The Inner Rhythms Podcast

Episode 71 - Reflecting on Health, Loss & Ancestral Connection

• Iris Josephina • Episode 71

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🐚Topics covered

  • Reflecting on an intensely difficult year & choosing to see lessons in hardship
  • Health journey through typhoid fever, pregnancy loss & thyroid dysfunction
  • Deciding to go all in on healing rather than splitting focus with business
  • Learning horseback archery to honor dad's love of archery & overcome riding trauma
  • Picking up crochet to honor grandmother & connect with ancestors through embodied skills
  • Cultivating intuition by choosing embodied practices over logical thinking
  • Finding peace through skills that require full presence & attention
  • Discovering audiobooks paired with crochet as perfect combination
  • How ancestral skills bring deceased loved ones closer in felt presence
  • Choosing to be your own peace & peace for those you love


About the Host

I’m Iris Josephina, a functional hormone specialist, orthomolecular hormone coach, and entrepreneur. Through Cycle Seeds and The Inner Rhythms Podcast, I support people in reconnecting with their cyclical nature, deepening body literacy, and reclaiming hormonal harmony from a place of sovereignty and embodied knowledge. Most people know me from Instagram, where I share stories, tools, and inspiration on cyclical living, menstrual cycles, fertility, hormones, and more. 


Let’s stay connected:

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cycleseeds 

📧 Join my newsletter: https://www.cycleseeds.com/cyclseeds-newsletter 

💻 Visit the Cycle Seeds website: https://www.cycleseeds.com/ 

📝 Check out the blog: https://www.cycleseeds.com/blog

📚Join my courses: https://www.cycleseeds.com/courses-masterclasses 

📊 Chart Your Cycle Masterclass: https://cycleseeds.plugandpay.nl/checkout/chart-your-cycle-37-f-a 



[00:00:00] Iris Josephina: You are listening to the podcast of Iris Josephina. If you are passionate about exploring the menstrual cycle, cyclical living, body wisdom, personal growth, spirituality, and running a business in alignment with your natural cycles, you're in the right place. I'm Iris. I'm an entrepreneur, functional hormone specialist, trainer and coach, and I am on a mission

[00:00:29] Iris Josephina: to share insights, fun facts, and inspiration I discover along the way as I run my business and walk my own path on earth. Here you'll hear my personal stories, guest interviews, and vulnerable shares from clients and students. Most people know me from Instagram where you can find me under at cycle seeds, or they have been a coaching client or student in one of my courses.

[00:00:52] Iris Josephina: I'm so grateful you're here. Let's dive into today's episode.

[00:00:56] Iris Josephina: Hey, wow. Welcome. Welcome to a new episode of the Inner Rhythms Podcast. I haven't been on here so much. I, I honestly, I didn't feel like it. I was really tired and I didn't feel like I wanted to share. And for the past couple of weeks over Christmas, I've just been doing audio books and crochet. That's been my life.

[00:01:30] Iris Josephina: Last year, to say that last year was really, really hard is an understatement, and I wanna start by saying that I know I was not the only one. I know that many people went through so many intense things, and if that was you, I see you. I hear you. I know it was a rough year, but I also know that you probably worked through a lot.

[00:01:59] Iris Josephina: I worked through a lot, and if I just reflect on myself, like the amount of things that I work through. Alone with my partner, with some friends, family dynamics, my own body. Like, wow, I know that if your stuff was at the level of my stuff, it was a lot. And I see that and I recognize that, and I really wish that the next year, the next months are gonna be much more gentle for you. But something that came through, for me yesterday, and I actually wrote this to my partner, when I was reflecting on all of the hardships of last year. It's that the place where we rationally think we have no power is actually where we have the most strength.

[00:03:13] Iris Josephina: And that's been a huge lesson for me and this place where we rationally think we have no power, but that is the power where we have the most strength. It's where we are put to learn our lessons. That's how I prefer to look at my last year because I don't, I don't know any other way to, to process and to comprehend and to place the intensity of last year.

[00:03:47] Iris Josephina: And something that I also really learned is we will continuously be put in the same spot until we learned a lesson. And another thing that that came through for me is, that we have to understand and honor the soil that we have been planted in. And that seeds, when they're planted, they have no fucking clue.

[00:04:13] Iris Josephina: They don't know what is possible when they're planted into the soil and they just trust and they grow and they've never done it before, but they do it anyway. And I love this metaphor and it's been a metaphor that has been so deeply supportive for me. Uh, I love nature analogies and it's been one of the things that helped me to get through the intensity of, of the past year.

[00:04:45] Iris Josephina: I can go a little bit into it. I'm just feeling into, do I wanna share that on here? But yeah, I can share about it. Some of the things you already know, if you listen to my podcast or if you follow me on Instagram. You know that I caught typhoid fever at the end of 2024, and this haunted me well into 2025, for the first part.

[00:05:15] Iris Josephina: And it was really intense and really rough, and I was like haunted by fevers. Like if I would push myself one second too far, I would have a massive fever and like fever attacks and that faded. And then we got pregnant and we got blessed with this pregnancy. But unfortunately, this is a little bit of a trigger warning for people who have gone through this and maybe don't want to hear it

[00:05:47] Iris Josephina: you don't wanna hear about it, stop listening here or move forward a couple of minutes. But we we had to say goodbye to the pregnancy. We lost pregnancy in March, a couple of months after that, I, I felt awful. I felt like the rug was pulled from under me. I didn't recognize myself. I didn't recognize my feelings, and I've been, you know, going up and down.

[00:06:18] Iris Josephina: I've had like a lot of tools. Some moments I was like, "Oh, wow. I'm like out of the depths" and then I would be good for a couple of weeks and then I would like fall into the pit again. And it was, it was a lot, I'm not gonna lie, it was a lot. But then at a certain moment I was like, Hmm, I think there is more going on here.

[00:06:43] Iris Josephina: And then I discovered that my thyroid was completely outta whack, like really outta whack. And then I was like, oh, oh, maybe this is why my body needs such a long time to fully recover. Because my thyroid cannot keep up. And then I started working with an in an incredible naturopathic doctor, specialized in thyroid health, and she helped me organize my diet, my lifestyle, my supplements, everything to support my levels to get within range.

[00:07:32] Iris Josephina: And it worked. And I think that's also one of the reasons why I am able, again, to focus more on work right now. Because when I was not feeling good and I was struggling with my own stuff, I just need to be in the pit and there is nothing else that I can focus on and I can share about it afterwards. And I shared a little bit about it when I was in it, but not the thyroid stuff because it was so

[00:08:01] Iris Josephina: immensely intense that I just didn't know how to share about it. I can share about it now because I feel like clarity, again, like my brain fog has lifted and I feel more focused, but wow. When I was in a moment, I was like, Hell no. Nobody is gonna know about this until I've like fully worked through this.

[00:08:26] Iris Josephina: And that's what I did. I literally made a decision like, "Iris, are you going to go all in on your business or are you gonna go all in on your health or are you gonna half ass both?" And I was like, you know what? I'm gonna go all in on my health. I'm gonna go all in on my health. And that's what I did. that's all I focused on for a couple of months and I'm really happy to be able to report that it worked and my levels are within range, and it feels so empowering and so powerful to be able to say, I did that.

[00:09:10] Iris Josephina: I supported my body. I navigated my body through healing, and I feel like I want to go all in on my work again and create for you and, and be with all of you. And be in my courses and be there for you and host retreats and I am really very much ready for that again. And I'm just really grateful.

[00:09:43] Iris Josephina: I also wanted to take a moment to, get excited about this upcoming year that is ahead, of us. There's a couple of things that I really wanna do before I become a mom, and this is something that I, I do wanna focus on this year, but there were like a couple of things. One big thing in particular that I really, really, really, really wanted to do before I become a mom, because it's a little bit irresponsible, I feel, to do like when you have children at home, uh, because it's a little bit dangerous. but my sister and I have been talking a lot about how we would love to learn horseback archery. That is exactly what it is. You think it is. It is riding a horse without hands while shooting a bow and arrow. I have been wanting to learn this for a very long time. And my dad used to do archery. He was really passionate about it. We had like a whole archery thing in our garden and he would literally shoot bows and arrows, like shoot a bow, shoot an arrow out of a bow in our garden.

[00:11:05] Iris Josephina: and he was really passionate about it. He like optimized his bows, built his own bows. Something really cool that my dad did. and also to like honor, like to honor his legacy and to really understand what it means to do archery. I want to learn this skill, so I wanna learn the archery in honor of my.

[00:11:31] Iris Josephina: Dad and I wanna, you know, pick up the horse riding again in honor of my grandfather, because when I was seven years old, he supported me to start riding. And then I had a moment. I think I was 10 or 11, I was 11. I had a little moment with little Shetland pony. It was the only day that none of my parents were there.

[00:11:56] Iris Josephina: Actually, there was this really stubborn little Shetland pony that I would ride. Oh, I forgot his name now. Anyway, doesn't matter. I wrote this little Shetland pony and he was just freaking stubborn and at a certain point I was riding him and we were just doing the class. And he decided to go straight instead of going through the little round that all the horses were walking in.

[00:12:28] Iris Josephina: And he just went straight to the fence with me on top of him. And that experience just freaked the hell outta me. I was like hanging on the side and my saddle like still on the horse, like I bit my lip. Everything was bleeding my tongue like it was. It was really intense. None of my parents were there, and that's when I stopped riding and I never ever picked it up again.

[00:12:55] Iris Josephina: there was one other time that I, was somewhere where people were riding horses and I, you know, rode a bit. But my goal is to overcome my fear of writing and, you know, getting myself over that traumatic experience of. Going through defense with this little Shetland pony and learning how to shoot a bow and arrow and not really as like a, like a violent thing.

[00:13:27] Iris Josephina: Like, oh, I wanna learn how to shoot, but it's, to me, it's like an ancient skill. And you need like so many different skills in your body that you need, like, you need your vision, you need precise vision, you need precise muscular control to be able to like, hold the bow still, and then use your perceptual awareness to be able to estimate like when to shoot, how to shoot.

[00:13:58] Iris Josephina: Like how to use the bow and arrow. There are so many like body skills that come with it and then to use your muscles to not fall off of the horse. And it's just, there is so much ancientness around this that I just feel drawn to learn it. And, I'm excited. I'm really excited about it and, that's my wish for this year that I'm gonna learn that, my sister and I signed up, so there's probably no way back.

[00:14:34] Iris Josephina: and I'm gonna learn it. and I'm really, yeah, it, it just lights me up. I'm like smiling super brightly when I'm talking about this because I'm just really, really excited about it. And then another thing that I really wanted to pick up, it's all about the embodied skills for me this year is, to pick up crochet and very particularly crochet instead of knitting because my grandmother taught me how to do crochet and.

[00:15:11] Iris Josephina: This is also an honor of her and I, you know, I'm in this field with myself where I'm like, I want to honor my ancestors and I want to deepen my relationship with them by honoring skills that they loved. And it even almost makes me emotional when I talk about this because I I am usually someone who gets like easily bored from hobbies.

[00:15:38] Iris Josephina: Maybe that's because of my ADHD, I don't know. But with these things I feel so much devotion and so much dedication because it's about my ancestors, it all the people who honed these skills. They're not here in the physical realm anymore. But when I embody those skills, they feel closer to me and I feel closer to them, and it's just so, it just feels so special and it feels really ancient to me.

[00:16:13] Iris Josephina: It feels like this is the way that humans have done this. Like if they wanted to remember an ancestor, they picked up a skill that the ancestor loved, or that the ancestor was good at, or that reminds them of that ancestor. And it's not something that I've read somewhere. It's just something intuitive.

[00:16:34] Iris Josephina: And this is another thing that I want to focus on for myself and cultivate within myself is to, to really cultivate my intuitive part. And I am a very intuitive person, I would say, but I can also be very logical, very rational, very science, and I feel that I need to immerse myself in my intuitive skill and use my intuition more as a truthful tool to move through life.

[00:17:16] Iris Josephina: And I think I'm already pretty good at it, but I also feel that I, I still use my brain in over life and I noticed that through these embodied skills. The crocheting and being in nature on a horse or shooting a bow and arrow, there is no space for the brain to go into all sorts of thought processes because there is this embodied skill happening that requires all of my attention, and it just feels really good.

[00:17:57] Iris Josephina: I'm just really happy that all of these things are just almost magically, naturally coming to me that I was literally, one day I was like, I'm gonna do crochet, and I hadn't done crochet in like a million years and I just dropped into my body and I was like, okay. And I'm actually making, a baby blanket for

[00:18:23] Iris Josephina: for our future baby. I don't know when they're gonna come, but I'm already creating for them. And I feel like my grandmother is with me when I do that. It even makes me emotional now. the funny thing is, is that the moment I started doing crochet, my sister also started crochet. We were in a phone call.

[00:18:51] Iris Josephina: And I was like, oh, you know when I started you never guess what? I started crochet and she was like, what? I also started crochet. And actually when I, the first evening when I was doing the crochet, and you can do what this, whatever you want, it's my truth. If you don't believe it, you don't believe it. But the first night I was doing my crochet, I smelled my grandma.

[00:19:19] Iris Josephina: I remember my grandma's smell and her smell came and it obviously made me sob. And I don't know how these things work. I don't know. You know whether the mind kind of like makes it up and then has you smell a memory. I have no clue how it works. I don't care how it works, but in the moment. I smelt my grandma while I was doing the crochet, and it was a really special moment for me.

[00:19:48] Iris Josephina: And I just wanna have more moments like that, moments that just humble me to my knees and moments that just make me feel like, wow, I'm so grateful that I am alive and I can do these beautiful, embodied skills that make me feel peaceful. I think that's, that's one of the most important values that I have for myself as I move forward in my life, not just for this year, but what brings me peace.

[00:20:26] Iris Josephina: And I know that the world is in a, in a shit show right now, and that a lot of people want peace. And I'm, I just wanna, you know, constantly ask myself like, how can I be my own peace? And how can I be peace for the people I love? And then I'm just thinking like, if everyone did that. We would have peace.

[00:20:50] Iris Josephina: Maybe that's too simplified. I don't know. I'm a dreamer. I'm an like, and sometimes maybe I live in a little utopia world in my mind where I think, oh, it's also easy when everyone is just choosing peace. It's probably not that easy, but I, I'd love to believe that, you know, with little snippets of humanity like this that I'm sharing with you, maybe it inspires you

[00:21:15] Iris Josephina: to be your own peace. Be to peace for your children, be to peace for your parents, your beloved. Do it at what you want and use it in your life in a way that makes sense to you. And let this episode be an inspiration for you in whatever way serves you. And, uh, I feel that I, I wanna do more of these types of.

[00:21:41] Iris Josephina: Episodes where I just put on the mic and just share what is alive in my life, because I know that that is what makes you connect to me and maybe to my work. yeah. Behind every business is just a little human being who is also struggling sometimes and wanting peace and wanting to crochet while listening to audio books.

[00:22:09] Iris Josephina: yeah, that's another thing I have discovered, and I have put it off for so long, I was like, what is all these people listening to audio books? That is not literature and to, for literature, you have to read. That was me. I studied languages and literature. That's why in a far away past, I studied Latin and then in university I did a year of languages and literature and I was like deep in it.

[00:22:42] Iris Josephina: But yeah, I held it off for so long. I heard all these people like, oh, I'm listening to audio books. And I was a bit like, oh, 'cause what? You're too lazy to read. And then, over Christmas. Actually that's not true. I listened to an audiobook last year, hunt, gather Parent, because I just like the way it was narrated.

[00:23:08] Iris Josephina: And then I listened to another book series, the House in the Ilian C, part one and two. And also the, the narration was just so sweet that I was like, okay, maybe. Okay, maybe audio books are nice. And then, um, I was at home and my mom started sharing about this book series again, and she's been talking to me for a couple of years about this book series.

[00:23:40] Iris Josephina: It's called The Seven Sisters. Then I was just looking on my audio book thing and I saw that they had these books on there, and I was like, you know what? I'll have a listen, y'all. I listened to two, like four, 500 page books. Two weeks of Christmas vacation. I'm on book three now. I'm hooked. I'm doing audio books and crochet is my thing.

[00:24:10] Iris Josephina: So, yep, I'm hooked. And I love it and I still read like physical, actual books, but for stories like when it's like a story, it feels so nice to have someone else share the story and then just listen and do my crochet. So that was my little, my little update. I hope you enjoyed listening to me ramble about my life and my embodied skills.

[00:24:41] Iris Josephina: Feel free to share what you feel about episodes like this, whether you can relate, whether you want to hear more of these. It's basically just me rambling into the, in the microphone. I love it and I wanna do more of it, but I wanna hear from you. Do you wanna hear it? Do you like these things? if so, I am very happy to ramble more about my life and I promise I will also make more Contenty content podcasts

[00:25:18] Iris Josephina: where I speak more about quantum biology, circadian biology, anthropology, fertility, menstrual cycles, cyclical living, all the things. So that's definitely my plan. but I also love the Rambling Ram episodes like this so that you have a little bit of a peek into my life. So yeah, let me know and I will see you in the next episode.

[00:25:48] Iris Josephina: Okay, this wraps up today's episode. Thank you so much for listening. Want to know more about me? The best way to reach me is via at Cycle Seeds on Instagram, and if you heard something today and you think, oh my God, wow, I learned something new. Feel free to share the podcast on your social media and tag me or leave a review of rating.

[00:26:10] Iris Josephina: In this way, you help me reach more people like you. Thank you so much. I.