100% aware that there is a level of PTSD the I have to this day from or that the anxiety not so much anymore. But that's because I've worked on specifically the PTS D element of it. So the anxiety and kind of anxiety attacks that would come before just knowing that it was coming up and even not having painful periods anymore. Just knowing what I'm getting close to having my period. It's like, Alright, let's do a little few rounds of tapping and just remind my body that we're not going back there, it's not going to happen like that, again, even if it was the worst period I've had in years, it wouldn't even hold a candle to how bad it used to be. So just relax, be It's okay, the easier you are there either it will be so yeah.

So that sounds, that's quite an experience. And I've not to like make the difference. But I'm really grateful for the relatively, quote unquote normal experience that I had as a teenager, you know, with its own, like, you know, awkward pieces and awkward beds, but I certainly wasn't blacking out. And I certainly didn't have cold sweats. I do remember my mom had really bad migraines associated with her cycle. And she would be bed bound for sometimes three days with migraines and light sensitivity and vomiting. So it's it's not like it's not been within my circle, but I just didn't understand why she had it that way. So how did you come down to a place where you really knew you had to take responsibility for this aspect of self like what was your experience with that? Well, medical system?

Yeah, pretty quickly as as much as I had a great doctor who did literally everything she could I mean, she had me on every kind of birth control experimental birth controls that have been pulled because they killed too many people and since all birth control kills people with a lot that yeah, I mean, I was on prescription narcotics. I mean, we ramped up to you know, to prescription every provan and ramped up and up and up until I was on basically the the highest level of painkiller that one could give a you know under 100 pound teenaged girl but it didn't make a dent in the pain. I was still blacking out in the shower, you know? Yeah, it's going and I think we need to call the ambulance and I was going to her period, what am I going to do? So? Wow, yeah, it didn't really do anything in it. You know, again, I'm I don't I'm not mad at my doctor. She did the best she could with the information that we she had and God bless her not only that she was Native American and she went okay, we're going off the book we're gonna try some other things and she went like i don't i don't know i she came back with some things for me to try but it didn't really make a difference but only because I realized what I needed to do later, but I tried right out of the gate. So even in college, I started reading books on like, Ayurveda, health or reproductive Hell's, what can you do to help reduce hormonal imbalances? I, you know, I was trying herbs and all sorts of different modalities of living. You know, I was vegan for a lot for a while as a chair, and for a while, I mean, I really tried to everything. And surprisingly, all of those things made me worse. And it wasn't until I figured out what my actual food trigger was. That all of those really kind of crazy extreme attempts at fixing it did not help in any way shape or form. But yeah, it took it took a long time.

Yeah. So what was what is the piece that you've found for you that's,

it turned out not to be just one thing. But the first thing that I realized was gluten, I had to let the gluten go. And it took me two years of and I gave up sugar. I gave up caffeine. I gave up a lot of things along the way. But it was really the gluten free diet now. It sucked. And it was way before that was normal for like before a blue frame.

And all that stuff. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. celiacs

Oh, absolutely. I was lucky enough to live in big cities of lots of foods. And I quickly discovered that, you know, Asian places, were really good to go Vietnamese, especially because lots of rice noodle dishes, you know. So I discovered it was much easier to just eat other cultures, foods and be gluten free and still eat a lovely, amazing, or too much amount of food in a day. But yeah, it was the gluten. But the next thing was actually my lifestyle. And that was when I as a classic overachiever. And I'm just going to sum up my overachiever status to say I got two degrees in four years by going to college over credits all throughout the summer, and I had to stay on this. I had to have a 3.5 or higher to maintain my academic scholarship. And I had a talent scholarship, and I had a work study. So, overachiever,

don't be okay. You might get the award there. Wow,

I think you have the three of us. Definitely. Yeah.

Yeah. Also, though, I had to let that go. And that was hard. But, you know, I had that moment, I had reduced my pain, and I was having much easier periods. And I was eating very, very clean. I had just started my health coaching business. So you know, I was really like, the living example of health coaching. And all the excitement one has when they start down that road, and, and I started running a business like I thought you you did you worked 16 hour days, you know, come on, I was a bartender, and a dancer and an education major, like, I was working all of the time, everywhere. And physically hard work, dancing, working out teaching Pilates and yoga and ballet bar. And, yeah, so I was burning the candle at both ends. And then I started a business on top of it, and, and all of my symptoms came right back, I was right back to the floor of my bathroom begging for somebody to just take me outside and shoot me because it would be less painful. And that's what I went, well, I can't do anything else to my diet. There's nothing left to give up. So it has to be my lifestyle. And I have to figure out Yeah, yeah. And that's it. I mean, it's another personal responsibility thing, you know, you have to be able to say, here's my boundaries, and I'm not willing to sacrifice my health or well being in order to accomplish things. I can accomplish things and stay healthy. And well.

That's such good advice, that it accomplish things and still be healthy and well. Yeah, worth repeating.

So, around that, can you go a little bit more into that, because that's a really big mindset shift. I've gone through my own journey of that. But I would love to hear a little bit of that time for you and what you did, and what you found helped you through that part of it.

It was kind of fun, if I'm honest, because I was experimenting on myself and my business and my clients. And we, you know, I would, I would do things like already read the study that you know, verbal skills are linked to estrogen levels. So I'm going to look at what I'm doing in my business that involves verbal skills. And I'm going to start doing it when I know that my estrogen is highest. And I'm going to see what happens. And I'm going to take that off my plate. When I know my estrogen is lowest. And I'm not going to force myself to try and write copy, for example, or you know, record a video. When I know my estrogen is at its lowest points, and I started doing that and it was like, Oh, it's so much easier. Like I got everything done this month, but like it was way easier. And I started noticing that I was getting justice. much done every month, but I was having more time, more free times. I was like, Okay, okay, we're done often what's next, and I was able to really see more space in my schedule. And, of course, I rammed it with other tasks as a classic overachiever does and gotten burnt and had a really crappy period and went right. Right, right. Can't, cannot do that. And I think if I didn't have that level of pain to smack me around, when I got too far off track, I might not be as as a firm believer in it as I am. But it is. It huge the difference that you can have, and then just sort of planning my life with it, too. It was like, Okay, let's go do these hikes during this phase. And, you know, let's take again, cool yoga class during this phase, you know what, no, I'm not doing anything, I'm going to the hot tub. And if you need me, I'll be there for the day just napping in a knot tubs and just kind of staying with my flow and with my cycle, and it just made everything so much easier. And so all my symptoms were reduced, most of them were eliminated completely, the last few are far more reduced than they used to be. And I do have a couple of red flags. You know, if I start getting a headache, I know if I push it too far, it'll be a migraine, and I'll be back in a cold dark room, or it'll turn my cramps up by and I'll be back under the heating pads. So I know that there's limits, but

so what about thank you for sharing all of that, and especially for some of our listeners who may not be familiar with the variations on the hormonal cycle? They might have just been, you know, bought into the thing like, Oh, this is my cranky time, or this is my tire time, as opposed to so can you just give a sort of a really brief overview of the I think it's the four major seasons of that cycle? For our listeners who may not be familiar?

Yeah, absolutely. So like you said, if you think of it as seasons, it really helps to get where you're going. So if you think of menstruation, your when you have your period as your winter phase, it's very introverted, it's usually quieter, calmer, and more chill. And that's okay. It used to be very much that like, revered time where it was more chill. And now it's like, okay, so just, you know, if you've got friends, and they have kids, and you have kids and the kids somewhere else for a play date, around that time, you know, give yourself a little peace of mind and be you know, you can take them when you're in, say, your next phase follicular, when you're in your spring phase, or even ovulation in summer, and you can kind of make your life a little easier. And those little ways in business, it's really good for big visioning time. So like when you're all cozied up and curled in for winter, it's a great time to dream about the bigger vision, you know, what do you want your life to look like? What do you want your business to look like? What are the values that you hold dear. And if you revisit that every month and ministration, you'll stay on track, you'll stay so much more focused, you won't get distracted by things nearly as much. And you'll still be in a really authentic alignment with your business in your life. Just a big thing of keeping productive and getting things accomplished as we want to do. Right, so follicular is springtime energy is rising, hormones are rising, it's more energy, totally just go with that. And foods are very much the same. Like what are those springtime greens, those citrusy things of lighter foods, those more detoxing things spring, right. That's what it's for. Summer, population, peak, extraversion, peak energy peak, all of that stuff, peak hormones peak testosterone, so peak confidence as well. And then, you know, we come out of what of summer because if we don't, you'll live in a desert soon enough, not where life happens. So we have to come out of summer I'm sorry. And into fall into late summer into autumn, and enjoy that kind of stepping down of the energy and moving from extraversion introversion from the outer world to the inner world. And that's actually a really great time to state. take stock of things. You know, really see like what you want to get done, what didn't get done, do your evaluations, do your reviews, look at things, don't judge them. Just go gather the numbers and put them on a spreadsheet or, you know, look at what worked and what didn't work, you don't need to evaluate it. You just kind of need to take stock of it and then put on your list for the next round. What's going to carry over what's not and just that simple act of looking into the seasons in the energy of going through that circle makes an enormous shift in mean, when you come out of population and your confidence dips, every one I know starts to blame themselves for my businesses. And as far as long as it should be or off, my marriage isn't as good as it should be, or my house looks like crap, or I'm failure and it always gets turned in, I failed at my diet, I failed. I didn't, you know, whatever you didn't think you were supposed to do and. And when you go, Oh, it's just because my testosterone levels have diminished, and I just don't have that like artificial confidence boost going on doesn't make me any less capable than I was yesterday, and just don't have that extra hormone boost. And it's much easier to go, Oh, that's fine, then I'm good. I can do this. Just keep going

I gotta pay attention to that. Now. That's something that's a great little takeaway, because it's starting to notice when I start to have those thoughts and correlate that to her dating.

It's interesting, because I've known Oh, it's finished up, Jane, if you want.

Nope, that was okay.

cuz I've, I think I've been around you're like your information and your work Stasha for at least two to three years now. And then we've always become closer over the past year with our sort of mostly weekly check ins, which is fun with you, and Meredith. And so, as I've gotten to know your work more deeply and apply it to my life into my business, I have noticed those hormonal shifts and changes, and I am making more decisions from that place of, okay, is this a good week to be doing filming? Probably not. So I'll just reschedule that. And now making more active decision making around you know, you don't even have to be in business to be paying attention to these issues, because or it's sort of these situations are not issues. It is how it is? Do you pay attention to your hormonal cycle and eat accordingly. And I especially love the eating accordingly. I've noticed for myself, like I love coffee, from observation onwards. But I don't love it as of day one. As soon as I blade I'm like, no. So it's just something about the flavor profile. And same as similarly, dark chocolate from from follicular.me. Wrong. I love dark chocolate, but I've noticed that I enjoy it more from ovulation onwards rather than earlier.

Yeah, and those are two those are two things that come up in ovulation. Because it's again, it's at peak by young energy. And those are two really high energy foods, you know, obviously stimulants and that's in the in they have those warming and stimulating well profiles to them that for some people that's perfect for other people like myself if I had anything stimulating aside from like a really good dark chocolate, but like if I had caffeine, even a decaf from throughout the luteal phase from relation to menstruation, I would have terrible cramps. And it's something that I've noticed for women that have pelvic pain, not just necessarily endometriosis pain, but pelvic pain in general can have cramps or have lower back aches or even intestinal issues, you know, if you're feeling gassy, or bloated or constipated or not. The the caffeine stimulant can really affect that. And I, you know, part of it's because it's harder on our liver. And as women, we don't go through it as quickly as men do. Men can process it in like an hour or something. And for us, it takes about 24 hours. So I didn't I don't know if it's just more taxing. Yeah, different things have different times, but I'm pretty sure caffeine is is about 24 hours for most women. And that's our livers are also taxing more because we're processing all of these hormonal estrogen and progesterone and things constantly. So and

then depending on where you're at with that range. I'm going through some hormonal stuff right now with liver detox and trying to move some of my estrogen through faster. So that's really interesting, right and looking at when there's other things at play in the body, too. Yeah, exactly. Wow, super valuable. So I'm curious, like through your journey, and through this lens of taking radical responsibility for your health. One of the things that Jen and I have kind of played around with a lot as we've been exploring this idea is, what is it in us that drives us or not to take that level of responsibility? So it sounds like for you, I mean, there's obviously the element of it was quite extreme in terms of your pain and your situation and, but is there other things or have you if you were to stop Think about that. What? What do you feel it? Is that brought you to this place of healing?

You know, I think a lot of it has to do with the inequalities of it. And the there's a lot of inequalities and menstruation, there's just the obvious, which is that people who bleed are weaker than those who don't. So those who men straight are weaker. And it's, you know, if you look at the literature from the 1800s, and 1900s, it's not subtle, I mean, they straight up say, Oh, well, you know, women can't be whatever, because they are too weak for a week, out of the month to be capable of any kind of job or any kind of thing. Um, and they're, you know, we will never have equality as this species, if we think the ones human straight are less than the ones who don't. So that for me is a really driving force to just keep the education out there. I you know, one of my favorite things to talk about is the super, super powers, each phase of our cycle has each different shift has, you know, there's the menstrual phase is not worse than because you can't maybe go out and do, you know, a 16 hour workday. I mean, maybe you can, and some people can for sure, but most of us would rather not. And there's no reason that that's a bad thing, though, because the concept of these insane work days in and of itself is a whole nother discussion. But we're just never going to get to equality. And then if you add into it, income inequality, and then stration, now we're talking about loss of school days, lots of girls don't graduate from high school, because they can't go when they're bleeding. And so they have to drop out. It's also a target for human trafficking for all sorts of really terrible things sex trafficking, because when that happens, it's a signal in in lots of places, child marriage, it's still legal in a lot of the United States. So you know, everyone look at your own backyard. It's legal in a lot of places, churches can get away with it, even if it's not necessarily legal in some places. So it's legal in Canada to in some Yes, yeah, it's 10. It's all tied back to this idea that, Oh, well, you know, you're menstruating, and therefore, you're only good for making babies, you are walking incubator, and that is your entire purpose on the planet. And it's, it makes me crazy. And that keeps me out there sharing information constantly and consistently, and trying to educate as many people as humanly possible in my lifetime, because it's not gonna end my lifetime. Personally, for me, it makes life so much easier. My relationship is way easier because we have a common language where I could say, Hey, babe, I'm moving into follicular get the hot ass over here, or I'm moving in a little and he goes, Okay, I get the chocolate and the massage oil out, you know, like, we can have conversations we understand. You know, you know, it's like, oh, we're gonna be eating a lot of salads right now, because we're, you know, she's in follicular, and she's gonna be one example is awesome. And, you know, you know, it's just, it's so much easier activities, what we're doing everything is just so much easier than Of course, my business, I could never accomplish nearly as much as I have. If I didn't do things really, truly in flow, while not burning out, well, never having a panic to launch. While never having like a horrifying crunch. Everyone who works with me is just like, Oh, I'm so different from normal. You mean, we have two months to get ready for this, like, this is fantastic. So you know, even assistance that I've had, that I've just gone back to other places and been like, we're gonna make some changes in the way that this business works. Because this was so much easier. It's just easy.

When we pay attention to cycle to our natural rhythms and cycles, instead of trying to fit into the perceived box of more what society tells us a quote unquote cycle should be, it's actually not true. So when we start to tune into our own superpowers, so can you can you actually actually talk about briefly like one superpower from each of the four seasons? Oh, yeah.

Well, it was narration right. Big Vision, you know, take stock, take a moment, big vision, let the you know, like, let divine inspiration or whatever you want to call it come to you draw color, get creative, whatever it does. That helps you. follicular, you're really good at figuring out how things work. So, you know, if you want to try something or try something new or take a group class or study something or figure out how to do something or you know, build something or figure out how to do, you know, email sequence for the first time or whatever it is really, like get in there and do stuff, you're really good at that how things emulation is a do phase, just go out there and do go live life. You know, like, if you wanted to try that bootcamp class, now's the time if you want to give yourself the challenge and isolation you know, if you want to go jump out of a plane, book it for ovulation. It's a good one. And then little is your what phase? So what worked? What didn't work? What could be better? What could we do more of you know, don't look on one side of the coin, your tendency and little is to go into the pessimistic side of things. Don't let yourself just live in the what could be better? What is also kicking ass and taking names like, you know, look at both sides of the coin there. But it's what would what, why? How do what would her mind he do from having? Why did he do why is menstrual? How is follicular do his population?

Awesome. Thank you. That's all our listeners are frantically going and figuring out where they are in their cycle.

Exactly, exactly. So obviously that brings me to my next question is for some of our listeners who maybe don't menstruate for a variety of reasons. They're either into menopause, or for a variety of other purposes. They identify as a woman. What can they do when they don't necessarily have the hormonal, the same hormonal shifts? I've heard some moon tracking, do you want to do a touch briefly on that?

Yeah. And we actually talked about this in Tai Chi and Taoism or, and we're actually my, my boyfriend, who does Tai Chi has taught for 20 plus years, we are tougher actually talking about making a chart, specifically for non instructors. That does kind of the same thing. But using the moon as the base, though, because he's been doing it and finding so much illumination just from working, you know, living with my cycle and the moon, because paying attention to that as well. So basically, menstruation equals the new moon, winter dark, right? An ovulation summer, full moon. So that higher energy and I and I you know, most people understand that there's some level of fiving higher energy and during the full moon, sometimes you get restless sleep, it's harder to sleep or you find you know, people are out on the town getting a little crazier than normal. And vice versa. Around the new moon, you find people are more inclined to say now I'm just gonna stay home and relax.

Love it. That's powerful. That's super powerful. So where can people find out more about how you work and some other resources that they if they're if you've really piqued our listeners curiosity today, which I'm I love, I love your work already. So that's like a no brainer. But if they want to find out more, how can they get in touch with you? And what do you have going on?

Yeah, so I always have flow freedom, it is a course that you can jump into that teaches you the phases of the cycle, and how to bring balance in them using things like food, smell, touch movement, you know, working out, journaling, so we go through my central system, which is essentially your six senses, and how each of those senses can bring balance into your cycle. And it's just, it's a lot of fun. And it's a lot of experimentation. And once you're in you're in forever, and it's just a joy to do. And then for those of you who are in business, or have clients come in straight or yourselves men straight, I have period coaching school. So that's really going in deeper than then we start talking about things like you know your business and your flow and in different aspects of menstruation and working with clients and being able to help clients so no matter what kind of coach you are, you can start integrating that into your clients. homework, essentially making sure you're not assigning them things that could potentially be making it harder for them to balance their hormones. You know, like you don't want to give someone a cleanse right for their period or a seated meditation right at oscillation or there's just so many bits and pieces that can be put into flow that for coaches, I think it's really important if you're working with yourself or menstruating clients to just understand and get how it all works. You can really help them better than it literally is not cause more damage right

making it easier So yes, yeah. And is this type of your offerings? Obviously, maybe not so much the period coaching school, but sorry, was it flow freedom? Would you say it's it's adaptable to kind of any age or a certain age? Like I have two daughters? Just partly what I'm asking.

Totally, I think that it depends on the mom. And it might be something that you do, and you distill down, we do talk about libido, and therefore we talk about sex, and it's in there. Because it is a part of your hormonal balance and understanding how you feel. And it's a good gauge on where you are in your cycle as well. We understand that aspect. So for the most part, like 90% of it, I think most kids are pretty, you know, can get it and if you get Yeah, no, exactly. But I only my mom's watch first.

Yeah. And just to distill down because it Yeah, like I say, having two girls and knowing I'm going to be in that those phases, and being able to educate them, and support them and guide them through feels just so empowering. And compared to again, the way I think many of us grew up, right. Like, again, it's nothing that, you know, my mom, I know, did the best she had, she could with the information she had, but it just wasn't. We just weren't taught this stuff. We weren't this stuff was never talked about, at least for me growing up. Now, most of the women that I've talked to.

Yeah, we women's history was oral history, right, we were not allowed to read and write in most cultures World Wide in general. So it was orally handed down. And when, you know, the witch hunts happened in Europe and spread around the world, we lost a lot of that oral history, because it went on for multiple generations. I mean, not just years, decades, a long time and and we lost it. No, we just lose a generation, we lost many generations. And so that gap between our, you know, learned wisdom that was taught and handed down, you know, wise woman to wise woman was just eradicated completely, literally burned at the stake. So we lost a lot of that. And that's where we're rebuilding. And you know, on the plus side, we're, the more that we do this work, and we talk about it, we get it out there, the more people start asking their doctors things, the more their doctors start going, oh, maybe I should start learning some of this stuff. The more doctors start pushing from our studies, the more studies we get done. So you know, as we bring things back from older cultures that are being remembered and reborn and brought out into the world, we're also learning more and getting more science that backs things up. Like we now know hanging out with your girlfriends is actually good for your hormonal balance. It's been studied, we know that's actually good for you. So you know went from like girls night to actually it's good for your book, your hormones.

So interesting to think about the implications of that over the past year and a half though, for countries who have been in severe lockdown, or you're having you know, that's a really so if you're listening to this, and you've had a lot of particularly strict lockdowns, looking at you, Australia and parts of Europe, then definitely get it with your girlfriends when you can, because it sounds like it's a really such a beautiful way to rebalance and support one another in ways beyond simply social interaction.

Yeah, and you have to be, you know, it's okay for your period to do weird things. You know, like, when we all went into lockdown, I started plastering my social media with you guys, your period is gonna be late, it's gonna be early, it's gonna be longer to be heavier, it's gonna be more painful, it's gonna be less heavy, it's gonna do crazy things because this is a high stress level, and that changes your hormone balance. And that's okay. It's the beauty of our cycles is they come month after month after month. So if you have a wobbly couple of cycles, it's just you can get back into balance, and it's not a bad thing. It's not hurting you in any way. It's just your body got out of balance and like you get the flu, you get the flu and a lot of times you have a late period or you have an early period or something goes wrong because your body goes you know what, we're not making a baby right now we're gonna just work on staying alive. And then next month we'll come back to this section and that's okay. It's what it's supposed to do. It's exactly how your body protects you keeps you safe. You know, after my vaccine, I my period was a little late and I perfectly was still within my realm of normal because I chart and have been charting for years. And I know where my extreme fly I know when it's I know the shortest it goes. I know the longest it goes and I know exactly what those circumstances are. So I went, I'm getting my second dose, I'm probably gonna have a late period this month, it's probably all come around day 3032 because that's my outside. And like beautiful clockwork day 31. And I, but I knew it normally I get it on day 26. So normal people would be going, Oh, my God, my period the week Ray, I'm late, nobody knows, because I don't expect it to come for a few more days this month, it'll be fine. And because that's really what it's supposed to do.

Yeah, yeah, that's a really good point to kind of help with some of that narrative that we did here.

Yeah, I was gonna say to and that is a way that our listeners can actually start taking radical responsibility for their own health and for their cycle is start charting, and start tracking. And I have noticed that since I have even if it's just as simple as noting what day you're on in your cycle, at first, like I have a morning spiritual practice. And part of that now is like, I'm on day one, I'm on day two, on day five, you know, that's, that at least gives me some context. And then I keep a more detailed, I use an app. But I also, you know, I've I know, the Stata has a beautiful mandola fan tracking, coloring things if you're totally into coloring, discovering doesn't do it for me. So I actually keep a spreadsheet where I track things. I'm such a nerd, masculine structure.

I like spreadsheets for years. The reason I mendala was because I was like, Oh, God, not another spreadsheet. I need something fun, fun and creative

. Hey, that's where we're all unique, right? Then whatever work

that ever works. So I think that's a radical responsibility piece that all of our listeners can do as you start. If you don't already track start tracking today. And Day One is the first day you bleed correct. Yeah,

yes. But always start tracking today. Yes, whatever it is, I just got an email from somebody who downloaded the fan, which is free, by the way if anyone wants it. And she said, You know, I can't wait to start this when I get my next period. And I emailed her back and said, Absolutely not you start today. Yeah. It just because it's building a habit. You're never going to build a habit by starting on day one and waiting for day one, because you'll do it for a couple of days. And then you'll forget. And that's normal, you'll go three, four months of starting on day one, but not getting through to the end of the cycle. Don't just for today, work on building the habit knowing that for the next three months, your only goal is to remember and track it wherever you are. Just write it down to however you're choosing to do it. We're just

so proud of you. So when you say start today and just track it, what are they tracking? Like say you're not on your period?

I Why is the mendala so on my mendala you would do things like words the moon phase, how much energy Did you have today? What was your moods? Like? Are you happy, sad, introverted, extroverted, angry, whatever. Did you have cervical mucus? Did you have any libido? I have a libido section. So you know, did you feel turned on? Did you have sex? If you did? Did you use contraception or not? If you're, you know, doing anything for contraception, but for the most part, you know, did you feel turned on or not? You know, like, those kinds of things can really help you. And then you know, how, how did you eat? I like to just don't judge what I'm eating. I just say did I eat and flow today? You know, did I have something that will support my hormones and the phase of the cycle I'm in? And digestion? So all of those things are things you can track every day, no matter what, where you are? And then you can add in when you get to where your period, you know, did I have symptoms? And even leading into your period, you know, did you were you feeling more fatigued today? Did you have a bit of brain fog? Or did you feel bloated? You have four boobs, you know, all those little things that lead into your period, you can start noting them?

Yeah, it's I mean, I I need to get better with tracking specifically around that. But you know, even just from myself starting to really, truly pay attention to my body and how it's feeling on multiple different levels has been such a life changing difference to just start to notice, right? And it like you say it is it does, it is a habit that you have to start getting into. But when you start to form that habit, it's amazing the patterns you really can start to see and then things start to make sense. And then they become easier to change. So I would say that the power is in the pattern, once the power is in the recognition of the pattern. So that is actually also taking radical responsibility for your health is actually that's part of reclaiming your power is finding that pattern figuring out what works for you. And cultivating that. Yeah, not ignoring mentally. Absolutely.

It's amazing is that is the analogy that we are so used to running away from our periods right? Take my doll, use a tampon discreet disposable, get rid of it, try not to let anyone know you're that's how happening, you know, take your birth control back to back to back so you never get a period like, right. That's a selling point. Never have a period again. Yeah, yeah. Hi. Hi.

Yeah, we're talking to like, oh, I've got my period. Like,

yeah, yeah, literally wrote that sentence as the opening line in my newsletter for I got my period, I'm gonna say that you're gonna say that 436 more times in your life, something like that I forget what the exact number is. But the average number of periods a woman has mastered or has in their life, or radical idea, you could turn around and embrace it, and figure out what's happening if it's bad. And like, I know what that is like, I still had to turn around and embrace it and figure out a way to make this livable, and not just livable but drivable. But I don't want to just survive, I do want to thrive and I had to the only way to do that was to turn around and go, Okay, this is a horror show. How do I find a way through this, that that's not going to be a continuous horror show for the rest of my life? So you do have to turn

Wow, that's, that's inspiring. And I hope that for people out there that do have, you know, a hard time or harder periods that that gives people some hope. Yeah, ways to turn it around.

It is. And then for those of you who most of us who have, you know, PMS because you know, 90% of the population has some level of PMS, the rest of us should have a much easier time to turn around and go, Okay, you know what, let's figure this out. This doesn't have to be something I'm running away from, there's no real reason to run away from it other than the cultural conditioning. So what if I turned around and went into this and decided to really learn and embrace it? And, and turns out, you can really enjoy a full cycle, if you come to it with a different perspective.

Oh, and that's true thing. Turning around. Any more questions? Jane?

I think it's it's beautiful. Fun, just gonna say the same. So for our listeners, where can they find you?

Yeah, so you can go to the period coach calm, and that's got my book and flow freedom and the Freeman dollar, all that good stuff. If you're interested in the school period, coaching school comm is where the school lives. And if you're looking for a period, coach, our graduates are starting to get populated on the page. So if you have a specific need, you might even find a period code on there. That's perfect for you.

So you certify

I certify Yeah, so this at the end of the school you can choose to do the certification level or not. That's fine but annual some people come because they just want to work on their own stuff. But yeah, we have a certification as well and you can get certified and be listed on the site at the end.

Beautiful and are you on anywhere on social media that people can follow you if they just get a feel

at Stasha Washburn on everything.

So welcome. include all those up? Sorry. Yeah, we're saying the same thing. Yeah, we'll put the links in the show notes. That's amazing. Thank you, Stasha.

Thank you for having me. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom, your experience, and the power behind owning your cycle, which is such a beautiful superpower. I kind of wish I had known it 20 years ago. However, you know, you're now that we're at right or you're out so I day. Yeah, exactly. Start today. If you're inspired by this episode, please do. Check it out, check out the links, go find out more about Stata. And we until next time, we're gonna sign off with the big goodbye and say, Thank you everyone for tuning in. Have a great day. Bye. Thank you. Thanks for joining us for these conscious combos. If you're ready to dive deeper head on over to we are Jen and jane.com to continue the conversation.