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Scenic Route
Life's one helluva ride — why not enjoy the view?
The Scenic Route Podcast is your audio chill pill, serving up mindset shifts, laughs, and 'aha!' moments that fuel your soul and your wallet.
We're all about:
- Finding purpose (without the fluff)
- Embracing the soft life (because hustle culture is so last season)
- Real talk (sugar-coating? Not around here)
- Actionable insights (for when you're ready)
- Daring convos (we go there, babes)
- Building resilience (without the toxic positivity)
- Mindfulness for real people (with real problems)
Whether you're feeling lost and emotionally exhausted, hiding from your kids in the bathroom, need a break from the chaos, or want to zen out, we've got you covered.
Join Jennifer Walter, sociologist (MASoc UCC) and pathfinder, on this journey to inner peace — with a generous side of potty humour.
Ready to care less about others' BS and more about your own bliss? Hop on The Scenic Route. Trust us, the view up here is *chef's kiss*.
New episodes drop every Tuesday.
Your next chill session awaits. You coming?
Scenic Route
Embracing Your Menstrual Cycle: Find Harmony and Well-Being with Dana Michelle Gillespie
Today, the incredible Dana Michelle Gillespie, founder of My Moontime, joins us to talk about all things menstrual health. In this episode, we dive deep into the female health realm, mainly focusing on the menstrual cycle and how it impacts our body and mind.
In this episode, we cover:
- Understanding the Phases: Learn about each menstrual cycle phase and how it affects your body and mind.
- Ancient Wisdom: Discover how ancient practices help you feel balanced and in tune with your body.
- Personal Insights: Jen shares her experiences with endometriosis and highlights the importance of informed consent in reproductive health.
- Holistic Approaches: Explore holistic methods like Mayan abdominal massage and other ancient practices.
- Practical Tips: Get actionable advice on aligning your cycle with the moon, nurturing yourself, and using manual cycle tracking.
Dana’s passion for dismantling the stigma around menstrual wellness is contagious, and you’ll leave this episode with a fresh, compassionate understanding of your body.
Why you should listen:
- The surprising ways each phase influences your body and mind
- Eye-opening truths about how society shapes our cycle perceptions
- Game-changing tips to boost your menstrual health and overall wellness
- The power of holistic approaches for radiant female health
- Exclusive insights from Dana's personal journey and expert guidance
By the end of our chat, you’ll feel equipped with actionable advice and a renewed perspective on embracing your menstrual vitality for enhanced overall well-being. Trust me, this is one conversation you don’t want to miss!
So grab your favourite cosy drink, settle in, and join us for an enlightening discussion on finding harmony and well-being through understanding your menstrual cycle.
Tune in now and start your journey to better understand and embrace your menstrual health. Subscribe, rate, and review the Scenic Route on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favourite platform.
Connect with Dana Michelle Gillespie
Website
Instagram
Work with Dana
Get the free My Moontime Starter Kit
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Desire to find your Scenic Route? Visit jenniferwalter.me — a welcoming space for the emotionally exhausted to rest, discover, and playfully embrace inner peace. Embrace a softer, more fulfilling life today!
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Today on the Scenic Road Podcast, we talk about our relationship to our female body. Join Dana Michelle Gillespie and me in a deep dive into the female energy cycle, our menstrual vitality, female well-being and truly nurturing yourself throughout the month. Hi and welcome to the Scenic Road Podcast, where we believe in embracing life's journey with purpose, curiosity and a bit of potty humor. I'm Zon Cool Mom and I'm always looking out for that perfect slice of gluten-free rhubarb pie. Every week, I get the joy of sitting down with dreamers and doers who dare to take the road less traveled in pursuit of their own magic. Together, we dive into the inspiring stories of soulful entrepreneurs and visionary leaders who boldly share their beliefs, lessons and fuck-ups. Excited so am I. You're exactly where you're meant to be. And now let's take this conversation off the beaten track.
Jennifer Walter:Dana Michelle Gillespie is the visionary founder of my Moon Time. Dana is dedicated to helping women achieve more abundance, ease and flow in their lives without the strain of effort, confusion or exhaustion. Her journey began in 2007, when she was working as a celebrity esthetician in Los Angeles. Many of her clients were struggling with hormonal skin issues and Dana herself was seeking natural alternatives to manufacture chemical birth control. This quest led her to delve deeply into the world of menstrual cycles, fertility, vitality, energy and holistic success. Determined to balance her professional and personal life, dana uncovered the secrets of holistic menstrual wellness. This knowledge blossomed into the creation of my Moontime and an empowering suite of resources, including the my Moontime app, the Moontime journal, ebook and podcast. Dana's expertise and passion has been featured in HuffPost, nylon Magazine, marie Claire, as well as over six female wellness books. Through her work, she aims to support females understand that she is whole, complete and fantastic in every moment. Dana, welcome to the Scenic Route podcast. Hi, thank you, day, you're in for a treat, you too, dana. I'm just kidding.
Jennifer Walter:So everyone let's think, because we haven't talked about this topic here on the scenic ride before. So I'm really excited, and ever since I read an interview with Serena Williams where she was talking about how she is like adjusting her training cycle to her menstruation cycle, I was like, oh interesting, Tell me more. So even if we're not like Serena Williams or have any other super athletic ambitions, like there's something in it for us as well, isn't there, Dana?
Jennifer Walter:There is, and just like that, we've reached the end of another journey together on the scenic route podcast. Thank you for spending time with us, curious for more stories or in search of the resources mentioned in today's episode visit us at scenic route. Podcastcom for everything you need and if you're ready to embrace your scenic route, I've got something special for you step off the beaten path with my scenic route.
Jennifer Walter:Affirmation card deck it's crafted for those moments when you're seeking courage, yearning to trust your inner voice and eager to carve out a path authentically, unmistakably yours. Pick your scenic route.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:Affirmation today and let it support you Excited about where your journey might lead. I certainly am.
Jennifer Walter:Remember, the scenic route is not just about the destination but the experiences, learnings and joy we discover along the way. Thank you for being here and I look forward to seeing you on the scene. Understanding of what goes on in your body through your cycle, or at least I hope so, but can you nonetheless, can you walk us through, um, like your, the female energy cycle and like the different phases, and kind of give us like just a quick update on what is happening, when and how that relates to, or how that might relate to our physical well-being and to how we feel?
Dana Michelle Gillespie:yeah.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:So I think, kind of taking, I like, to something I've been speaking to a lot lately that I really love and I think it's resonating more for all of us is, I think it's useful to keep in mind that our menstrual cycle is both affected by every part of our existence, so it's connected to our nervous system, for good reason, and it's also this incredible biofeedback mechanism, so it communicates to us in sensations if we're in balance or not.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:So, again, most of us grew up in societies that were just now stepping into, giving ourself permission to talk about these things and to explore these things and perhaps looking at older cultures that had healthy menstrual cycle awareness and healthy pieces and incorporating that into our life, but just the basic cycle. So when you're in your menstruating years, it's considered the day one of your cycle when you first start bleeding, which is a little counterintuitive for a lot of people. They think when most people bleeding, which is a little counterintuitive for a lot of people. They think when most people, most females, feel like once we stop mooning, bleeding, menstruating however, you want to say that that's like the beginning of our cycle, but scientifically, yeah, from Western perspective, it's that day one is when we start bleeding when the estrogen comes right back in again. I refer to that phase because I don't love the scientific names terminologies.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:I refer to that phase as a sage phase, because when we're bleeding there's a lot of cool subtle energy pieces going on, most of our energy, or you can say chi, but all of the energy is really down in our uterus and our uterus is contracting more, shedding the uterus lining, and it's actually not blood that we're shedding, it's stem cells and tissues and fluid, which is really cool, which Dr Christine Northrup talked about this in her old book, and it's also been spoken of that we would use this fluid to actually garden with and to put out in nature, I mean before we had bathrooms.
Jennifer Walter:Were you talking?
Dana Michelle Gillespie:about with the placenta that you would plant it for me. Well, placentas actually on the market, I have been told recently, are going for $40,000 USD.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:Oh, dear oh yeah, yeah, and so scientists have been wanting the menstrual fluid as well because of all that stem cell in there, the stem cells and all those minerals. There's really cool pieces. But just that act of when we're bleeding, it's our energy is concentrated down more in the womb and when you start going into that phase and working with it, you can get a lot of really cool creativity and have some great experiences when you're more flowing in your balance. I have shared this with people for years about you know. A lot of times when I will go into my bleeding phase, I have felt like I've been like kind of just flowing down this river, this warm river being held, and people look at me like what are you talking about? Because I think a lot of people have. You know, most everyone I've talked with and I ask questions. I talk to people for years and years about their experience. What's life like? Da, da, da, da. And most of us were not taught any of these things and we weren't allowed to talk about these things either.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:You know so like yeah, how do you know what you don't know, right, true?
Jennifer Walter:and I just remembered I did and I back in my ad agency days I did a campaign for um, like company who does sanitary products for females, and like we were not allowed to to color the color like the blood red, like it's always blue in advertising when you look at it, like always it is. Yeah, it's always blue and it's like I'm gonna smurf. It's not blue, like it has different, but it's not blue.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:I know, I totally get it. I have a little bit of compassion, I guess in a piece because, like, I have that interesting piece that I'm trying to work on healing, transforming, but I guess they have a medical term for it where, like, when people take my blood, they draw blood, I pass out, I don't mean to, I just pass out, it is mean to, I just I pass out, so it is a medical condition I think as far as I know, people have told me like it's really common.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:I was like, oh okay, good, that makes me feel not so weird, uh.
Jennifer Walter:But like some people when they see blood they do like pass out or they throw up, so like I kind of get it like I don't want that to happen to you when you're on a bike and you're riding past like a billboard and yes, they're driving a car like I don't want that to happen to you when you're on a bike and you're riding past like a billboard and yes, fair point driving a car like.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:I have compassion and try to like I'm not tiptoeing around things and I'm not not trying to trigger people. We all have our own filters of perception and lived experiences right. But I kind of get it in a certain way and I think over time perhaps it'll become more unsigmatized. But like whatever it's, the slow evolution.
Jennifer Walter:Or we could just go for like I don't know something unicorn, glittery or something.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:Oh my God, I love that.
Jennifer Walter:Yeah, you know something like fancy rainbow glittery.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:Gold. You know, there's even a woman who wrote a book, I think it's called like um, your blood is gold. Because she has think of this, she said there's some. I don't know if she found studies or there has been found trace elements which would make sense that there is gold in menstrual fluid. Um, if you drink water and there's gold naturally occurring in mineral, it's a mineral, right, like walnut trees, uh, don't exist unless there's mercury around their roots. So walnut trees naturally have mercury in them, right, that's how they part of the nutrients they need. So gold might be a cool. I love gold, yeah.
Jennifer Walter:I, yeah, up for gold. Okay, I, we will both vote gold. So change approved. So so we have the sage phase, which is kind of like the first phase. So when you start, um, when you start bleeding, so how then, like when we go into, like what happens after the bleed, like in what I suppose is the second phase?
Dana Michelle Gillespie:yeah. So again, um, it's so. It's so funny because, like now, everyone's talking a lot of people share about like, oh, I'm in this phase, in this phase, but there's so many different perspectives, like, how many different ways can you slice an orange and speak to it, right? So I like to look and honor more of the traditional Chinese medicine phases and I kind of put my own names on it. But I do have a cool chart in the book you have that adds all those pieces.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:Western medicine sees it in two phases, with two events in those phases, so follicular and ludal, with menstruation and ovulation in those two phases. Once we finish, once we're no longer bleeding, then we go into which I refer to often as that maiden phase where, you know, after we physically no longer feel heavy in our uterus anymore, like, and the estrogen has been rising and the testosterone is going to start kicking in soon too, we want to go out and get things done, like we want to be out in the world. I don't know if you've experienced this, but I absolutely have, like, um, because I'm kind of physically, you know, a little bit different now, like I have definitely had to kind of reground into my body when I'm in yoga doing different yoga positions, like I feel a little off kilter because I've just shifted from one felt experience state into a different one. But this, this phase right, is characteristically kind of like this outward, like we're free, we can go out in the world and run around.
Jennifer Walter:I'm the queen of the world. We're free. We can go out in the world and run around. I'm the queen of the world. I can like do anything, which is nice, because I yeah, because there is also a time when I where at least for me I feel rather mopey. So it's good that there's a balance, yeah.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:Yeah, and then adding in that mopeyness like you know, kind of just, you know okay, where, what is this? Where is it? Is it the mopiness from? If you're in your you know menstruating, your bleeding days and like, for me, I love to go out and get things done. So sometimes when like I body's like nope, it's going to be rest time, I'm like part of me is like I don't want to go, so like I may get a little at times in resistance to that mopey, and then I go on and I start doing some of my tools to help clear that resistance and just surrender into the ease that my body's craving. But I totally understand. So, adding in that piece of what is the you know what's showing up for you, maybe it's mopey, but when you get that that the estrogen coming in, which can be felt for a lot of people as like a lightness, a brightness, and then that testosterone Witness this for yourself. See what it's like If your body's flowing in balance, some people, their cycles are all over the place, depending on what their cycle is experiencing.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:If they're in a lot of stress and ingesting a lot of caffeine and anxiety, it can be all over the place. This pattern may be a little bit more choppy for their experience, but generally flowing in a traditional, normal cycle balance. You've got the menstruating and then you've got this. We also call it the sage or the maiden phase. You can call it pre-ovulation. So, estrogens rising, you generally just feel light and you want to go out and get things done. And that testosterone when it starts kicking in, I have noticed I'll definitely have more of an oomph, like I can do things as soon as that 24-hour window of ovulation occurs and my progesterone kicks in and we start going into the next phase, like you can call it. I call it the enchantress and call it the. You know there's a lot of different names, but ovulation already happens and you're now going into.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:If there's no sperm inside of you and you're not going to make a baby, it's just going to be this chill time. It's just it's like kind of relaxed. It's just this like kind of relax. And the ovulation, which I usually call the mother phase, which is also like relaxing, it's just it's the one that testosterone is no longer there and we're just more in this. I'm happy to be out in the world, but you know I don't really care. You know, if I I'm the center of the universe, like that testosterone when it starts to dissolve. And again, there's layers in this how our mind has been perceiving lived experiences and if we're engaged in the, you know, those inner subconscious patterns of good, bad, right or wrong, shame and blame. These things all can be expressed and felt and lived in different experiences. But there's distinct patterns and so, like females have definitely been looking at and being like, hey, okay, how do I honor this, these cycles and work with them better? Some people have been a little bit too extreme.
Jennifer Walter:What is too extreme because you just not do certain things or like well, how would you define too extreme? When it's too extreme, controlling your?
Dana Michelle Gillespie:life, or yeah. So how do I? Um, it's like, let me reorganize my you know life structure, and I've heard some public figure, um, who's written a lot of books, tell women that they basically need to sleep for their whole menstrual cycle and they should be sleeping for their during their pre menstrual phase. I really spent a long time in meditation and contemplative thought, looking at patterns in nature, where this exists and how you know. Because, when we look at that perspective of like, oh, women should be doing this, it's like okay, first off, you're shooting on me, don't shoot on me, don't shoot on me you know and that particular person I'm thinking of.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:She experienced a great amount of menstrual issues throughout her life and she's naturally like any of your her reviews of people that are listening to her talk have kind of witnessed that she very much has a it's my way, or the highway very controlling.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:So when we are stuck in ideas of control, right then we have our, our nervous system goes out the window, our menstrual cycle is all messed up.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:So she's trying to rebuild her behaviors for subconscious issues.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:So if we're, you know, honor, where you're at, but like, let's look at some other ways to perhaps help help us, because I definitely generally have most of my cycles now with me learning how to nurture what my body needs and flowing my balance, where I generally flow through, where a lot of times, unless I'm, you know, really actively tracking it and looking at my moon time app, all of a sudden I'll start bleeding and be like, oh, like I I was having able to working at so well where, like, I'm not getting the old, you know premenstrual irritation and aggravation and vulnerability and irritability that I used to feel when I would be going on all cylinders, working way too hard, way too fast, way too much drama, way too much caffeine and burning my body out, right?
Dana Michelle Gillespie:So yeah, sleeping and self isolating, like, of course, if somebody is in a lot of pain and you're working with someone one-on-one that you trust and have a lot of positive results, and they're like and you can create this space. I do, if you have the time when you're the first, like two days when you're bleeding if you can create the space for yourself to rest a little bit more. Yes, yes, yes, yes.
Jennifer Walter:Yeah, if you feel it's doing you good. If you feel it's doing you good, yeah, yes, go for it Right.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:Listen to your body, find your own balance. Everyone's so unique there's no one right way, yeah and everyone's so beautiful. It's like what's happening here.
Jennifer Walter:I think one of my catch points no, it's not one of my catch catches or when I catch my clients to be like, let's look into this. It's like when they're like, oh you know, if, then if I I don't know watch my cycle and and do whatever, then I, I am, whatever I I think about, then I get to think this about myself. Then I'm always like, well, this is probably something you should look into. Why is it like? Why is it? Or becomes something an obsession? What will you? What do you tell yourself about yourself when you like I don't know, obsess about your cycle, you like you know you're a better woman or whatever, obsessed about your cycle, you like you know you're a better woman or whatever, where is like some sort of underlying shame, mostly of like oh, let's treat carefully yes, it's, it's.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:we're all just flowing in our own balance and I want everyone to give themselves a big hug because, like the generational you know, stuff that we're essentially healing and transforming out of our own experience is incredible and it's wonderful, and it's also, at times, can be challenging. You know, like I can't tell you how many stories I know of women like my mom, my female wellness practitioner. Her mom and her grandmother both had doctors, had them remove their uteruses unnecessarily, just like all sorts of interesting things that were essentially done because of lack of education, lack of information, and it's fascinating, it's fascinating.
Jennifer Walter:This is so interesting that you bring this up. I had, I have endometriosis I think I've mentioned it before, so I will have another question regarding that but regarding uterus and I also have adenomyosis, so the endometriosis in the uterus lining and it was always so baffling to me thank god, not like my female reproduction um doctor, but other doctors. When the topic came up of like oh, you'll most likely be cleared of your symptoms if we just remove your readers and if you don't want to have any more kids, you don't need it, I'm like, yeah, I'm not sure it's an appendix, though, like I'm not, I'm not a doctor, but it's not just like an appendix I'd like to keep my uterus, thank you I couldn't really pinpoint why exactly at the time.
Jennifer Walter:I'm just like it seems a bit drastic to just like. I mean, I get there are medical conditions where this is really like maybe the best only course of action. But for me I was like you know, it was just so lightheartedly like said as we were I don't know if you were talking about the weather and you're like no, actually, yeah yeah.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:No, that's, it's very common, sadly, but things are changing, I think. More OBGYNs and more practitioners. Like you know, I'm trained in subconscious change work, nlp-based so rapid resolution therapy and core transformation, and I've trained with a slew of MDs, which is amazing, and not just for you know how the unconscious mind is stuck in programs but just more practitioners are getting into different ways of working with things to help their clients in a more of a holistic way. Cause I think it's bad having all of these options, but I think what a lot of the female wellness practitioners that I work with and admire we're all saying it's about informed consent. Like what are my options here?
Dana Michelle Gillespie:Instead of just removing this uterus that it's kind of important to have, you want, in my personal opinion, I want my uterus functioning full, optimal health for as long as possible. I want to actually personally have my menstrual cycle as long as I can, because it's my body's producing estrogen and that's helping keep my body and my immune system really strong and healthy. Yeah, so once I mean, I am looking forward to my menstrual years because it's that wise woman where your body absorbs, you know all of it and you just have more acts of testosterone and it's like look, lookout world, but your bones start becoming more brittle. You know we were not producing estrogen and I'm not. I'm hypersensitive.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:I'm one of those weirdos on a bell curve. That's like I'm allergic to codeine. Like I'm like let's just not play this game. We all know that my body does not work well with that. I'm more subtle and gentle and soft things work better for my body. So hormones taking artificial hormones I'm like that's really not an option for my body. Like I love alcohol and all these things, but the taste of it my body's like I've heard pass. Like I'll feel like crap for three days. I'm like okay, so I prize my energy. I love I live in Napa. Like everyone makes an amazing wine around here. I'm like yeah, my buddy loves that journey for me.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:Yeah, Sorry, Like I'll enjoy you enjoying it, but I can't. So I'm, I'm paying attention to all that stuff and I love having people being aware of more options, of ways to, you know, help their body flow in their own balance. And you know, just chopping things out, which was a very old Western perspective, is extremely archaic and not necessary, for maybe you know a lot of people. There are other options, but it is rad to have that there. I just don't.
Jennifer Walter:It's not the only thing I mean. I don't want to go back into like the middle ages, where we had no options. Who was?
Dana Michelle Gillespie:it 1726 in Scotland. That's where they invented the chainsaw to open a woman's pelvis and pull out the baby.
Jennifer Walter:It's like oh my. God I should notice, I was actually. I was at the history of medicine museum and Edinburgh, which is quite a fantastic history of Western medicine.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:Right yes.
Jennifer Walter:Yes, when you look at the Mayans.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:The Mayans were around for God, I think, at least 5000 years and they had a thriving societies of millions of people and they didn't. They didn't do. Their medical system was more similar, more similar to traditional Chinese medicine and some people point to, you know, when the contents were closer, maybe you know they shared information and they didn't do the surgeries like we did, and they still had thriving societies and babies. So females never had babies. Oh yeah, absolutely, and that's another reasons why I love so much of the Mayan medicine and Maya womb massage abdominal massage, like they're, if anyone's listening to this and they have an opportunity to have a really great like uterus womb massage. That's a game changer game. I never heard of this. Oh my God, oh my goodness, I've got a Google practitioners.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:Like what I'm interested in Okay, so our uterus is shifting and moving throughout our cycle, right, so think about it, it's a physical component. So if you want a beautiful massage to help as the uterus wanders, you're getting blood flow into the connective tissues right, so it can move easier instead of getting stuck, like a lot of women will have a tilted uterus which they don't know. And right before I mean this is what I heard from one practitioner explain when she had it, when she didn't realize and she had pretty great menstrual cycles, she said, but during a period of her life, all of a sudden, right before she'd go to bleed her life, all of a sudden, right before she'd go to bleed, menstruate, she would be in pain, crippling down to her knees, to where she had to go to the hospital and she's like what is happening? And she said, by chance she went to like a well, women's checkup at a I don't know if it was Planned Parenthood or something and the practitioner knew it was like oh, hey, you have a tilted ut. Uh, she was like wait, what? And then, before my end of massage was just kind of coming to the United States and so she got connected up and she drove really far and she had someone help this wandering uterus, which is kind of the basis A lot of the whole mess. Well, not masturbation, that's just natural.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:Um, his, the term hysteria and medicine, where doctors used to manually go in and you know that, to orgasm right, because the the, our nervous system is designed to be, you know, moving and being in pleasure. Yes, so that that womb massage I mean. When you start reading all of the benefits of having experiencing that. I was just reading on Pilar Chandler's. She's an incredible. She's a doctor of Ayurvedic medicine, has a thriving practice in Southern California, amazing herbalist, and she was recently talking about the birth portal and the kundalini energy and you know, as the baby starts turning to come in, that you know our menstrual cycle phases is kind of prepping us for you know, if and when we choose to have a baby because of the cycles is so similar to the cycles of giving birth and it just it was so refreshing to hear another practitioner speak to these things.
Jennifer Walter:It's, um, it just warms my heart and it just kind of lets me deeply breathe and feel inspired and happy and grateful all in one big yeah and I mean also for me because, like, from like a medical point of view, I often hear, hear like, oh, we don't know, right, like I mean we don't know about endometriosis, we don't know if that's going to work or whatever it's. I mean I don't know, it's just half the like, I don't know, female population is just half the population. But hey, who cares? At least, at least we have Viagra, right. So hey, yay, kudos us. But it's really also like validating and interesting to hear oh, there is now more research, there are other practitioners who are looking at a female body and how certain things just move differently, right and um, yeah, and I feel it's very validating instead of like, oh, we don't know, or like western medicine, we don't know, or like, okay, things, I guess well, we didn't, oh sorry.
Jennifer Walter:Um, I was just wondering, like you said before you're you're tracking a lot of things, like I got you, like I got this from you, like you're paying attention to a lot of things, um, mindset wise, or body wise, like how this is is affecting you and I suppose, also your menstrual vitality. What are, like, the most surprising or often overlooked things that affect your menstrual vitality, that people are like oh, I'd never thought of that.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:Yeah, thanks, that's a great question For me. I think my one of my biggest game changers was that subconscious component, so tell us more. We're all subconscious here in the scenic route.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:We're like yeah, I love it. I love it. So the subconscious mind, pretty much around 95% of our daily thoughts, and these filters of perception are formed from around birth to seven, eight years old. Yes, yes, and you know I am one of those. I'm very curious person and I also most of my life was like I don't feel right, I don't understand why all that's happening. So I would always I'd keep you know, let me try this therapy, let me try this self-help, let me go and do this healing work, let me work with this shaman and you name it.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:I've probably tried it and I'm probably certified in it and I have been obviously studying and working with the menstrual cycle because once we're in our own flow, that helps us be present and thrive in life, both financially, you know, emotionally, mentally, you know when we're flowing in our own balance. But for what I have found and what was the game, biggest game changer for me is I think it was my second session I experienced of having as a client. I went and was having rapid resolution therapies. It was during COVID and I had already been a trainer, a teacher in like energy meditation for a very long time or and just a student of this work for so long and plus doing every other therapy you can think of. And I thought I should be. I'm good, I can handle this stuff during COVID, move back home to be with family, you know, get out of LA and avoid the crazy crime and stuff coming, and okay, let me just be here. And oh my God, god, nope, like my family could not, you know, see me as a adult and I took off and I was like what is happening and I was lit up by all this old.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:You know, I like to call it complex trauma because, like I didn't really experience any physical trauma in my life, I just have a really, you could say, a lot of energy with a mind that likes to, is curious, so overactive imagination, whatever you want to say. But you can call it complex trauma and things were, there's a perception of things that my mind perceived as threatening to my life. I giggle now because it was just like little, like Dina, you know, little events in the past. What is am I unconscious? I had no idea and it's not something I could consciously change, had these sessions and once I really started, the practitioner helped me clear these things and transform the way my mind was processing information to help me heal these things.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:Holy shit, that whole sense of I'm not good enough gone. I just am, it's not, I'm not good enough, I'm not, I'm too good. I just am Like, oh my God. It was the first time I actually got to experience for myself neutrality of like oh my God, I got so much energy back and I was like, oh my God, I want to help my moon time community women. Whoever experiences I'm like, this is available to us as humans. I'm in. Where do I sign up?
Jennifer Walter:I immediately went to Especially for as female like, oh my God, like if we just reclaim back some of that capacity that we spend on all this shit, yeah, like I don't know, I made sure he's on our doorstep.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:Oh yeah, you were right there Like it's not about asking permission, it's not about conceptualizing it oh, let me just think about it. Or like I'll have positive mindsets or I'll imagine I'm doing it. It's like it's. I really strongly suggest anyone interested in this go have the experiences because, having working with somebody I mostly with my clients once I clear out you can call them big meta parts or big, you know, complex trauma, trauma pieces. I'll usually bring people through like RRT session one or two and then bring them to a core transformation based NLP session where you really get to step into these embodied states where you just you heal these parts within yourself and I mean all of it feels amazing. But it's a lived experience. It's not a conceptual piece that you think about. You have these deep healing states where you go into and you're like I don't know what just happened, I don't know how this just happened. I'll never be the same. This is incredible, oh my God. And it's kind of like an enlightenment experience. I know it's kind of dumbing down the whole enlightenment we all think of these yogis doing, but like I've known of monks that trained in core transformation and they said to the Andreas family who came up with the core transformation NLP. That's like I don't. This is incredible. Like, after essentially 10 questions, somebody with no background can step into having these ecstatic states where monks will spend their entire lives in meditation and discipline trying to experience within essentially 10 questions.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:So for me, right now I'm really excited because it's all here for us, for everyone but for women, to step back into our vitality and just I feel we have access to just flowing in. You know, life is going to happen, right, we're still going to come up to experiences, but having feeling pleasure and freedom and neutrality and resourceful in our own sense of self, like, yes, please, I'm like, where do I stand up? Like you mean, yeah, and for endometriosis, like you, you know that I keep seeing, there are, you know, things people suggest and stuff. But I keep hearing it come back into that inflammation piece, right, and that inflammation piece is really this the stress, right, the fight or flight. So pieces to you know, help the unconscious mind, um, heal shift, transform where those stress responses are coming in.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:And you know, through these perspectives, instead of like, I hear other people like, oh, let's just downregulate your nervous system. To me those are kind of like band-aids, you know I want everyone to have access. I love somatic work, but I want you also so you're not just constantly putting band-aids and trying to control your system work with somebody to help go into where you know, heal those deepest parts, where that information, those parts of ourself are that deepest craving, that need it really needs letting it, step in and have that so everything can be healed and all those unconscious beliefs transformed and, yeah, get to the root of it.
Jennifer Walter:You know yeah, which makes sense, right, if you like, if you pull out the weed, you better take it by the root. Yes, yes, um, yeah. Speaking of endometriosis, so I remember before I had a diagnosis and I was off um birth control, like I really knew. I knew my cycle. I didn't have to track it. I knew when I was ovulating, I knew when, like when the the menstruation would kick in, like I knew. I just knew, like to the day, um, and now one of the currently one of the main treatments and western medicine for endometriosis, after the surgery, after removal of endometriosis tissue, is going on birth control. So I don't have a cycle per se. What do you recommend people who are like, who would like to work in a more cyclic approach, to go with the moon cycle?
Dana Michelle Gillespie:Or what is your response on that Great question? And I think it's you know, even if you have, you know if you're on chemical hormonal birth control or not. And I always suggest because everyone's so unique is every day kind of check in with yourself what is showing up for you right now. You know, when we go into our which I call our wise woman or sage phase of our life, when we're in our menopause, menopausal years, which is a badass time, it's amazing your cycle becomes the moon cycle. So your natural cycle, if you're no longer menstruating, your natural cycle becomes the moon cycle.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:So I've talked to some of my educators on this my call them elders, like Jane Bennett and Francesca Nash, who are the Sydney holistic longtime practitioners, kind of experts and have written a slew of books, and they have always shared that when we're on hormonal birth control pills, that we're underneath, we're experiencing the moon cycle, but we're not necessarily flowing with it. So, again, show up for yourself every day and see what lands and then work with yourself, give yourself space and just play, see what's there for you. Um, you know if you're falling into, you know some uh, you can call it rough edges or polarities, or drama or heaviness. I see if you can bring around some laughter, amusement or give yourself space to um, find more of more of your, your balance, your center line. But it's life, it gets messy, and then we learn how to shift out of it.
Jennifer Walter:But yeah, this is I mean, this is life, and thank god it's like this, otherwise it'd be boring. Um, and we, yeah, we deal with. We'll roll with the punches if they, if they occur. But I love to do the check-in, which is, I think, an easy thing. You can do when you get up in the morning or when you have your first morning tea or coffee or whatever like. Do you have other easy things to do to nurture yourself? Because I, like I already hear like some listeners going like, yeah, but I don't have, like, how should I, like I don't know, squeeze in another 20 minutes to do whatever and it doesn't need a lot of time? Yeah, right, it's just what are simple things you can do every day to nurture yourself? Check in.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:I mean that piece right there with the overwhelm and the exhaustion is such a big piece, and why that piece is partly what's causing so much of the dis-ease, the distress within our nervous system which affects our menstrual cycle, everything that affects our if anytime we go on fight or flight, we're stressed out, we're in drama and I tend to be very. I like to entertain and make people laugh so I can easily go into dramatic, you know your.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:Enneagram type you know I am a little bit of a silly one where I'm like get these effing labels off me. I am a dynamic woman and I don't want to be limited by these little freaking labels. Like people are like oh, it's a full moon in Aries.
Jennifer Walter:I'm like, cool, let all of that doesn't mean it doesn't need to mean anything about you, it's just so.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:I'm terrible. Somebody asked me yesterday like what's your human design thing? I'm like, I don't know. Like I, I don't know, I just am.
Jennifer Walter:I just am, but I can tell you in which, in which, like um energy cycle, I'm right now.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:I love it. I love it.
Jennifer Walter:Let's go back to the little things that you can do to like nurture yourself every day.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:I would say, if they feel overwhelmed, just maybe just comfort yourself there and let them know that you know what and whatever is going to feel nurturing and replenishing to you right then and there. If it's like, you know, popping on this podcast or just giving yourself a hug, or maybe you want to go out and you know, take some nice deep breaths or whatever that space is to give somehow, just because every part of ourself, no matter if we hate it, ultimately, ultimately, at the very root, it had a positive intention. So every part of ourself is designed to keep us alive. We have parts that Nothing in your body is out to get you. Yeah, it's not out to get us at all.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:It's just we're kind of been, we're in a culture that very much looks at that's to blame. You're the problem, you're. You know this very much right now. Like you know cult, like good and bad, like you're bad, I'm good and you're the. It's like no, everything. This is just the mind assigning meaning to things, and there are things that I wish didn't happen there. I wish people didn't do. But we are having a lived experience. So that piece of someone who's in overwhelming exhaustion, you know, maybe it's just resting a little bit more, you know, and don't add another piece into that exhaustion, you know, just finding spaces to nurture and then once there's enough space there to nurture, that you know, there's exhaustion goes away a little bit and maybe they can start getting curious, just adding in that curiosity to where's this overwhelm and exhaustion coming from? That would be probably one of the most.
Jennifer Walter:And playful, so playful, yeah, but I want everyone meet yourself and where you're at and and be like and also acknowledge that you feel fucking exhausted. Yeah, and don't downplay it, right, because I often see it with my clients. Oh, yeah, I feel exhausted, but I don't know, chad, it has it way worse or some whatever kind of bullshit sort that's playing and it's like sure, but but yeah, but both things are equally true. You can feel absolutely exhausted and janet can absolutely feel exhausted, like there's no competition or anything.
Jennifer Walter:And just because you're apparently better off than Janet is doesn't mean that you're hurting. Yeah, it's a little polarity to get stuck into.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:Yeah, it's challenging, Well, and giving ourselves those big, energetic imaginary hugs and permission. As females, we are biologically hardwired to hold energy for around nine months to give birth to a human baby baby. So one of the single greatest things we can learn to do is learn to let go and just release. So when we you know it's so easy for us which, again, with my moon time, I love to help women like, hey, you don't want to create a baby Cause I'm more interested in myself as creating businesses and creating creations and art and projects and whatever. So let's use that energy to create for ourselves and instead of letting that energy just get caught up in life and taking care of everyone else's wants and needs that's another thing that we easily have been programmed into is I'll put everyone else first, you don't matter.
Jennifer Walter:Put everyone else first. Yeah, I mean, our whole society would collapse if you would just be like, no, you go fuck yourself. Like I mean it's.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:Yeah, I mean, this is just how our productivity levels work as we shift into putting, you know, just nurturing our own energy and putting ourself first. What are we going to create? Maybe we're going to create thriving societies instead of the society we live in now, so perhaps that's true, oh, absolutely. Absolutely now.
Jennifer Walter:So perhaps absolutely, absolutely is. Uh, but we, I mean, we all know, like I mean, what is, what is it you do, or what does it tell you on airplanes, like in the case of an emergency?
Dana Michelle Gillespie:oh yeah, put yourself first put yourself first.
Jennifer Walter:Like I mean, it's not really a new concept and I think my friend's a doctor and she told me one of her like good professors in med school one of the first things he he told them and what stuck with her is like you have to take care of yourself first. You cannot take care of anybody else. If you're like overworked, super tired, running on caffeine, having the jitters, you're no use to anyone. Yeah, and I really stuck with her that she's like no, I go home now and go get some sleep or whatever. I need to take care of my physical body and mental body as well. So I'm like, yeah, this is yeah, but our conditioning runs often like totally against.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:We don't even know I mean so many times I'll just all of a sudden be like, oh my God, I'll just wake up to like I didn't even realize I was perceiving life through that way. And again, that's why I love this. I've been calling it like subconscious change work, subconscious adjustments, subconscious, you know, deprogramming whatever to get to these little pieces. That in my perspective and what I hear from my clients and witnessing other colleagues, clients have all been saying like there has been nothing else that can get to these little pieces, like this particular work does. Not taking away from any of the other beautiful modalities, they all have their place. Yeah, everything has a beat. It's so great that we have access to all this, but this one piece that I'm like, oh, everyone, this, this is some good stuff. Yeah, getting your energy back.
Jennifer Walter:Oh my god, like that's for me, that's oh, yes, please, yes and I love that you mentioned before that you I I'd say you very consciously said neutrality, um, which is a really interesting concept when we I mean in the past couple of years there was a lot of buzz and talking about body positivity, um, and it's like I get where it's coming from and I'm yes, I am for it, as opposed to body negativity or fat shaming or whatever. But what I ultimately want, I just want neutrality. I just want my body to be as is. I don't need it to feel to I don't know, make me feel fucking good all the time, like it to come like a disrealization is neutral. It's just my, my physical appearance here right now, and it will change and it is what it is.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:Yeah the body. But, again, most humans on earth right now are living from their analyzer and the, or wanting to know and think of things and analyze things, and actually having lived experience and it's no fault of anyone like we have been programmed to have to be like absolutely you know, like education system and everything is based on this and it has served us well.
Jennifer Walter:I mean, our minds have done some incredible shit.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:And I would argue that it's definitely served what it is and all of us are kind of looking like you guys. We're in species decline right now, Like all fingers point to. We ain't going to be here much longer unless we have some magic moments of big transformations Like it was an experience. It's been an experience. It was a ride. It was a ride. We might need a little bit more balance to make program everyone into being machines isn't actually our natural nature and perhaps we could even be living a more amazing life, being more thriving and more successful on more parties and embodying amazing and everyone thriving, living in balance in a different way of being. That actually might work better. Just an idea.
Jennifer Walter:Oh, I love this. I love this. How do we start? When do we start?
Dana Michelle Gillespie:Dana, tell me when do we start?
Jennifer Walter:I'm there.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:I'm like we can carpool we're in it. We're in it. You read my little cute book and just open up the space for curiosity and see where it leads you next. Like email me. I totally want to do some sessions with you or a session and have you experience a core transformation with your endometriosis and I'm just dying to hear your experience later to see how that shifts.
Jennifer Walter:Just on your energy levels.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:Like I, want to see and a side piece in the physical. Do you do castor oil packs?
Jennifer Walter:No, but I heard about them and I also read about them in your book and I'm like that was a game changer for me, that was another.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:I mean, I was already googling.
Jennifer Walter:Where can I get like organic flannel to like do castor oil?
Dana Michelle Gillespie:I mean, honestly, I think, all my friends that have started doing it. You just ordered on Amazon, like I. There's a company out of um, uh, so there's a company I have on there listed that they're great but, like you know, unfortunately manufacturing is only limited when you get down to it a certain place. So, old school, if you really want to go easy peasy, get some organic castor oil, um at your health food store and use a t-shirt and then put you know, old school, you know, just get a hot water pack, heating pack. I ordered one of those because I do it every night. I couldn't believe the shifts and I already have a lot of hair, my hair is good for here.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:Yeah, oh my God, my hair will not stop growing huge. I'm like, oh my goodness, but for inflammation that one is so physically helpful. I love castor oil packs. I will share my first day doing it.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:I kind of had a little cramping as, I think, a detox, and one of my best friends who started doing it she's like Dana, I think I'm allergic to castor oil started cramping Like I was, you know, and I'm like you know what. I had that weird experience too where I thought I was allergic to it. Try it another night. Sure enough, she's emailed me or text me a couple of days later, like she's been sleeping like a baby, better than I have been for years. Cramping went away.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:I think it just detoxes so quickly. That's why it's suggested not to don't do castor oil packs on like the first day of your bleeding, because it'll deep, it'll help encourage the flow of menstrual fluid so quickly. Um, so try it like around, like right after you start you stop bleeding, or when you're, you know, ovulating. Um, or leading up to like when you're in your premenstrual phase, your enchantress phase, that hot mess, whatever. But you can be bold, um, but yeah, don't do it right when you start bleeding, because it will definitely. It's that one's a great one too. There's so many cool things that I'm so excited to share with people because it's fun. You're just like, oh my God, this is great.
Jennifer Walter:I mean, as with everything, right I think you're, as you've pointed out a couple of times and I agree full heartedly curiosity and playfulness and you just try, try something and if it makes you feel good, do it. I mean, that always brings me to the story. When I try sound healing for the first time, I was like this sounds weird, but hey, you know what, let's just roll with it for once. And I was crying like a baby, like sobbing uncontrollably and feeling totally at peace with this kind of whatever frequency I was hearing and it was bliss. So you never know like something might stick with you. And, yeah, go always follow your curiosity. And, speaking of that, if people are curious to know more about you or know more about your Moontime Starter app, starter Kit, tell us a bit about it.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:Yeah, so I love to invite everyone to go to my moon times website and there is a free moon time starter kit and it's a pretty robust kit. So you're going to get um a workbook. You're going to get um access to a little free workshop to learn how to track your cycle by hand. Um, I have something else in there that I'm blanking on right now, but it's a pretty. I want to empower females to have access to all this information that none of us really had access to. So this really kind of nice way to kind of start going in to learn about your menstrual cycle phases. You know, there's, I think, a little case study in the moon time starter kit so you can connect into your cycles and start working with yourself. So I recommend starting there first and then see what opens up for you. The book that you have lit from within it's a little ebook I love, and I wrote in the book that I'm your guide, but it's many people's wisdom. This, this is all shared. You know, knowledge and experience for many people.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:I do have an app that I came up with. It was the first menstrual moon cycle tracking app of its kind. Back I think it started in 2013. It launched as an iPhone in 2014. I do tell people it's an easy access backup tool. I could give a whole long, week long talk of the issues with apps. I don't love encouraging women at all to be reliant on apps. They're only a regurgitation of the information we put into them. So it's kind of like and there's just so many problems, there's so many issues and most apps are selling people's data.
Jennifer Walter:So yeah, I would only say only the data aspect of it alone. Yeah, and like certain very new new restrictive laws, especially in a lot of countries or in the states, I, I don't know, I would not, I would not track something like this. Track it by hand when it could be cross-referenced with Google searches or Google map data or something they might know you're pregnant before you do.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:Like there's so many things oh God they most likely do. Yeah, I think it was natural cycles has been. They were found guilty in the UK for overselling their effectiveness because they're like we're more effective than chemical birth control. I mean, chemical birth control only has 72% accuracy. Yet, like there's so many nuances to all these things and I have a meeting with a colleague next week about the natal lunar fertility time that most all apps are not putting into it, are not putting into it which is the.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:Dr Jonas in the 1950s in the Czech Republic was living in a very Catholic society where, you know, only natural things were allowed and they were trying to do the rhythm method and which tracks the mid-cycle ovulation rhythm method has like a 30 to 80% accuracy at best. He discovered, him and his colleagues, off an ancient Biblionian, if I said, that right text, fragmented text that the time a person is born, that they, I think it said, can ovulate, or something about fertility, and so they tracked it and found and it's in traditional Chinese medicine. They also look at this time as different names lunar natal time, lunar natal fertility time, biorhythmic time. But the moment you're born is a human that, whatever that moon phase, angle phase is, when you're in your menstruating years, your ovulation years, when that two hour window arrives every menstrual cycle, if you have sperm present you can also become spontaneously pregnant, which accounts so when he started in the 1950s.
Jennifer Walter:Okay, I don't know, I feel like I need gin tonic. This is insane, okay.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:I mean, there's whole books. Francesca Nash has written whole books on this with Jane Bennett about this time. It's a little tricky and I'm still working in with the calculation parts because it's hard if you go online and try to you know because, again going back to technology, what are the formulas people are using? Because I've what is the code behind it? Yeah, what's the code? And if the code is not pointing to like NASA's, correct, you know, deck, it's not going to get you your exact thing. And then so there's so many nuances in here, which is so fascinating, but there's a lot of pieces.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:So, again then going into natural cycles app. So if they're trying to say, oh, we're better than you know, whatever, obviously that's not accurate. A lot of people got pregnant in the UK based off using their app, because they were just doing cervical mucus and basal body temperature charting. Plus they had been found guilty in the United States, federally, that people were paying, I think, like a hundred bucks a month, I guess, to them for, you know, having total privacy, yet their data was still being sold. So it's like, but all apps are businesses. So if you're not paying for an app, you're somehow there. Yes, and in the United States, where it's a very real thing, where women may lose their freedom soon, real thing where women may lose their freedom soon, and I mean it, you, we don't know. It's just kind of like uh, wait what, what, wait, what, what? I don't want to do, say anything, but it's like how?
Jennifer Walter:far are we down like oh, that's not gonna happen, but it's like you know.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:No, I mean, it's already happening.
Jennifer Walter:It is already happening. I mean we already see it, not only in the states, also in other countries. I mean we see it happening. It's not only in the States, also in other countries. I mean we see it happening. It's not like oh, you're so like, I don't know, gloomy, it's actually happening.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:It's not when it's yeah, it's fascinating and I try to bring curiosity so I don't get, I don't fall into fear and, you know, start having anxiety over things that haven't happened yet my overactive, overactive imagination can project oh yeah, that will not go well. So, being in that neutrality, but I love encouraging females to track their cycle by hand. You know, get it on paper, like I have my Moontime journal that I created. Oh, that looks pretty, thank you, this is the. Yeah, I like the font, it looks pretty. It's this is the.
Jennifer Walter:Yeah, I like the font, it looks pretty.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:It's kind of like the five-minute journal meets like a menstrual cycle tracking, so it helps your perspective mindset and you can also track all the nuances of your cycle and daily journals and you know monthly reflections. I made it for myself because there wasn't anything like it and I wanted a way. I like to take Queen Anne's lace as part of my natural fertility contraception to not have kids. I'm saying that wrong.
Jennifer Walter:Yeah, contraception.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:Okay, thank you. I'm like I mean.
Jennifer Walter:I'm not an English native, so like please forgive me no it's right.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:Conception is having a kid. Contraception. I'm like I'm supposed to be like knowing all these things, that I'm like wait, what word is that? I'm like I have an image. I see visions. That is how my first language is visions. Second is probably movement. Third, maybe I'm still working on the language parts.
Jennifer Walter:Yeah, I feel you. I feel you. I'm like, oh God, I mean, this is sad, this is not, this is not my native language. So if, especially with biology terms, biology terms, I'm like you know that thing where, like yeah, uterus, that's what it's called.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:yeah, they were all named after male doctors who discovered it.
Jennifer Walter:It's like, um, I'm pretty sure that's how we all came here, so you didn't really discover the organ that you came from, like that was there but it's that's a western perspective oh, funny anecdote I also recently discovered I follow a female historian on tiktok and she elaborated on why we're giving birth, or how most of us in the western world are giving birth. You know that like laying down on the bed, which makes which was always kind of like a bit baffling to me because I'm like I'm not like a physicist, but that doesn't make any sense because things would just drop down what would you lie?
Dana Michelle Gillespie:what's the pattern of nature? We are animals. What are animals doing? I mean?
Jennifer Walter:giraffes don't lie down. Yeah, it doesn't make sense. So anyway, so I yeah, so that was because king, some louis something, something in france, who loved to watch women and so he had to make his women um, give birth that way, and that kind of somehow stick stuck with us. So yeah, anecdote, interesting, funny stuff. So this is what I do in my free time. On TikTok Can we also find you on TikTok or any other social media.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:Instagram is kind of my go to. It's my underscore moon time. I just haven't been able to get into Instagram and I kind of repost things into Facebook. But I've been. I've been slowly like, how do I, how do I interact with everyone and not be within the social media I, how do I interact with everyone and not be within the social media world? I, like I want to connect with everyone, but I'm slowly creating a community space through my website, slowly, but I am on Instagram. I'm technically have a Facebook. I do have a Pinterest, but Instagram and email are like my, my jams right now. But I do want more ways to connect with women and just talk. What is it like for you? How are you doing? What do you need? You know it's, it's just that connection.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:So we're having your own podcast Dana, I do have a podcast. That I have. I do have a podcast. I have not been consistent. I only do it slowly over time when I'm like, yes, let's talk Slowest any wins the race.
Jennifer Walter:That's okay. Slowly, slowly, slowly, okay, so we're going to link all of that, including the Moontime Starter Kit and the show notes, so you can feel free to check it out. And before I let you off the hook, dana, what book are you currently reading or what audiobook you're currently listening to?
Dana Michelle Gillespie:Oh, oh, my God, god, I have like too many books going at the same time. Uh, same girl, same then. Okay, so the new work, connie ray andreas's newest book, the new wholeness work, um, that book is, oh I, if anyone's interested in experiencing like real awakening enlightenment, essentially she pretty much. I don't want to say the word hack, but she scientifically proved like how to experience so you're flowing in your own resourceful balance. The Wholeness Work by Connie Randreis, her newest book, is phenomenal. It's very complete, thorough and it's like again, it's all here right now. You guys, we all have it on earth, it's all here, all the tools we need. It's just a matter of getting curious and finding what resonates Like, puzzling them together in a way that works for you Exactly Right.
Dana Michelle Gillespie:Yeah, this is what your one and precious life. How do you want to enjoy it?
Jennifer Walter:Oh, I could not have asked for better closing words than these. Dana, thank you so much for being on the CineGroove with me. It was a blast to have you here, thank you, thank you, thank you, and just like that, we've reached the end of another journey together on the CineGroove podcast. Thank you for spending time with us, curious for more stories or in search of the resources mentioned in today's episode. Visit us at cinegrootpodcastcom for everything you need. And if you're ready to embrace your CineGroot, I've got something special for you. Step off the beaten path with my CineGroot Affirmation Card Deck. It's crafted for those moments when you're seeking courage, yearning to trust your inner voice and eager to carve out a path authentically, unmistakably yours. Pick your scenic route affirmation today and let it support you. Excited about where your journey might lead? I certainly am. Remember, the scenic route is not just about the destination, but the experiences, learnings and joy we discover along the way. Thank you for being here and I look forward to seeing you on the scenic route again.
