I was first introduced to my own cycles of rest, work, integration, and processing through reading Clarissa Pinkola Estés book on Women Who Run With the Wolves. At the time, I was deep in the development of my non-profit, working full-time as a nurse-midwife, raising a family in Northern NM, and actively participating in a traditional Pueblo life. I was tired, and I felt a lot of shame and guilt around not being “enough” for anyone. I was also feeling a strong internal pull to disengage from the world for a bit, which I ignored and pushed through, because that is what I had been taught. Just push through, because this is what being a strong Native woman is.
I was blown away by the chapter Homing: Returning to Oneself, in which she starts with
“There is human time, and there is a wild time.” She speaks on “the psyches and souls of women who also have our own cycles and seasons of doing and solitude, running, and staying, being involved and being removed, questing and resting, creating and incubating, being of the world and returning to the soul-place.”
What I learned was that connecting with myself was vital to my soul's survival as a woman. If I spent too long away from reconnecting with myself, I could lose this connection. And yes, I have seen this happen in women. I began to learn what the signals were when my soul self was calling me back. In fact, I am listening to it today, as I step back from working and focus on some reflective writing and teachings.
Native American Traditional Calendar
In many Native American communities, seasonal cycles are honored and marked by dances, ceremonies, and prayer. The position of the moon, sun, and cosmos guides growing and harvesting practices. In my Diné teachings, wintertime is a time for rest, storytelling, connecting, and slowing down. Our creation stories are told during this time. In fact, many of our ancestral stories can only be shared during this time.
Oftentimes, ceremonies can mark a milestone in a person’s life, like a woman’s coming-of-age ceremony. Where it signifies her becoming a woman after getting her first menses. There are ceremonies to welcome a baby and to give them a special name to welcome them as a member of the community. The same goes for when someone passes on; a ceremony follows, signifying their passing and supporting their journey into the spirit world.
Daily Cycle
If you pay attention to your daily energy cycles, you may also notice when your mind is most active with ideas, when you feel the need to rest, and when you feel most focused. For me, the morning is when I am most energized to create. Between 12-3 pm, I can feel tired, and around 3-6 pm, I am focused and ready to integrate my ideas. There are times when, after 6 pm with the dark surrounding me, my creative mind can reactivate again, and then I decide if I am going to use that energy to create or not.
Moontime (Menses) Cycle
The other cycle I work around and through is my menstrual cycle, as the week leading up to my period, I can feel exhausted, foggy-brained, and have a strong need to rest. While there is absolutely science around how these hormonal changes impact our energy and moods, it’s another cycle I work with when planning my rest and work cycles.
There are A LOT of signals our bodies send us when it comes to connecting with our personal cycles of when to rest, create, incubate, or run. Unfortunately, as women, we have been taught since childhood to ignore these signals. So often, the colonized construct of time doesn’t work with natural and normal rhythms, but rather forces a schedule that requires us to ignore it…and then makes us feel guilty about it when we do need to rest.
Burnout Culture
I was talking with an executive from an incredible health organization recently, and it became clear that while they were flying high on the work they were doing. They were working at a sustained high speed in the name of “excellence” with espoused values around personal care, which were not reflected in their leadership or culture around using PTO. My question to them was, “How do you prevent burnout?” It’s not natural or normal to work at sustained levels of activity like that; our natural rhythms and life cycles don’t work that way. She even expressed her own personal burnout.
These days, when I hear the word “excellence” in a values proposition as part of the top 5 priorities for an organization, I cringe. Because that can mean they value putting the work before personal needs and health, productivity, speed, and unrealistic work expectations. A lovely package of health insurance, paid time off, and all the bells and wistles doesn’t mean you will get to use it if the leadership and organizational culture are focused on sustaining high impact and work that is based on productivity.
In fact, so many of our leaders burn out because of this dynamic. Organizations built on a hierarchy of leadership put further pressure on Executive Directors, CEOs, and high-level leaders around their ability to be available all the time.
Sharing Some Wisdom
As a coach, this is the working dynamic I often speak to emerging leaders about, especially if you're building a new non-profit or stepping into a leadership position. Some folks call this time management. As someone who has led teams, my question to my team is, “What do you need to work your best?” “What kind of boundaries do you have around time off and communication?” “What circumstances would force you to break a boundary for the purpose of meeting a deadline or outcome?”
Before I come with the questions, I often learn that the schedule is running them, they have no clear boundaries around protected time, there is an invisible internal voice around productivity pushing them through exhaustion, and often, there can be trauma around how they show up that is connected to value and worth.
Alignment and Putting Into Practice
Here are some things to do to begin to shift how you are working and relating to your cycles.
Pay attention and beware of how you feel during the day. Are you most alert and aware in the morning or at night?
Begin to align your work with your natural rhythm each day and notice how this feels to you.
Notice what feelings come up for you when you go against the colonized construct of time, and where are these feelings rooted?
Notice pain and tension in your body when working and how often it shows up. The somatic messages from our bodies are BIG time messengers on how we are processing the workday.
Define your values on how you want to work.
Write down some boundaries that reflect those values and begin to implement them.
Notice how you feel after a day of rest, are you more focused and grounded?
Creating a Nurishing Life
Creating a life that nourishes you and doesn’t just extract your best years is the bare minimum. Being aware of our natural rhythms and working with them at every stage of our lives is often why people change jobs, shift out of leadership positions, or move to entirely new countries. Growing is breaking old patterns that don’t serve us anymore, so that we can move towards our highest visions and make them a reality.