Women's Circles, Moon Cycles and Honouring Nature's Rhythm - Conversations with Aneta Idczak (Ep 11)

In this episode, Sarah's teacher, Aneta Idczak interviewed Sarah who shares with us her journey from training as a massage therapist to somatic coach. We talk about the power of creating women’s spaces for connection, co-regulation and community, how Nature can help us reconnect with pleasure and Sarah’s passion for Ayurvedic cooking.

Sarah also talks about her experience of our Trauma-informed Somatic Teacher and coach for Women training certification. 

Sarah is a trauma informed somatic coach, yoga & advanced pranayama teacher, women's space holder and Ayurvedic retreat chef in training, Sarah has been hosting transformational retreats in the sacred lands of Glastonbury and Kent Coast, U.K for women that want to reawaken their passion for life and reconnect with pleasure in their body. The heart of  what Sarah does is to bring you into a state of loving acceptance and a knowing of self worth in her online programme Feeling Wholeness. She weaves in the heart warming magic of mama cacao and is dedicated to witnessing women let go of inner pain to live in trust and flourish through every season of their life.

You can find more info about Sarah’s work here:
https://www.holistichealthcollective.co.uk/

https://www.balancedbodywellnessuk.com/

You can find out more about Aneta and her holistic coach training here:

https://anetaidczak.com/

If you would like our free moon download to get the list of the 12 astrological signs and how they impact your body parts and emotions, grab that here: https://holistichealthc.kartra.com/page/moondownload

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Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/holistichealthcollectiveuk

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/holistichealthcacaouk

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Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/holistichealthcacaouk/

Website:

https://www.holistichealthcollective.co.uk

Where you can find out more about of women's health retreats, our healthy products. our online health membership for peri-menopausal women, online courses and our in person events.

Our Women's health membership when you can join live ceremonies every new and full moon is here:

https://holistichealthc.kartra.com/page/HolisticHealthCircle

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Transcript

 Yes. Welcome to the Holistic Health Sisters podcast of Wellness and Real Life Sisters Hannah Carr and Sarah King from the Holistic Health Collective. In this podcast, we're going to be sharing our passion for, of course, holistic health, but also spirituality, healings, hormone, plant medicine, seasonal living, our love of nature, and our love of community.

So we are gonna invite you to take a pause and take a nice deep breath.

And join us on a path of healing, of self-discovery and self-love, and of stepping into the brilliance of who you really are. This is a podcast for the seekers out there. Those of you who know there's more to life than just surviving or going through the motions, and you want more, more health, wealth, happiness, love, compassion, connection, trust, surrender, and more faith, and you want that for others too.

So we can make this world a better place for us all to go and grab a cup of ceremonial grade cacao and join us as we explore what moves through us, that which is divinely led, so we can all move from fear to walls, more faith. Thank you so much for being here with us today.

 Today's podcast is a little bit different. Sarah was interviewed by one of her teachers, Aneta Idczak from her podcast through a trauma-informed lens. Soma, psyche and Soul and Aneta runs this podcast for heart-centered practitioners who are dedicated to making a safer, more compassionate space for clients.

So she interviewed Sarah about women's circles. Moon cycles and honoring nature's rhythms, and I thought you'd be really interested to hear some of the questions that Aneta had to ask and some of the wisdom that Sarah had to share. Enjoy.

 So Sarah is a trauma-informed space holder for women, but I know that there is so much more within this one sentence, and I think the best thing to start off with is if you could just tell us a little bit.

About your work, Sarah, and the journey that you've been on, because we've known each other for a few years now. And yeah, I've watched you develop your own voice and develop your own work and yeah, it would be great to hear about your journey. Thank you. I actually came into the. I suppose you'd call holistic world or healing world through my massage training.

So by trade, I am a dispensing optician. That's the career that I took as a 19-year-old, and like many of us, we suffer physical and mental health challenges, and I become very disconnected from my body, in fact, very abusive to my body. And I use that word with a lot of clients because we becomes part of our every day to neglect ourself or forget our own basic needs.

Like not drinking enough, not eating, when we're hungry, getting those hunger signals. And so I had really disconnected from my body and I found that when I went for massage treatment, I felt very nurtured, very comforted, and I felt like I was back in my body, which was beautiful. And so I undertook a training to become holistic massage therapist.

And it's such a, it is such an honor to be able to hold people's bodies in that way. They have to surrender themselves on the couch, right? It's, and it is a beautiful thing to receive as well. But I started to realize, people coming to be fixed. And it costs a fair bit of money each time.

And then I found myself in a yoga mat, in a yoga studio. And like many of us I did take your 80 hour training as a yoga teacher and embodied resilience training mentor. I found myself on the yoga mat. I found myself absolutely addicted to the movement of practice. Found myself back in my body, out of my head, which was great.

But yoga has a very specific goal, right? Yoga is trying to get you out of your mind. It's trying to get you to enlightenment, right? I'm not knocking that great. But in reality, I speak as a fully bodied. Fully able white woman. And that works full-time. It's a great practice for me and it was very accessible to me.

But also I was noticing I was going into burnout with these daily sun salutations and this this goal of enlight enlightenment. It was quite tiring actually, that process. And I found myself in a yin class, which is very restorative, very slow. I think there was like three poses within an hour and a half session, which was great.

And then I discovered moon salutations and I discovered this whole energy system within our body, which is dedicated to rest, repair, and slowing down. For the yogis that are listening, this is the moon channel within our body, one of the energy systems which compliments that sun energy, which is that doing that productivity.

But we don't live by that really in this western culture. We are a culture of doing, achieving, ticking things off on a to-do list, which never ends. So we never get the gratification. We just embody a lot of guilt for not being. Productive enough. And so I took your training and it was life changing in many ways.

I'd already probably started to weave in some more somatic practices, some more space for people to listen to their body rather than listen to a set of instructions. And again, I'm not knocking yoga, but it is a specific. A set of instructions for a specific outcome. Yeah, but what about our own body's wisdom?

We have a unique blueprint. We have our own challenges, we have our own gifts. And I did find that within that dedication, dedicated time on the mat, it wasn't really holding a lot of space for my own body's wisdom. Or other people coming to me, there were women going through perimenopause, menopause.

I qualified as a yoga teacher in 2018, so I didn't have long before lockdown came. And when they were finally back on the mat, I. After, a long time in the studio, in the class, I could pick up on the extreme stress people had undergone and the practices that might have served before weren't really scratching the surface anymore.

And so I really wanted to deepen my understanding. Which is where you came into it with the 160 hour training, and that's where I'm at now. So I've just completed the 160 hour training and at the same time I'm training to be an Ayurvedic chef, which I'll leave it there. I won't go into that at the moment.

I love that. So you've been on a journey and I love it. I love it how you came from this, massage. Path. And then adding yoga and now adding the somatic pr, more somatic practices and then somatic coaching and working very much in trauma informed approach.

Yeah. And tell me how you work or tell us how you work with clients. 'cause I know you're quite local to me, which is really nice. And, I keep hearing about you doing. KA celebrations and holding women's circles. Yeah. So could you tell us a little bit about how you work with women at the moment?

Yeah, I'm really honored to wear two hats. So I have my own business, which is called Balanced Body Wellness, and this is really more of a community-based business. So we are blessed to live on the coastline of Kent. And one of my slogans is we are not part of nature. We are nature, and we all feel better right when we've been barefoot.

On the sand or with the trees or just connecting with the great outdoors. And so I do a lot of events in the community on the beach in a local nature reserve, whether it's hiking, sitting in circles or beach yoga. So that's balanced body wellness. But in lockdown, I actually, came to work with my sister, who's a naturopathic nutritionist, and we had been working with the New Moon and the For Moon as a way to come together and check in with our health, our energy, and our emotions.

And in lockdown we formed a business called the Holistic Health Collective. And this was initially started for women with anxiety that wanted a full body approach. So we use nutrition. Yoga, breath work, meditation. But this really important marker, which we didn't really know how to explain to people.

The moon, we come together every new and full moon and we gather in circle. So we do this online but we also do pop up events in community as well. And we get to. Co-regulate, right? We need co-regulation more than we realize. And so we witness each other and we say, I'm feeling this and this is a challenge.

Or, I planted this seed six months ago, this intention for my life, and it's coming to fruition. And we've been doing it for five years together, and it has been. I'm just welcome. A bit of emotion actually as I share this. It's been an honor to witness women's transformation consistently because we've got nature as our timeline.

And so that's what I'm doing. As part of the last training I did with you, I developed a program which I call feeling wholeness. And that was a word you used a lot, the wholeness of your experience. And I wanted to help women embody more pleasure and joy. What I realized was you need to be able to hold the challenging emotions as well.

Without burning down. Without breaking down, without losing it. If you wanna get to those needs met emotions. So that's my one-to-one program and I take women over a 12 week timeline where we work together. I love that. I love that. I love your business model. Within those two businesses, to, you work online, you work locally, you've got popup events and you Yeah.

It sounds very accessible. If somebody wants to work with you, they can come to any of those things, whichever one suits them more. Yeah. That's really lovely. I had. I keep saying that I will come to one of your events on the beach 'cause it's not that far. Yeah. That will be one of my intentions oh, we'd love to have you.

Yeah. Yeah. So you've done a lot of stuff and it sounds, when I listen to you, it feels quite a mature. The word that comes up for me, it's mature, ah, mature business and mature way of holding spaces. I dunno why the word mature comes but I wonder, how did the training change the way that you work?

What was the impact of it? Because you've been working with women for five years with your sister and then, in other kind of context and settings. The impact of the training, I think I say it to my clients, I've become very repetitive. And I see that as a really positive thing because when we're in a stress response and once we start tuning in somatically and doing the embodied listening, not only can we feel it, but we start to see those habits and those ways of existing in being where.

How regulated am I really? Am I in fight, flight, freeze or th or am I in face mode? Which actually we don't speak about that mode very often, but that's where we are regulated enough. And so when I'm teaching. Holding space. What I noticed is so much of it has come through the mind. Why do I feel like this?

Why do I do that? And we are trying to figure it out rather than feel it. And we are using that different part of our brain. We are more in that limbic system, that emotional response. And so it doesn't really go in. We need to hear it again and again. Listen to your body. What's your body saying to you?

How long has this been going on? And being quiet enough to listen, and also really empowering women to trust their body and enable to empower women To do that, we have to do that ourselves. We can't bypass that part. We can do all the learning. We can listen to podcasts, read books. We can deliver it and coach, but we have to practice it ourselves.

We cannot bypass that. The body keeps the score, but the body also pays the price. If we don't. Do something about it. So I've become really repetitive, as I said, in, what's all that about? One of your phrases that I've borrowed. And being very compassionate and very curious. Rather than making myself wrong and letting, reminding women know that you don't need to fix your body.

Your body's definitely not a machine. In fact, there's a quote on the gym wall where I go your body as a machine and I wanted throw paint over it or something because I'm like, there's enough you do that. I'll get tucked out. But there's enough ai, there's enough technology in the world. We are human.

That is our. There's no end goal. We are different every day. Like we're renewing ourselves, we're having different experiences, we're impacted by our environment. We're processing so. I just keep reminding women like, how you feel isn't wrong. Like it is perfect. Whatever's going on is perfect. And just repeating a lot of the practices actually come into practicing them in different seasons.

'cause your body's gonna respond very differently in winter as it is to summer. So I think working with women for a longer period of time is important as well. If you've got the luxury of doing that. So I'm really blessed that inside my online circle, women tend to come in for a year and we get to work through each season.

So that's, I think that's really important. They, the whole indium cycles, the whole indium ribbons rather than that circadian, which is the 24 hour. Cycle, which most of us are familiar with, and it affects our metabolism and our sleep and our energy. But the indium, which is a cycle longer than 24 hours, normally 28, 29 days, a bit like the menstrual cycle and the moon cycle, and noticing the patterns that come up within those cycles as well.

Yeah, I love it. I so love everything that you just said. Because it just makes me think about, we want the shortcuts, we want quick fixes, we want, things preferably be, be different, preferably yesterday. Yeah. We want, we force our body, our mind. Yeah. Of wholeness of ourselves into this marathons of productivity.

God. And we get so disconnected from nature and the way that we are designed to live. Our minds, the way that we create things, the way that we organize our lives, the modern technology, the ai, the computers, the electricity that only happened in such a short space of time recently, yet our bodies have been going for a very long time now, and so the mind has evolved.

To work in a different way, but the body hasn't, and what you just said, the body pays the price. The body always pays the price. And we can get into the habit of forcing our body, and the body will sustain it. For a, for some time, for some of us longer than others, and then the, we crash with within that.

And so it's so wonderful to hear you talk about holding your circles for a longer period of time. So there is this embodied change of doing something again and again coming together, whether a formal moon or a new moon and really embracing a different rhythm and holding space for each other.

And you use that words that I really love co-regulation. Yeah. And for like when you've done this training, we understand what that word means, but what does it mean if somebody is listening, they don't know what co-regulation could be within a circle. Could you say a few words about that? Yeah, so I just come through my lens of co-regulation.

I would say I really. Embodied the masculine way of being, which can be quite isolating. And to in quotations, fix the world yourself. And to do a productive, to be a productive machine, not needing anyone. And co-regulation is the truth is we are to. We need, we need trees to breathe and they need us in return.

So there's already co-regulation there, but we are built to thrive with each other. And so we need each other's nervous systems to help support us. So for example, a mother holding a baby to soothe them for me holding my cat. And I'm sure we've got a lot of pet owners here that can resonate with that one as well.

But there's something in collective healing. We can do all the healing that we want on our own, but when we go back into the world, there's always going to be triggers and we really can't shut ourself from the world. As much as at times we feel like we might want to, and that would be that sort of flight response of the stress response.

We have to be able to gaze into each other's eyes or touch each other's skin without it feeling unsafe. Without feeling rejected or judged or criticized, so that co-regulation would just be able to be safe in each other's presence and to receive support in some way. I would say. I love that. I love that.

What would you add? Nothing really, it's just that, exactly what you just said, that coagulation, we can do as much healing on our own as we want to, but actually, the real healing takes place in relationship. It's relational because that's how we are wired. From the birth, that kind of co-regulation feeling, the sense of belonging, feeling, the sense of being witnessed and acknowledged and accepted.

And so often in our busyness of daily lives, we run from one thing to another. We are dealing with challenges. We dealing with chaos in the world to actually find a place where you can come on a, in a regular basis. And connect with other women or other people, other people. A group of people especially is such a powerful thing, and then whether you do it as a ritual or whether you do some practices within that, it's that sense of belonging and being seen and being acknowledged that is so powerful and so healing.

Yeah. And so often you said that right at the beginning I hear, I heard you say about, acknowledging those more difficult emotions that then by doing it, it helps you move to more positive experiences and so often, I've seen advertising for circles where it's, it just, it all looks really pretty and really beautiful, but actually sometimes it might lack a little bit of that deeper work because.

For whatever reason, there is a lot of focus on healing and a lot of focus on positive things and that kind of love and light to everybody aesthetic. Which is very pretty. But I think. You cannot underestimate the power of a safe space. And that can't even be, I say it, I have said it a lot.

I want you to know this is a safe space to my clients, but actually their nervous system's picking it up, whether you say it or not. So they need to feel it, don't they? Yeah, completely. And the biggest feedback for you as a facilitator or as a, as a. Space holder, is that feedback by people coming back?

Yeah. If people are coming back Yeah. You know that you are doing it right? Absolutely. That people are getting what they needing from it, which is wonderful. So if I ask you about what you loved. Or what did you love the most about the training, the trauma informed somatic teacher and coach for women certification?

What would you say? There was a lot that I loved specifically, there's a lot of information there and like we are on my end centric culture, so there's a lot to take in and digest. Which is great, but the equal amount of space was held to be with the body and do practices. Which is just so necessary, and you really honed in on the point when we take a break, get away from your screen, go for a walk, be outside if you can or rest.

And there's a lot of alchemy that happens during those downtime spaces Is part of the process. And I didn't used to trust that. I used to be like, no, I need to be sitting with it, thinking about it, designing a program or the next session. But actually you're so right. You always say, I go to the beach with my dog Oscar, and then things just drop in.

And this is so true, and this is a big piece in trust. I think there's a lot of self-trust that had to be built. And also being around other people that are allowing, becoming a receptor, being able to receive, not just being in that masculine energy of doing. So that was really magical.

But also I think being. Really listened to by you. So we have support on the WhatsApp group. And it wasn't just that you were doing it out of obligation. If there were any questions that were coming in, you really held space for them. It, I could hear it was really well considered. So just that feeling of being really held and you use the word Soma, psyche, soul.

I think it's really. Embedded into the program as well. So yeah, I think it's one of those things we could talk about, but the results are, we speak about your ripple effect out to your other practitioners coming through your facilitators, and everyone's got their own flavor, the way that they deliver it, and it's really beautiful to witness everyone doing that.

Yeah, that, I think that's my favorite thing, to actually see how each one of you takes it on and integrate it with other things. And, 'cause if I think about you, for example I can't remember the name that you use, but Ayurvedic chef, you know that it's. I don't know that there was any other Ayurvedic chef that came through the training in the last five years.

So yeah, that was a surprise and I was able to tune into my heart because I remember. We looked at our values as part of the course, and nature was across my business values and my personal values. And, we are not just what we eat, but we digest as well. And I did actually tune into some dysregulation around the way that I eat and the way that I feel my body.

And I try and always learn more about things that we do every day. So we're breathing every day. So I did an advanced breath coaching. We're eating every day, hence doing more training about this, but it's a very spiritual way of eating and I must say that about your program as well. You are very grounded and very realistic in your approach, but I could also feel that deep, mystery spirituality and honoring of the unseen and the divine as well through the work. So whether that comes through specifically the way that you dress is very beautiful, but practical as well. But what we're saying is we're being honest and true to ourselves that I don't need to wear certain clothing to show that I'm spiritual and just I am.

Yeah, I love what you just said. Yeah. I don't think it's like we focus so much on the external within our society, but actually it is the internal that is, that really matters ultimately. And if we do that. Everything else will fall in line with that. Yeah. I hope that I will get a chance to try some of your food.

That would be magical. So what's next for you? You talking about being Ayurvedic chef. Are you going to run some. How are you gonna use it and how are you going to integrate it with everything else? What is your vision? This is such a great question because I'm still in the allowing of this to unfold.

I'm having so much fun in the kitchen and just changing the way that I eat and cook every day. But in the back of my mind, I am thinking, how can I weave this in? So I'm in the process of creating a program to support women going through the perimenopause. Wow. And this is part of the body of work that I'm doing with you.

And there is always that question, what am I gonna eat today? What do I eat for my changing needs? So I am in the back of my mind almost menu creating for women going through the perimenopause. And I see this is. An online program that I'm going to deliver, but it's gonna finish on retreat where we get to cook and we get to enjoy this beautiful food as well because there's nothing like actually being handed a plate of beautiful food, right?

And a beautiful location, but then taking that back into your world and integrating that in a realistic way. So that's. That's in the process of being created and in context. In context to this recording. We are in spring and I really trying to embody that pacing, like allowing the ideas to come up and come through, not pushing them.

And and I'll get into the body of work of this as it naturally unfolds. Yeah. Planting the seeds and just nurturing them and seeing what comes up. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I love that. That sounds like such a beautiful offering. Yeah. I can't wait to see where it goes. Yeah. Being as a woman in perimenopause, I am definitely noticing that my food needs are changing.

I, I noticed that definitely over the last. Yeah, definitely over the last six months, more so than before, this kind of craving for really simple foods in a very much food. I wanna say original food form, the kind of unprocessed real food with not too much of. Edit of anything, if that makes sense.

Yeah, totally. And metabolic rate does change and the way that we digest that food. And for me it's like this calling back to nature, like you said, simplicity whole foods, adding lots of things that generally are hormone disruptors that might worsen. Feedback in our body make it more challenging. So yeah, this is what I'm creating is simple foods for Elevated.

So adding just simple spices or flowers and like making your food ritualistic. I love that. I love that. I can feel my taste buds.

Oh, thank you so much, Sarah for taking time to chat with me and for being part of the community and for sharing your wisdom. If people wanted to connect with you or maybe even join some of your offerings, how can they find you? Thank you. So I have a website and Instagram and Facebook are the social media channels mainly.

And I've just launched a podcast as well. So that's with the holistic health collective.co uk. So the podcast we generally talk a bit about hormones. We're talking a lot about the moon and nature but if you want to come to any in-person events generally based in Kent, then check out Balanced Body Wellness uk.

And I do, yeah, all sorts. So I love to welcome you in and thank you for holding space. Okay. Thank you so much, Sarah. Thank you.

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