16. Resting On Purpose Makes You Stronger

Burnout can look like a motivation problem, but what if it’s actually a rhythm problem? 

I sit down with Gigi Hunt, a cycle and flow mentor and registered nurse, to talk about the real connection between the nervous system, hormones, and the menstrual cycle and why so many women feel stuck in overwhelm when they try to live like their energy should be the same every day. 

Gigi shares her honest journey through motherhood, postpartum anxiety, and the moment she realized that what started as a weight loss goal was really a call to come back home to her body. From breathwork and meditation to deeper cycle awareness, she explains how self-trust is built through small, repeatable choices instead of willpower and hustle. 

We break down cycle syncing using a seasonal framework: inner winter (menstrual), inner spring (follicular), inner summer (ovulation), and inner fall (luteal). You’ll learn what tends to shift in mood, energy, and focus across each phase, how ignoring low-energy cues can fuel dysregulation, and how rest becomes a strategy, not a setback. 

If you’ve wondered whether you’re “hormonal,” “lazy,” or even “perimenopausal,” we offer a different lens: hormones are messengers and the nervous system is the conductor, so chronic stress and poor recovery can mimic bigger problems.

Connect with Gigi on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/gloflo.withgigi/

Join us for Rewiring Wealth coming up LIVE! Doors close July 26, 2026.

Connect with Sara on Instagram here.

Transcript

Welcome And Meet Gigi Hunt

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome back to the podcast. Today we have guest D Gigi Hunt, who is a cycle and flow mentor who helps women understand the connection between their nervous system, hormones, and menstrual cycle so they can create more ease, self-trust, and alignment in life and business. Blending science, somatics, and feminine wisdom, she teaches women how to work with their cyclical nature rather than against it. Her work helps women move from burnout, overwhelm, and self-doubt into a deeper relationship with their body, energy, and inner rhythm. I have been praying for such a long time to bring someone onto the podcast to talk about the menstrual cycle and how we can live in flow. So I'm really looking forward to our conversation.

Motherhood Without A Village

SPEAKER_00 0:52

Can you start us off by telling us about your journey into motherhood?

SPEAKER_01 0:57

Yes. First of all, thank you so much for having me as a guest. When you messaged me, I was so like I've been following you on social. So I was really excited to have this conversation. Plus, I believe that this isn't a conversation that is had enough. So the more we start talking about these things and normalizing them and making them a part of just our routine and daily life, the more awareness we we we create, the more women feel less alone. So thank you, thank you, thank you. Um, so I have two littles. I have a nine-year-old and a seven-year-old. We homeschool. Um it's been quite a journey. So motherhood has been quite interesting for me. It has been the most lovingly challenged of my life, but in the best way possible, because guess what? Like it has helped me to evolve, it has helped me to see parts of myself that were in the shadows for a really long time and help has helped me to grow as a person. Um, because a lot of the things that I do is, you know, rooted in the why. Like I have a little girl, I have a little boy, like the future, their their adulthood, etc. So um my husband and I, we've been together like 10 years, and we never really had a good support system. We've never had a village. So this has been us since the very beginning. And there have been times when it has been super, super challenging. Um, we ended up when my son was around three, we ended up traveling in an RV for about three years. So we were on the road, and that was a journey in and of itself. Um, but going back a little bit when my son was around two years old, I had such severe postpartum anxiety, and it was triggering old wounds inside of me because I had a history already of like PTSD from a very violent and traumatic childhood. I had depression, I had all of these, like, you know, suicidal ideation, all of these things before I became a mom. And I thought that okay, I had been good for a few years, and then postpartum for the second child kicked in, and it was intense, but it led me to a journey of self-discovery, and it helped me to it was my medicine, is what I'm saying. Like that postpartum anxiety was my medicine because it is what helped me to get on the path that I am now.

SPEAKER_00 3:54

Ugh, I love this so much, and I've been wanting to ask about your kids because, like me, I see that you don't share them on social media, or if you have, it might not be a lot. And so I'm like, I know Gigi's a mom, but I've never really seen you post about them. So it's incredible to hear the journey of you and your husband having been together for 10 years, you now have a seven-year-old and a nine-year-old, and that transition into motherhood is a huge one, and that's not even talked about enough. And all that comes up from our own childhood and our own wounding and gives us an opportunity to turn in and reflect on that. Absolutely, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:38

So I don't share a lot of um the kids online just because we don't really do a lot of tech for them to begin with. So I feel like it's weird if I'm posting them, if they're not like kids that have like tablets and phones and stuff like that. But yeah, it's been it's been quite the journey actually.

Postpartum Anxiety Into Purpose

SPEAKER_00 5:01

Uh, and so one of the topics that you bring into talking about the menstrual cycle is hormones. And I know that postpartum hormones shift so often, so rapidly. Can you walk us through the journey of how you got into the work that you're doing today?

SPEAKER_01 5:22

Yeah, totally. So I'm a registered nurse by trade. I have a bachelor's degree in nursing. And when I first um, when I first started experiencing this postpartum anxiety I was talking about, I was self-soothing in ways that were routine habits for me, right? Like I was overeating, I wasn't taking care of myself, I was just like snapping and dysregulated, AF. And um it started with, okay, I don't like the way that I feel in my body because I've gained so much weight that it's hard for me to just keep up with the kids. One of my biggest aha moments was um we lived in Pennsylvania at the time, and we had a deck, like a pool deck, and I was walking up the pool deck, and it was probably like three steps, and I had my two-year-old on me, and I was like, and you know, like out of breath, like completely like what's going on. I'm a young mom, like this, like I want to be more energetic and be more on top of it. So it really, my journey really did start as a weight loss journey. Like I wanted to lose weight because I wanted to feel better in my skin. So I tried all kinds of different things. I finally found one thing that helped and worked for me, but then I started noticing that it was deeper than just eating and nutrition and, you know, like weight loss. Like that was just a symptom of an underlying issue, which at the time I didn't really figure it out completely. But here's the thing about like when you're on a journey, like you don't necessarily know what it's going to be like three, four years from now, but you have to take the first steps. So I was just taking the first steps and I started like meditating a lot. I started um getting really into Tony Robbins and going to like virtual events and programs and all of these things. And as I went through this journey, I realized one, my nursing career wasn't fulfilling for me and it didn't align with my value. And two, it's not just weight loss. Weight loss is a byproduct of something deeper. So as I started meditating more, I became a breath work practitioner. So I started spending more time in quietude, you know, just being with myself. I started noticing patterns. Now I've been tracking my cycle, which a lot of women do. A lot of women track their cycle, but there's a difference between tracking your cycle and really honoring the different phases that you're in, right? So I was tracking my cycle, but now like the cycle tracking became a little bit deeper. And I just started putting two and two together, and I started realizing that my body's like completely shifted, how my mood, my energy completely shifted from week to week. The way that I showed up, the way that I was able to work out, the way that I regulated, it was all so different from week to week, and that um prompted me to explore more. And then I started thinking about like, oh my god, what if I just it's so funny because before I started thinking about this and it came to me like I had never seen cycle syncing things online. This was like wild to me. I thought I made this up, but I didn't. It wasn't me. I didn't make it up. Um, but the just the more I started exploring and the more I started digging deeper, the more it made sense. And it was kind of a remembrance of like, oh, this makes so much sense. And that's how it all like unfolded.

Menstrual Cycle Seasons Explained

SPEAKER_00 9:13

Oh, uh, I have so many questions. Okay. So I want to start with we're taught to push through low energy phases, drink more caffeine, get your energy up however you can in order to get your work done. And I see this with a with a lot of women and moms in business. They'll push themselves to 12, 14-hour days. Can you talk us through what happens when we are in the phases of our cycle where our energy levels feel lower? Um, and what you see when women ignore those cues.

SPEAKER_01 9:56

Yeah. So going back a little bit on my journey, when I first came into the online coaching space, I was a weight loss coach, right? I helped women with nutrition and eating and stuff like that. But I was behind the scenes working on aligning and honoring my body and working with my cycle. So at one point in time, I started working behind the scenes with a friend of mine. She owns a business and she's very goal-oriented and very result-driven. And I noticed that there were certain times that I would talk to her, and she just was like, you could tell, you could hear the burnout just in the voice and the interaction. So I started giving her suggestions and tips like, girl, what part of your cycle are you in? Are you even tracking? Are you writing down? Here's the three things I would suggest that you do. And she was very open to it. And six months later, she like took my advice, et cetera. Six months later, she comes back to me randomly and is like, oh my gosh, you know, ever since I started like really listening to my body and resting during my late luteal menstrual phase, I come back stronger, I come back harder. And I'm like, yeah, that's that's that's the whole point. And that's how my like cycle sinking mentoring journey began. She was my first, like, and it was it was kind of stumbled upon because I had no intention of making this my main thing, right? But seeing her results, seeing how it helped me, I was like, you we have to talk about this more. More women need to know because I see it all the time. You see, you see these women, they seem very successful, they seem really on it. And then several months later, you hear them talking about the burnout that they were experiencing. When we honor our rest cycles, just like we honor our goal cycles, life becomes so much simpler. It becomes so much easier because we as women, we're not meant to go, go, go 24-7. We run on an infraradian um six. We were we run on an infraradium rhythm as opposed to men who run on a circadian rhythm, which is a 24-hour period. Ours is about 21 to 35 days, which is our menstrual cycle. So if you don't mind, I could get into the logistics of it, right? So I like to view it as the seasons. And the way I the reason I do this is because it's easy to to conceptualize. When you look out, especially when you live in the northern hemisphere where the seasons change, you notice that each season brings with it its own energy, its own like vibe, right? And we mirror the earth so much in that way. So much so that like our menstrual, our menstrual phase is like our inner winter. This is a time of going inward, of what's going on in the wintertime. It's snowing, it's cold, everyone wants to drink their soup and wear fuzzy socks and drink cocoa and be home, right? That's the winter vibe. That's exactly how it is for us. Now, hormonally, this is the time when our um hormones are at their lowest. All of them have decreased significantly. This is also energetically the time when as women, we are most intuitive, we are most able to really go within and release things that no longer are serving us, do self-reflection, all of that good stuff. If we're constantly going, doing this, doing that, working out hard, I'm not saying don't work out, but working out hard, doing a million things on your to-do list, when is there a time to pause? There isn't. So we're we're um not taking advantage of this peak time for introspection. After our um inner winter, after our menstrual cycle, as our hormones and our body is starting to prepare now for ovulation in our follicular phase, that's our inner spring. A lot of women are like, I'm finally starting to feel like myself again. I'm sure you've heard that, right? Like, I'm I'm starting to feel it myself again. It's because estrogen is rising, FSH hormones is rising, our body is preparing us for ovulation, which is the star of the menstrual cycle, aka the summertime, right? It's not summer all year long, but some of us like to live like it is, and that causes burnout for our bodies because our bodies are not meant to function like that. So um in the spring, our bodies are is prepping for ovulation, our estrogen is going up. I like to think of estrogen as like our extroverted friend who is like magnetic and fiery and like, ooh, like life of the party. She comes online. All of a sudden, you have all of these new ideas. You're willing to accept, you know, feedback or you're willing to look at something in a different angle, you're willing to explore, you're open, right? That is what you're in. Take advantage of this phase for what it is. This is not the phase to be laying in bed miserable, right? Or sad or like whatever. This that's menstrual phase. Like we're on to the next. Okay. After our spring season comes summer. Summer is very short. It's like a blink of an eye, right? The shortest, the shortest season in our cycle, but still a very important season. Estrogen is at its peak. We are super magnetic, we are super social, you know. We are in um a place where we're more bonded. We want to bond, we want to take care of people. We have a lot of energy. And then fall comes around because summer doesn't last forever. And at first, so the luteal phase, aka the fall season, for a very long time I struggled so hard with it because I would have severe, like luteal rage is what I called it, where I would get so angry and so frustrated and so irritated at everything. And I didn't realize it was because I was super dysregulated, super stressed out, and I wasn't honoring the other season. So by the time it came to that, my body's done. Like my body was just like, screw it. Like, I'm gonna tell you the truth and I'm gonna say it loud. And that's what it was doing. And that's what the luteal phase is about. It's about reevaluating, it's about tying up loose ends. The first week of our luteal phase, progesterone rises. Progesterone is like the opposite of estrogen. She's calm, cool, collected, you know, she's really detailed-oriented. She's nesting, nesting, ready, ready for the next, ready for winter. She's doing what do we see in the fall when we look out at the at the seasons of the year? The animals are gathering their nuts and they're trying to go into hibernation and they're getting ready, preparing for the slowdown. But we keep going and going and going as women, because society tells us that if we slow down, we will be behind. And that's really not the case.

SPEAKER_00 17:45

This is so important. I want to encourage anyone listening. If you haven't heard about your menstrual cycle before, go back and re-listen to everything Gigi just

Simple Cycle Tracking That Sticks

SPEAKER_00 17:54

said. It's so, so powerful to be in tune with your cycle and to follow each of these phases. I have had friends reach out and they're like, Sarah, how do you do so much? How do you work a full-time corporate job? How do you run your business? You're posting on social media and recording podcast episodes. And I'm like, Because I honor my body, because when it is time to slow down and rest, my ASS is in bed, resting, sleeping. I'm getting extra sleep. I'm not worrying about anything else because I know as soon as I start coming out of my menstrual cycle, entering, well, menstrual phase, entering that spring season, my energy is coming back and I can tap in so hard and be so efficient and get so much done that it beyond makes up for the time that I rest. Instead of, like you said, just pushing through, women get burnt out and are miserable because we're not designed that way. So for our listeners that are like, oh my gosh, right? You're talking science, you're talking feminine wisdom, they feel disconnected from their bodies for a multitude of reasons. What do you see as the safe safest entry point for them to start rebuilding that connection with those internal signals without feeling overwhelmed of another thing to track?

SPEAKER_01 19:21

Oh, yeah, totally. Now, a lot of us use like tracking apps, right? Like the cycle tracking. I mean, I've had so many clients that are like, yeah, I track my cycle. Um, but I feel like it's underplayed and it's it it's it has its place because we cannot do anything if we're not aware of what's going on. So if you don't even know what phase of your cycle, what cycle day you're in, like how will you honor that? You you won't. So the first step is always building that awareness. And how do you build that awareness by paying attention? So, in order to pay attention, sometimes you got to write things down. Sometimes you have to track. Maybe you get yourself an app. I do recommend if you do get an app, be mindful of the app that you get because a lot of them steal your information and do all kinds of stuff with it. But also, they want to give you predictions. You don't want an app predicting when you're gonna ovulate, predicting how you're going to feel because two things. First, it's implanting already seeds, and we're very impressionable as people, period. Period. And also, like you want to be in tune of what's going on in your body, right? So turn off the predicting of ovulation and et cetera, but start tracking and just start paying attention, start looking at what's happening and seeing a pattern. One thing I have to say is even though I was tracking my cycle, I was not for many years, I was not paying attention. I just wanted to see that my period came and that was it. Like when my period was, that's it. Like I wasn't even tracking the cycle days, I wasn't doing any of that. I was just like, oh, my period came, came again. Yay! You know, so being mindful of not just when your period comes, but like how you feel throughout the month. What cycle day are you in? How's your mood? How's your energy? Um not like overwhelming, but I always recommend that those are the four things to definitely keep track of and be aware of your cycle day, your prominent mood for the day, because your mood shifts per your hormones, what your energy levels are, because then you'll be able to see a pattern, like, oh, during these times I'm usually more tired, or during these times I'm more um energetic. And then you could plan accordingly. And then any physical symptoms, like if you're having breast aches, or if you're having cramps, or if you're having nausea or headaches, like these are all things to start becoming aware of so that you could start seeing and noticing the patterns.

SPEAKER_00 21:58

And when we notice those patterns, we can, like you said, better plan and prepare to care for our bodies during those times. Have you noticed with women that when they are really in tune with their cycle, that they are nourishing their body better through food and movement. And some of those symptoms, like cramps, like headaches, tend to go away or reduce.

SPEAKER_01 22:21

Absolutely. It's so it's so powerful that I've seen women that once they started tracking, honoring, and paying attention to their cycles, their cycle even regulated. Not just like Their period came back, but like their pain has been reduced, like you said. Um, any discomfort like that, because you're being you're paying attention, you go from like a doing piece to an identity piece. Like, I am the type of woman who is in tune with her body. So, of course, when you identify as that, you act accordingly.

SPEAKER_00 22:58

Yes. I want to ask if you have a favorite act to track on. Like you mentioned, some of these psycho tracking apps are taking our data and some of them are selling it and doing nefarious things with our data. Um, and also the really important piece about the predictions, I currently have predictions on on my app, but I'm gonna go turn it off because it's wrong. I know based on my discharge and the mucus that's coming out of me, I know when I'm ovulating and I'm like, this is it's not right. So do you have a favorite app that our listeners can look into?

SPEAKER_01 23:35

Yeah, so I love apps. I actually use um I use one called Stardust, right? But that is not my main thing that I do. What I do is I bought myself a five-year journal that has like three, four lines on it for a five-year period. And then I just track those three things and I write them down. There's something about writing things down that works a different part of your brain than just going into an app and pressing a button. And because you do that, then you have like a deeper felt connection. When I take the time at night to like tune in every night before I go to bed, it's part of my routine. I just tune in like what cycle day I am in, what my mood was throughout the day, what my energy level was like, and then any physical symptoms that I've had. And then, you know, I track like maybe one line for something, an affirmation or something like that. But it keeps it very simple, and then you could just go back and kind of read what you've wrote, wrote. Like I've noticed that even like my handwriting changes based on like what's going on, and that that kind of stuff is valuable because know thyself, right? Know thyself. So I recommend just getting a little journal or a book or something and writing it down.

SPEAKER_00 24:59

So powerful. I want to talk about the clients that you work with that are in your programs,

Cycle Syncing For Business Boundaries

SPEAKER_00 25:08

women in business. So many of us equate productivity to this linear progress and growth. When women shift into tracking their cycle, working with their bodies in flow and alignment rather than against it. What do you see shift for them?

SPEAKER_01 25:31

Yeah. So a lot in terms of just the way that they handle life. When we are honoring our cycle, naturally we start to regulate in a on a deeper level. Okay. I see a lot of um people that teach nervous system work to women, but miss out on this very key important part because as our hormones shifts biologically, our energy shifts, and the way that we regulate shifts, the way that we feel shifts. So what I notice is when we actually align and pay attention to what is going on with our bodies, we're able to make better decisions, we're better to, we're able to better tap into our creativity, we're able to handle stress better because now we know our limitations. We're able to set firmer, more better boundaries because we know our limitation. It all comes back to know thyself. And when we are more in tune with ourselves and connected to ourselves, everything flows with more ease, more effortlessly. And it's a very it's a it's a like a night and day difference.

SPEAKER_00 26:45

It really is. It really is. I now I'm like, I'm gonna start writing down and tracking, actually writing it down rather than relying on the app because it does make such a big difference just to shift your reality, right? As within, so without. And yeah, I think this medicine is so potent, and so many more women need to know about their bodies and about their cycles. Is there a common misconception that you see with women when it comes to their

Perimenopause Or Chronic Stress

SPEAKER_00 27:22

hormones and their energy levels?

SPEAKER_01 27:26

Yeah, so something that I feel like maybe a buzz word right now is perimenopause. Like everyone is perimenopausal. Like we're 32 and we're like, oh, it's perimenopause. Like, like no, it's not. Most of the time, if we were to pay attention to what our our body is basically at this point yelling and screaming at us, like pay attention, right? We move through life in a sense of hurriedness, we don't slow down, we're chronically stressed out, we are dysregulated because we're chronically stressed out, and we don't honor our rest period. So we have very poor recovery times and recovery periods, right? All of that is going to cause issues in our bodies. So our hormones are chemical messengers. Our hormones are literally, it's just telling our body, it sends messages to our body, move this way, feel this way, do this, do that, do the other. But they get the signal from somewhere, and the nervous system is the conductor that is orchestrating all of that. So when we are living in fight or flight, dysregulated, chronically stressed, up to our, who, up to the top rim with to-dos and overwhelm and anxiety, it's going to cause chaos because the conductor is stressed out. So I think that a big misconception is oh, it's a hormonal problem. I'm going through perimenopause. No, you just need to rest and you need to honor your cycle. I bet you if we tweaked a little bit of lifestyle situations and experiences, that you will find yourself feeling so much better. And you'll be like, oh, wait a minute. Maybe it's not perimenopause. Maybe I'm just dysregulated.

SPEAKER_00 29:26

I love this one. It's so funny being in my early 30s and even just noticing the shift in our bodies from our 20s into our 30s. And I'm like, oh, my body is holding weight differently, right? I'm noticing different changes. And to your point, right, it comes back to our hormones and it comes back to our nervous system and those messages that are being sent throughout our body. I want to ask you, is there anything that you want to share with our listeners that we haven't touched on today that you think is important for them to know?

SPEAKER_01 30:01

Just to iterate on that, right? Like our cycles, our hormones, our nervous system, they're all connected. Like, not one is better than the other. I'm not saying don't pay attention to your hormones. I'm not saying don't go, you know, it could be perimenopause. Like there are so many factors, but I'm I know for most of the population, that's not what it is because we live in a society that is chronically stressed. Like, who's not stressed, right? And a lot of us don't have the tools to regulate, to come back home, to feel safe in our body. And that is really what's happening. Our body went from whispering at one point or another to now screaming. And we are like, what's going on? And we are trying to fix it quickly. So most people go on hormone replacement therapy or, you know, some kind of something. Peptides is the new buzzword, right? So, you know, nothing against anything to each their own. I'm just saying, like, at the root cause, it's worth paying attention to the way that we're living, our lifestyle, the food that we're eating, the toxins that we are surrounded by, our toxin load, like how much toxin can your body hold before it starts spazzing out? I feel like it's a whole, it's a holistic approach, not just one thing, um, but all of it. And to add, I truly, with all my heart, believe that when we do this work now, it helps us for the next phase of our life. Boom, boom, boom, menopause, right? Like this is a whole new, a whole new like experience for us. And when we learn to honor and trust and connect with our bodies now, it's going to make that process and that experience a whole lot better than if we just ignored, ignored it altogether.

SPEAKER_00 32:03

I just think about traditional quote unquote health care. I don't believe in healthcare. Um, and right, you have this diagnosis, and oh, we're just gonna slap a prescription on it. We're just gonna slap this quick fix, but it goes so much deeper than that. And to your point, you help women get to the root of what's going on. Yeah. Where can our listeners find you? Where can they connect with you?

SPEAKER_01 32:33

Yeah, so I'm on Instagram. You could always connect

Resources And Where To Connect

SPEAKER_01 32:37

with me on there if you want to send me a message. I have an online and offline on social media and off social media community. Um, I have a Facebook group where they could find um information. I have so many resources. My mission is to bring awareness of this to all women, regardless, right? Make it super accessible. So I have a slew of resources available at any time for any phase that you're in, any part of your journey that you're in that you're ready to tap into. I have a resource available for you for that. Um, you could also find me on my website at it's gghunt.com, and I have um all of my resources listed there as well.

SPEAKER_00 33:25

Beautiful. I will make sure those links are in our show notes. Go check out Gigi, actually get into her work, access these resources. Thank you so much for joining us today, Gigi, and having this conversation. Thank you for having me.