This week's Healing Her Story episode attunes to one of Riva's favorite phases of the entire cycle.

The waning moon.

And one of the biggest missed opportunities we have as women.

We live in a culture that rewards producing, pushing, and performing. But the female body was never designed to operate that way all the time. During the premenstrual and waning moon phase, progesterone and estrogen decline, serotonin shifts, and the nervous system's capacity for stress significantly decreases.

That is not a flaw. That is female physiology.

In this episode Riva shares three rituals to honor this quieter, slower, more inward time, and the research that shows why honoring it actually matters.

Honoring dying flowers — why placing wilting blooms on display during the waning moon reflects something profound back to us about our own worth in the slow seasons

Yoni steaming — an ancient practice Riva has been exploring for three years, how she uses it in the days before her bleed, and the unexpected emotional releases it has supported

Nesting — why the desire to declutter and tend to your space during this phase is not just in your head, backed by research showing cluttered environments elevate cortisol throughout the day

This episode is a reminder that the waning moon deserves to be honored. Not just the bloom.

Resources to Support You This Week:

Yoni Steaming — Bajo Ritual — learn more about the practice Riva shares in this episode

Best Herbs for Yoni Steaming — a guide to choosing the right herbal blend for your needs

Trauma-Informed Somatic Meditation for Rest and Restoration — this week's donation-based meditation on Insight Timer to support you in slowing down.

Send us Fan Mail

Our intro and outro song, Reclamation (Reborn), is an anthem of remembering.

This song was created as a companion for the healing journey, especially for women reclaiming their voices, their rhythms, and their belonging in a world shaped by patriarchy.

You’re invited to listen, feel, and let the music meet you wherever you are.

Looking for support? Here's how to go deeper:

• Book a Somatic Assessment: Your 75-min 1:1 virtual session to explore what your body is holding and shape a personalized care plan. Book Here
• Free Trauma Recovery Mini-Course: A self-guided intro to trauma recovery and nervous system care. Download Here
• 1:1 and Group Support: Virtual and in-person offerings. Learn More
• Meditations on Insight Timer: Guided practices for nervous system regulation. Listen Here
• Watch Reclamation: A music video and expressive arts project. Watch Here

Follow on Instagram: @healingherstorypodcast

Subscribe so you never miss an episode. Email riva@windsofchangesac.com or DM @healingherstorypodcast on Instagram.

This week's Healing Her Story episode arrives with a phrase worth sitting with.

Your body isn't a problem to optimize.

Notice where that lands. Notice if something softens.

As Riva moves through Virgo season she is exploring its shadow side, and one of the deepest shadow expressions of Virgo is perfectionism.

The constant fixing.

The constant managing.

The constant reaching toward some idea of optimal that keeps moving further away.

In this solo episode Riva explores what becomes possible when we stop treating our bodies like projects to be perfected and begin seeing symptoms and discomfort as messages from an intelligent system rather than problems to solve.

She covers why constantly optimizing creates unsafety inside, how somatic psychology sees the body as a whole, why symptoms are actually signs your body is working, and how shifting into curiosity and experimentation can take the pressure off entirely.

She closes with four reflection questions to sit with across the rest of Virgo season.

This episode is for every woman who has ever felt like she was one more supplement away from finally being okay.

Send us Fan Mail

Our intro and outro song, Reclamation (Reborn), is an anthem of remembering.

This song was created as a companion for the healing journey, especially for women reclaiming their voices, their rhythms, and their belonging in a world shaped by patriarchy.

You’re invited to listen, feel, and let the music meet you wherever you are.

Looking for support? Here's how to go deeper:

• Book a Somatic Assessment: Your 75-min 1:1 virtual session to explore what your body is holding and shape a personalized care plan. Book Here
• Free Trauma Recovery Mini-Course: A self-guided intro to trauma recovery and nervous system care. Download Here
• 1:1 and Group Support: Virtual and in-person offerings. Learn More
• Meditations on Insight Timer: Guided practices for nervous system regulation. Listen Here
• Watch Reclamation: A music video and expressive arts project. Watch Here

Follow on Instagram: @healingherstorypodcast

Subscribe so you never miss an episode. Email riva@windsofchangesac.com or DM @healingherstorypodcast on Instagram.

This is not just any full moon. As a full moon partial eclipse, this week carries an amplified quality of culmination, illumination, and completion. And whatever story is beginning to unfold for you through this eclipse season may not yet be fully clear. With time, it will be. In the meantime, Riva shares four of her most meaningful full moon and ovulation rituals, grounded in menstrual cycle awareness, Traditional Chinese Medicine, manifestation practice, and the ancient art of feng shui, to help you work with this peak energy in a way that is simple, intentional, and deeply supportive.

In this episode, you'll explore:

🌕 Why the full moon and ovulation phase are associated with the heart and how to work with that connection somatically

🌕 The tracking practice Riva uses in the three days before and after the full moon to find gratitude, trust, and clarity

🌕 What scripting is, how to do it, and the surprising science behind why writing in cursive makes it a more embodied practice

🌕 How feng shui connects to the full moon and one simple ritual for inviting clarity into your home this week

🌕 Why discernment is always the most important tool, especially during eclipse season

And more.

Resources to Support You This Week 🌹🤲🏼

📓 The Magic of I Planner — the cycle-aware planner Riva uses religiously for tracking, intention setting, and manifestation practices

🌕 Magic of I Full Moon Blog Post — check back at the full moon for their dedicated full moon post

📩 Book Your Somatic Assessment & Care Planning Session — ready to go deeper with your cycle awareness? This is your next step, and Synchronize pricing goes up at the end of the month

🌹 Learn More About Synchronize, Riva's 4-month Somatic Menstrual Cycle Coaching Program

Send us Fan Mail

Our intro and outro song, Reclamation (Reborn), is an anthem of remembering.

This song was created as a companion for the healing journey, especially for women reclaiming their voices, their rhythms, and their belonging in a world shaped by patriarchy.

You’re invited to listen, feel, and let the music meet you wherever you are.

Looking for support? Here's how to go deeper:

• Book a Somatic Assessment: Your 75-min 1:1 virtual session to explore what your body is holding and shape a personalized care plan. Book Here
• Free Trauma Recovery Mini-Course: A self-guided intro to trauma recovery and nervous system care. Download Here
• 1:1 and Group Support: Virtual and in-person offerings. Learn More
• Meditations on Insight Timer: Guided practices for nervous system regulation. Listen Here
• Watch Reclamation: A music video and expressive arts project. Watch Here

Follow on Instagram: @healingherstorypodcast

Subscribe so you never miss an episode. Email riva@windsofchangesac.com or DM @healingherstorypodcast on Instagram.

In this episode, Riva sits down with Madison Murphy Barney, an Indigenous woman, sister, author, doula, and story-driven strategist, for a conversation that moves between public health systems, feminine leadership, doula care, and the wisdom mycelium has to offer us about staying in right relationship with ourselves, each other, and the earth. Madison shares a little bit about her new book, Our Ancestors Want Us to Be Mushrooms, and what it means to lead and to heal from a place rooted in ancestral and Indigenous knowledge.

In This Episode:

🌹 Madison's personal story and healing journey

🌹 Doula care as witnessing and accompaniment through life's thresholds —

🌹 The balance of generosity and confrontation that effective doula care requires

🌹 How mycelium and mushrooms show up as symbols of symbiotic relationship, mystery, and magic and an invitation to embrace wildness and creativity

🌹 Bringing feminine values and earth-based wisdom into public health systems, and how public health drifted from communal, ancestral practices toward individualized medical care

and so much more!

Connect with Madison Murphy Barney

• Instagram
• Website
• Substack: TERRACOTTA

Resources Mentioned

• Our Ancestors Want Us to Be Mushrooms by Madison Murphy Barney

Send us Fan Mail

Our intro and outro song, Reclamation (Reborn), is an anthem of remembering.

This song was created as a companion for the healing journey, especially for women reclaiming their voices, their rhythms, and their belonging in a world shaped by patriarchy.

You’re invited to listen, feel, and let the music meet you wherever you are.

Looking for support? Here's how to go deeper:

• Book a Somatic Assessment: Your 75-min 1:1 virtual session to explore what your body is holding and shape a personalized care plan. Book Here
• Free Trauma Recovery Mini-Course: A self-guided intro to trauma recovery and nervous system care. Download Here
• 1:1 and Group Support: Virtual and in-person offerings. Learn More
• Meditations on Insight Timer: Guided practices for nervous system regulation. Listen Here
• Watch Reclamation: A music video and expressive arts project. Watch Here

Follow on Instagram: @healingherstorypodcast

Subscribe so you never miss an episode. Email riva@windsofchangesac.com or DM @healingherstorypodcast on Instagram.

Virgo season is almost here and with it comes one of the most grounding and practical invitations of the entire year. In this episode, Riva introduces the theme for our new Virgo season mini-series: rituals and embodiment. As we move through eclipse season and step into the waxing moon, this is a moment to ask a deeper question, not just what you know about your cycle, but how you are actually living it.

In this episode, you'll explore:

🌿 Why ritual is one of the most powerful tools for embodying your menstrual cycle — and why we've lost touch with it as a culture

🌿 What Virgo season's themes of earth, self-regeneration, and disciplined devotion have to do with your cycle awareness practice

🌿 How coherence — matching what you feel on the inside with how you show up on the outside — can shift the quality of your everyday life

🌿 Three simple rituals Riva uses during her follicular phase and the waxing moon to embody her cycle from the moment she starts her day

🌿 Why simplicity is the secret to rituals that actually stick — and how to make them work for your real life and real capacity

And more.

Resources to Support You This Week 🌹🤲🏼

🔮 More on Virgo — What It Means to Have Virgo Placements — the CHANI article Riva references in this episode

📱 The CHANI App — a beautiful tool for tracking the moon and staying connected to the astrological cycles

🌸 The Follicular Phase: How to Support Your Body, Mind & Energy After Your Period — a deeper dive into the phase we're working with this week

📩 Book Your Somatic Assessment & Care Planning Session — ready to go deeper with this embodiment work? This is your next step

Send us Fan Mail

Our intro and outro song, Reclamation (Reborn), is an anthem of remembering.

This song was created as a companion for the healing journey, especially for women reclaiming their voices, their rhythms, and their belonging in a world shaped by patriarchy.

You’re invited to listen, feel, and let the music meet you wherever you are.

Looking for support? Here's how to go deeper:

• Book a Somatic Assessment: Your 75-min 1:1 virtual session to explore what your body is holding and shape a personalized care plan. Book Here
• Free Trauma Recovery Mini-Course: A self-guided intro to trauma recovery and nervous system care. Download Here
• 1:1 and Group Support: Virtual and in-person offerings. Learn More
• Meditations on Insight Timer: Guided practices for nervous system regulation. Listen Here
• Watch Reclamation: A music video and expressive arts project. Watch Here

Follow on Instagram: @healingherstorypodcast

Subscribe so you never miss an episode. Email riva@windsofchangesac.com or DM @healingherstorypodcast on Instagram.

Most people have heard of the new moon, but the dark moon? That's a different invitation entirely. In this episode, Riva draws an important distinction between these two often-confused phases and makes a case for why the dark moon deserves its own honoring. As we move through eclipse season in Leo, this quiet, liminal space between cycles is asking something simple of us, and something most of us rarely give ourselves permission to do - just be.

In this episode, you'll explore:

🌑 The difference between the dark moon and the new moon — and why the distinction matters

🌑 How our culture has lost the skill of presence — and why that's not entirely our fault

🌑 The Harvard research on mind-wandering and why nearly half of our waking hours are spent somewhere other than the present moment

🌑 Why distraction is a wise and beautiful coping strategy, and how to meet yourself with grace around it

🌑 What presence actually felt like on a walk by the river — and what it might feel like for you

And so much more.

Your invitation this week:

Can you give yourself one or two days before the new moon to simply be? Not reflecting on what has passed, not planning for what is ahead, just present with what is here right now. Notice what might come up. Notice what might softens.

Resources to Support You This Week 🌹🤲🏼

Trauma-Informed Somatic Meditation for Rest & Restoration — this week's Insight Timer meditation to support you in dropping into presence and stillness during the dark moon

Send us Fan Mail

Our intro and outro song, Reclamation (Reborn), is an anthem of remembering.

This song was created as a companion for the healing journey, especially for women reclaiming their voices, their rhythms, and their belonging in a world shaped by patriarchy.

You’re invited to listen, feel, and let the music meet you wherever you are.

Looking for support? Here's how to go deeper:

• Book a Somatic Assessment: Your 75-min 1:1 virtual session to explore what your body is holding and shape a personalized care plan. Book Here
• Free Trauma Recovery Mini-Course: A self-guided intro to trauma recovery and nervous system care. Download Here
• 1:1 and Group Support: Virtual and in-person offerings. Learn More
• Meditations on Insight Timer: Guided practices for nervous system regulation. Listen Here
• Watch Reclamation: A music video and expressive arts project. Watch Here

Follow on Instagram: @healingherstorypodcast

Subscribe so you never miss an episode. Email riva@windsofchangesac.com or DM @healingherstorypodcast on Instagram.

The waning moon is here, and with it comes one of the most underrated invitations of the entire cycle. As we come off the Aquarius full moon and close out our mini-series on creativity and the cycles, this week Riva explores what it actually means to refine, complete, and consciously let go, and why this phase of the lunar and menstrual cycle is biologically designed for exactly that.

Through the metaphor of metal refinement, the science of the premenstrual brain, and her own real-time experience finishing a painting that had been sitting in the corner of her living room for months, Riva offers a grounded and practical lens for working with this often overlooked phase of the cycle.

In this episode, you'll explore:

🌘 Why the waning moon and premenstrual phase are the most powerful time for refinement, editing, and completion in your creative practice

🌘 The metal refinement metaphor and what it teaches us about what our creative work needs to become what it was always meant to be

🌘 The science behind the premenstrual brain: how the drop in progesterone activates the prefrontal cortex, sharpening focus, analysis, and discernment

🌘How completing projects builds deep trust in yourself and your creative process

🌘 What creative chaos is, why it shows up during this phase, and a simple tool to contain it without losing the ideas

and so much more.

Your invitation this week:

Look at what is unfinished. Is there a project that only needs a little more work to be complete? Is there something that has been sitting in the corner, literally or metaphorically, waiting for you to return to it? This is your week. And if there is something that no longer feels alive, give yourself permission to release it. Not everything needs to be finished. Some things need to be composted.

Resources to Support You This Week 🌹🤲🏼

🌸 Join Riva's Monthly Women's Circle — Sacramento — three spots remaining in the founding group; next gathering Friday, August 14th, timed perfectly with the new moon in Leo and total solar eclipse

📩 Book Your Somatic Assessment & Care Planning Session — two slots available this week; the first step into working more deeply with Riva

Send us Fan Mail

Our intro and outro song, Reclamation (Reborn), is an anthem of remembering.

This song was created as a companion for the healing journey, especially for women reclaiming their voices, their rhythms, and their belonging in a world shaped by patriarchy.

You’re invited to listen, feel, and let the music meet you wherever you are.

Looking for support? Here's how to go deeper:

• Book a Somatic Assessment: Your 75-min 1:1 virtual session to explore what your body is holding and shape a personalized care plan. Book Here
• Free Trauma Recovery Mini-Course: A self-guided intro to trauma recovery and nervous system care. Download Here
• 1:1 and Group Support: Virtual and in-person offerings. Learn More
• Meditations on Insight Timer: Guided practices for nervous system regulation. Listen Here
• Watch Reclamation: A music video and expressive arts project. Watch Here

Follow on Instagram: @healingherstorypodcast

Subscribe so you never miss an episode. Email riva@windsofchangesac.com or DM @healingherstorypodcast on Instagram.

This week's Healing Her Story episode is a replay, and it is arriving at exactly the right time.

As Riva has been moving through Leo season exploring themes of courage, creativity, and being seen, this conversation with her dear friend and transformational coach Leah Morris felt like it was made for this moment.

Leah kept her self-portrait paintings in a closet for nearly twenty years.

Not because they were not beautiful. But because she believed she was too much. That her emotional expression was a burden. That her art was too personal to be shared.

But this carries profound wisdom about what happens when we finally let our truth be seen.

In this episode Riva and Leah explore:

How childhood emotional caretaking shaped Leah's relationship with self-expression and why she spent years believing her feelings were too much

The moment a stranger saw her hidden paintings and cried and what that revealed about the power of authentic creative expression

How two EMDR sessions shifted everything and led to the breakthrough belief that she gets to decide how much space she takes up

What happened when she finally shared her art with the people closest to her and how their reactions taught her that other people's responses are not hers to carry

Why framing her paintings felt like giving them boundaries and how that mirrors the work of protecting what we create before sending it into the world

The connection between secure attachment and creativity and why the ability to take creative risks requires a felt sense of safety first

How motherhood has become the ultimate creative act and what her daughter Eden witnessed by being present at the exhibit

What Leah would say to every woman afraid to share her voice or her gifts — love yourself harder, and know that the fear was never yours to begin with

This episode is a love letter to every woman with something beautiful still hidden in the closet.

Connect with Leah Morris:

• liferemade.com
• @leahemorris
• Vlog
• Leah's Book - The Integrity Sessions

Send us Fan Mail

Our intro and outro song, Reclamation (Reborn), is an anthem of remembering.

This song was created as a companion for the healing journey, especially for women reclaiming their voices, their rhythms, and their belonging in a world shaped by patriarchy.

You’re invited to listen, feel, and let the music meet you wherever you are.

Looking for support? Here's how to go deeper:

• Book a Somatic Assessment: Your 75-min 1:1 virtual session to explore what your body is holding and shape a personalized care plan. Book Here
• Free Trauma Recovery Mini-Course: A self-guided intro to trauma recovery and nervous system care. Download Here
• 1:1 and Group Support: Virtual and in-person offerings. Learn More
• Meditations on Insight Timer: Guided practices for nervous system regulation. Listen Here
• Watch Reclamation: A music video and expressive arts project. Watch Here

Follow on Instagram: @healingherstorypodcast

Subscribe so you never miss an episode. Email riva@windsofchangesac.com or DM @healingherstorypodcast on Instagram.