For a very long time, I was trapped in the hustle culture. Thinking that I always had to be doing and to be on. But the only thing that lead me to, was burn out. On the journey of healing my feminine, I learned how to work with my energy and realized how life has seasons. Here’s how you can work with yours.
I feel like the world we live in is very masculine. It’s always pushing us to be going, to be on, to be doing things, to be pushing. But when you really look at human beings and when you really look at the world, we have cycles, right?
- Trees: Come fall, the leaves are change color. Pretty soon they’re all going to fall off, and there won’t be any leaves until spring comes back around.
- Animals and insects: They gather their food so that in the wintertime they can go into hibernation, then come back around in the springtime when it gets warmer.
- The moon: It has cycles and phases.
- Our bodies: Especially for women, we have natural cycles that happen within us every single month.
As I’ve been working on healing my feminine energy, I came to the realization that we’re not meant to always be on.
This was a big realization for me because for a very long time, I fell into the hussle culture trap. That if you want something, you have to show up everyday, in the same way, no matter what. But this was the very thing that was consistently leading me to burn out.
I Started Tracking my Cycles
It wasn’t until I started tracking my own cycle, that I came to this realization. I learned what time of the month I was feeling more energetic and what time I was feeling more recluse. When I was feeling more tired, lethargic, or more extroverted and vibrant. I started working with those patterns. I used my cycle to help me decide everything in my life, well when it was possible. Like my exercise routine: when I’d be doing a little more strength training, versus more body weight, versus just walking. When I would make plans with my friends. When I would film more content. Basically everything I can plan around my cycle, I do.
Then it slowly progressed into realizing that my life has seasons too.
- Spring and fall: This is where I naturally come back to life. I don’t know what it is about the energy, but I naturally start to get motivation and inspiration and that ready to go kind of energy.
- Summer: I’m just trying to enjoy life. I’m not trying to accomplish any goals. I just want to be out in the sun and soak it up.
- Winter: It’s cold, I want to be at home, I want to stay in. I want to hibernate like the animals.
So when it comes to my business, I’ve been learning to adjust what I’m doing based on the season I’m in and to work with my natural ebbs and flows rather than constantly pushing and going.
The Hustle Culture Trap
We’re always expected to be producing and making, always going, like, screw your feelings, screw everything. If you have dreams, you just have to go all the time, no matter what. Although action is required to make things happen, it doesn’t have to be so forceful.
For a really long time, I fell into this hustle mentality. I got inspired by people talking about team no sleep. The people with the busy calendar and the busy day, like, I’m just so busy. That was me. I liked to feel busy. If I wasn’t busy, then I wasn’t being productive. Once I started healing my feminine energy, I realized how conditioned I was into thinking this way.
I burnt myself out so many times that I would fall off my goals completely. I’d be like, I’m done with this, I just want to be a freaking potato. I pushed myself to the limit so much that all I wanted to do was to do nothing. And that burnout feeling would extend for long, long, long periods of time.
During that time I wasn’t being intentional with my time, and I wasn’t doing anything for my self care. My mind was not resting. It was telling me how I’m lazy was. That I was never going to amount to anything. It would ask, when am I just going to get past how I’m feeling and go. All of those mean, negative thoughts were circulating in my head. And I always just felt like I was behind in life.
The Rat Race Inside My Head
When I was constantly going, a lot of procrastination actually happened. I would make these huge lists of things I wanted to get done during the day and I wouldn’t be able to accomplish them because it was just so much. At the end of the day, I wouldn’t feel satisfied because I couldn’t check off everything.
So it was this constant rat race within myself, always going, then procrastinating, then not feeling content. I wasn’t getting any gratification from it, so I would just burn out. If something doesn’t feel good, your brain is like, well, this isn’t fun. But all of those subconscious thoughts are still circulating in your head.
There was no peace within me. None. I was always in my head, always thinking about what the next thing was, and when I wasn’t doing something, I was beating myself up for being ‘lazy’.
Choosing a Life With Ease
When I really started to heal my feminine side and looked at what I wanted my life to be like, I realized I don’t want to always be going. I want a life full of ease and rest and actually having intentional rest.
I’m still on this journey. I lived many years of my life a certain way. So there’s a whole lot of patterns, habits and conditioning I have to unravel. But as I step more into my authenticity, and look at what Mayra needs, I’ve been able to create a system that works with my energy and my phases.
It’s the most empowering thing when you decide, ‘I don’t have to live my life like everybody else’. If that works for you and you like it, that’s fine, you can keep it. It wasn’t working for me. So I stepped into my authenticity and said I want a life with ease, with things coming easily to me. I don’t have to push so hard. I can attract things into my life, I can honor how I’m feeling, and still have success.
That’s one of the biggest lessons I’ve come to and I just feel so much calmer and at peace within myself. I have to remind myself that there’s always going to be work to do. It’s never going to end. I don’t have to do it all right now, and that’s okay. That is so freeing to me.
I find this theme a lot in my clients as well. We’re living in this masculine world and trying to put on a shoe that doesn’t fit. It’s like Cinderella and the stepsisters, trying to squeeze into a shoe that just doesn’t fit. And that’s okay, because we can try on another shoe and keep trying on different shoes until we find the right one.
Seasons Within Seasons: Ride the Wave
Even within your own season, there are still seasons within that season. Honoring that and listening to yourself will help you a lot more than resisting. Just because you’re in your ON season, where you’re supposed to be doing things, doesn’t mean you always have to be.
Especially if you’re on a healing journey. There are days where you wake up feeling amazing, so energized, and the next day you wake up really sad. There’s no reason for it. You’re grateful for everything in your life, and yesterday was good. Why am I feeling this way? It’s just about learning how to honor and ride the wave. That’s what working in seasons is all about. Even if it’s ON season, we can still take breaks.
When I’m in my ON phase and I have a day where I’m not feeling my best and I keep pushing, it only makes things harder. If I’m trying to live a life with ease, I really have to honor what I’m feeling, even if I don’t understand it. I used to always try to understand why I was feeling a certain way. That’s helpful, but it doesn’t take the feeling away. The only way to get rid of a feeling is to feel it, allow it, let it flow, give yourself that rest day, and then move on the next day.
Pushing is like going upstream and fighting against the current. It’s really hard. When you go with the current, it sounds like this: okay, I’m feeling a little sad today, let me slow down a bit. What do I need right now? What do I want to give myself to help me move past this block? Then you do that and keep going, and it’s smooth sailing until another thing comes up, which it will, because we’re human and we feel things. Even if we can’t make sense of it, when you allow things to pass through their cycles, life gets so much easier.
How to Start Working with Your Seasons
1. Working with your cycle
Look at when you have the most energy and when you don’t, then plan your life around that. For most women, not all, we feel more energy during our ovulatory phase. In our luteal phase, we don’t really want to do as much. If you have social gatherings, see if you can plan them around that time. If you’re in your luteal phase and feeling a little more tired, ask yourself what you can do that won’t require so much energy. During the menstrual part of your cycle, you really don’t have to be doing anything. For me, I’m not doing a thing. Don’t even ask me to lift a finger, because I’m just going to be laying there chilling, allowing my body to do what it needs to do.
2. Working with your seasons
Like I said, for me, spring and fall are when I’m feeling alive. In winter and summer, I’m just living my life, doing what I need to do, and riding the wave. What parts of the year do you feel ready to tackle your goals and which parts of the year do you feel like you just want to live life?
3. Working with your weekly cycles
What days are you going to be resting? Put those in your calendar first. On a weekly cycle, Mondays and Wednesdays are harder for me to get things done.
- Mondays: It’s the start of a new week, and I just went from relaxation to all of a sudden doing. That takes energy, because I went from a place of flow to going to work.
- Wednesdays: For some reason, I just don’t have any motivation. I want to chill.
- My chill days: On Mondays and Wednesdays, I don’t force myself to do anything.
- Sundays: My reset day. I clean up, do laundry, wash my hair, meal prep, and then rest the rest of the day.
- My on days: Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Even then, I plan rest for me, because I deserve to rest every single day. It’s not something I need to earn. I can rest just because I want to rest.
That’s what really helps prevent burnout: planning these things out and being a little more intentional with my rest time.
4. Look at your daily energy cycles
Going even smaller, look at your day. What times of day do you have more energy? What times do you have more creativity? When do you feel alert and awake? When do you need to slow down? When can you pick back up? And when do you want to end your day?
For me, I’m more of a morning person. I have most of my energy when I wake up, and the sun really gives me life, so I try to get things done during the day. In the afternoon, I tend to get tired, so after lunch I take a quick catnap. I’ve been doing that for years, and it has helped me so much. I feel like a different person when I wake up. I feel ready for the second half of my day.
Get to Know Yourself
This really takes time, and you have to get to know yourself. For a lot of women that can be hard, because we’re so used to putting everybody else’s needs before our own. So many women are burnt out, and so many women are living their lives for other people. We’re giving ourselves scraps, whatever’s left, and we’re so tired and we don’t know why. That causes resentment, bitterness and burnout.
When I was resting, like watching TV or scrolling through social media, that was fine, but it didn’t really fill my cup the way I wanted it to. I realized that creating is a form of ‘resting.’ Rest doesn’t have to be just laying down or chilling. It can be doing things that give you joy and give you life. If you love to bake, that’s a rest day. Yes, you’re doing things, but it’s something enjoyable to you.
If you’re not sure what an intentional thing could be, look at what you used to like doing when you were younger. Did you like to draw? Did you like to go swimming?
And yes, there’s the kick your feet up and binge watch a show kind of rest. If you want to do that because you’ve been going, that’s perfectly fine and normal. But if you’re scheduling rest time for yourself during the week, really think about what’s going to rejuvenate you. If it’s actual physical rest, like laying down, then do that. I also challenge you to look at resting through things that are fun and enjoyable, that don’t seem like work, the things that really light you up inside.
I challenge you to start paying attention to you as a person, to look at your cycles, your patterns and your seasons, and to learn how to honor them.
Work with me
If you feel like you’re so used to putting everybody else’s needs before your own that you’re like, I don’t even know how to do this, I offer one on one coaching. I’ve helped many of my clients get in touch with more of that ease and flow in life and learn how to work within their cycles and seasons. If that’s something you’re interested in, I would love to help you on this journey.
