All of us have unique natural cycles of energy that shift and flow throughout the day/week/month/year. Aligning with them enables us to go into flow state more easily in our work, life, and creativity.

Observing our phases and planning our life accordingly is useful to everyone. But it’s especially beneficial to multi-passionate people who want to progress simultaneously and steadily in different areas of interests, skills, and talents.

In this episode, I’ve done a deep dive into:

• Understanding the four energy phases (for the purposes of gentle productivity)
• Why we need to lean into them and how we can do it
• Examples of activities to schedule in alignment with each cycle
• How this helps us, the people around us, and has the potential to make the world a better place
• And more…

Listen on the embedded player below, or on your preferred podcast player. If reading is your jam, then scroll down for the transcript. Enjoy! 🙂

“Often, when you like doing something and it feels nice, it’s not necessarily because of the activity itself. It’s not the nature of that particular activity, but more your energy at that particular time. When we’re emotionally, mentally, physically feeling a particular energy, if we do an activity related to it, then that activity feels very natural, and you easily get into a state of flow.”

Susmitha Veganosaurus – The Feel Good Factor Podcast

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Transcript of episode about aligning with the phases of our natural energy cycles

(gently edited for a better reading experience)

Picture yourself doing something, any activity in which you feel you can completely lose yourself. You’re so present and involved while you’re doing the activity that you’re in a state of flow and ease. It feels very natural, like this is what you’re meant to be doing. And you would love to spend a lot of your life doing this activity.

It could be something as simple as reading a book, or learning something new. Or it could be some kind of creative work like art, stitching, playing some music, whatever it is you can think of. But when you’re doing it, it feels very natural, it feels very easy.

This is a state of flow that you’re feeling, and it’s really good to go through life as much as possible in the state of flow and ease

Yeah, you might say, ‘well, some activities feel nice, some don’t. So how do I do the activities that don’t feel nice in a state of flow?” That’s a good question!

Often, when you like doing something and it feels nice, it’s not necessarily because of the activity itself. It’s not the nature of that particular activity, but more your energy at that particular time.

If whatever you’re doing is aligned with your energy – mental, physical, emotional – in that particular moment, when both the things are aligned, then the activity feels natural. And if your energy is not aligned with the activity at a particular time, even if it’s something you love doing otherwise, you will not enjoy it or you will not feel at ease doing it at that particular point of time.

So if this works with activities that you do enjoy doing, perhaps aligning the activities that you think you don’t really like so much with the right energy, will actually make them more pleasant for you.

So today’s episode is all about leaning into your natural cycles

For the purposes of productivity, let’s divide the natural cycle into four phases. There are many more phases, and sub phases, and whatnot, but for our purpose today, we’re going to divide it into four phases. One is the absorption phase, another is the phase of thinking, the third is a phase of doing, and the fourth is the phase of resting.

When we’re emotionally, mentally, physically feeling a particular energy, if we do an activity related to it, then that activity feels very natural, and you easily get into a state of flow

What is absorption? Absorption is where you feel things need to move inwards, towards you. You need to absorb information, you need to just learn things, expose yourself to different kinds of experiences. That is the absorption phase.

Then there’s the thinking phase where whatever you have absorbed, you’re going to let that sit and germinate in your mind. It’s ideation and creativity and planning. These are the activities that work very well in the thinking phase.

The active phase is when you are in a state of doing. You get things done! It’s less of thinking, less of learning, more of doing.

And then finally, the resting phase is the most important of all. Because if you don’t give yourself a rest – physically, mentally, emotionally – you won’t get a reset. And we really need to reset our bodies, and minds, and feelings, and everything.

The reset helps, because it’s a pause. And during that pause, a lot of things happen in the background. Things come together without even your knowledge. So when you finally get back to the other phases, you’re able to really do well in those particular phases.

This is a cycle, which varies in length, we go through this particular cycle of absorption, thinking, doing, and resting within a period of one day

But we also go through it in a much slower fashion throughout the week, or even throughout the month. And it’s not a cut and dry thing! It shifts and moves, and each phase eases into the other phases.

So it’s not like, “okay, 11am to 12pm, fixed. No matter what, absorption is the energy that I’m in.” Or, “4 to 5pm, no matter what, doing is the phase that I’m in!” That’s not how it works.

Each phase flows into another, and it’s not necessarily in any specific order

Some phases come multiple times a day, some happen only at certain points in the day. And they follow each other in different orders depending on you as a person. Who you are, what’s going on with your life right now, depending even on the time of the year we are facing, all these things matter.

The only way to find out how your cycles work is by observing them yourself, and once you start observing them, it makes it easy for you to plan things around those cycles

So for example, some people are so active in the morning, they feel like they can get the biggest tasks out of the way first thing in the morning, and then rest later on. This is how they naturally feel.

Now I’m the kind of person who likes to ease into my day. So after I wake up, the first couple of hours go slow. For me, I don’t like to rush into anything. Early morning doesn’t even exist for me, but mid morning is a time when I do all my studying, learning, reading up. All these things I save for my mid-morning because that is a time when data moves inwards very naturally to me.

I’m able to absorb things. So whatever my online courses are, or if I’m listening to some kind of a podcast, or reading some newsletters or articles, all of this happens in the mid-morning time for me.

In the later part of the afternoon, I feel more active

I find it very easy to get things done. Somehow I have that energy going. And when you’re in that active phase of doing, you won’t feel very good to absorb things. That’s not a time where you’ll feel comfortable watching something, or listening to something, reading, whatever it is. You won’t feel very comfortable doing it because you’re in this energy of, “let’s get things done!”

For me, as I said, it’s later in the afternoon to early evening. So for all my consultation and coaching calls I make myself available on my calendar only during those hours. That way, people can schedule their calls with me at a time in the day where I’m able to help them in the best way possible, because I’m so active and I’m able to talk well, communicate well, and be clear.

And same thing happens with the podcasts also. I record my podcast sometime in the late afternoon, because the words flow very, very easily at that particular time, and I’m able to do more in a lesser period of time.

Then you have the thinking phase, the thinking phase is when ideas are flowing

This is a time where you can plan things very, very well. And this is also a great time for creativity. If you’re involved in creative projects, if you have a project going, you can actually come up with ideas for that project, or build a framework for it, do all kinds of planning, write down all your ideas.

All the creative stuff flows beautifully, when you’re in this particular phase, when you’re feeling this particular energy. And you have to notice at what point in the day you feel most creative, the most ideas flowing in. Often it’s after a reset.

So once my first doing phase is over, I take a reset for myself. I do a few minutes of either meditation, or OM chanting and things like that, which make me come to a feeling of complete stillness. So I stop everything that I’m doing, and when I do this meditation or chanting it clears up my mind.

It helps me take a nice pause, and from this pause, ideas start flowing

So for me, right after the rest phase, the thinking phase begins. It goes hand in hand beautifully. Only if I have a rest phase do I even have a thinking and a creative phase that follows.

If I haven’t taken a reset, or if I haven’t had any kind of rest, or a pause, then I’m not able to think clearly, the ideas won’t flow very well. So if I’m writing a newsletter, I’m not able to type things out with ideas flowing very well if I haven’t had that pause or that rest.

Sometimes the rest phase comes naturally, like at the end of your day you wind everything down, and then you want to rest and relax. But sometimes you have to force yourself to take a bit of a pause, or a reset, so that you become centered again to move on to the next phase. Whatever comes, whether it’s doing or thinking.

Now on a daily basis, you start noticing…

At what points in the day do you feel most active? Like, you really want to do all kinds of activities, and you get a lot of work done. You’re most productive at this particular time.

And at what point in the day do you feel like… you’re listening to this podcast, so you’re absorbing the information that’s being shared. So there may be some times in the day where you’re actually enjoying this activity. It feels very natural, listening, absorbing, taking things in works well.

Especially if it’s a listening activity like this, then it goes hand in hand with other slow doing activities. Like say, if you’re walking or cooking or something like that, then having a podcast running in the background, you know, they’re kind of both going hand in hand with each other.

But there are some activities – if you’re doing a course, or learning something new, or experiencing something new entirely – that you need do fully in the absorption state. For those you won’t have any other energy going.

So start noticing at which part of the day you feel what kind of energy, and then based on that, see how much you can move things around in your day. How much you can shift things around in your timetable to be aligned with the flow of that particular energy, with each phase.

The same thing happens throughout the month also

For women who are menstruating our menstrual cycle is a very nice indicator for this. I have an episode on my podcast where I’ve discussed how we can align ourselves with our menstrual cycles more naturally with Shilpa Jindal. This is episode number 36. So you can listen to that to get a better idea of this.

But even if not with the menstrual phase, the moon’s phases are a very good indicator of what you’re going through, what energy is stronger at a particular point in your month.

You’ll notice that yes, there are some days where ideas flow so much that it’s a great time to just sit and plan, ideate-ideate-ideate, and make frameworks, and all these things. And there are some days where you want to just do things without thinking too much. This is where you’re in peak active form.

Then there are times where you want to step away from everyone and everything and cut off completely. You don’t really find it an enjoyable experience talking to people or interacting with people. This is the phase where you want to go inwards.

And then there are days where you feel very curious, you want to get new experiences, learn new things. This is also the time where you like meeting people, because you’re curious. And you want to know more, and experience different things. This is a time where you do more interaction also. So you need to start noticing this and align yourself with your cycles.

The more you align yourself with these phases, with your natural phases, the more in flow you’ll be

And when we are in flow, we’re first of all more joyful, and we feel a sense of well-being. Things seem a lot easier, life overall seems easier, because we don’t feel scattered, we don’t feel friction, like we’re pushing ourselves to do something we don’t want to do. So it feels very, very nice, and natural, and easy. And you go through life in ease and grace.

In addition to this, you also become a nicer person

So often there’s this thing, right? When we have to think of ourselves, our time, our boundaries and everything, we’re like, “oh no, what if it doesn’t make other people around us happy? Are we being too selfish?” and whatnot.

All these thoughts come. But honestly, when you do things which are suited to you, which are for your highest good, then you’re going to be a much more kinder, nicer person. It’s actually going to benefit the people around you.

You’re going to be more productive also in terms of work, because you’re utilising the energy in the right way

You know, exactly when you feel like being active, you’re being active, instead of doing it at a time when you really don’t have the inclination to do it and you’re pushing yourself to do it. So obviously, you become a better person, you become a more productive person, and you’re giving people around you the permission to do the same.

Imagine if we all started leaning into our natural cycles, or natural phases of energy of absorption, thinking, doing, and resting, how good the world will be? The world will be a much more peaceful, joyful place. And if for nothing else, we have the responsibility to lean into our phases and go with our natural flow, just to make the world a much better place!

Yes, this is something that’s useful regardless of whether you’re a specialist, what kind of job you do, or if you’re a home maker, or an artist, or a creator, but…

It is extremely useful for multi-passionates!

Those of us who have multiple areas of interest, multiple areas of talents, different businesses that we run, different skills that we pursue. All of it works out so much better when we do them in alignment with our natural energy, with our phases. You can steadily progress in many areas of your life by leaning into your natural cycles, into your energies.

Oh there is so much more I could say on this topic! But I think I won’t overwhelm you with the information. I hope whatever I’ve shared today makes some amount of sense to you.

If you have any questions at all, connect with me. Sign up for my newsletter, you’ll get a welcome email. Reply to that email, ask me your questions, tell me a bit about yourself. And let me know what you think of this idea of leaning into your natural cycles, into the natural phases of your energy. Let’s have a discussion. I would love to chat with you more on this!

Until next week, take care.

Transcribed using Otter