Go With Your Flow: How Cycle Awareness Can Transform Your Energy, Skin, and Relationships
Q&A with Jess Mujica, Author of Go With the Flow: Women's Cycle Awareness
Anyone who knows me will tell you I’m profoundly uncomfortable being self-promotional. However, if you’ll indulge me for a brief moment, Phosis has a milestone to celebrate. Calm, the product Oprah Daily called “Best Night Cream” and Luminous, our featherweight botanical oil, are now available and back in stock. Both are formulated specifically for women in peri/menopause and designed to strengthen your skin’s barrier for maximum moisture and glow. I deeply value my relationships here on Substack, so if you’re curious, I’m offering readers a discount code to try the products. Enter code Substack15 at checkout and get 15% off your total purchase. As always, I’d love to know what you think. Now, on to the main event, an interview with one of my very favorites here on Subtack. Enjoy!
The Phosis Interview: Jess Mujica, author of Go with the Flow: Women’s Cycle Awareness
I’ve always believed that some friendships are written in the stars. Jess Mujica, the radiant force behind Go with the Flow: Women's Cycle Awareness on Substack, is one of those people for me. Jess is a menstrual cycle advocate, mentor, and writer who has transformed the way I—and countless others—view the natural rhythms of our bodies.
I’ve been an avid reader of Jess’s work since the moment she launched her Substack, and I was deeply honored to be featured recently on her podcast.
Today, I’m thrilled to turn the tables and share this conversation with Jess. For the uninitiated, we talk about how tracking and understanding your cycles and seasons can be a powerful act of self-love and personal strategy. Even in perimenopause, when cycles become predictably unpredictable, cycle awareness can help you understand when your next period might arrive.
Q: For those that don’t know, can you explain the basics of cycle awareness and why it’s so critical for women?
Thank you for inviting me to do this. I think it is so important for women to understand on a deeper level — beyond menstruation and ovulation — the phases of the menstrual cycle. The menstrual cycle shifts all of our energy levels from physical, emotional, sexual, mental, and spiritual.
Week 1: Inner Winter — Menstruation
Week 2: Inner Spring — Follicular
Week 3: Inner Summer — Ovulation
Week 4- Inner Fall — Luteal
When we tune into these shifting energies, we can plan to go with our cycles instead of against them. My hope is that by understanding these phases, women can anticipate each phase and plan for it.
Q: Can you tell us a little about your background and what first piqued your curiosity about cycle awareness?
I suffered from endometriosis for decades. Getting on the birth control pill eased some symptoms, but did not erase them. I was on the pill for about 7 years. After my child was born (3 years after coming off the pill- no one tells you how common this is), I was back to experiencing terrible pain every month.
In 2019, I was introduced to cycle awareness, and from that point, I began tracking, journaling, and learning more about myself than I ever knew.
I have a knack for research, and when I have a curiosity, I go all in.
I began teaching cycle awareness in 2020. I really enjoy sharing my research and personal experience on my Substack, Go With The Flow: Women's Cycle Awareness. It was my grandmother's words before she passed away that helped me to launch my writing. She said about my writing and educating women, "Just keep going." So in part, I do this for my grandmother, who wished she knew this when she was young.
Q: For people who have never tracked their cycles before (or perhaps since they were trying to get pregnant) let’s go back to basics. How do you do it?
I use a basic period tracking app like Flo, which helps me know what day I am on and, after a cycle or two starts to predict cycles months away, which is great for planning. If you don't know what day you are on, you can wait until you are on Day 1 of the bleed and start from there.
It can be as simple as marking symptoms and noting energy levels. I find that simply marking down a 1-5 of my energy level helps me track on days I don’t have a lot of time to write. Example: 5/16/2025
Day 19- Inner Fall- Physical- 5, Mental- 4, Social- 4, Emotional- 4, Sexual- 4... and so on. I jotted a few notes about my day and a list of gratitude.
Q: What are some things you should do or avoid in each phase of your cycle?
Winter / Menstruation week: All hormone levels are at their lowest and begin to rise.
Do: Find ways to rest, renew, restore, reflect, and honor your boundaries.
Avoid: Anything that depletes the energy levels further (like over-committing) as our hormones are at their lowest.
If we are unable to accommodate and honor this resting period, then we need to be prepared to give ourselves grace in the following weeks, as these may not be as vibrant as we are hoping.
Spring / Follicular week: The hormones rise, giving us energy we didn't have the week before.
Do it all: Let the lists fly, plan the month ahead, get back out and see people, exercise, host, travel, start a solo project, or learn something new.
Avoid: Sitting for long periods of time, waiting in line, sharing hopes and dreams with anyone and everyone. Our new goals are like seedlings and can easily be squashed.
Summer / Ovulation week: Our hormones are at a peak, and we get in the groove.
Do: Get out and be social, express yourself, collaborate, give, network, do household chores, and make time for your family.
Avoid: Forgetting to nurture yourself. Avoid overcommitting in the next two weeks. Sometimes we are riding high in the summer phase, and we forget that the next two weeks are going to require slowing down.
FYI: For some women on or around the ovulation window (24 hours), there can be an increase in some ovulatory symptoms, like mid-cycle migraines or tension headaches, fatigue, and mild cramping.
Fall / Luteal week: Some hormones are up and some are down. Progesterone rises, and estrogen returns, but at a much lower level in this phase.
Do: Get some downtime, shift towards creative outlets, organize small spaces, use mental energy to edit projects, brainstorm, and problem solve.
Avoid: Overcommitments, late nights out, daily strenuous workouts, dehydration, and restricting calorie intake.
Q: What are some creative ways women can use cycle awareness to build community?
This is a great question. I think cycle awareness is not only here for us as individuals, but also supports our community as well. Cycle awareness as a solo practice can feel a bit lonely at times. Having a woman to do this with you is amazing. It's like having a gym or walking buddy. When we start to ask each other, "What day are you on?", we begin to understand how to support each other.
This can mean that when meeting up for a walk. Let’s say I am on Day 2 and you are on Day 7. Knowing that my energy levels are low and your energy levels are high, you support me and slow the pace. But maybe you also are now feeling quite chatty in your follicular phase, I being day 2 am at a great place to listen as my words are slower, and I am feeling grounded. In this way, we can show up for each other. In my podcast, this concept is discussed as we talk about holding space for each other emotionally in our different phases.
Through my work, I really hope to encourage women to support each other through cycle awareness.
Q: Can you share an example when cycle awareness helped you?
Cycle awareness helps me when it comes to planning. Whether it is hosting a party or editing my writing, I can learn to trust my rhythms and plan for them. Using cycle awareness, I can communicate to my family when I need extra help and support.
I think one of the biggest ways cycle awareness has helped me is in establishing healthy boundaries.
Q: How do the different seasons of your cycle show up on your skin?
Skin glows in Spring and Summer with estrogen on the rise. The skin barrier is protected by lipid production. Elastin, hydration, and collagen are peak. In Fall, dullness creeps in as estrogen levels are lower. Winter skin has the lowest levels of hormones and becomes dry, sensitive, and needs hydration and barrier repair.
Q: How can cycle awareness shift in perimenopause when cycles become irregular?
As most of us know, perimenopause is the years leading up to the absence of periods. At 365 days without a period, it is marked menopause, and after is known as post-menopause.
The cycle awareness practice does not change until we are skipping periods, which can be years into perimenopause. And even with a skipped cycle, when your cycle returns, we can see the patterns again and continue tracking and seeing our patterns.
During a skipped cycle, you may notice that everything has a Fall-like feel. And in fact, the whole life phase of perimenopause may have a Fall-like lens. During anovulatory cycles, it is very important to track our energies and practice grace and kindness towards ourselves. The path and GPS that is our cycle get a bit blurred.
Q: Are you comfortable sharing if you’re in perimenopause, and if so, if you’ve experienced any symptoms that have affected your day-to-day? What have you found helpful?
Oh sure. I'm pretty transparent. I started my journey into perimenopause when I hit 40. I was floored to find out that perimenopause could start at 40. I really had no idea.
It absolutely affected my day-to-day! Night sweats, poor sleep, increased endometrial pain, mood swings, anxiety (like really intense anxiety), hot flashes, brain fog, ovulation, and premenstrual headaches, to name a few.
I sought acupuncture to support my phases, yoga for stretching and breathwork, and daily walks to help my mental clarity. To eliminate excess estrogen, I supported my liver. And of course, tracking and cycle awareness practice have helped me know how to use all of these tools.
Using cycle awareness to tend to my cycle, I no longer dread it the way I used to, and this has been life-changing. To find beauty in my period phase is truly amazing. It's redemptive.
Q: What message do you have for women about perimenopause and midlife – you talk about the “wild woman” phase in your substack. Can you expand on that?
The Wild Woman phase is the midlife, perimenopause phase, or the Fall life phase. What we experience in our Fall/Luteal phase in our cycle encapsulates the essence of this entire life phase.
We can explore our Fall/Luteal phase each month, knowing that this is the Wild Woman life phase that we are in. It really is about slowing down, reflecting, cutting away, pruning, creating, finding boundaries, and coming into ourselves in a whole new way. We are no longer in the Summer/Mother/Ovulation phase of life. Once we make that switch internally, we can go with the flow of the Wild Woman.
Q: Lightning round: What are you reading, watching, and listening to right now? What do you recommend to Phosis readers?
Ooh, this is a good one. I started an audiobook called The Women by Kristin Hannah. I loved reading The Nightingale, and I found this book to be equally captivating. That's my fiction escape while I do spring cleaning and yard work.
Some podcasts I'm listening to:
Hotflash Inc on Substack
Better! With Dr Stephanie on Spotify
The Menstruality Podcast on Spotify
...and I'm reading lots of Substack writing:
…and of course Phosis!
Thank you for inviting me to tell you and your readers all about cycle awareness. I love what you are doing here for women and look forward to many more discussions!
The best thing about this platform is the connections I’ve made with other women, particularly advocates for women’s health like Jess. What authors would you like to see in future Substacks? Drop a comment below and as always, thank you for your support.
Cheers to looking and feeling your best,
Susan
Susan Campbell
Founder & CEO, Phosis
Love this: "We can explore our Fall/Luteal phase each month, knowing that this is the Wild Woman life phase that we are in."
I've been tracking my cycles for many, many years now beginning with when I was attempting to get pregnant with my second child who will be ten in the fall. As I enter mid-perimenopause (anyone else get pissed that perimenopause gets a red underline from spellcheck still??) and notice even more unpredictability with cycle length, I find I cannot count on tracking to determine mood or energy level nearly as much as I used to. I've had to learn a new level of grace to be even more present day-to-day to check in and meet myself wherever I am and base tasks, exercise, food, social obligations and such in a much more spontaneous fashion. Frustrating not to be able to plan like I used to, but liberating as well.