Have you ever noticed you feel more productive during certain times of the month? Have you wondered why sometimes you can work out for two weeks and then fall off for seemingly no reason?
Consider this — it might have NOTHING to do with you and everything to do with your menstrual cycle.
Tune into this game-changing episode with Renae Fieck, Your Cycle Advantage’s founder, to learn how you can start aligning your productivity to your cycle.
Renae shares valuable insight on how connecting to your hormonal cycles can revolutionize your work and self-care. From embracing your natural ebb and flow, you also can connect to your cycle for intentional choices resulting in balance and success.
The host of the Cycle Advantage podcast, Renae is a mom of 3 and occupational therapist. She helps women optimize their time and energy through unlocking the power of their cycles so that they can be thriving high achievers. Through her method, she helps women balance the demands of life, make a bigger impact, and get bigger results without adding more stress or needing more time. She can be found at renaefieck.com.
“I think that’s one of the powerful things about learning this rhythm that you have. Learning about the rhythm that you release the guilt of feeling like you have to be consistent every day or that you have to be performing a certain way, or why one week you felt on top of the world and like you were crushing it, and then another week you’re not.”
“People oftentimes set their workout plans and start a new routine and everything in one phase, and then two, three weeks later, they’re hitting snooze and not wanting to get up and go to the gym anymore. Our society is conditioned that it’s a habit thing and then it’s a consistency thing. And that you just have to push through and get the habit ingrained when in reality, it might just be your hormones.”
“We’ll start with your menstrual phase. It’s the very beginning of your phase. You think about it like your body’s losing a lot of blood, which when you lose blood, there’s a lot of iron in there. So your iron is depleted. Iron helps you feel more energized. So, overall, it tends to be a pretty low-energy type of phase of the month. Some people will say even your most intuitive time of the month. And so it’s a really great time for you to focus on creating that spaciousness to let go. I oftentimes recommend staying off social media. Allow yourself to just be in your space. Tap into that intuitive side of you.”
“Estrogen is like a feel-good hormone. It makes you feel great. It makes you feel ambitious, like you and me, like the ambitious type. We love that estrogen because it makes us feel like we’re tackling the to-do list. We’re crushing big things, we’re getting things off the plate. We get an idea, we’re taking action on it.”
“Then as that estrogen peaks, it’s right around the time of ovulation and ovulation, like biologically, we’re trying to make a baby, right? That’s the whole concept behind it. So your body is signaling to the world, make a baby with me. So you may be more magnetic, more radiant, more attractive. You’re trying to pull people to you.”
“When we look at the two, kind of like the whole month as a whole, this phase, which is your luteal phase and I call it the reflect phase, can reflect on things, that phase, and your menstrual recharge phase. Those two phases are kind of like the inner part of your month. They’re the times of your month for you to kind of come back to yourself and turn back inward. Whereas that Follicular and Ovulatory phases, which I call the accelerate and the connect phase, those two are very much about outward energy. So it’s like in the month, you have this outward energy and this inner energy, and that we need the balance of both. We need the balance of all four of those different phases. And that’s what makes us feel like we’re more productive.”
“What I’ve found is that a lot of women don’t even realize they’re not ovulating and that there are other hormonal pieces and things going on in the background.”
“There’s some element of that that when we look at the calendar and know like, okay, this is out of alignment, I’m going to have to push hard this day or this week, and it’s not in the right phase. So what am I doing outside of that to really make sure I’m honoring where my body’s at?“
NICOLE
Welcome to The School of Self-Worth, a podcast for ambitious women who know they are worthy of an astoundingly great life. Join us weekly as we get on the right side of your intuition, redefine success, and reclaim your self-worth. I’m your host, Nicole Tsong, an award-winning journalist who left it all behind to become a bestselling author of three books and work/life balance expert, helping ambitious women unlock their intuition and step into a life of fulfillment and radical joy. Every single week, I will bring you diverse and meaningful conversations with successful women from all walks of life who share insight about what it takes to be brave, joyful, and authentic every day. Every episode is thoughtfully designed to leave you feeling empowered with tangible tips and advice that will lead you to your next breakthrough.
Hello and welcome back to the School of Self-Worth. One of the things I have been learning more about and have been so fascinated by is how to adjust my work schedule to my menstrual cycle. So when I met Renae Fieck and learned that this is what she teaches, I knew I had to have her come onto the podcast and share more.
In this episode, you’ll learn about the ideal times to be in your creative flow and those quieter moments when it helps to dial it all back. Renae provides such great insight on how women can adjust the way they work to the natural cycle of their body and how to integrate it into your regular working day. If you are a high-achieving career woman who wants to uncover their number one blind spot preventing fast, intuitive decisions, I’ve got a 72-second assessment for you. DM me quiz @nicoletsong on Instagram. Okay, let’s get started on this insightful, fascinating conversation.
Hello, everybody. Welcome back. I am so excited to have Renee Fieck here with us today. Welcome, Renae.
RENAE FIECK
Thank you. I am so thrilled to be here. Thanks for having me.
NICOLE
So Renee and I met at an entrepreneur gathering this year, and we have a lot of crossover, and I really, really love what Renee teaches, and she works especially with women entrepreneurs on this topic. But I actually just knew that this topic would resonate so deeply with all of you around how to use your cycle to really start to time your life. And Renae, I would love to hear, before we get into that because that’s what I want to talk about, the meat of it. But I would love to hear first from you how you got into this place in your life where this is actually what you teach, and this is what you are passionate about sharing with people.
RENAE FIECK
Yeah. So roughly, like seven, eight years ago, my husband was diagnosed with a brain tumor. So he was playing basketball at work, and he fell and hit his head. He called me and he’s like, I don’t know what to do. My head still hurts. And I was like, just go to the ER. We had two young kids at the time, and I was like, I’ll keep the kids tonight. You just go to the hospital. Go get it checked out.
And they came back and said, well, he doesn’t have a bleed, but he does have a tumor. And so it sent us on this whole whirlwind of figuring out. I found out I was pregnant that month. I got my dream job at the hospital that I wanted, the children’s hospital. And then he found out he had a brain tumor, all in the same month. We had this very intense year, and out of that intensity really came the question of, is this really how I want to live my life? Is this really where we want to be? And I knew I wanted to be able to be with my kids and be present for them. I didn’t want to be stuck going to work every day. I didn’t want to be feeling like I was waiting for someday for life to get easier, or for someday when I had money or any of those types of things.
I wanted to be able to live life now and also know that I was never guaranteed tomorrow. That’s when I started out on my entrepreneur journey. My sister was in network marketing at the time, and so I started doing that and very quickly fell in love with actually helping people and working with people and building my own thing. I think I come from an entrepreneur family, so it was very much ingrained in my blood to create and do something. So I lived off that and thrived off of it, but I was not seeing the success that I really wanted. And so year two, maybe three, I was exhausted. I was trading all the things that I really wanted instead of being able to have more time with my kids, I was trading the time with my kids to be able to work on my business. I remember being in the hospital, and pumping milk for my baby, and eating and messaging, and trying to work at the same time. There was no free time, no gaps, no space, no nothing in my life in that season, and realized I was doing the very thing and sacrificing the very thing that I was desiring to create and want.
So I kind of segued out into my own coaching practice, but found that I was still taking those same habits, those same work styles, like the same thing of hustle and go after it. And if you want to achieve these big goals and dreams, you have to put the work in and you have to sacrifice and all those mantras, right? Like the dreams don’t work unless you do. And if you want to achieve your goals, you got to sacrifice the things no one else is willing to sacrifice. Like all of those things that we hear as motivation left me feeling very depleted. I realized at some point that it wasn’t going to be possible. I actually questioned whether or not doing it and building my dream and my business, was actually even going to work.
Then somebody told me about cycle syncing with your period, and I was like, I wonder if that’ll work. And what? I’m not sure, but I was postpartum at the time, and so I didn’t even have a period, and just started to kind of notice that I did have these cycles and I did have these rhythms and that there were times when I felt so moody and so irritable, I would yell at my husband and throw things at him, and get so full up. Then other times when I felt like I was on top of the world, and I was doing great, and I was crushing it as a mom and a wife and all these things, and I started to notice the trends. I started kind of integrating that into my business and then started sharing it with my clients. That’s when my clients were like, “Oh my gosh, Renae, more people need to know about this. This is what you need to really be doing.” That’s when I kind of started transitioning and really helping women do that and understanding their bodies, learning to accept their bodies, learning to work in a different way and be okay with that, be okay with doing it a different way.
NICOLE
Thank you for sharing that. I loved what you shared about how when you transition from all these different kinds of work and jobs and then noticing you still had those same habits because I think that is just true of everyone. We get into different ways. You’re like, “Oh if I only had this kind of life or this kind of job, all of a sudden that would solve all my problems.” But that doesn’t solve any problems because you’re the person who’s still doing all of those things.
RENAE FIECK
Yes, and I think environment definitely makes a difference, right? Like, if you’re working in a job in a culture or somewhere that thrives on a certain type of energy or culture, that’s going to be different if you go somewhere else. But generally, you are the same person, and how you show up and what you think is important, even just the way you describe productivity, like what you think is productive. And for me, I am a recovering achiever. I like to do big things. I like to go after big things, like in college. You’re in Seattle, right?
NICOLE
Yes.
RENAE FIECK
Okay, so I went to Seattle Pacific University. I remember I took a full caseload, working an on-campus job as part of one of their things, and I was working at Red Robin. So between all of the things I was doing in college, I’m like, “Oh my gosh, what was I doing?” But now I look at my life over time and realize I’ve always been that way. I’m always the person that took on everything.
So to rest, to stop, to not do anything, to meditate, to do all these other things that people say are good, is almost like the antithesis to what feels like me. But it’s something I’ve learned that I need. I need that spaciousness. I need that slowing down. I need that recharge in order to be able to perform my best and to do my best. And we can have both. We can have the crush everything and do everything, and then also have the rest. And there’s no guilt attached to either one.
NICOLE
Well, what I’ve learned also over time is that the more I actually allow myself space and rest, the more, “productive I am”. I am more creative; I have more energy. I am able to actually do all the things as a recovering achiever over here as well. I love hitting a big goal, but I can’t do it if I’m exhausted and burned out. I’ve had to learn that. This is why I’m so interested in the conversation because I’ve had to learn that in general, when I take weekends off, I really don’t check my work email. I don’t engage with anything related to that. The evenings are mine, with me and my husband.
I just really try to have solid containers where I rest, I recharge. But what you’re talking about when we’re looking at the cycle, is an even bigger picture. It’s not just like your day-to-day, because a lot of people come to me, and we work on their daily schedule. Like, how can you actually sync up your schedule to feel like, oh, I can work during these stretches. I need breaks during this stretch. How do I create a better way of working and balanced way of working? But I’m really curious if you could start to give for us a generalized view of when you’re a woman and you have this physical change happening every month, how can we start to frame that up and look at it for ourselves?
RENAE FIECK
In general, most of us have been taught to see our calendar as just an open blank slate, right? Monday, Friday 08:00 a.m., 05:00 a.m. or p.m., January, February,…. it’s all the same. It’s just like if you get a Google Calendar or a fresh new calendar at the beginning of the year, it’s like it’s wide open, it’s blank. We kind of come into it, I think, with this assumption that all time is kind of equal. And you probably know already that Monday does not feel the same as Friday. 08:00 a.m. does not feel the same as 05:00 p.m. Right? They feel different. Those, I think, are a little bit more obvious for people.
What’s not obvious is that probably as soon as we start talking about it, you’re going to be like, “Ah, yes.” That’s how I’ve noticed it, but I didn’t really notice it. I didn’t put it all together that you have times of the month when you feel sharp, you feel on it, you feel productive, you feel like, “I can do all of these things, and it’s all going really well. I feel like I’m a great person.” I remember talking about I feel like I can show up as a great spouse, business owner, parent, all these things. I can do all my different roles and feel like I’m doing okay with them. And then there are those other weeks where you’re like, “Why do I want to burn my business down? Why do I feel like I’m such a horrible mom? Why do I feel like I’m doing such a horrible job? I’m not taking care of anybody. I’m not doing anything. This sucks.” And sometimes I’m like, I should just burn my business down and go back to work. All these things, right? You start to notice there’s a pattern to this. This isn’t just random. They actually become very predictable. I think that’s when it really started to shift for me, and when I started to be able to help other women, is when I realized those patterns are predictable and they’re normal.
Just this week, I was talking with a girlfriend. The kids were doing a playdate at the park, and we were just chitchatting. She was like, “So tell me what it is you do. Tell me a little bit about it.” So I was sharing a little bit, and she said, “Man, that’s how I’m feeling right now. I just feel like I can’t do all of this. I feel like I took on so many different things right now, and right now I feel like something’s got to give. I can’t keep up with this.” I asked her, “Where are you in your cycle?” And she replied her period was probably going to start in about three days. I was like, “That’s why that phase of your month is so full of doubt and fear and limiting beliefs, and ‘I’m not good enough’ sort of stuff, and that’s just part of the process and part of where you’re at.” By the time we were done with the conversation, she’s like, “I just feel so much different about my life right now. I feel like it’s okay. I have this permission, and there’s no guilt as part of it.” And I think that’s one of the powerful things about learning this rhythm that you have.
We’ll get totally into it, but learning about the rhythm releases the guilt of feeling like you have to be consistent every day, or that you have to be performing a certain way, or why one week you felt on top of the world and like you were crushing it, and then in another week, you’re not. Whether it’s getting up and doing your workouts – people oftentimes set their workout plans and start a new routine and everything in one phase; then two, three weeks later, they’re hitting snooze and not wanting to get up and go to the gym anymore, and our society is conditioned that it’s a habit thing, and then it’s a consistency thing, and that you just have to push through and get the habit ingrained; when in reality, it might just be your hormones, and you don’t necessarily have to get up and go to the gym every single day in the morning right before work. Right? That there are other ways to do it that actually make it feel more balanced.
NICOLE
Well, what you’re describing, that push through too, for me, feels very masculine.
RENAE FIECK
Right.
NICOLE
That energy is like a harder energy. We are all trained into that because that’s sort of the dominant of our society, is to be productive, to do things a certain way. What you’re talking about is tapping more into that feminine side, which I love, and I think, for all women, we struggle with it because so much of what we’re taught is to be leaders, and is still modeled after that masculine version, versus the feminine version of leadership. I’m excited then, could you give us the general framework of energy related to parts of our cycle?
RENAE FIECK
So there are four distinct kinds of phases throughout your month. So we’ll start with your menstrual phase. It’s the very beginning of your phase. You think about it like your body’s losing a lot of blood, which when you lose blood, there’s a lot of iron in there. So your iron is depleted. Iron helps you feel more energized, so overall, it tends to be a pretty low energy-type of phase of the month.
Some people will say even your most intuitive time of the month, so it’s a really great time for you to focus on creating that spaciousness to let go. I oftentimes recommend staying off social media. Allow yourself to just be in your space. Tap into that intuitive side of you. Plan out your month, and get organized. What are your goals? What are your intentions? What do you want coming this month? What is this month going to be about? And really allowing yourself to tap into that. Get outside in nature, go for a walk, and just create this stillness and spaciousness in your life, which we don’t get often, right? When we can really cultivate that, even if it’s just one week of the month, you’re going to start to notice a difference.
So that is really what I call it, ‘the recharge phase’. Think about that. What are you doing in that phase to help recharge so that you have the capacity and have the energy through the rest of the month? Then as you come out of that phase, your estrogen starts to climb. Estrogen is a feel-good hormone. It makes you feel great. It makes you feel ambitious, like you and me, like the ambitious type. We love that estrogen because it makes us feel like we’re tackling the ‘To do’ list. We’re crushing big things, we’re getting things off the plate. We get an idea; we’re taking action on it. It’s like moving, things are moving. Everything feels really great. You feel like, “Yes, I’ve got this. Yeah, I can be this million-dollar business owner, or I can crush this role, I can totally do this.” It feels really good. So as you’re in that phase, doing all that stuff, crushing those to-do lists, getting things done, the whole mentality of eat your frog, getting those big things, hard things, challenging things, out of the way, this is the best time to do that. Because you’re going to have that type of energy, it might suck, you might not love it, but let’s just get it done. Let’s do it. Then, as that estrogen peaks, it’s right around the time of ovulation, biologically, we’re trying to make a baby, right? That’s the whole concept behind it. So your body is signaling to the world, “Make a baby with me.” So you may be more magnetic, more radiant, more attractive. You’re trying to pull people to you. So it’s a really great time for communication, presentations, conversations, networking, happy hours, date nights, like all of those types of things that require you to be in the space of communication with other people.
As that estrogen dips off, the progesterone kicks up. As progesterone kicks up, it definitely has a little bit more mood and has a little bit more emotion to it and can feel a little bit heavier. That’s when those limiting beliefs, fears, doubts, and those things come in and make us kind of question everything. But there’s a really great asset to that, right? If you are in business, it allows you to be able to write and be able to resonate and empathize with where your audience and your clients are at far better than any other time of the month. It also allows you to tap into what’s actually happening for you, and what is going on for you. That oftentimes we don’t always pay attention to, right? We just kind of keep going in the hustle and the bustle of every day, and eventually, we get down the road and we’re totally burnt out. Like if I had stopped five months ago, and actually paid attention to what was happening in my body, I would have realized I was needing to make some shifts, I was needing to let go of some things, or make some pivots. But it’s also a really great time for you to dot your I’s and cross your T’s – very organizational, very admin-related.
So it’s a lot of back-end type of stuff. When we look at the two, like the whole month as a whole, this phase, which is your luteal phase and I call it the reflect phase, you can reflect on things, that phase, and your menstrual recharge phase. Those two phases are kind of like the inner part of your month. They’re the times of your month for you to kind of come back to yourself and turn back inward. Whereas the Follicular and Ovulatory phases, which I call the accelerate and the connect phase, those two are very much about outward energy. So it’s like in the month, you have this outward energy and this inner energy, and we need the balance of both. We actually need the balance of all four of those different phases. That’s what makes us feel like we’re more productive. It makes us feel like we’re more balanced. It feels like we’re whole. We feel like we’re showing up for our family and also having time and space for ourselves, and a little bit of all of those pieces rolled up into one.
NICOLE
Amazing, Renae, thank you for sharing that. That’s so helpful to actually think of it that way, the energy piece, in particular, is probably what most of us know, that moody energy piece, like you’re saying in the luteal phase. Also when you have your period and you’re kind of like, I really just want to shut myself off from the world and do nothing. So how do you start to look at your calendar then? Do you literally say this is my period, and now I’m going to look at the calendar, and then I figure out how to schedule things? Because a lot of the women listening, they’re not entrepreneurs, so they may not have as much freedom in terms of how their schedule looks. But how do you think of it then for just an ordinary day, like what phase I’m in? How do I start to really address what’s happening in my life? Do you just try to not schedule crazy things during your period, or what is the best way to start to approach it?
RENAE FIECK
Well, number one, I would say tracking your period, because I’m surprised at how many women are not even doing that. So tracking and knowing when your period is coming, but also tracking ovulation. Ovulation usually happens about midway through that month, and when ovulation happens, it gives you a good signal of what’s actually happening through the whole rest of the month. There are all kinds of things that are considered normal, and there are things considered abnormal. But what I’ve found is that a lot of women don’t even realize they’re not ovulating and that there are other hormonal pieces and things going on in the background. So whether or not you’re using this just straight for productivity purposes or allowing yourself to be a really better advocate for your health, and understanding what’s going on inside your body, and what’s happening as a woman. Every time we go to the doctor, they always ask when our last menstrual period was. For a lot of women, they may not even really realize. It’s like a vague recollection of like, “Oh, it was a while ago, I don’t know, three weeks ago maybe.” But how much different would it be if you went to the doctor and you’re like, this is my period. This is when I ovulated. This is how normal it is. This is how regular it is. This is what’s happening. This is the symptom I notice, like getting massive mood swings or I’m not ovulating, all of those types of things. So I would highly recommend that, one for productivity, but two, just for health.
So tracking your period and your ovulation. For me, I have gotten to the place where I will track those two things in a separate app, just so that I have it. This is where all of that data is at, then in terms of actually using it, it has its own Google Calendar. If you go into my Google, there’s one that says cycles and phases, and it has all of them in there. So when I am even looking at my phone and I’m scheduling an event and somebody’s like, “Hey, you want to go out for happy hour on this day?” And I look and see if it’s in my reflect phase, in that luteal phase when I know I’m going to be super moody and irritable, and I’m an introvert. As an introvert, I need that phase if I’m having to push myself out and do things with outward energy, in that luteal phase, it’s a lot of work for me. So if I’m sitting there as an introvert, seeing somebody ask me about doing something in a happy hour in that luteal phase, I’m like, “Can we reschedule that? Can we do it like a week later?” Versus trying to really force myself to do it. So it’s on my calendar all of the time.
I know that if I have flexibility in my schedule, I can adjust and accommodate to that. But there’s going to be times I can’t, right? Even as an entrepreneur, there are times when I’m going to have to show up. Like right now I’m not in my prime time to be recording a podcast, but it was the way the cycle went. And I’ve been coming off of summer, and had so much time off during summer, that I’m pushing harder this month regardless of where I’m at in my phase, right? So there’s some element of that when we look at the calendar and know this is out of alignment, I’m going to have to push hard this day or this week, and it’s not in the right phase. So what am I doing outside of that to really make sure I’m honoring where my body’s at? Last night I took a bubble bath. If you were following me on social media and saw that yesterday morning, I got up and I did a breathwork session. I wasn’t feeling super great, so I spent some time in the hot tub and then went for a bicycle ride.
I literally stocked myself up yesterday, knowing that today I was going to have to push hard. It’s kind of looking at where in our life can we allow for that? Can we maybe order pickup and not make food in certain phases of the month? Or maybe we schedule around, for example, we’re not doing the laundry or we’re scheduling somebody to come to help clean the house, certain phases or things of that nature to really just lighten our load when we need it. And it may not necessarily be straight-up work, right? Some of it we may be able to switch. Like even in corporate, there are things we can switch. I still work two days in the week in the hospital, so I’ll go in and I know that I work better in the morning than I do in the afternoon. It’s part of my circadian rhythm and just like how I function. So I will push hard and see as many patients as I can in the morning and then allow myself for more charting and catch-up, like paperwork time in the afternoon.
That is part of how I’ve been able to structure, even in my more nine-to-five job setting, to allow for where my peak zones are at. So even in a corporate setting, you may not be able to change everything you do around your cycle. I mean, none of us really can like anywhere. That would be really hard if you really think about it because you and I are going to be on different cycles. Maybe my assistant’s on a different cycle, my family, everybody’s going to be so different. There’s no world where it’s going to all sync up exactly the perfect way, we’re going to be out of alignment at times. It’s a matter of how do we support ourselves when we are out of alignment. That makes the biggest difference. And then looking at what can I change? What can I shift, can I shift how much I let myself sleep in? Can I shift my exercise, can I shift whether or not I order takeout? All of those types of things can make such a huge difference.
NICOLE
Well, I could see as you were talking about how, for example, I think that if you’re on your period and you’re needing more rest and you’re just in that more internal creative space, that your off hours would look really different. You might not go to the really hardcore workouts. You might be doing more of, like a restorative yoga practice during that time and just allowing your body to reset. Then once you’re out of that phase, you’re like, okay, now is the time I can do the really high energy, more powerful kind of workouts. That would just be one example.
RENAE FIECK
Exactly right.
NICOLE
Then you can try to take it down a little bit, like, “Oh, can I give myself a little bit more space in my meetings during the day when I’m in that phase? Or just be aware of it so that I’m not pushing so hard when I’m feeling really in that inward place?”
RENAE FIECK
Yeah, for sure. Exercise for me, is one of the biggest things where I can notice the shifts throughout the month when I change my exercise routine. So in those phases when I’m in that, “Crush it. Let’s get that hit workout in heavy weightlifting. Let’s go hard.” Then the other half, what I’ve been doing most recently, is going for a walk late at night. My poor friends that have me on Voxer, (because I’ll walk around the neighborhood like 9, 10 o’clock at night), and Vox message my friends in business, kind of just like riffing ideas, riffing where I’m at, my struggles. It allows me to process a lot of stuff.
It’s like the combination of being able to walk instead of doing a heavy workout, still moving my body, and I still think that that’s vital throughout the entire month. But it’s a different way, and it’s outside. It’s me walking around the neighborhood. I’m not listening to anything. I’ve tried not to listen to a podcast, but I’ve told one of my friends I think I need to have a Voxer way that I can just talk to myself, because I’m such a verbal processor. Processing it out loud and talking about it oftentimes helps me get clarity on my next steps, or where I want to go. So unfortunately, my friends, on the other hand, get to listen to my 15. I’ll be like, “Oops, I just maxed out Voxer. Sorry. Because it maxes out at 15 minutes. Like, I just left you a 15-minute Voxer, and I’m going to start over. Here I go.” It’s like a 30-minute Box message, but just as I walk around the neighborhood and allow myself to process and think and get outside. Even for me, that shift of when I go from working a heavy hardcore workout to ending my day with this nighttime walk to allow myself to process shifts my energy throughout the week.
NICOLE
I’m curious, do you find when you teach this to women that it gives them some kind of permission or freedom, really, around how to start to schedule their energy? What’s the impact that you see for clients and for women?
RENAE FIECK
Yes, 100%. That is the number one thing that women always tell me, is, I just feel like I gave so much permission to do it the way that I’ve been feeling, but I just didn’t know that this was the way I was feeling it, that it was because of my hormones or because of how I am. I thought there was something wrong with me. And I think that that feeling of there’s something wrong with you because you can’t stay consistent every month or every week, or that you feel like you have these moments where you feel on top of it and then you don’t. There’s this element, like you said, that masculine sort of energy feel that makes us feel like there’s something wrong with us because we don’t function like that. And so when we shift into this place of not something wrong with you, it’s just that this is the way you are. And then it becomes, how can I use this as an asset? How can I use this as a superpower rather than I’m doing something wrong? I think that that is the biggest game changer for most women, is when they start to notice it’s not that this is a weakness, which I think I do hear that at times, some women will say, okay, this is great, and wonderful. It sounds really great, but it sounds like you’re wanting me to make a concession. Especially in corporate America. My family has businesses that work with lots of employees, and the amount of concessions that people ask for from employers about different things, it’s getting exhausting for employers. It’s hard when this person has anxiety and can’t work these certain jobs. Even a friend of mine recently, she got a job at Costco, and she’s like bruised up and down her arms from moving the boxes at Costco. Her employer was like, “I don’t think this is going to work out if you can’t do the job that I’ve hired you for.” I think we’re in this really wrestle spot of modifying and making concessions for employees, and at the same time, these are the jobs that need to get done.
Rather than going to your boss or your employer and saying, “I don’t work really well these times of the month,” and asking for them to let you have this concession of taking time off. If we flip that and help them see how you can really be an asset and what these strengths are at different times of the month, I think, can make a huge difference. When we’re interacting and talk with our employers about this, I think it’s a whole different shift and it’s a whole different dynamic. I think as women that are kind of owning this and taking this on, it is something we want to tread lightly and carefully on in the workplace because I really think it can be a strong asset. But it really is dependent on how we broach it and how we talk about it, and how we bring it to the workplace, and start to show it as an asset and as a tool, not necessarily something to be seen as a weakness and need to make concessions for. But more like how can I lean into my assets so that I perform better for you? But that’s a whole other conversation.
NICOLE
I mean, this is a whole other conversation. And I could see in the workplace what you could do is for yourself. When you’re looking at your schedule and you’re trying to figure out the times, like the time you have your period, or it’s like more of an inward phase, you’re not going to schedule that many happy hours and social time with people, because then you can just take care of yourself. You know you’re going to need longer to recover during that period. And then when you’re busy and put a bunch of things on the calendar, or if there’s an exception, you just schedule some down periods for yourself. Because I think in general, I’m with you. I always want women to be like, “How can I empower myself to feel like that? I can know what’s happening energetically, and I know how to serve my family and my business and whatever else I’m doing in my time, and that I get the say and the choice in that. But then when I have a lot of energy, I can’t put a lot of stuff out there and go for it?”
RENAE FIECK
Yeah, 100%. I think that what you talked about, even if you can’t change anything at work, I’m sure there are little bits that you might be able to change, even if you don’t think so right off the gate. If you start asking yourself, what could I change? There probably are some things. But even if you aren’t able to change everything, even if you just looked at that outside of workspace, what are you doing outside of work to really support what phase you’re in, and how you’re showing up so that you perform better at work? I think even just that will help boost your productivity and efficiency, and optimize how you perform. Because you’re making sure that outside of work, you’re taking care of where you are in your phases. Absolutely.
NICOLE
Awesome. And how would you suggest women start to track their period? I know there are so many different ways, but do you do temperature? Do you do it with the strips?
RENAE FIECK
There are so many different ways, and I am all about efficiency and what makes it easiest. So when I was trying to get pregnant, I did do basal body temperature with a thermometer every night. Now we have tools and things that will do that for you. The new Apple Eight watch will actually track your temperature for you if you wear it at night. So that is a great way. If you already have the Apple Eight watch, that allows you to do other things. I’m sure the newest one is also probably the same, but doing it so that it’s automatic.
Every so often my watch will, or example, indicate it looks like I ovulated three days ago, which is just great, right? You don’t have to even think about it the same. There’s the aura ring. The aura ring will track your basal body temperature and stuff like that for you. There are others. Like the femme drop. There are so many things that will track your basal body temperature, which is such a great indicator to what’s actually happening inside your body. If there’s one of the signs or symptoms, it would probably be the number one that I would track, just because it oftentimes is very clear, “Hey, I’ve ovulated, and this is what’s happening.” Based on where the hormones are at, there’s tons of other things, like, you talked about the strips, that can get expensive. So if you’re trying to get pregnant, you may be using the strips, but on a normal basis, you probably don’t want to use them.
There are other signs that your body has. We have so many. One is the cervical mucus changes. If you start paying attention, you might notice that your libido might even change. I can usually tell when I’m ovulating, even just based on that, and your saliva actually changes. So if you have this little microscope, you can spit on it, and it’ll show you whether you’re fertile or not fertile. They’re a little harder to track what else is happening, but it’ll kind of give you that your cervix changes, your cervix changes height. So much changes in your body. So if you are really wanting to track really diligently, you could go all out, or you could just start to notice a little bit.
I highly recommend in terms of productivity, that you start tracking those things too. You can track your body-based things, but also track, “How am I feeling today? Do I feel really focused? Do I feel really moody? Am I feeling like my brain is scattered and all over the place, and I cannot sit and focus and start tracking those things too?” Because those are directly impacted by your hormones. Then you put the two and two together and you’re like, “Oh, this makes sense. This is why I get like this on the 7th day of every month. It makes sense. Now I know I can predict that going forward.”
NICOLE
This kind of information, to me, it’s so good and so relevant around women just also tuning in more to what’s actually happening physically in your body, because that’s something I always want women to do anyway. What’s actually going on? And we don’t learn that, like in health class, they didn’t tell you your energy shifts when you get the ovulation and then you go into the progesterone. You have no idea. I think for so many women, too, unless you’ve been actively trying to get pregnant or really focusing on that, and I’ve talked about that with our fertility people on the podcast before, but if you’re not doing that, your period is still affecting you constantly. If you’re identifying as a woman and really have all that happening, and I think it’s awesome just as a way to say, “Wow, I can really just claim ownership over this thing my body is doing constantly, and actually leverage it in a way that works a little better in my life.”
RENAE FIECK
Yeah, I mean, it’s kind of like your computer, right? Before we got on this podcast, you’re like, I’m closing out all of these tabs to make sure that my computer is running at the optimum. Because even if you and I are right here recording this podcast, if your computer is doing other things in the background without you even knowing it, it’s impacting the way you and I show up and record right now. So if we think about it like our body, there are things happening in the background all of the time that are impacting the way you show up. And so if you’re not paying attention to what those things are, and making sure you’re either closing the tabs or being aware of what’s happening, then they are impacting you regardless of whether you’re paying attention to them or not. It’s just a matter of if you start paying attention to them, then you can lean into them and actually leverage and use them versus feeling like they’re just operating like the virus. Like the other day, I told my husband my computer is going so slow. It is going so slow, and it keeps restarting and it keeps doing all these strange things. He went through it and said there’s a weird processor or something or other. So I restarted that and calibrated it, now it’s running fine, right? But it’s not until something goes haywire that we sit there and take the time to really look at it. So tune into your body and pay attention, so that we don’t have to reach that place of burnout or things going really haywire, before we start paying attention and take notice.
NICOLE
So helpful. I love it. Well, everything about this has been so awesome. I forgot to share with you, but we do rapid-fire questions at the end. Are you up for doing some rapid-fire?
RENAE FIECK
Of course, I’ll do it.
NICOLE
All right, first, what is on your nightstand?
RENAE FIECK
My nightstand? Oh, my gosh. My nightstand is covered right now, so I have a book. I think it’s The Happiness Project, which I have not started reading. I also have another book that my daughter, who is so sweet, found, I think, at Barnes and Noble’s little book things. It’s like a Mom and Me book. And so one page is her, and then the next page is me, and it’ll ask random questions like sushi or ice cream, pink or purple, or just have random things. Or it’s like, if our family was on a road trip, what roles would we have? So it’s just interactive, and occasionally I’ll write in it, and then I’ll leave it on her nightstand, and then she’ll write in it and give it back to me. So that is there. And then lately, I’ve been really trying to learn and listen into some cardiac stuff that’s been going on in my body, so I’ve been taking my blood pressure every day. So that is on my nightstand.
NICOLE
Cool. Thank you so much. And then what is the last thing you watched on TV?
RENAE FIECK
Queen Charlotte.
NICOLE
I haven’t watched it. Is it good?
RENAE FIECK
Oh, I really like it. Yeah, it’s one of the spinoffs which I was talking to a friend about the other day, and I was like, the Bridgerton ones are very sensual, and the whole thing around their attraction is built on this sensual attraction, but Queen Charlotte is not. Queen Charlotte’s is like an arranged marriage and then watching their love grow despite challenges. Anyway, I’m not all the way through it, but I’ve actually really enjoyed it.
NICOLE
That’s good to hear. I had a lot of fun with Bridgerton, so I was like, I’ll put Queen Charlotte on the list. And then when was the last time you tried something new and what was it?
RENAE FIECK
Tried something new? Well, I’m in the process of becoming a breathwork facilitator, so that has been something really new for me. I actually had a very traumatic experience with breath work a few years ago and pushed it off and have not wanted to do it since. And then in the last year, I was a part of a program that involved a lot of breath work, and I was like, I don’t know. I don’t know if I can do this. Then leaned into it and the more I lean into it, the more I realize how much it is a part of me helping my clients really come back to their bodies and learn to love and accept their bodies. So it’s going to become a pivotal part of my programs going forward. But that whole experience of learning that tapping into it, and just going so much deeper into the breath, and the feminine and the emotion and the feeling. It’s been so awesome.
NICOLE
That’s awesome. Okay, last one. What are the top three emojis you use the most?
RENAE FIECK
Top three emojis? Probably a thumbs up. I don’t know. Honestly, I feel like I’ve gotten a little out of emoji land lately, but I give a thumbs up a lot. It’s like my lazy way of, I see you, I heard you in the response, and I give you a thumbs up right back. That’s really the one that I think I use now. Feel kind of boring.
NICOLE
It’s all good. You don’t have to use lots of emojis. I like emojis. I’m always like hearts here.
RENAE FIECK
That is something I sometimes do, but it depends on the platform, right? Like in my emails or my social media, unless I’m doing it on my phone if it’s not easy for me just to pop the little button and put the emoji in, then I have to go find the emoji and pull it in. It’s like too much work. Then I’m all about efficiency, right? So I tend to skip the emoji.
NICOLE
I love it. You’re a woman after my own heart. I’m also known as very efficient, and I like to be very efficient and perfect. Done better. Better than perfect.
Well, Renae, you have given us so many gems, for women in particular who identify as women, around how to work with the cycles of their body. So, so powerful. And what’s the best way for people to reach you?
RENAE FIECK
I would say the podcast, the Cycle Advantage podcast is a great place to start, and then my favorite place to hang out is on Instagram, so I think I’m on almost all the platforms, but you probably won’t see me hanging out there as often. But Instagram, I will be there. So if you want to come and chat with me over there, send me a DM. That’s probably the best place. And over there, it’s just my first and last name. Renae Fieck.
NICOLE
Awesome. And we’ll have all of this in the show notes as well. Well, Renae, what a joy to have you on here. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge. I’ve always been so curious about working with your cycle, so thank you for the learning and the education you’ve shared with us today. So, so great.
RENAE FIECK
Thanks so much for having me. It was awesome.
NICOLE
Thank you so much for tuning into today’s episode. Before you go, don’t forget if you are a high-achieving woman who wants to uncover your biggest blind spots, preventing fast, intuitive decisions, I’ve got a 72-second assessment for you. So make sure to DM me a quiz on @nicoletsong on Instagram. Thank you for being here and for listening. We read every note that we get from you about how the podcast is making a difference in your life. Please know how much we appreciate each and every one of you. Until next time, I’m Nicole Tsong and this is the School of Self-Worth.
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