This week, we are taking a look at cycles within our lives how our energy flows with them. Are you a morning person or are you more energized during the evening? Some of us experience a decrease of energy during winter months. What cycles do you keep track of? What does your energy look like during your peaks and valleys?
Welcome back to Inner Warmup where your inner work begins. My name is Taylor Elyse Morrison, I'm the founder of Inner Workout and you as always are our expert guest, thank you so much for being here today. Let's kick things off with some deep breaths - in through your nose, out through your nose or mouth, dealer's choice, ready? Maybe you shake your hands out, shake your shoulders out, allow yourself to be here. The question that we've got on the table today is what is your energetic cycle? What is your energetic cycle? And I've got some thoughts on this before I pass the mic over to you.
I am a person who really has traditionally valued efficiency. I take personality assessments, that shows up. And the more I think about it, the more I think it's both nature, and nurture. And some of the work that I've been doing on my own lately is challenging what means to be efficient. Why do I think this has to happen as quickly as possible? To what end? Because that's the society that we live in, right? We're told that every day should be exactly the same and that we should be able to produce the exact same outputs. Like think back to Henry Ford and the innovation that he had of assembly lines, which was essentially just making people act like robots. And the discourse and the discussion that we have around productivity hasn't shifted that much further from that assembly line mentality. Like maybe we're not saying that your job for the next 30 years is to put this cap on to a product. But we are saying that you should be able to show up to work for eight to 10 hours a day and you should be able to achieve this in a day, and this in a week, and this than a month. And we've just taken that as the norm, but when we look to nature, and we look to our ancestors, we see that everything is cyclical, right?
I mention this a lot but I've always lived places with seasons. And so I see upfront how different it is, for me to exist in Chicago, on a frigid February day versus me sitting right now on a really humid day in August, recording this speaking to you. Things are cyclical, including us. And that's something that I'm always exploring. That's something that I want to explore with you today because this idea of us acting like everything just stays constant is kind of ridiculous. Especially after all we've been through for the past two years. Like there, there aren't any constants, the only constant is change. I'm sure you've heard that before, and so as we talk about energy, I want you to start to understand your energy better by tapping into your own cyclical nature, because it's there. Maybe you've been ignoring it, maybe you've been working against it, but that it's in you. These cycles exist within you already. And I actually think it's really fun to get to explore them and to see how they shift and change.
So as you're thinking about your energetic cycle, if that sounds really abstract to you, let's let's try and make it a little bit more tangible. Break it down into time, like moments of time, so you can map your cycle over the course of a day (or example). What are the peaks and valleys of your energy in a day? What about a week? Where do you have your slumps? Where are you able to reach your flow state the most easily? And then the same thing over the course of a month or a month-ish? I hope you know, by now I've probably talked about it enough times on this podcast, but I'm really interested in exploring our menstrual cycles, for those of us who menstruate, and seeing that some other people are really connected to exploring the lunar cycle, both of which are more or less a month. So doesn't have to be the month on, I believe it's the Gregorian calendar, but 28 to 35 days, let's say around that time period, and then you can do the same thing for a season. A quarter, roughly, and an entire year and start to see, oh, wait, there are actually some places where my energy dips, or spike a lot.
So that's what you can do, choose whatever increment of time is calling out to you today because we'll only have a short time for our interview today. But you can go through all of them at any point of time. So I'll say those again, you might map out your energy for a day, a week, a month, a season or a quarter, or a year. And just notice, see if you can see, this is a high point for me, this is a lower point for me and start to see yes, I do have cycles, quick and dirty way to connect to your cycles.
Some things that I've noticed is I'm a morning person, I've always known that I'm a morning person. And I still used to beat myself up when I wasn't as productive in the evenings. It's like I gave so much to my work day and then I said I'm going to clean the bathroom or fold clothes, or I don't know, whatever thing that I said I was going to do. The thing that I said I was going to do last night that I didn't end up doing was change out the sheets.
And what I've realized is that, because I have most of my energy in the morning, if I can even spend 10-15 minutes tidying in the morning, because I'm following my energetic cycle, my place stays a lot cleaner. Instead of, theoretically, I have time in the evening, but I really need that to rest and recharge and to play. And I can normally squeeze out a little bit of time to clean in the evenings but it's not guaranteed. Sometimes the energy is just not there for me, but I know it's there for me in the morning. When I zoom out and look at my menstrual cycle, like I mentioned, that's something that I personally like to track, my luteal phase is when I am at my lowest energy in pretty much every dimension of well being. Like physical, I'm exhausted, energetic, it's all wonky. I feel a lot of insecurity, mental and emotional. I have a lot of a lot of deep feelings that start to bubble up, things that maybe I was trying to push below the surface in the rest of my cycle. Wisdom, I often feel disconnected from my own wisdom. I find myself seeking out things from other people, to tell me what to do during my luteal phase. And then bliss too, sometimes it can be hard for me to connect to community because of everything else that's going on during my luteal phase. It's actually part of why I take a week off of Instagram and I do it during my luteal phase because I know with a cocktail of everything that's happening for me energetically, that being on Instagram is only going to drag me down at an already low point.
I'll do a quick side note here: if you're not super aware of your menstrual cycle, we have a Cycle Series of inner workouts, one that you can do in each part of your menstrual cycle. And we talk a little bit about what you might be experiencing during each of those points in your cycle. So, if you want to try that out and spend a month starting to notice how these shifts work for you, it might be a fun project to do.
So those are my kind of breaking news observations on my energetic cycle. I've been building awareness around this for a while now so I'm starting to zoom into more specifics and be able to take action in really precise ways. For some of you, it might be a really big step just to be like, I don't feel that same on every day and that doesn't sound groundbreaking, but we're not necessarily taught to consider that we might show up differently in a day or season. We often set goals and plans and deadlines as if everything is just going to be the same for forever.
So I'm going to pass the mic over to you. What is your energetic cycle? And I really recommend choosing one segment of time, maybe grabbing a sheet of paper, and just drawing some waves. I've got high energy here, make a dot, I've got low energy here, make a dot, and start to connect the dots and see what you can learn about yourself. Okay, I'll stop talking and give you your chance to reflect and to share. What is your energetic cycle?
Thanks for taking the time to reflect and to share with me. If this sparked something in you, I would love for you to start a conversation in our free online community. It's always linked in the show notes. I'd love to see you there. Thank you as always for your time and for your expertise. Take care!