Get the best rest

using the ancient

wisdom of the moon 🌖

A conversation with Tirra Hargrow

You often hear that you should rest, but did you know that ancient wisdom and the moon phase can help you optimize rest? I had a fantastic conversation with Tirra Hargrow, a spiritual guide and coach who helps women align with their life purpose using ancient wisdom and the Goddess-centered lifestyle. She shares how the moon phase, as well as other astrological phenomena, can help you determine the best times of the month and year to take time for rest. Ancient wisdom can also help you avoid doing too much work or starting something new at less optimal times of the month or year. Living a goddess-centered lifestyle, she teaches, means synching up your rhythms to the rhythms of nature. Being attentive to ancient wisdom and the moon phase for taking time for rest may make you more productive in the best times of the month and year.

Nicole: Hey, good morning, everyone. I am here on Defy the Trend Live. I’m Nicole Havelka, your mindful change coach. And I’m here with my sister-friend, Tirra Hargrow, who is just, well, a badass. Let’s just say it: a badass and … a spiritual guide who helps women in particular use ancient wisdom to have their best, most wonderful lives that they can possibly be. And we are definitely on the same level with those wonderful wishes. So we just were offering ourselves up and hoping that we can offer you some wisdom about how to choose the times of your rest. How do you honor ancient wisdom and your body’s wisdom about when to rest? And I’m really excited about [this conversation]. So grab a beverage, grab a snack if you need one, and settle in. And we’re going to have a really awesome time talking with you this morning.

So, Tirra, tell me a little bit more about you and how you help women connect to ancient wisdom. What are the tools that you use? How did you even come to doing this? I’m curious. I don’t think I’ve heard all of your story.

Tirra: Yes, well, first of all, I want to say, Nicole, you’re a badass. So it takes a badass to know a badass, all right? We’re definitely on the same wavelength. Anyone who’s trying to help women – people in general – but women get more rest, you are all right with me. Yes. I love the work that you do also. Thank you, sister.

How Tirra began to consult ancient wisdom

Tirra: Yeah. So, my story goes back to my childhood with just being very spiritually different, even though I didn’t really have the language and the words to describe it. And though I grew up doing a lot of what a lot of people do here in this country, the United States – I went to church, all that kind of good stuff. But I always had this question, why is God only “he?” Why is God not “she?” So there was always this something in me that it was like, “There’s something more, there’s something new, something different.” Of course, I’m African-American, and the more I began to learn about my history, the more I wanted to understand. What did my ancestors do before they were put on those slave ships and brought over here as captives? And so those questions would just linger and linger. And I got to a point in my life where – and mix all of those questions up with having a rough childhood. My childhood wasn’t the roughest, but definitely there was trauma there.

So as I began to get older, it was the questions. And then it was this pain that was like, I need to get this healed up. And one day I just was like, “I really need to figure out: What is this call? It was this pull. What is this call? That is something I need to answer and hear. And it was almost like I just took everything that I knew, and I just threw it up in the air. And I just said at the time, I was still Christian. I was like, God, I don’t care what the truth is. It doesn’t have to be my truth. I just want to know the truth. And with that, it has sent me on a journey to find out what the world– why am I here? Why do I feel like there’s a goddess? I’m a women’s empowerment woman. I went to an all women’s institution. Even as a little girl, all women’s college. Even as a little girl, I was like, I want to grow up and help women and children. It was just who, you know.

And so where this journey led me was to this teacher. Her name is Iya Osunnike, is what we call her. Iya is a title that we use in the African spiritual tradition I’m initiated into. And Iya was like, “I have this thing that you might want to go through.” And I was like, “All right, you know, I kind of feel lost.” At that time, I had just said, I’m not anything. I don’t have any religion. I just believe there’s a higher being. I’m trying to figure stuff out. So I was like, she seems to be a cool chick. I’m going to go on ahead and work with her. And it was this Goddess initiation. I didn’t even know what I was getting into, but it felt right.

And it was more about understanding me as a reflection of the divine feminine. And the more I began to learn and go through this initiatory process, the more I began to realize I need to operate more from my feminine nature. And I also realized I am very good at doing readings because I started picking up that art form also on that path. And so I started to realize, wait a minute, when I use ancient wisdom and I live more aligned with my natural cycles, or I live according to the cycles of spring, the nature cycles, or – I didn’t know a lot about the moon initially, but even just understanding, is the moon waxing or is the moon waning? I was like, wait a minute. I’m starting to get results here. And it has just led me down this path, using all of this for myself, realizing, “Wait a minute, this works. I’m getting results.” That made me say, “You know what? I think I need to share this with other women. I think I need to help women realize that if they begin to do some inquiry of who they really are and stop living according to this program.” I love the masculine. I tell everybody I’m married [to a man]. I have sons. I have nephews, brothers, father, all that. Love men – love them. But I’m not a man. I’m a woman. And this hypermasculine, patriarchal society that we live in, it does not match who I am and how I operate all of the time. I believe we have both [masculine and feminine] in us. But I realize women, we’re just because of survival and programming, we’re just leaning into the masculine way too much. But we can get as good a result or better when we begin to understand the divine feminine way of living, which I call the goddess-centered lifestyle. And there’s these ancient tools and technologies that we can use as modern women.

It’s like so much has been lost because of patriarchy, and it’s all about disempowering ourselves. It’s a lot of women out here that would not even want to say there’s a goddess. They’re like, “I don’t believe in no goddess.” I’m like, “Whoa!” That’s – no judgment. But to me, that is completely and totally like, erasing our identity in the higher understanding of the universe. But when a woman works with me, I have noticed when she can understand how to read her energy, maybe do an oracle reading, maybe just checking into the body, doing a lot of what you teach people to do, then when she can acknowledge, “Okay, right now I need rest, and that’s what I’m going to do.” Or, “No, I feel pretty good. I can push myself today.”

Combined with understanding things like the moon and what is the moon doing? What is astrology teaching us? Even combining it with something that’s a little bit more modern, like self-coaching, then this is a woman who is going to manifest easily and effortlessly. And this is a woman who will be able to offload a lot of this wounding that so many of us experience. And so this is the work that I do. I am all about helping women tap into higher wisdom, the wisdom within themselves, and follow their intuition on “What should I do today, how should I live today, what’s best for me today?” So that’s a little bit about what I do.

Using the ancient wisdom of the moon phase to schedule rest

Pisces is the moon that has to do with sleep. And honestly, we didn’t even plan [our conversation at this time]. When I chose this day, I didn’t know the moon was in Pisces, that it was a full moon. This is, to me, the goddess-centered lifestyle. Things happen exactly how they’re supposed to, and it’s so easy and so perfect. But yeah, the full moon, you could kind of include that, too, because that’s a very powerful, energetic moon. So that might be a time where you’ll feel more from the new moon to the full moon, you’ll have more energy to take care of things, to do things. But then from the full moon leading back to the new moon is a time of the waning moon. And so the waning moon is a time to schedule in some rest, because part of the cycle that the moon shows us is the moon grows and then it gets small.

If the moon is going to do this, and this moon has been here longer than anybody on the face of this planet, if it’s good enough for the moon, it’s good enough for us. And those of us born into a feminine body, we have the actual lunar cycle in us in the form of our menses. It doesn’t matter if you still have your menses or not. I’m menopausal, I don’t have it, but it’s innate in our nature. There has to be a time – I remember, and you tell me if you can relate to this, Nicole. I remember when there would be times when my cycle would come on and I would just be like, “I’m out of it, I don’t have any energy.” But who gives us time off, right? But nowadays I notice these young ladies are doing better with keeping up. I talked to so many young women and they’re like, “Oh, yeah, my cycle is going to come in about two or three days.” I didn’t know all of that. I could kind of guess. I could kind of know. I didn’t have these devices. Did you keep up with yours like that?

Nicole: No, we didn’t do that. Not at all.

Tirra: We would just be like, “Oh, I think I feel some cramps.” Right? But if you can keep up with that lunar cycle within your body, it’s just like the moon, then you schedule in that time. You make that choice. You make the choice. You tell yourself, “This day I will rest.” So we could start off with that. So tell me, do you have any questions about the waxing and waning moon?

Because there is one other thing I’m going to share.

Yoga nidra as an ancient wisdom in the new moon

Nicole: That makes a lot of sense. I know one of the things that [is similar to] another teacher of mine, a yoga teacher friend of mine will do a new moon yoga nidra. And yoga nidra is, “sleep of the yogi” is how it’s loosely translated. It’s both rest – it’s deep rest – but it’s also about manifesting. So you’re reflecting on where you’ve come from and setting a Sankalpa, which is a higher order intention, like, “What is your intention for that?” So that’s another ancient form of wisdom that’s thousands of years old that we’re using now as a way of preparing. And I’ve been doing that kind of practice, and I do it more often than just that one time. But that’s the kind of energy – and these ancient traditions teach us this, and we tend to ignore them honestly, right?

Or we’ve dismissed them mostly because of patriarchy and because they’re associated with women. I mean, think about, like, you dismiss something as an old wives tale, right? Yes. And that doesn’t mean everything we’ve ever learned from our mothers was right, because I’m sure we all know things we learned that are not correct. Sometimes we have to adapt and update the ancient traditions right? The wisdom, it needs a little upgrade sometimes. But these things have so much to teach us, and if we’re connected, like I said, connected to what the cycles of the seasons are outside these cycles of the moon, I think we are in a lot better shape. The universe is telling us with climate change and all this extreme weather that we’re experiencing. We’re learning the hard way, frankly, that we need to pay attention to what’s happening outside and stop ignoring it. Because this is what happens when you ignore it, right. We use the Earth in a way that we should not. … If we’re connected to it, we’re not going to abuse it.

Tirra: This is true. This is true. One of the things in the African tradition that I’m a part of called Ifa is, part of our purpose here is to be in harmony with nature because it’s a nature-based tradition. And so to be in harmony with nature is important. And so for me, the moon is nature. And I love the yoga nidra for the new moon, because the new moon is a little bit of a slower energy, but it is definitely easy to think, “Okay, once we get past the new moon, this is a time where energy is building.” But I do want to just cosign yoga nidra during the new moon. The four days of the new moon. Yes, yoga nidra. 

And then the other thing to think about with the moon is the water signs. If you know when the moon, you can get an app – I’ll be honest with you, I don’t use a lot of apps, but, people, just go find one that you like, an app that helps you to understand what sign is the moon in. Water signs. So I’m not going to lie, I had the hardest time waking up today. It’s Pisces moon. If I’m going to struggle with the moon, it’s going to be Pisces. So anytime the moon is in Pisces, that’s a very good time to schedule some time for rest. Cancer moon and Scorpio. The water energies are introverted, they’re softer, and they make us want to just kind of go within.

So those are times you can think about when we’re working with the moon. These are going to be times where you feel a little bit more like, I want to get some rest. So, yeah, that’s what I would describe when it comes to the moon, just to keep it real simple. Because sometimes people’s eyes glaze over because astrology can be so deep. 

I would say all the other moons, I think that another moon that would be good for self-care and maybe doing things like yoga and anything that’s about taking care of the physical body would be the Earth moons. So that’s going to be Taurus, Virgo, and Capricorn. Those are feminine signs. The water signs and the Earth signs are feminine signs. And so those are about taking care of the body. But sometimes the Earth signs can make us hyperproductive. You just kind of have to figure it out. But they definitely are about health and well-being. 

The other signs, the air signs and the fire signs. Just get ready to move, shake candlestick may be out, hanging out with everybody, 

Nicole: Right, right. If you’re hanging out with the Leos, like me, we’re just all about the fire, right?

Tirra: Leos are going to be having the party, baby. If you want to party, go hang out with the Leos or do some acting or something creative. That’s what you’re going to do with the Leos.

Nicole: That is on brand for sure. One of my friends – this is just an aside – one of my friends who I was mentioning offline Dani [Sage], who was on with me a couple of weeks ago, told me once that when she has astrology-themed candles or jewelry or whatever the thing may be that Leo sells out first. Leos apparently are, like, obsessed with their sign.

Strong emotions for Virgos when the moon is in Pisces

Nicole: [laughs] I don’t have feelings. I don’t know what you’re talking about, Tirra.

Tirra: Yeah, the fire signs don’t like this emotion. They’re like, “No, we take action.”

Nicole: I’ve had some [strong emotions] lately, so I think that also tracks. So, Nathaly, I’m feeling probably not quite as intense as a Virgo, but have been feeling some things in recent days, for sure. Awesome. Yeah. If anyone else has a question for me or for Tirra, please drop it in the chat. We’re happy to [respond]. Yeah, it totally – big emotions. 

Tirra: Yeah, you’ll feel better tomorrow, Nathaly. That’s another thing I like about the moon. Nothing lasts too long, other than eclipses. Outside of the eclipses, the moon moves every two, two and a half days. So it’s just like, yeah, transits come and they go. That’s how I look at the moon. 

Nicole: Yeah, but so nice that it also helps us to recognize these cycles because I think we can dismiss these times of, whether it’s intense emotion or spurts of energy or whatever the case may be, we tend to “Oh, it’s nothing, and I need to ignore it or shove it as side.” And this is a way of saying, “Oh, there’s a time for this, there’s a season for this. I’m going to treat myself a little more gently, knowing that I have some big feelings for a couple of days. And you know what? It’ll pass.

Seasons for work and seasons for rest

Nicole: This too shall pass, right? This too shall pass. And that is a really nice thing about tuning into those cycles, is also a reminder that nothing is forever, everything changes. 

Tirra: And the other thing that I like to teach, too, is that astrology works in my favor. Something I wanted to say earlier, that when I was listening to you talk that I forgot to say, is that I think that when people begin to understand how to work with their cycles in scheduling in time off and then when to work, then you don’t feel like you’re going against the current. You feel like the wind is at your back. And even during heart transits, when you understand this is a time where it’s going to be a little bit more challenging, then you won’t resist it.

But if you begin to live like this, you will begin to sell yourself on, “You know what? This actually works. Life is easier when I take time to rest.” And part of the oppression of whatever the powers that may be is, make them think they need to work all the time. That’s bull crap.

Nicole: Yeah. And when you were talking, that was exactly what I was thinking, that white supremacy, patriarchy, toxic capitalism has ingrained in us this ridiculous idea that we should be working all the time – which, of course, is completely disconnected from how nature works, as you beautifully pointed out. And our bodies aren’t designed to work constantly. They’re not. And that’s something that, in the folks who do … anti-burnout group coaching with me, we talk about a lot, is that and – I try not to emphasize that you’ll be more productive if you rest – which is absolutely true, right? I think it’s absolutely true. But we are worthy of rest simply by virtue of being human, despite what we’ve been taught. … I saw this happen in a grocery store not too long ago. There was, like, a mom or a grandma with, like, a toddler who was a solid walker, like someone who was walking along. But you know how little their legs are, right? They’re, like, going four or five steps for every one adult step, right? And they were like they looked to this little kid who’s like two, probably, and said, “Pick up the pace,” to this kid. Which is funny in a way, right? But that’s how we learn it. I’m sure every single one of us has that experience. We don’t remember it consciously, right? But it’s in our bodies now that, “Oh, I’m always having to keep up with, regardless of what I want. I need to be keeping up and not honoring who I was made to be, and not honoring the cycles and rhythms of rest that are just inherent in nature.” But that’s how we learn it. And there’s even more cruel ways than that, that we learn it, too.

Tirra: Yeah.

Nicole: In our upbringing, for sure. Yeah. Nathaly says that she’s definitely ready for some rest because it’s been nothing but hustle the last weeks. And then Tamara is also commenting. Oh, finally got to rest last night. 

Tirra: Oh, good. Yeah, the moon in Pisces is nice for Tauruses. It’ll feel good for Tauruses especially. It’ll help to calm the mind down. And when you can calm your mind down, that just brings ease into your entire body. And so I can believe that it felt better for you, Tamara.” It’s been rough for the Tauruses, actually, because the Tauruses have been through major changes. So Tauruses are actually a sign that really need to be working on work-life balance and taking more time for rest.

And Emily said also, is Mercury in the “microwave?” Because I’m over here having some major communication kerfuffles. Yep. Emily, I’m going to give you just a little bit of hope. You just got to get to Sept. 15. You got to get to Sept. 15 with Mercury because Mercury is retrograde in Virgo. So it’s like the tried and true type of Mercury. You know what? I’m so happy. I know Emily.

Mercury in retrograde is a good time to schedule rest

Tirra: I’m happy Emily brought up Mercury retrograde because I know I talk about the moon, but something else to think about is if you listen to astrologers— I believe in listening to people who know astrology because why should everybody have to learn astrology? Our job is to learn it so that we can share and help make everybody’s lives better. So if you’re listening to the astrologers, if you know how to keep up with when Mercury retrograde is happening. That’s actually another very important time to schedule in rest. And there’s oftentimes a part of the year where most of the planets are retrograde. And we’re in that time right now. This started in, I think it was at the top of May, planets started going retrograde one after the other. But once we got into July, that was when things really started. It was like the brakes on the world just really started being pushed. And I started telling everybody, this should be self-care summer. This should be – go buy some books, do some reading, kick back if you feel like you just want to push and you can’t. And I’ve seen it. I don’t push astrology onto people, but sometimes I watch and I just feel so bad because people are working so hard during the retrograde, when the retrograde is like, slow down. Thank you for bringing that up, Emily. This is actually another important time. And there’s multiple planets. Like Venus is retrograde. Mercury recently went retrograde. Retrograde means that the planet, when we look in the sky, it doesn’t look like the planet is moving forward. The planet looks like it’s moving backwards. It’s just slowed down so much. And so we have maybe five or six planets retrograde right now. When people listen to me, I’ve just been telling them, y’all need to rest.

Nicole and I talked about before we came on, how people asked me all summer to do stuff, and I was just like, I told them, maybe August 31, I’ll be ready to do something. I was like, I just feel so slow. And I was like, August? All these other months, people are like, oh, it just feels like it just flew by. August did not feel like it has flown by to me. This has been a long, slow month, and we’re not speeding up until September the 15th.

Nicole: Well, I’m going to remember that, too, because I think I’ve been trying to move forward and it’s not going that way. And maybe partially because I haven’t been listening to the rhythms. Although here’s a weird thing, … in the last couple of weeks – I have had energy for doing things I’ve been not doing for months or even years.

Tirra: That’s it. That’s the retrograde energy, right?

Nicole: I’ve been thinking about rearranging my office space so that it works better. Partially because it was my birthday month. I got some gifts of one new piece of furniture and some other things. But now I’ve been rearranging the room and I’m like, “I could have done this two years ago,” and it was like, one chair and a new whiteboard. It’s not like I spent thousands of dollars on new furniture. It’s a couple of new things and I moved it around. And I’m like, “Well, this is so much better. Why have I not been doing it?” But what’s interesting about that is it creates more rest and ease for me. Now my computer has a place where I leave it. That’s been, in the last couple of weeks, a game changer. So when I’m in this space [gestures to the living room she’s in], I use this space because it has better lighting, like when I’m doing this. But now the computer stays there [pointing toward another room]. I walk out of that room, and then I’m not doing that anymore when I’m in the rest of the house. So I’ve had that idea for a long time and I’m like, now I’m finally doing it. And that feels really good.

Tirra: That’s such a perfect example of how you’re working in alignment with the energy. … Even though consciously you didn’t think that way, you did tap into it and move in that direction.

Also I want to say hello to Still Learning. I know Still Learning. She comes on my channel quite a bit.

If you work with energy, the energy will work with you

You have to listen to astrologers. You have to learn it to a point where you can understand – “OK, when it’s retrograde season – not just all the time, one planet, multiple planets are retrograde – then I know I’m going to slow down. I’m more than likely going to go do something that I hadn’t done, that I need to do. I’m going to go do that instead of trying to do new things. I’m not going to lie. I know I’m saying this again, it’s heartbreaking because you can’t force astrology onto people, but it is for me, as an astrologer, kind of heartbreaking to see if they knew this, if this woman knew this, she would make different choices and she wouldn’t be like, “Oh my gosh, why do things feel so bad? Why does it feel so hard? I’m trying this new thing, and it’s just not working.” Well, just try it after the retrogrades are over, and it will work.

But I do love it when someone like you have described: I went and did something that I have been thinking about doing for a very long time. And now look at the benefit. September 15, ladies. September 15. You need to hunker down until September the 15th. Don’t start new stuff. Don’t push. Just chill out and relax because it’ll be easier. You’ll feel more rested.

Nicole: Right? Well, this is the end of my birthday month, but this can be a theme anytime, by the way, which is we’ve been learning to say no, which is actually a really perfect theme [for the retrograde time]. I didn’t know all of that, about all those planets being in retrograde right now, but what a perfect theme. So apparently my inner wisdom was speaking months ago when I planned that. That wasn’t something I came up with two seconds before August started. I thought of that months ago. And I’m like, I think, in part because I listen to what people say to me, one of the biggest challenges with taking care of ourselves is that you have to say no to other things. And often other things are taking care of other people, which is such a difficulty for women. I know that you have a beautiful community. I bet that comes up with you all a lot, too.

If self-care feels selfish to you, it’s the patriarchy talking

Tirra: It does. Yeah. It probably is one of the top things because, of course, that’s a part of patriarchy. Take care of everyone else. Your worth is how well did you take care of other people? And one of the things that the goddess-centered lifestyle that I teach is about is, take care of you. Take care of you first. And first of all, other people might be able to kind of show up or other things, whatever they are, might be able to actually take care of themselves. It’s a challenging thing. You and I have online businesses. Nathaly is I think she is a hairstylist, a salon. She has something like that. It is so easy to give, give, give to just go, go. For those who are in the phase of life where you’re raising children or maybe you have elder care that you’re taking care of, it feels like it’s endless. However, at some point, we have to give ourselves permission to take care of ourselves. 

And I always tell people, be a spiritual scientist. Don’t trust me: Test this out, and you will see the difference it makes in how you can show up in the world. And also it will sell you on, “Oh, I don’t have to do everything.” Other people will step up and take care of it. Or maybe it’s actually not that important anyway, and it went away because I didn’t really need to be doing it anyway. So, yeah, I agree. There’s so much caring for other people that happens, but we need to take care of ourselves. How do you say this? We need to be selfish. Use that word, be selfish.

Nicole: Well, people have a lot of feelings about it, so I don’t always use it unless I’m deconstructing it. Like self-care is not selfish.

Tirra: I love that.

Nicole: Yes, self care is not, well – it’s self-preservation, if you want to think of it that way. I mean, that we’re preserving ourselves. And if you think that taking care of yourself or taking time to rest is selfish, that’s the patriarchy talking to you. That’s that notion that you must be working; you must be productive; you must be giving to other people at any moment in order to have value. And I don’t know, every time I’ve been studied a new tradition, like ancient tradition of one kind or another, anytime that I’ve been exposed to a new one, which, thank you, I’m exposed to new wisdom today from you. Every time. All of those systems, all of those ancient wisdoms have some sort of teaching and cycles of rest in them … you were talking about having been raised in the church, and I’m also a Christian pastor as well as a yoga teacher, so I have two traditions that I operate out of a lot of the time.

And in that tradition, we ignore them mostly now, but there are very specific mandates around rest. We’re all about sin of other kinds, but somehow that one gets ignored. The idea of taking Sabbath is actually a commandment, but we sort of ignore that or manipulate it in certain ways that are really unhealthy. So even for those of you who are still in the Christian tradition, Sabbath is a thing and it’s an ancient tradition and it predates Christianity. It was part of the Jewish culture long before it got adapted into Christianity. So thousands and probably longer than that. That’s what we know about is about 5,000-6,000 years. But that’s all. I’m sure it’s longer than that. Just like the ancient wisdom that you sought out from your ancestors that you’re like, “Well, yeah, they’ve been doing this for thousands of years.” People who have been doing that. You don’t need double-blind studies to find out that that’s [rest is] effective. We have ancient peoples who have been doing it for thousands of years. People stop doing things if they don’t work.

Ancient wisdom is connected to nature

However it drops us, like naturally, the way I teach it is we naturally are forgetful. Because you cannot remember the truth of where you come from and be a part of this spacetime continuum. There’s a part where you have to kind of forget so that you can take on this human form and be here. And so what we have to do is, we have to go out of our way to study our ancestors. That is something that’s very important in my culture, is you study the ways of the ancestors.

Ancient wisdom traditions that demand rest

And the ancestors knew that rest was a part of it. Being led, guided and directed, understanding there needs to be a time for the Sabbath, all of this. It was more of an intuitive thing, but it has been conditioned out of us. And so now what we want to do is to go back to our true nature, is how I describe it. If rest wasn’t important, we wouldn’t go to sleep. But it’s about the condition. So we have to uncondition ourselves and we have to start seeing what really makes sense again. Be a spiritual scientist. Test it out. The more rest you get, the more you’re going to get what you want in life. That’s just how I see it.

Nicole: Agreed. Agreed. A book that I love and that I’ve used a lot in my community is the book Burnout by Amelia and Emily Nagoski. They’re very science-based, but with the wisdom of that tradition, I would say.

Tirra: What’s the name of the book again?

Nicole: It’s Burnout: The Secrets to Unlocking the Stress Cycle is the subtitle by Emily and Ameilia Nagoski. And one of the things they emphasize, there’s a whole chapter and little handouts in the back, I should say, in the appendix, where it talks about scheduling your rest. It’s at least 10 hours a day, which is 42% of your day, needs to be rest. For most people, seven to nine hours of that is sleep. Different bodies need different amounts of sleep, but then there’s active rest. And that can be taking a walk. So those can be active things. And they also talk about just how to deal with stress in the body. And here’s a little spoiler alert for the book, but it comes out in the first chapter: is that it’s active things [to work through stress in the body]. It’s things you do with your body to relieve stress. You’re not going to think your way out of the stress.

Tirra: Oh, my gosh. I tell people that all the time, Nicole. For me, the goddess-centered lifestyle is totally about having balance and harmony within the system – body, mind, spirit and emotions. And I always say, “You got to manipulate that body in order to get yourself into a place of stasis and balance.” I love the EFT tapping. I will say there is something about mindfulness, but mindfulness is presence. It’s not really doing. I mean, it is working with the mind, but it’s actually kind of like letting the mind just be, and it creates this rest within our being. I love to dance. That’s something else. Like me and Nathaly said, I used to teach Zumba. Dance is everything. And then there are just some days I was listening to you talk and I thought, some days this chair reclines. I will just recline this chair, and I just kind of like, curl up into a little ball or I’ll just go lay down on the bed and I’ll just say, I used to think this was like the laziest thing to do, but I’m like, I just got to do it. And I’ll set a timer for like, 15 minutes. I just need to just not do anything. We need to do the very things that we think are so lazy, and this is just what lazy people do. You probably need to do that yourself. Watch how it works.

Nicole: We need T-shirts or something that says, “Do you think it’s lazy? Then do it.” There’s better words for that. People who are good wordsmithers, come up with something. But I think that actually might be the signal, and that’s mostly in our mind. If your mind is judging it as lazy, it’s actually probably the rest that your body needs.

Tirra:  I think about the lazy river … at like … there’s this water place, a little water park here. I live near Nashville, and it’s the lazy river. You just get a little, what do you call the things? Little doughnut things you can just sit in and it just takes you around and I just feel, like, so good. Maybe take a lazy bath, go turn on the water. And sometimes I just get in and I’m just like, you know what? I know my list is speaking to me, but right now I’m tuning it out. And the one thing, too, that I want to say is when you think about the moon, I just want to kind of really drive home, because the moon is more than waxing and waning. It’s more than like, what sign is the moon in? We want to think about the moon as Cancer, the sign of Cancer. Cancer is water. So doing things that are watery. So you can ask yourself, what is the moon about? Well, the moon, it’s a watery planet. It’s associated with a water sign. And so what watery thing can I do that will help me to relax? Another thing that it’s about, I just want to kind of connect it to some of the conversations that we were having. You were talking about the little one who was told, “Pick up your pace.” And you said, “It’s in our body.”

The ancient wisdom of the moon is memory, needs, pleasure

The other thing about the moon is it’s connected to Taurus. It is, like, the planets have other signs that they are like, “Oh, I really love being in this sign.” And so that sign for the moon is Taurus. And Taurus is about pleasure. So one of the things you can remember: This is a pro tip I’m giving you all because don’t everybody talk like this about the moon. But a pro tip about the moon actually is, “Where can I experience more pleasure in my life?” And typically when we’re experiencing pleasure, it’s in a rested state. I don’t know, there’s something about pleasure where our parasympathetic system is going to be more activated than not. So how can you have more pleasure in your life, and what can you do? The sign of Taurus is about the senses. So how can you more sensually be connected to your body or be connected to the Earth, or just how much more can you be connected with things that make you be in the present moment? So that’s just kind of tying it back into this powerful moon.

Nicole: Yeah. Oh, I love that. … It’s embodied, right? It’s in your body to do the things that are pleasureful, or memories, like you’re saying. But like we all know, memory is in our body. We make it a thing in our— we act like our minds are not in our body, too, which drives me bananas. Another day, Tirra, we’ll talk about [that].

… [reading from the comments in the chat] Emily quoted “Frozen II,” which I don’t think I’ve seen “Frozen II” yet. “Water has memory.” A quote from that. And not an accident that those movies center young women, either. Right? And it’s about water.

Tirra: Exactly. No, it’s okay. But that’s a good point. All of us need it, and that movie is extremely popular.

Nicole: It is. 

Tirra: I really love all of the comments that are here. I just want to make sure I acknowledge you all. Thank you so much for this conversation.

The moon is connected to writing, write down your take aways

Tirra: So another thing about the moon – most people don’t know this, but in ancient times, the moon was connected to writing. So I just want to encourage you all to write down what were your takeaways from today, along with what are you going to do to schedule in more rest. And I’m sure, Nicole, you have something that you can offer them also because you have a community and the community is open. If you’re tired, work with Nicole. Nicole is here to help you move into this anti-burnout community.

Nicole: Look at this. [referring to the scroll bar on the video advertising the Defy the Trend community.]  … At the end here of my birthday month, I’m opening the community to new members for just today and tomorrow. Okay. And that centers anti-burnout coaching.

Once a month we get together, we have a Zoom chat, not unlike this, and go through different topics and then quarterly in that session, we do calendar planning. And now I’m thinking of bringing Tirra on for one of those sessions and maybe talking to us about maybe how do we, in addition to just putting things on a calendar because that’s when you have to do them. But could we also add a layer of when would be a really good time to be more restful and mindful of that in—

Tirra: Bring me in. I would love that.

Nicole: Yeah. Well, our next calendar planning session is actually next month, so I’m like, I’m percolating new ideas. Okay, we’ll talk more about that offline for sure. Talk more about how to find you and maybe of your resources, or other resources you’d recommend people to take away from today.

Tirra: Yes. You can see I put my Instagram handle @goddessbms. Some of y’all have found me on my YouTube channel @TirraOmilade is my YouTube channel. But you can just go to my website: Goddessbodymindspirit.com. And there is a Goddess toolkit on there, and the Goddess toolkit is designed to help you just have more ease and flow in life. And I actually include a mindfulness practice and hypnosis track to help with more positive thinking in that toolkit. So that’s there on my website, Goddessbodymindspirit.com.

Nicole: Awesome. Wonderful. Well, I want to thank you so much again for joining us, for having some of your ladies joining some of the fine humans in my group as well. And so that made me so happy to see those two groups mingling, because how cool is that?

Tirra: That’s very cool. 

Nicole: Really powerful, awesome people together. How great is this thing that we get to do, right?

Tirra: It is great. 

Nicole: I love to be able to talk with that. So I thought of like, four different topics we can talk about on different days, but I want to thank you for today.

We’ll close out our session, and this will appear – I’ve been transcribing all of these conversations and putting them on my blog so that you can really go over them later. I know when I’ve been editing them, I’ve been getting even more wisdom because I’ve been able to absorb what my guests have been teaching in new ways for me as well, with less distraction, because not all the things are like, dinging at me the whole time when I’m reading.

Tirra: Right.

Nicole: That way you’ll have another opportunity to look at this again and again if there’s wisdom that you want to come back to. So thank you again, Tirra. We’ll say goodbye for today. Have a wonderful rest of your day, friends. Bye bye.

Tirra: Bye, friends. Thank you.