Yoga and Your Menstrual Cycle with Mia Tarduno

Did you know you can optimize your life by living in accordance with your cycle, just like with any other rhythms that exist in Nature?

For this episode, I sat down with Mia Tarduno. Mia is a yoga teacher, she’s certified in Trauma-Informed Yoga, and Certified Life Coach. Her mission is to connect people with their natural states of being to restore balance in their health, lifestyle, work, and relationships. She focuses her work on women’s health using mentorship, yoga, rituals, gathering, and menstrual cycle awareness to help them through the seasons of life.

MY 5 BIGGEST TAKEAWAY FROM THIS EPISODE

1- The cycle is like our inner yoga. Observing it is a spiritual practice. Working with the phases of the cycle reflects the cycles of the breath and phases of yoga poses.

2- There are 4 phases to your cycle. Your hormones change in every phase, your body will feel different, and requests and needs different things. Menstruation is like winter. It's characterized by energy is low, introspection, resting time, planting seeds. It might feel more natural to sit and meditate than in other parts of the cycle. Pre-ovulation is like spring. It's characterized by creativity, freshness, fun, playfulness, new ideas. Ovulation is like summer. It's characterized by expression, extroversion, being out, carrying big projects or presentations. The pre-menstrual phase is like fall. It's characterized by introspection, more awareness, time of the critic, no BS, and clarity.

3- The first step to live in accordance with your cycle and track it. Get a notebook, take a page by day of the cycle, and for every day 1, take notes. Later, you can contrast all day 1 against each other. You will start to see your patterns.

4- Generally speaking, choose more rigorous, strength base practice during pre-ovulation and ovulation and slower but challenging practices during pre-menstruation, and finally, yin and restorative during the menstruating phase.

5- It can be counter-culture to honor your bleed time but also your whole cycle. Practice to not silence it, to not be ashamed. Track it, prepare for it (make meals ahead of time, talk to people about what you need, make space in the schedule), make a ritual around menstruation (lighting red candles, wearing red, listening to particular music, drink raspberry tea) Savore rest. You're not broken, reclaim what it is to be a woman.

QUESTIONS SHE ANSWERED DURING THIS EPISODE

• Why did you decide to focus some of your work on using yoga to balance the menstruation cycle?
• What does it mean to live in accordance with our cycle? Why is it important for women to pay attention to their cycle and eventually do that?
• Can we go over the basic things we should know, starting with what is the process that is happening during the cycle?
• How does what is happening physiologically translate energetically?
• If we want to pay attention and live in accordance with our cycle, how do we do that? What is the first step?
• What happens with our tracking if we are irregular?
• What happens in the case where we are on birth control? What can we still look at, learn from, or do to support our cycle?
• How can yoga support us through the cycle and how could our practice reflect or serve our body in what it’s going through?
• How can we shift our perspective around our cycle, especially when we find ourselves struggling or in pain?
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