When Doubt Comes: Navigating Monthly Cycles, Projector Energy & Building a Business Softly
By Allonia
The Doubt
It is December 31, 2025, and I am sitting at my desk, confused.
I don't know if it's my hormones, recently being sick with a bad cold and laryngitis, or just coming off my menstrual cycle—but I am in a funk. I'm navigating the new year, maybe winter blues. I've been thinking about my past relationship with my mother, and the new relationship I'm navigating with my sister. It's all so confusing.
I've made solid decisions about my business—not pursuing specific paths, continuing my education, and moving with the energy of the universe. Yet the next day, these decisions feel dismantled, like I never began. Like I never made a major decision in my life. I feel like I'm back at square one.
But am I really?
Maybe the doubt and hesitation I feel is my actual compass. Even though I'm unsure how to navigate these waters—with perimenopause fog and everything else going on in my life—the doubt is my anchor. The doubt is my reminder to slow down, listen, and not rush. Take my time with everything.
Everything will be okay. I have all that I need to survive. I am more than enough in a world that demands constant hustle and tells you that you are NOT ENOUGH.
The Menstrual Cycle Reality
Leading up to my menstrual cycle, I'm mostly okay. My moods change like the wind. I keep my emotions bottled up inside. I may be a little moody in the days before.
But the days after my cycle ends? Those are the most challenging.
I am in a depressive funk. It takes my body about five days to recover from it. On those days, I don't want to get out of bed. I want to be left alone. The atmosphere around me is too loud. I don't want to be touched. I wish I could be alone on a faraway island.
I was never this way before perimenopause set in. After my burnout, I completely changed into another woman—a woman who needed to rest, who could no longer survive by hustling. Before I could learn this lesson, I went through complete burnout, a total wipeout. I was bedridden for months. I had no energy to go on.
Most days now, I find myself questioning: Am I going back to this place? This sunken ship? Because my energy is low. I feel tired, depressed, and angry. Yet I know it can be hormonal, affected by the seasons.
Sometimes I'm angry for having to carry so much—to carry my family while navigating this newness of who I am now—navigating a new phase of my life with surges and dips in my hormones. I question myself as a mother, as a woman, as a business owner. How do you make good decisions underneath all of this?
Women have to carry a lot. And then I have to deal with a body that is navigating this new land too—a body that battles nausea after eating most meals, dry eyes, blurry vision, and weird sensations she never had to carry or notice before.
However, I am in a phase of my life where I'm more aware of my body, what she's feeling, and when she needs rest. When I was living in hustle culture, overworking, I never tuned in to my body. I fed her crap to make myself feel better. I kept pressing through.
Now, I have boundaries, and I'm not so harsh on her. I give her time to breathe. To just be.
Maybe during this time, I should extend the same grace. Acknowledge that all days are not the same. It's okay to not be productive all the time. It's not laziness.
The Projector Layer
As a 1/3 Splenic Projector in Human Design, I wait for invitations from others. In the past, I never waited. I constantly hustled harder to fit in, not honoring my energy or capacity.
As a Projector with two defined centers—the spleen and heart—I have periods of limited energy. I show up big and bright on most days. Then I have to retreat and recharge.
In the moment, my spleen decides what's right for me. It's a gentle whisper. A gentle nudging. A gentle calling. If I get too caught up in my head, in the conditionings of the world, I will miss this. It's easy for me to end up in situations that are "not mine" or not best for me.
I ride the waves of others, especially Generator energy. Most people in the world are sacral beings. I am completely open. I feel a lot. A lot of energy is channeled through me. That's why it's so important for me to have routines, periods of deep rest, integration, balance, and peace.
Now, add perimenopause to that. Add a menstrual cycle to that.
Now, not only do I have to navigate other people's energy in the world, I have to navigate my own. I have to be able to separate the extremes in energy. As an empath, I'm always noticing and figuring out what my energy is versus other people's. As a hormonal woman, that reality becomes even more difficult.
I have to navigate the extremes in my own moods. Choose to be present and not let it all overwhelm me.
So I let the emotions wash over me. I cry. I take several showers a day (water makes me feel better—I am Allonia Water, after all). I crawl under my covers and hide. I nurture my inner child, Goddess K. I play games on my phone or my Nintendo Switch. I have low-pressure days where I want to be left alone and be.
I sit and let all the emotions wash over me and through me. Then I wait for another day. Maybe I'll feel better tomorrow.
The Seasonal Layer
Winter asks for more silence. It asks us to sit with emotions, feel them, then release them. It's a really heavy time.
Just like the trees losing their leaves, we are also going through an internal transformation—a hibernation of sorts, preparing to bloom anew when the darkness lifts and Spring comes.
My body wants rest. She wants movement each day to move out energy and emotions. She wants nourishing foods—cantaloupe, berries, salads, broccoli. She wants to sleep.
Anything other than rest is depleting. It's tiresome. It's definitely a time to slow down and just be.
With the shorter days, I'm reminded to retreat inside my home, to stay out of the dark. To wind down, wait, reflect.
Light will come.
The Cultural Pressure Layer
At this time, my body wants to integrate the lessons of 2025. Not rush into another year. Not make new resolutions I won't stick with.
My body wants me to acknowledge how far I've come—that I'm a work in progress, but I'm further than I give myself credit for.
It's not the time to usher in newness when I'm still sitting in the reflections of winter. And that's okay.
We heal and grow on our own timing, not when society tells us it's time to let go. When the lesson is learned, then I'll move into 2026. With the heavy emotions I still have, it's not the time yet.
What Soft Living Actually Means
Soft living is still important on high-energy days as it is on low-energy days. It's still important not to overwork, to stress too much, or to live life out of balance.
When in doubt, check in with your body. Is she asking you to reflect on something just a little longer? To look at something in a new way? To not do something that you THINK you're supposed to do? These could be warning signs. Once we acknowledge them, we can find more ease, release, and relaxation. Let it go.
Soft living is intentional living. It's not waiting for permission to rest. It's not waiting until complete burnout to rest. It's intentional each day—finding time to stop, recharge, and take a break. Finding time to honor the natural rhythms of all things. To slow down, unwind, and reengage with your body. Reengage with your purpose. To check in with yourself, always. To set boundaries each day. To honor natural cycles and your own cycles as well.
When you sit and let the doubt creep in, with all the emotions attached, you can truly understand and find clarity. Clarity comes after all the chaos in your mind and all around you ceases.
You have to be patient and wait.
What I'm Learning to Do Differently
Now, I have more boundaries. I stick to them, and people accept them, or they don't. I've lost relationships this way. But I've also gained true ones that honor my capacity, my boundaries, and the new me.
I meditate more now. I sit with myself in silence more now. I move my body more now. I eat better foods, even though I still indulge in junk food from time to time. I walk in nature more. I love music. I love talking to my daughter, my husband, my true friends, my tribe.
I track my menstrual cycle, and I show up and do tasks in relation to where I am in my cycle and my energy level. I do feel guilty for resting—but I do it anyway. My body needs it, especially after years of harsh living and stress, making her do things she didn't want to do and always hustling and forcing myself, even when I didn't desire to.
I track my hormones. On my low days, I track my hormones to see why I may feel a certain way. I track my moods. I check in each day to see how I'm feeling and track it.
On high-energy days, I do more. I make a list, and I accomplish what's on that list. If I have four things on the list and finish them early, I'm off for the rest of the day. And that's okay. I go for a walk after. Watch TV. Reconnect with myself and my daughter.
On low-energy days, I do less. I ask my body what she needs, and I honor that. I sit at my altar more. I cry. I read. I sit with my inner child. I really lean into how I'm feeling. I allow my body to feel the lows. And I allow her to feel the highs. All the emotions I feel, I honor. Even if they're challenging to navigate through, they're all valid. They're all welcome here.
When I push too hard, I'm reminded to slow down and stop. My body will begin to show signs of burnout, as it did three years ago. Then I'm reminded that I'm pushing myself too hard. When the anxiety comes, the dizziness, the hot flash—I'm pushing too hard. That means stop, take a breath, take a walk, step away. Come back to it another day. Today is not the day.
The Invitation
Remember that you have permission to rest. To say no. To have boundaries. No one will honor your boundaries until you honor them yourself.
Rest without asking, without having to wait until your body gives out. Healing from complete exhaustion is hard as hell. It's hard work. And it's continual work. My body is still recovering, day by day. And now she has to navigate perimenopause.
REST. STOP. HEAL. GROW. INTEGRATE.
Life is not a race—it's an experience to be had. Life can be beautiful if you're not always carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders.
You deserve a softer life. A life that allows you to experience peace and growth, with no pressure. A life that's not hard, people-pleasing, and looking for external validation from others. A life that honors who you are, your energy, your capacity—always. Not the energy and capacity of an organization and its agenda. Not the agenda of other people. But YOURS.
I invite you to a true, authentic tribe: The Soft Hearts Society™.
Here we don't have it all figured out. We learn together, grow together, and sit with one another through the good times and the bad. We listen, we cry, we scream, we find ourselves. We come to the circle completely broken and torn apart. But underneath the rubble, we find ourselves—together.
I am a 1/3 Splenic Projector, but I also have tribal circuitry. That means I believe in my tribe and I am there for them. In the Soft Hearts Society™, not only do you have a guide—you have someone who will not leave you. Someone willing to sit in heavy emotions with you, figure it out, come up with a plan, and go forward with you.
You have this from Rose and me. We are the mother and daughter, healing together. We help each part of your lineage heal and come back together. We are the mirrors when you're going through a deep fog, when you're depressed. Confused. In doubt.
We are here. And we are learning and growing alongside you.
Join us in the Soft Hearts Society™
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Written on December 31, 2025, while sitting in doubt, trusting that clarity will return.
