Updates & Why’s

I got majorly redirected in the spring. Multiple things coincided.

I was really burnt out on the social media hamster wheel finding myself getting caught up in all the “do this to grow” “do this for more engagement” “visual hooks, verbal hooks, all the hooks” and feeling so crappy about all of it. And you know what? None of it worked. 

I was also feeling the need for a change in my work for a while. And was in that middle zone where you can feel something new and different but you don’t know what it is yet.

Being in the women’s health and wellness field for over a decade, I started when periods and menstrual health was talked about nowhere and was still a very taboo subject outside of more alternative circles. It wasn’t being talked about on social media very much and "“menstrual coaches” wasn’t really a thing. I saw it become way more normalized and open, to the point that now we’ve crossed over into the realm of people talking about it and coaching about it and influencing about it without actually knowing and sharing accurate information. Which is a topic for another day.

The fact that it’s now a topic that is more in the public view is amazing and I feel like maybe I was a minuscule part of that movement.

Women’s health and reproductive health is a nuanced subject. The physiological system is complex and nuanced. The emotional, mental, and psychological aspect of that system and experience is complex. The energetic and spiritual aspect of that system is complex. There are general commonalities and it’s not a one or even two sizes fits all area. Our world and that of social media does not operate well with nuance. It operates in the realm of absolutes and what-about-ism.

I have always believed that women and menstruating people have a responsibility in changing the culture and paradigm of reproductive and menstrual health. It’s not to only wait for the patriarchy or the government or the medical establishment to recognize that we are people and have worth and deserve rights. I have always believed and it’s been a deep core value of my work that coming into a more accepting, friendship leaning, knowledgeable, and non-hating relationship with our body and our periods and cycles at large is a major place where that responsibility manifests.

In the midst of being burnt out on social media, feeling a need for change, pragmatically seeing that the women’s health work was not financially supporting me in the way I needed, I was realizing I didn’t have the energy or inclination to do what I was seeing I would have to to make things more successful as in reach more people and pay my bills. I was absolutely exhausted at the thought of media kits and podcast pitches and $99 foundation courses. I could hype myself up for like one day and then I just felt super defeated by it.

I was also having the experience online of getting pretty dragged on some popular feminists accounts for advocating for all the above.

That we can have a more positive leaning relationship with our periods. That we also have the responsibility to know how our bodies work. That there are solutions to reproductive issues and conditions on many levels, and that this self relationship is a foundational part of it.

I was their mother who never validated their pain. I was their doctor who gaslit them. I was a polyana who must have always had a pain free blissful cycle. The fact that the truth about my cycle and period is something entirely different wouldn’t register no matter how much I explained. When someone has their story about you fixed in their mind there isn’t much you can do to shift it. And social media is basically a sounding board for other people’s shit. You can become the mirror that they can validate all their opinions and biases. We do it every day. We have no idea who someone is or how they live and we think we have access to them based on the stories we create.

I have a tough side and I’m actually not very thick skinned. That shit started to get to me. I felt like I was banging my head against a wall. And I had been feeling like this for a while. That the perspective I have on women’s health, reproductive health, menstrual health, and healing wasn’t landing, and that people weren’t ready for it.

I have never found it fulfilling to do the 3 things for a better period, or how to optimize your cycle for your business, & cycle syncing is way more nuanced and of course gets turned into a one size fits all thing. The simplification and commodification of the cycle that is now happening as it moves into the mainstream is something I can’t fit myself into and don’t want to. I don’t know how to make a 6 second reel about all this.

I have also pretty consistently experienced that what works for other people doesn’t work for me. The keys to email marketing, the structure of a business, focusing on one thing for your whole career, and this moves out into almost every aspect of life. I just haven’t had the experience of what works for a lot of people working for me.

So life and my spirit and heart redirected me. Back in Decemeber I started a 1:1 Spiritual Counseling offering based on emotional and somatic integration and focusing on education and integration for people in the world of plant medicine. Something I’ve been working in for 15 years. And I created a new web design business. Something I’ve done on the side for years and come to find is creative and sustainable and something I’ve come to love and be passionate about and that help supports me. Which is a real factor. I wish I didn’t need to work for money but I do. Being financially independent and supporting myself is a big goal of mine and something I’m really trying to solidify and do in a way that doesn’t run me into the ground.

I thought that between April and now I would have it more figured out in terms of where the Women’s Health side of things was going. I also thought I’d have it more figured out how I want to use my IG account. The truth is I don’t. I think I was burnt out way before I knew I was and it’s taking time to grieve the loss and reality that that vision of my work didn’t turn out how I thought it would. Even when something feels right, there can be loss involved.

The doors aren’t closed on Women’s Health Counseling, but it’s not thing I’m pushing. I have seen for over a decade that it takes a lot to get someone into that space, and even once they are there, the reality of being ready to make changes is not always at the level they thought. We aren’t just seed cycling, we’re talking about your relationship to yourself and your body and what you’ve been taught and inculcated to. And that’s more intense to look at.

I would love for something deep and resonant and useful and healing and different to come from the knowledge and perspective I have on women’s health. I’d love to be talking about how to heal the resistance and pain of liking or making space for, or one day loving our cycles that comes from trauma and generations of conditioning. The way your mother was raised and her mother was raised and her mother was raised. The barriers to not hating one’s body can be very entrenched. I’ve found more compassion for women who hate what I talk about because I know it comes from that place.

And like most things in life and in the zone of creativity and passion, it doesn’t happen on our timing. It has also been a big goal of mine to not rely on social media for work. I was barely getting any clients from it anyways. So for now most of my work is happening off of that space. Spiritual Counseling sessions and web design work are coming through other channels, and I’m still feeling into how I want to share about them on socials.

Things take longer than we anticipate. I’m a slow processor and there have been big outward changes like moving houses and creating two new jobs, and subtle changes that are equally as big. And life keeps going on and we keep having to show up. So I’m processing. And sharing a lot of Light beams and dog videos in the meantime.

xoxo Zara