The Rhythmic Intelligence of the Female Body

My main takeaway from doing this work is recognizing this foundational understanding that much of our world, and much of our healthcare system, is based on the more linear physiology of the hormonally male body, while the hormonally female body is deeply rhythmic. Ayurveda, in particular, gives us an understanding and a paradigm that allows us to look at that in an empowered way. Not to say, “We’re weak and need special care,” but to say, “This is our unique design. This is how we learn to live in a way that is rhythmic, in a way that is in harmony with nature.” We are born from nature, sustained through nature, and will eventually return to nature. Understanding this deep interconnectedness — something the ancients knew thousands of years ago before modern technology disrupted it — helps us reconnect with a deep cellular knowing. Everything I’m sharing today is something you already know. It is already living within you. This work is about remembering and reclaiming. For me, during my own experience with chronic fatigue, I eventually became well enough to attend yoga teacher training. In that training, someone began speaking about Ayurveda, and I had this moment of, “This is it. Someone is giving language to how I experience my body.” It wasn’t new information — it was giving me the words for what I already sensed within myself. It was a remembering, a waking up. As we begin to live some of these practices and remember this connection, it awakens the intelligence that exists within us. Our body is always moving in the direction of healing. Modern life often gets in the way of that. What we are doing in this work is removing obstacles to our body’s innate healing intelligence and living in a way that is more aligned with how our system was designed to function. Ayurveda comes from the Sanskrit words Ayus and Veda. Ayus means life, and Veda means knowledge. It is the knowledge of how to care for our human body and how to support our prana — our life force. Supporting this vitality, especially in the hormonally female body, is not just about reproduction; it’s about a creative potential and a creative force that moves through us. We support our vitality through how we live day to day — allowing energy to flow through us. Much of what we experience today obstructs that flow, and this is why we see so many concerning statistics around women’s health. I love thinking about root cause and simplifying. One of the things I repeat often is that the root cause of the vast majority of women’s health issues is doing more than our system has the capacity for, combined with not enough physical and emotional nourishment and rest. I’ll repeat that: the root cause of most women’s health issues is doing more than the system has capacity for, while not receiving enough nourishment and rest. As a result, we end up running on stress. Our system perceives our life, to-dos, and experiences as threats. We release stress hormones, and this depletes our stress hormones, our sex hormones, and creates a cascade through the endocrine system — a domino effect of symptoms that many women live with for years.