Sacred Wealth Podcast Transcription
Episode 16 | Kinesiology + Cycle Led Self-Care to Avoid Burnout
w/ Ilana K
PODCAST INTRO:
You are tuning into the Sacred Wealth Podcast. I am your host, Meaghan and I am so excited to have you here. Throughout my 10 years in finance, I have come across so much anxiety and fear surrounding money. It is now my purpose to help women become rich, unapologetically.
The goal of this podcast is to empower you, to love your money, to be so ecstatically grateful for what you have, and to feel safe to ask for more. Together, we will figure out what your luxury is and get you on the path to financial freedom.
EPISODE INTRO:
Hi everyone. I'm going to tell you all about this episode of the Sacred Wealth Podcast. But first, are you following me on Instagram? My Instagram is @Sacred Numbersco all one word, and I am super active on there. You can always find my newest offerings. You can always find everything that's going on with me on Instagram. I would love to get to know you there and I have got a special offering that I am cooking up. So I'd love for you to send me your biggest fears surrounding money.
And I'm going to start creating these amazing little sound experiences with one of my new friends, Torres, and she's going to help me create some amazing meditations for you guys to drop into customized to your exact fear surrounding money so that you can always go back to it so that whenever you feel triggered, this is directly for you. I'm going to record some reminders, some little mantras, maybe some journal prompts, and provide these for you guys. So if that interests you, send me a DM on Instagram with the phrase, “My greatest money fear is…” and then fill in the blank and I'll start creating those for you guys. I cannot wait.
This episode of the Sacred Wealth Podcast is with my new beautiful friend Ilana K. She is a Kinesiologist, Yoga Meditation Teacher, and Mindfulness Wellbeing Consultant. And today we're talking about chronic illnesses, fatigue burnout, and making lifestyle choices and setting boundaries that change and affect your life long term. So Ilana, one of the things that she's super passionate about is teaching women to listen to their inner energies and live in alignment with their menstrual cycles and the phases of the moon to really make sure that they are getting the most out of their busy schedules, is something that I talked about a lot as well.
I teach on this in my one-on-one program, the Sacred Money Method. And I really hope that you get some amazing takeaways from this. It's something that I'm really passionate about because I also have an illness or a disease, I've never been diagnosed, but I have these crazy tremors and I literally shake 24/7. Even in my sleep I shake and it affects my self-confidence, it affects my balance, it affects the way I walk, it affects the way I do things you may have noticed on my Instagram stories, me shaking a little bit, which is why I always try to use a tripod. Yeah, it's something that's very important to me.
So Ilana talks about her own journey with holistic healing and dealing with her own lime-like symptoms, autoimmune symptoms. And her energy is so kind and accepting and non-judgmental. I just loved having this conversation with her. So we also did an interview over on her podcast. Elena's podcast is called The Energy Shift Podcast. And yeah, I hope that you check out our interview over there. She interviewed me. That was super fun. So I loved doing this little podcast swap and I can't wait for you to listen to this episode.
MEAGHAN WALL:
How are you doing today?
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
Good, Meaghan. How are you? I am so excited.
MEAGHAN WALL:
I know. I'm so excited to talk to you too. So just briefly, in your own words, give my audience a little introduction of yourself.
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
Hi, so I'm Ilana Kosakiewicz. I am a kinesiologist energy coach, yoga, and meditation teacher, and I'm really passionate about teaching women to listen to their inner energy. So connecting more with the feminine vibes because we live in a masculine world and most of us are more masculine dominated or driven. And to start to sort of putting those boundaries to make self-care a little bit more up that to-do list because I feel like a lot of women, it comes to the bottom of the to-do list. And quite often that's where the anxiety and the overwhelm and the burnt-out and the exhaustion comes in because filling our cup comes last. And the reason why I'm so passionate about this is because by 30 I'd burnt out with chronic fatigue and Lyme-like autoimmune diseases. Cause here in Australia they don't recognize it as being a disease. They haven't found a tick, for instance, that has it but because we travel...
MEAGHAN WALL:
Right. Yeah. It's a massive problem, especially up here in the Northeast, where I am in New York. Lyme disease, I know and I had some friends and family when I was younger who had Lyme disease. And yeah, it's a bitch of a disease.
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
Yeah, it is. And luckily I've managed to sort of get myself back to basically, you know, a sustainable sort of like every now and then I kind of realize, "Oh, maybe I'm pushing myself too much." Or if I get a cold, it might keep me a little bit more nastier than anyone else. But generally, I've been really lucky and able to sort of maintain my health and wellbeing. And I changed careers, so I was in finance.
MEAGHAN WALL:
Yeah. Good old world of finance.
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
Which I still love numbers.
MEAGHAN WALL:
Yeah. Of course
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
I'm still an Excel spreadsheet nerd. I love doing my bookkeeping, which everyone's like, "That's the best thing you should outsource in your business." And I'm like, "I don't know if I can."
MEAGHAN WALL:
No. Yeah. I don't know. That'll be probably the last thing I'll outsource because I love doing my own bookkeeping.
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
Yeah. So, I mean, I use Xero, which makes it really, really easy anyway. But like it takes me about an hour a week and I rigidly stay on top of it because I want to know the ins and outs. You're probably similar too.
MEAGHAN WALL:
Yeah, well I'm so bad cause sometimes I let myself get behind and I'm like, "I never do this for my clients. So like why am I doing this to myself?" You know?
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
Yeah. So yeah, I pushed myself really hard. Straight out of high school I wanted to do accounting because I had no bloody idea what I wanted to do. But I liked numbers and I like keeping things in check and probably because I was a bit of a control freak. And that's how I maintained my anxiety with a sense of balance and check. And I didn't actually get the enter score I needed to get into like straight out of school.
But I got into an apprenticeship at a power station down in Gippsland where I'm from, about two hours from Melbourne. And I got an apprenticeship there, or traineeship there doing admin. And I told them in my interview that I wanted to be an accountant and go study and go to university and they picked me and then they ended up paying for my degrees. I studied part-time, including during my chartering for nine years, while I was working full time. So full-on working full time and then also studying part-time.
MEAGHAN WALL:
That's so funny that you say that because that's exactly my own story.
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
Oh my God!
MEAGHAN WALL:
I paid for my own school, but I worked full-time during the whole thing and I went part-time to school. It took me about nine years to graduate with my accounting degree.
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
Yeah. Well, I did six years in the degree and then we have like a, I don't know, like the chartering association that was three years. I didn't mind the uni part. I hated the charter like cause it was all multiple choice exams and that's just not how I work. And I was like, "Oh my God, I'm killing myself." And then through all that time, you know, I'd had two long-term relationships. My parents got divorced at the end of my chartering. I was working crazy hours. I was exercising a lot too, which was trying to offset, but draining my adrenals because I was basically just an energized bunny on a high alert on adrenaline.
Like I was literally just go, go, go, go, go, didn't deal with anything, shoved your emotions to the side. Like, "I'm fine. I'm fine. Like just keep going." And then, you know, I moved to Melbourne and then it got worse. And by 30, my body was like, "Uh, you can't function anymore because you've literally stopped caring about yourself." And yeah, I found out the week of my 30th birthday, I could not stop crying in front of my computer screen. I hadn't slept properly for about four or five months. And that was it for me. I didn't work again for about 12 months.
MEAGHAN WALL:
Woah. And that was the universe being like, "Alright, if you're not going to take care of yourself, I guess we're going to take care of yourself for you."
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
Literally.
MEAGHAN WALL:
Yeah.
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
Yep. And then I found out that I also had, well Australian version of Lymes disease. But my test actually got sent to the US.
MEAGHAN WALL:
Wow.
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
It got sent because back then this was 2014. They didn't do anything like they do now in Australia. And even still in Australia, there are only like two or three doctors that even really treat the disease. So yeah, the university said, "Here you go, go and deal with you."
MEAGHAN WALL:
Yeah. How did that affect your money mindset? I mean, how were you set up to take 12 months off?
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
Well, I was lucky that I'd worked for the company for 12 years. And so they, one, I had a shit load of long service leave because I'd been there for so long. I had a hell of a lot of sick leave because, again, I'd been there for 12 years and I used to push myself through when I was sick. It's not like Coronavirus, "Oh, you've got a sniffle. Stay home." It was you just go, you just work through. You know, you just soldier on. And two, I never used to take my roster days off and I wasn't very good at taking annual leave. So I had all of this safety net really.
MEAGHAN WALL:
Wow.
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
And yeah, which I was actually just extremely lucky. So like the universe really said, "I've got you."
MEAGHAN WALL:
Right.
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
Like, "You'll be fine. Go and sort your shit out."
MEAGHAN WALL:
It's almost like if you hadn't pushed yourself and not use all your vacation time, then you wouldn't have needed to take all this time off. You know, like maybe you would have, things happen without our control anyway. Like there's no way that you can know the future. There's no way you can know for sure. Like, "Oh if I would've just taken my vacation days, this would never be a problem. It still might've been a problem.
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
Yeah, absolutely. And a lot of mines was, I was a people pleaser and I didn't know how to say no. I had really bad self-care boundaries or personal boundaries and I just wanted to thrive. And, you know, I was overly responsible at work and also in my personal life with people and friends and, you know, my partners and my family. And it was like, "You need to just worry about what you need to do." And I had already started, so I'd finished my degree and I was like, "Right." I had about six, seven, eight months off. And I had always had this niggling, like I've always been into like the naturopathy or massage and alternative health.
You know, I was a child, a five-year-old, who had an egg allergy and wheat allergy. And you know, I couldn't have a birthday cake that didn't taste like a rock. And so I was kind of exposed to that sort of world from a young age. And luckily I grew out of some of those allergies. I still can't have gluten or dairy. I can't do caffeine, it does not sit well with me. But that was always sort of in the middle like there's more that you should be doing. But you know, I was from a country town where, you know, when you were figuring out what you wanted to do in school, there wasn't like, "Oh, here's a naturopathy table and here's acupuncture and here's massage." It was all like science or nursing or "go to business school" or "be an engineer." And that's all I thought was my options.
MEAGHAN WALL:
Yeah.
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
So yeah, I actually started studying kinesiology the year I got sick. So again, like the universe was saying, "You can't know some of this stuff now and live life like this." Like they're polar opposites.
MEAGHAN WALL:
Yeah.
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
"Go fall apart and then rebuild yourself and go and share what you've learned."
MEAGHAN WALL:
Yeah. Do you feel like the fall apart was completely necessary for like how you teach now and the power of your message?
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
Yeah. I think it had definitely plays a massive role and it, you know, it constantly reminds me. Because before, you know, you pressed play I was saying, "Oh, I need to stop doing all this stuff myself." This is like that niggling like, "You're bordering exhaustion. You're bordering old territory. Like go and sort your stuff out."
MEAGHAN WALL:
Yeah. And you're like, "Just one more week. I can do it by myself for just one more week."
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
It's so funny because this week I'm like, "Just block your calendar out and just get it done."
So yeah, I think, and I'm a big believer now obviously knowing what I know and doing the work that I do, that everything in life is a learning and a lesson. Every moment of every day can take us in any direction, it just depends on where we're at in that journey. So, yeah, I definitely feel like my story and I feel like a lot of women find it empowering knowing that they don't feel alone quite often. Because I mainly work with women and children.
Because a lot of my clients quite often come to me, if you want to leave corporates, for instance, or want to have a side hustle or are feeling depleted and drained or feeling stuck. Or unable to speak up with their partners or their husbands or their bosses, for instance. And finding their voice, connecting back with that sort of feminine energy, you know, the nurturing, the creative side, a little bit of their sort of spiritual side too. So yeah, I definitely feel like it has shown me, well I suppose a little bit allowed me to really find what it is that I was passionate about quite quickly.
MEAGHAN WALL:
Well, speaking of setting boundaries and using your voice, what did you find was the most impactful boundary that you set there at the beginning when you first got sick?
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
Well, I suppose for me, it was hard for me to actually stop. Like even though I knew I needed to have time off, it was like shut the laptop, turn off work. Because I still like, and I think a lot of people, especially aiming just slowing down, for instance, they just find it hard to switch off. So I had to set a really strong boundary that it was like, it's okay to heal. Like it's okay to make this space for myself. I'll go a little bit into my money story here.
I come from like, we weren't poor poor, we weren't rich. We were kind of middle, but more poor side. Like we never went to Queensland. In Australia, like growing up a lot of kids go to Queensland. They do all the adventure parks up in Queensland. Like we couldn't afford to do any of that. Our holidays were going down to lakes entrance to the caravan park or to Philippon. My grandmother had a holiday house, it was 15 kids. So it was fighting who was actually going to be allowed to stay out of my dad's side of the family. But it was like, you have to work hard for your money. Money's hard to come by. And from the age of like 15 or 16, I worked at KFC. But I also had one or two other jobs on the side, which my dad always did as well. So I also had to have that boundary, where it was like your financially safe and secure to have this space or time to heal.
And part of my healing journey was actually debunking a lot of these subconscious belief stories, which is where kinesiology really came in. And while I was working quite closely with the kinesiologist because through muscle testing, which is what kinesiology does. It taps into that subconscious part of the brain, taps into the energy of the body, and goes, "What is the block or what is the stress that's not allowing me to have this effortless flow and harmony and equilibrium energetically within my life." What is it that's, what was the driver that got you to the point of complete burnout? And unraveling that and healing parts of my 30 years up to that point that I had literally just pushed aside, especially emotionally and mentally. So, and limiting beliefs as a big part of that, very sort of self-sabotage is in those lovely little things that we tell ourselves. Those in themselves can cause adrenal fatigue. We have a mode in kinesiology, which is adrenal fatigue by thinking.
MEAGHAN WALL:
Wow, just like the constant go, go, go, the rat race, the literally not being able to switch your brain off or even like slow. It's always going like a million miles an hour.
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
Yeah. And you know, we quite often have the same stories on replay. Like even though you may not be that conscious of them. That, you know, that these, "have to work more" or "have to get another client." Or all these things around, especially you know money, you feel like you don't have enough money or you don't have that security of money. Especially for me when I was having those, even though it was okay for quite a few months because I had all of this leave. It's still because of my upbringing. My dad, there was always this constant thing like, is he going to lose his job because they were putting employees off of the power station or? So like I grew up with all of this scarcity around mindset. Then when I fell in the hole, it was like, "Oh shit. I'm going to lose my job. What happens when my leave runs out?" And I kind of had to put in that boundary, you know, you're talking about boundaries, where it was like, let it go. Like you're okay for at least six, seven, eight.
MEAGHAN WALL:
Yeah. What if everything was okay. Not even just because our mind is always like, what if the worst thing happens. But challenging that thought with, what if the best thing happens or what if this all works out? What if I end up healing myself? What if I'm a million times better by the end of it?
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
Yes.
MEAGHAN WALL:
And replacing those cyclical, what if the worst possible fucking thing, with something that you can make yourself feel better with.
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
Well, absolutely. And because what can quite often happen when you have chronic fatigue or Lyme-like disease, is you almost getting to a victim mentality or like you kind of become the disease. Quite often, you end up seeing a kinesiologist. I saw a psychologist for a little while. I'll see an acupuncturist or a naturopath and, you know, they're giving you all this stuff, which is great. And then you end up researching Facebook groups and they're all talking about their symptoms. And it's like, "Oh my God." You sometimes feel like that you become whatever it is that's going on for you. This is the thing that really drew me out was I was like, "I am going to feel better, if I start thinking I'm going to get better, start feeling I'm going to get better and start doing something that lights me up every day." Which was my studying.
MEAGHAN WALL:
Yeah.
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
So I literally pulled myself out of the hole. It's sometimes easier said than done, but everything we do in life is a choice. We can either keep having those lovely little, you know, "I'm tired" or "I'm exhausted" or "I'm never going to get better," kind of thoughts and stories going on. Or, as you were saying, we can change them to, "Oh my God, I walked to the letterbox." "Oh my God, I made lunch today." Or, "I studied a chapter of my book." Like that in itself energetically, like vibrationally, like which one is going to, you know, help you get better?
MEAGHAN WALL:
Yeah.
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
I think the positive side, which is kind of really what kinesiology does, we go in and have a look at what's going on in the, you know, mind, body, and soul. So I look at all types of real lifestyles that could be your work, your family, life, your environments, you know, your friendships. Sometimes we touch on money. Looking at the energetics, so chakras and auras.
MEAGHAN WALL:
Can you walk us through what a session with you looks like?
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
Yeah. So obviously you come in. We talk a little bit about your history or what's been going on for you at the start of the session. Then you would get on a massage table. Now I also work online. So there's some talking, at the moment, more to come and see me face-to-face but online rather than you obviously being in my clinic. I start a muscle test for you. So I would tap into your energy field. We'd still have a conversation about what's going on and then I'd go off and muscle test on your behalf and figure out what's going on.
So you jump on this message table if I'm seeing you face-to-face. And then we would, through muscle testing, so usually I use an arm, but we can test arms and legs. And all different sort of muscle tests can relate to different meridians, as well, and different parts of the body. And then I start testing your body through muscle testing and figuring out what is going on. So let me find out your emotions. Sometimes we're going back in time. So what was going on say five years ago? Somewhere with a male? And they're like, "Holy crap. How did know that?"
MEAGHAN WALL:
Wow, you do a lot of channeling through that?
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
Well kind of, but it's your body's giving me the information. Usually, channels quite often are just getting information from the source or the universe, whatever. I channel your body, your body gives me the information.
MEAGHAN WALL:
That's fascinating.
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
Because the body knows everything that has ever happened to you. So from the time you were conceived, time you were in womb, to birth, and up until you come to see me. Your body remembers everything that happens to you. And so quite often, what happens if there's a build-up over time of things, or stresses, or traumas, or micro-traumas, or events that the nervous system hasn't fully, or the body hasn't fully, or the soul even, sometimes we're working spiritually, hasn't fully healed or let go or release whatever it is that was going on for you.
It kind of gets imprinted. A little bit like your subconscious thoughts. You know, usually by the time we are eight or nine our personalities have developed. And sometimes we habitually go back to, "How did I deal with that situation when I was younger?" Or, you know, "What have I learned? What's my habitual type of reaction or response to that situation?" Rather than, sometimes reacting or thinking nobody we want to. We basically just dive in and figure out, "Well, if I want to change the way life's going at the moment, or if there's a stress that's happening all the time, or I'm getting digestive issues that aren't healing, what's the factor?" Is it food? Is it emotional? Is it because my job is causing some of this? And then we go and basically clear or cleanse the energy, which could be a whole host of things that I do. Sometimes you do have to go and have a conversation with your partner or your boss.
MEAGHAN WALL:
Yeah.
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
Because that's part of why you've been feeling the way you're feeling, or why the emotions have been coming up, or why you're getting a sore back or a sore belly or whatever it might be. And then quite often people leave feeling much lighter, much calmer, more empowered. Sometimes, cause I can't forget people coming in with physical pains, they disappear. Every person's different. Like sometimes, I would say most people come and see me specifically around one thing. Probably three times, to fully clean something. But sometimes it's only one or two sessions. They're like, "Oh my God, I don't know what you do. I'm sleeping like an angel.
MEAGHAN WALL:
I love that.
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
It depends how deep, I wouldn't even say traumatic, but it depends on how deeply rooted whatever it is you're wanting to clear is. Like if you've had these issues since you were eight or nine, one session probably won't cut it. Because it's like an onion. We're peeling back and the body only wants to heal so much in one session or wants to know so much information in one session. Yeah. And I work a lot with women's hormones, as well, and women's cycles. I also work with kids and the kids get anxiety, or issues with school, or communicating, sleeping problems. Car sickness seems to be a big one.
MEAGHAN WALL:
I still get carsick, to this day.
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
Yeah. And some, I do actually see some men as well, but mainly women and children. But it's a really beautiful journey that I get to share with my clients. And yeah, it's really about raising that vibration to where they want their life to be headed and going. So, that's really kinesiology.
MEAGHAN WALL:
Wow. Thank you so much for giving us all of that. That's fascinating because I actually developed pretty intense tremors, probably about four and a half years ago.
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
I'm like, "I wonder if she's just," because sometimes I'm the same when I do podcasts, I'm like, "Is she nervous?"
MEAGHAN WALL:
No, it's a constant thing. I shake when I'm sleeping. I shake when I'm awake. But I'm the same way, I can't have caffeine, sugar exacerbates it. And even like exercise makes it worse. So I'm very curious. I would much rather prefer to find a holistic cure or treatment, instead of getting on like beta-blockers or being on a prescription pill for the rest of my life.
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
And this is why I've also done it, because I'm obviously a yoga and meditation teacher, but I've also done trauma-informed yoga. Which quite often when people have tremors because you didn't have it your entire life, did you?
MEAGHAN WALL:
No.
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
It's almost like the body's trying to tell you something is out of alignment or there's a lovely little message you're learning here about something. But trauma-informed yoga is basically allowing you to connect a little bit more into the body, so more sensory sort of based. And it comes back to that same notion, that the body keeps the score. Which is actually a book, where, you know, your body's just trying to- like the tremoring for you at the moment is almost like a survival, keeping your nervous system in check. It's the only way it sort of knows how to do that now. And it's like, "Well, how can I get the body feeling safe and secure again so that I'm safe," for it to be like, "Thank you, but I don't need you anymore."
MEAGHAN WALL:
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's definitely a physical response to things that I'm doing or things that I put in my body, like the caffeine and the sugar, like I mentioned. And like, if I get tired or, you know, I travel for a long period of time, I'm just exhausted. And you know, I'm getting older so like- Haha, I'm getting older? I'm only 28.
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
You're not that old.
MEAGHAN WALL:
No, what I mean is like, obviously our energy levels shift as we get older.
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
Yeah. They do. Yeah.
MEAGHAN WALL:
So I'm not sure how much of that has to do with the condition that I have or if it's just, literally, I don't have as much energy as I did when I was 17. You know what I mean? So...
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
Yeah.
MEAGHAN WALL:
Yeah. So I would love to know, what are some of the treatments that you prescribe at the end of your sessions or the treatments that you work through with your clients?
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
So, I mean, everyone is obviously individualized and I call them more like "home reinforcements" than treatments. Because as a kinesiologist, we can't “diagnose”, per se, because I'm not a doctor. But I use a lot of like essential oils. I use a lot of flower essences, as well. I give clients acupressure points. So different points depending on what might show up in the session. So different meridians. So some of you listening might be aware of acupuncture. The difference between acupuncture and acupressure is we basically just a rubbing the acupressure, or acupuncture point, rather than sticking needles in.
MEAGHAN WALL:
That's what you do with tapping, right?
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
Yeah. Tapping is sort of one of the points usually on a Meridian line and you're sort of just tapping the Meridian line. So I also do things like EFT tapping for home reinforcements, or a mantra, or an affirmation. Sometimes it's giving them a yoga pose or a meditation to do regularly. It could be, "You need to take a day off work once a week." Some of it is like, you heal yourself in your sessions, I just facilitate this. But your body's clearly showing that your lifestyle needs to change. So I'm here to support and guide you through that as much as you want, but I literally can't do it for you.
MEAGHAN WALL:
Yeah.
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
So sometimes it's a little bit of tough love, which I'm not really good at. I'm starting to become much better at finding my voice as a practitioner because I would probably like to be more of the listener and the softer. Sort of allowing them to feel seen and heard, which is huge as well. A lot of women don't feel seen and heard and being that support for them. But sometimes I do have to put on, you know, my big girl pants and be like, "Okay, I love you to bits, but this isn't going to change until you leave that job, or stop working extra hours, or stop putting your kids first at 12 years old, they don't need you." You know?
MEAGHAN WALL:
What are some tips that you have to avoid burnout? So like people don't even have to seek out can kinesiology.
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
Yeah. That's a really good question. So I think with burnout, it's knowing how much energy you have in your tank to give every day. So I like to teach women, I have a membership called, Aligned Living, where I teach a lot of tools and I teach weekly yoga meditation. And we do new and full moon events, and we have a women's circle, and I share lots and lots of information. But one thing I quite often say to them is, you know, wake up in the morning and understand how much energy do I have today. Because quite often what we're doing is we're on autopilot. We've got all these responsibilities and to-do lists, but do I actually have the energy to do all of that today? We've sort of lost that mechanism to check in with, well, can I actually, and especially if this is over a long-term thing, especially with workloads, is it sustainable too?
MEAGHAN WALL:
Yeah.
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
So I'd say the first thing is having that awareness. Like is everything that I'm doing necessary, would be number one. Do I enjoy doing it and do I have energy for it?
MEAGHAN WALL:
Yeah.
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
Because I feel like quite often we get into the people-pleasing, really lacking any type of boundary. So I suppose it's really understanding. And a lot of us, as I was saying, we run on, adrenaline is another thing, but we run on this go, go mentality. That we haven't even taken five minutes to stop and connect into the body and understand how we feel and what we want and what we need.
MEAGHAN WALL:
Yeah. I am just now starting to adopt in the self-check-ins.
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
Yeah.
MEAGHAN WALL:
Nobody ever told me that I could stop and like literally ask myself, "Does this feel good? Why am I doing this in the first place? Like who said that I had to do this? Is this a pressure that I put on myself? Is this a perceived pressure from society?"
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
Absolutely.
MEAGHAN WALL:
So yeah, just the fact that I'm giving myself permission to just stop and say, "Wait a minute, do I want to do this?" Is life-changing. You know what I mean?
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
Yeah. So I think with burnout, most of us are running on this automatic autopilot where we haven't learned to self-regulate, which is kind of what I teach in my yoga and meditation is that self regulate. Like it can just be a few gentle breaths. "Okay. I'm a bit tired. I'm a bit overwhelmed. I'm just going to take five minutes to breathe, reset, check-in, and then figure out, well, do I have to do all this today? Or can I prioritize and leave some of it for another day?"
Cause you know, burnout it is exhaustion is basically meaning there's nothing left in the cup. Let's leave a little bit in your cup or substitute and do something like 10 minutes of legs up the wall, or lying on your back, or deep breathing, or just sitting in nature and having a cuppa for 10 minutes. So I'm refueling a little and then going back to some of these things that I have to do. I think we've also not given ourselves the permission that we can actually stop during our day.
MEAGHAN WALL:
Yeah. I remember you know, working in an office, it's like the pressure is so high to be your max productive. Like you always have to be on.
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
Very masculine.
MEAGHAN WALL:
It is. And I now use the Pomodoro method when I'm actually...
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
I love that method.
MEAGHAN WALL:
Me too. When I'm doing work for- so I'm doing some contract work right now for a friend who lost one of her bookkeepers. So I'm just helping out during tax season. But I feel like working in an office space, the Pomodoro method would never have been acceptable because it's like 40 minutes on, you know, 10 or 15 minutes off. And then just the energy of changing my surrounding. Just getting up out of this chair and like leaving the room for 10 minutes. It's so helpful and supportive.
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
Well, we're not machines. It is this patriarchy, you know, capitalism world that most of us in the Western world are living in, very yang, very masculine driven, very goal orientated, time-driven. We females do not run very well on that model because our energy is not the same every 24 hours like a mens are. Our cycles are every 29 approximate, or 25 to 35 it's based on our menstrual cycles. So you have the, you know, doing the Pomodoro method and then taking the break, moving into the body of it, having a cup of tea, drinking just a glass of water, just shifts you out of that masculine for that five or 10 minutes. Okay. Checking in. And then going back in is really, really a productive way of allowing that energy or your sort of cup to stay a little bit more full than if you're going full throttle all the time.
MEAGHAN WALL:
Yeah. Absolutely. So tell us how has aligning with the energy of the moon, or the seasons or your menstrual cycles changed you and how do you teach your clients how to do that?
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
Well, I was kind of touching on that before, which we all, especially as women, we're all yin and yang. Like we all have components of this masculine and feminine energy, but most of us are living way too much in our masculine dominant energy. And so a way of moving back into the feminine is starting to work with your menstrual cycle. And if you're no longer bleeding, or you're pregnant, or your postpartum then, or moving into that pre-menopause sort of unpredictability with your cycle, you use the energy of the moon. So women, we as women have been tied to the energy of the moon for thousands and thousands of years. We have a lot of this wisdom that has just been lost.
But I feel like it's starting to, you know, the last sort of couple of years, it's starting to become more, I don't want to say on-trend, but I feel like our consciousness is shifting a little bit more into Holy crap. We've gone way too masculine in life. And it's all about money. And you know, when it's like, now we need to move back a little bit into the feminine sort of side of living and of life. And so each week of our menstrual cycle has a different energy, very exactly the same as our season. So, you know, we have winter, we have spring-summer, and then we have autumn. Well, we'd go through exactly the same thing in our menstrual cycles every single month. And the moon does exactly the same thing. So the new moon is like week one of your cycle, like your menstrual cycle. So in winter, which is your week one, same as the new moon, you know, what do you feel like doing in winter?
MEAGHAN WALL:
Sleeping. Eating.
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
Resting.
MEAGHAN WALL:
Yeah.
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
Maybe being a little bit more reflective. What do you think you should be doing the week that you're bleeding?
MEAGHAN WALL:
Yeah, absolutely.
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
I mean sometimes lovely little athletes out there, we can't obviously say, "Sorry, can't have the event on that date because I'm going to be bleeding." So obviously we have to have compassion around that. But the whole point of working with your seasons is having this self-regulation or self-check-in every day of your menstrual cycle every week of your menstrual cycle knowing, "Okay, so I'm going to be bleeding this week. I'm not going to organize six events for my business or catch up socially with all these people, because usually that week of your cycle, you don't want to see anyone. You want a heat pack, you want nourishing food, you want to read a book, or do a meditation, or sleep a lot. You don't want to do anything. So you align your life then, in relation to where you are in your cycle. So I now, as much as I can, do not see clients the first day or two of my cycle.
MEAGHAN WALL:
Oh yeah, I always block off the first three days of my cycle in my calendar. And seeing those blank days, like opening up my calendar app and seeing that I have nothing, it just is so...
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
Soul nourishing,
MEAGHAN WALL:
It is! Like calming and supportive and I'm just like, "I literally could do nothing all day if I really wanted to. And that would be okay."
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
Yeah.
MEAGHAN WALL:
Because I took care of myself ahead of time because I, past Meaghan took care of future Meaghan.
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
Absolutely. And a lot of women find when they start to work with the cycles in this way, have more energy when it gets to that spring week or ovulation week, which is summer week. And even into their sort of autumn and sort of the dropping, the massive dip of energy, which we quite often find after ovulation. Which a lot of women, when they start tracking their cycle and they start working with the seasons or with the moon, they're like, Holy crap, that really happens.
MEAGHAN WALL:
Yeah.
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
Yeah. Like that's why the week before your cycle, the PMS symptoms quite often start to creep in if you're not looking after yourself properly or eating properly because the body needs different things at that time. You know, it's not the same day in, day out. It depends on where you are in your cycle and what season you're at, or if you're no longer bleeding, you know, what the moon is doing.
And when they start to work in harmony with their food, and the energy, and the emotions that might come up cause they change from week to week, they find a lot of their symptoms disappear. They work in more flow and harmony with their work or business because I quite often try to run retreats or do events in that ovulation week, or spring week. And definitely try not to do them when I'm obviously just due to bleed. Although I am not one of these sort of, I just don't have that luxury. I wish I was just bang-on 29 days, that would just be a dream for me. But I'm not.
MEAGHAN WALL:
My cycle is, I think it's more like 32 or 33 days.
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
Yeah.
MEAGHAN WALL:
So it runs on the longer side, but I've even like noticed since I've been tracking my cycle, how inconsistent it is.
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
Yeah.
MEAGHAN WALL:
And I haven't been on any kind of birth control for about three years now. So, and it feels so good to know that my body has no outside hormone influences and I don't think I'll ever go back to being on birth control.
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
No. And like I was on birth control, it took nearly 10 years. So I came off it just before I hit rock bottom with chronic fatigue. So I had not just the fatigue, I had hormones doing crazy things. I had Lyme, autoimmune like I had lots going on. But I fell apart and my period disappeared for about 12 or 9, 10 months.
MEAGHAN WALL:
Wow.
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
Because that can happen too. When you come off birth control. Like the last week when I was on birth control, I was an emotional mess. And I didn't realize until I had come off just how it really wrecked my digestive system. It was also contributed to my anxiety and emotions. The last week before I just turned into an emotional wreck. But when I came off it, I was like, "What was I doing for ten years?"
MEAGHAN WALL:
Yeah.
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
Birth control was like Tylenol for doctors these days. Like, okay. So those teens years, which I have- my winter project is creating a teen course for menstrual cycles because if you could learn the stuff even before, or just as you're starting to bleed, Oh my God, it would change your life. But it can take, your hormones can take five or six years to start to regulate when you first get your period. And so girls haven't even had the chance to self-regulate and they put them on birth control. Yes. There might be pain, but what are they eating? And what's their sleep like? What's their stress levels? How can we support them so that their first thing isn't just to go onto birth control? Because it can cause a whole host of problems in itself. It has a place, but I feel like it's given out way too much and not looking at root causes again.
MEAGHAN WALL:
Absolutely. And, you know, if I had had any more information than my doctor had given me like I got on birth control because I was taking Accutane at the time.
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
Uh, yes.
MEAGHAN WALL:
And, you know, it's super detrimental if you were to get pregnant while on Accutane for the baby, for yourself. And I wasn't having sex at the time, I think I was 16 or 17. But it was like, you either go on birth control or you can't take the Accutane because you have to be on two forms of birth control. You have to do condoms and birth control pills or else you don't get to take the Accutane at all. And so I was like, my acne was so bad and I was just like, of course, I'm going to get on the birth control because I'm 17.
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
And it's very self-conscious for girls at that age. Like totally get it.
MEAGHAN WALL:
Yeah.
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
But then what can happen is they end up being on it forever because it just becomes, they don't realize that they have a choice.
MEAGHAN WALL:
Exactly. And I think that the education is not out there. And I think a lot of the issues that come up with hormonal birth control, I never had a doctor say, "Well, this could be caused because of your birth control." Never. They're not willing to admit that.
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
Unfortunately, a lot of doctors don't actually even know the real causes that birth control, which is why the holistic health industry has a lot of information out there about the pill. Because a lot of doctors, they don't even know the risks. They're taught in their training, this is what birth control does and that's all they know.
MEAGHAN WALL:
I could talk to you all night, but I'm gonna end with just one last question. So what is seed cycling and how do you use it to regulate your period?
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
So seed cycling is basically using different seeds at different times of your cycle to help with the different hormone changes and shifts that go on in your cycle each and every month.
MEAGHAN WALL:
And when you say seeds, what do you mean?
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
As in like Sesame seeds, flax seeds, pepitas, and sunflower seeds.
MEAGHAN WALL:
Okay.
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
So the first two weeks of your cycle. So from the day you bleed or the new moon, if you're not no longer bleeding, cause it also helps women who are no longer bleeding and menopause, or if you're pregnant, postpartum, or post-menopause. So the first two weeks helps with the estrogen. So up until ovulation, we have a few different hormones, but the main one, it just helps to allow the estrogen to do what it's supposed to be doing. And then allowing the follic stimulating hormone and luteinizing hormone, which helps us to ovulate do its thing because quite often a lot of women who have issues with their cycle. Sometimes they may not ovulate.
And some people who have irregular cycles also can have issues at either spectrum of whether it's the first half or the second half of their cycles. So it just helps for me. It really does help to regulate my cycle. So if I fall off the bandwagon, which usually is only for a couple of days during the month, I've gotten quite in some ways like my meditating in the morning, it's become a habit, seed cycling. So the past sort of two weeks, and for those who don't know, when they ovulate quite often, if you start looking at your discharge, it will be watery-ish or sort of egg whitey, sticky, and other ways you can track your temperature as well every day, which a lot of women do when they want to get pregnant. But if you are having longer cycles or shorter cycles tracking your temperature can also help you to understand when you're ovulating, because usually after you ovulate or, it's slightly higher than before you ovulate your body temperature is slightly higher.
But with the seeds, we have flaxseed and pepitas in the first half. And then the second half is sunflower seeds and sesame seeds. And so for instance, like I am right now having a smoothie because it was eight o'clock in the morning when we started these podcasts. And so in my smoothie I had, because I'm just finishing weight plans, I've got beetroot cause beetroot is good for when you're bleeding. Also, blueberries are really good for week one of your cycle. I've got flaxseeds in there and I've got pepitas and some banana. So I basically ate in sync with my cycle. Because it has made a world of difference for my emotions. But yeah, that's kind of how you work with the seed cycling.
MEAGHAN WALL:
Yeah, that's definitely a goal of mine is to align the types of foods that I eat with where I am in my cycle. More like root vegetables and like potatoes and yummy soups and stuff during my winter and a lot more smoothies and fruits during my summer and thinking all of that. Okay. So I did lie. I want to ask you one more question.
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
She was like, "Oh God, curious!"
MEAGHAN WALL:
Let's do a close-out. So with the current state of the world, what are some ways that you find love and lightness when you feel overwhelmed and angry?
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
Which I think is a beautiful question to end with. Yeah. So I feel like the easiest way for me to find love and light is to connect back with my heart. So it doesn't take very long. Like you can be feeling angry, but it's just stopping, placing your hand on your heart, taking a deep breath, just coming back to that self-compassion a little bit. It's always here. We always have a harsh inner-love out in the strength. It's always there, but we just have to remember to connect with it.
So regardless of what's going on in life or in the world, just connecting in with our own inner love and middle hearts can be a really easy way to just release whatever emotions or be with quite often, our emotions actually just want to be felt. Emotions are energy, demanding motion, demanding, you know, our time and energy. So sometimes we just have to be like, okay, I'm angry or hello anxiety. I like to be friends with mine they and I have very good friends, but yeah, just placed the hand there and take a few deep breaths. The other one would obviously just sitting in nature, it's going outside, putting your feet on the ground and just, *deep breath*
MEAGHAN WALL:
Which are two easy and free solutions.
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
Yes. Quick. Free. Easy.
MEAGHAN WALL:
Yeah, absolutely. Well beautiful. So if you had to leave my audience with anything that you want to stress the most or a little one-liner of your favorite quote, what would that be?
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
I think it would be that energy's everything. And then what I mean by that is that we have the choice to shift it and change it. Yeah.
MEAGHAN WALL:
Beautiful. Yep. Everything is energy and money is energy-
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
Literally
MEAGHAN WALL:
-and whatever you, whatever you send your money with or send your energy with, like whatever emotion you send it with is how it will be received.
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
Absolutely. Yep.
MEAGHAN WALL:
Okay. Well, thank you so much, Ilana. I had so much fun chatting with you and tell us where we can find you and also any offerings that you have going on right now.
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
So you can find me over on Instagram or Facebook at IlanaK.kinesiology. My website is www.ilanak.com.au. I have a podcast as well called The Energy Shifts. So I'd love for you to come and listen to all my energy-shifting tools and tips and guests, which you'll finally get on as well. Yes, very soon. And I have, as I said, the Aligned Living Membership, which is where you basically get to learn how to live more in sync with your cycle and get in touch with the energy of the moon and reconnect with your feminine energy. And you have access to me through a Facebook group and you can ask me any questions at any time. So that is over on my website as well. And we're actually going to start a seed cycling challenge in May
MEAGHAN WALL:
Oh, fun. Okay. Awesome. That sounds like such a powerful resource. I will have all of that information listed in the show notes and thank you so much Ilana for joining us.
ILANA KOSAKIEWICZ:
It was my pleasure.
MEAGHAN WALL:
Yeah. We'll talk to you soon.
EPISODE OUTRO:
Thank you for listening to the Sacred Wealth Podcast. If you want to attract more money into your life, subscribe or follow Sacred Wealth wherever you listen to your podcasts. If you leave a five-star review on Itunes, it could be featured in a future episode, and be sure to share the podcast on social media when you listen. I'll see you next time.