Practices for PMDD: Tracking Your Cycle, Holistic Approaches, and Removing the Taboo

hi my name is elizabeth i am a graduate student studying somatic psychology and i'm almost done i also identify as a witch and i have pmdd also known as premenstrual dysphoric disorder and today we're going to be diving into a more holistic way of approaching pmdd management i'm also going to touch on the dsm-5s criteria for pmdd how you can perhaps figure out if you have it and certain rituals and practices that i use that i have found to be really effective in coping with my pmdd so first things first why do i call myself a witch well um there are many reasons why i do a lot of witchy [ __ ] um but mainly i am owning that word because from my studies and my own beliefs is that a lot of the women that were burned in the witch trials um were wise women were women that were attuned to the female body were women who knew how to use the earth for healing and you know a woman who can follow her own cycles who can use herbs of the earth who has just that innate holistic wisdom of how to help others was dangerous back then and so for me i'm really reclaiming that word one to honor the women that were killed for their knowledge and wisdom and also because being a witch has been one of the things that has been extremely resourcing for me in my own healing journey and i really want to open the door for more holistic perspectives and ways of looking at mental health particularly as someone who has a mental health disorder so before i begin i just want to let everybody know because i'm i'm going to name it so i don't shame it i am currently in my pmdd episode which means i am in the week before my period hits or when i bleed and so i feel a bit unstable i feel a little um i feel floaty i feel like i'm having to work really hard to regulate and my inner critic is louder than normal so i might pause throughout this recording just to honor my body and where it's at and also to be very transparent with all of you um of how i manage in the moment my pmdd so um if i pause or if i um take a minute to kind of drop into my body that's why so a little bit of background before we move into what pmdd is my kind of healing journey was that i've i've had pmdd since i was 14. basically right when my period hit boom pmdd came along with it and pmdd is a it's a depressive disorder under the dsm-5 category and it has a high rate of suicidality because it feels so damn bad um we'll go into that a little bit more but i have gone through the entire journey with western medicine going to doctors who don't really believe you seeing gps that really don't understand the severity because your symptoms are contained based on your period and so i suffered for a really long time um and it wasn't until i really hit my rock bottom that i started to take charge of my own healing when i started to empower myself to follow my intuition and follow what my body needs in order to regulate even if that is against normal and conventional standards so i've gone through the journey with hormones i've gone through the journey with diet i've gone through the journey with um basically hibernating in a hole that week and not seeing anybody like i've done everything except for ssris or depression medication and um oh god there it is pmdd blanking me out okay i'm gonna just come back come back the thought is right there okay we're going to loop around and then the word's going to come back um contraception there we go um the pill yeah now the reason why i chose not to take uh the pill or an ssri is because one i saw the effects that the pill had on my friends and family and to me it was not worth it because my pmdd at the time was very contained to just the week before my period and i was like even though this week is hell even though this week is absolutely awful i would rather have a week that i know is coming and that i know is contained to that week of feeling that shitty then feeling shitty all the time and frankly i just didn't trust um the pill and i felt like it would be a harm to my health rather than an asset um and then the reason that i was not put on an ssri is partly because mental health was not something that my family really valued or looked into when i was younger so for a what for many years it just was not even an option to me it wasn't even offered and then once i got old enough to kind of think about it um again i was really concerned about how it would affect who i am as a person given that i'm not depressed outside of this one week and taking something long-term or even taking something that would just be contained to that week felt really um that accessible for me at the time so um what that looked like for me is that i tried everything else and i was coping okay for a while and then [ __ ] hit the fan so how i cope now has really helped me um and my wish is that the things that i share are just offerings that maybe someone else out there who is on a similar path to me resonates with and really helps okay let's step into some intense brain power that i don't really have at the moment but you know what we're gonna try anyway so what is pmdd um pmdd basically is extreme pms so um there are a series of symptoms and i actually have my handy dandy dsm-5 because i'm a good you know psychology student um and if i open it up let's see i know i saved it there we go so basically for criteria one you need to have at least five of these symptoms in the first criteria so the symptoms are basically mood swings feeling suddenly sad or tearful or increased sensitivity to rejection that can also look like increased sensitivity to criticism marked irritability or anger or increase in interpersonal conflicts basically people piss you off really easily next is marked depressed mood feelings of hopelessness or self-deprecating thoughts that's the inner critic feeling really sad and depressed four marked anxiety tension and or feelings of being keyed up or on the edge i call this as like the buzzing that i often feel in my body it's sort of like uh that i get on my pmdd so let's move on next is decreased interest in usual activities so work school friends hobbies for me this really shows up in things that usually i find resourcing things that i usually find really fun or that i'm passionate about absolutely no interest in doing them at all uh subjective difficulty in concentration i'm in that one right now okay lethargy easily uh fatigued marked lack of energy yep i also have that one marked change in appetite overeating or specific food cravings um this one you can actually swing so some uh months of your pmdd like say you have your pmdd in june you may not want to eat at all and then july you want to eat everything so this can fluctuate um five uh hypersomnia or insomnia yep some months can't sleep at all other months i can't get enough sleep a sense of being overwhelmed or out of control yep i feel seen by that one physical symptoms such as breast tenderness or swelling joint or muscle pain a sensation of bloating or weight gain yep i call this one being in my moon body but you know you can call it whatever you want now the thing is is you need to have at least five um if you look on the internet some places say you need eight but uh i have all of these symptoms and i have had all of these symptoms the other thing that's really important to note is that these symptoms are debilitating and something that's not in here is uh increased suicidality kind of the dark shadow of pmdd and something that i personally have faced uh all 16 years that i've had it where you really think about killing yourself when you're in that hell week and that's why i call it hell week i have never attempted suicide but i have definitely lived with ideation and just taking a minute a lot of women die by suicide who have pmdd because they literally just can't take it anymore so this is not normal pms this isn't oh you have breast tenderness in your sore and you got mood swings and you're not you're like interested and you're eating a lot no this is like holy [ __ ] i can't even let my partner touch me because i'm so irritated and disorganized and overwhelmed this is i can barely stand to sit in a classroom while a teacher lectures because my anxiety and depression and cognitive impairment is so intense that i can't even remember what she said just a minute ago this is you cannot function like you literally cannot function and for many years i did not function at all during my pmdd week really hit me hard in high school when my stress was really intense also in college really really bad and i would say in college was when my suicidality was at the peak because and i'll just i'll just be very transparent pmdd makes you feel like you can't do things you know like i am a very um ambitious person i do have motivation to do a lot of things and to constantly feel like your body just gives out one week out of the month is awful and it takes a toll on your self-esteem and then when you're in that week and you literally can't do anything like you can't regulate yourself you don't know why you're just being you know pissed at [ __ ] everything and why you're sad and you're crying all the time and why you can barely keep your [ __ ] together sitting in class and right as soon as you get into your car where no one can see you you cry until your eyes are so puffy that you can barely see out of them to drive yourself home like that's pmdd so for me and my story i suffered with it for many years because there was no one to really help me i didn't have access to other women who had it i didn't have access to i mean when i was younger no one was talking about this on the internet at all so resources were just really limited and at times the only thing that people said was oh well you can take the pill and it may or may not help it may make your symptoms worse it may make you feel great and i just decided okay well this is the evil i know so i'm just going to cope but really what i was doing was not coping i was avoiding and i was um suffering in silence alone and i do not want any woman out there to feel like she's alone in this and so yeah you're not alone i affirm that it is as bad as it feels you are not crazy this is not something that's just in your head um you're not lazy and weak and there's no way for you to think your way out of this i feel called to uh to to share a brief story before we move on to uh the next thing i have this memory and i'm not sure exactly when but i'm pretty sure i was in college um at the time i was acting i had a lot on my plate i remember being in the theater before rehearsal and uh for me theater was a bit of an escape because i could just for for for a brief moment pretend to be somebody else it was a bit of like a safe haven for me i remember being in a show we were rehearsing and i was having just a really rough time and uh i was i was in my pmdd it's in the week before my period and uh all i could think about you know as i'm like one of the few people that's in this show there's all this life and excitement and everybody is just like okay we're gonna we're gonna kill it like let's let's push ourselves you know let's do the thing i felt nothing i felt empty and i felt angry at myself that i didn't feel anything because just a week before this was the one thing that i really wanted like i was so excited and then it was gone and uh i remember the rehearsal going like pretty poorly i felt off i felt like i didn't do my best my inner critic was just roaring at me telling me i didn't deserve to be there that i was no good that uh all the things that i wanted were just you know not gonna happen for me um and we got out of rehearsal pretty late it was like 11 30 or something and i remember just sitting in my car driving around aimlessly for probably three hours contemplating [Music] swerving my car into oncoming traffic um because for me that void was so painful and the hopelessness that i felt in that moment was so intense and i believed it so intently that i just thought like no one should have to deal with this i shouldn't have to deal with this like this isn't normal maybe i should just kill myself um and that might be shocking to some people to hear but i think it's really important to talk about and create a safe space for us to talk about the suicidal thoughts that just accompany pmdd in my experience with other folks that i've talked about who have it we all think about it and i think when we can remove that taboo and have a safe space to talk about it at least for me i feel a little bit better because i feel fully seen and it makes it just a little bit more bearable until my period hits again just know that if you share in an experience like this the way that i do it's not a taboo and i don't judge you because i get it i get it whoo okay i'm gonna shake it out a little bit you know i i i'm a deep person i move into some deep waters uh yeah and you know sometimes i think that pmdd has really uh given me in some ways this deep capacity to be with you know the emotions that often we don't want to put voice to or the emotions that we don't like to admit that we feel and i've really moved into an acceptance practice of there are no bad emotions and that just talking about them just letting them pass over you and through you is healing so let's move on to the juicy stuff the spicy stuff the stuff that i get excited about so for me personally i am really intrigued fascinated captivated curious about and if there is an intersection between magic spirituality consciousness the body psychology mental health and science like i'm really interested in how can we unite all of these things to become available to find the exact configuration that an individual needs in order to be well and in order to move into a healthy relationship with a disorder or things that they can't necessarily control like where can we create support systems where can we find you know the magic for you that helps you really feel and find your own resilience agency and healing and i guess you can you know think about it in a more holistic way but for me like it's a little bit deeper than uh like just a holistic approach so because i'm i'm naturally inclined in that way and i'm interested for me when my pmdd got really bad i was seeing a therapist i was also seeing a hypnotherapist and i was exercising regularly i mean going to the gym and lifting weights i was eating properly and still my pmdd was awful it was bad and this was like during the time when the pandemic had hit i had moved in with my partner my life totally flipped upside down and changed the things that i had once used and relied on to help me through that week totally gone and taken away so it was like starting from ground zero on top of this global trauma that everyone was experiencing so that leads me to like if your mental health at baseline is not so great and your stress level at baseline is not so great and your body is experiencing trauma that has not been processed your pmdd will be affected um and at least in my experience it made my pmdd worse and when my mental health is you know not in the place that i know it can be my pmdd is really intense so the more holistic approach that i'm going to take also includes that please also see a therapist please if you need to be on medication like my approach is a yes and approach not an either or and i really think that the things that i'm about to say helped or were aided because i was also seeing a therapist a hypnotherapist and i was taking care of myself but in my experience it wasn't enough there was something else missing in my configuration of health and healing that i needed to find and for me that came from witchcraft diving into the spiritual realms having a mindfulness practice and feeling into the divine feeling connected to earth and once that key thing was added to all the other things i was doing i finally got a grip on my pmdd it was like the clouds parted and oh my god it worked at least that's what i felt inside myself so yeah if you're really suffering please find a therapist that really gets and understands you eat well exercise take care of your body and if that's not enough maybe try this stuff as well so the first thing that i want to talk about in this kind of section is that if you have pmdd you really need to track your moon cycle or your menstrual cycle i call it my moon cycle i think women intuitively are more connected to cycles and rhythms because our body literally does it every month so my pmdd my cycle really matches up with the moon and there's something kind of sacred about that for me which makes it kind of fun to be honest for me to track my cycle because there are certain rituals that i do so if you need to track your cycle always begin on the first day you start bleeding or your period and this is your menstrual phase this is when you're actually bleeding and count those days so the first time you bleed that counts as one and then counted out a typical cycle for most folks is 28 days some less or more um but that's how you begin counting i did this for several months so i really got a sense of what my rhythm and what my cycle was and what it did was it gave me a blueprint of exactly when my pmdd would hit now i don't know if i said this yet but because you know i'm in my pmdd phase but that once your period starts your symptoms are gone some some people you know second third day of their period that's when you know it's like the clouds part you feel great the suicidality is gone you're like wow i'm so happy to be here i made it and and that's the characteristic of pmdd is that as soon as your period starts your symptoms are gone or they're alleviated they're not as intense so for anyone with pmdd it's really important that you can start to predict when your pmdd is going to hit because your body is not going to stop it like like you're not going to stop having this thing but you can start having agency and controlling the things that you schedule that week you can start looking at okay this is the week when my pmdd is going to hit do i really want to schedule my presentation for my class that week probably not why don't i either schedule it before or after um so from a pmdd perspective that's the week you're really looking for that's the week that you really want to track and what i did for several weeks was in my calendar as soon as i started feeling shitty i would start marking it off on the calendar and for me my pmdd is pretty contained to the week right before my period and so because i know that and i can see it i can now predict almost to the day when i'm going to start having symptoms and that gives me a lot of agency and power like that actually empowers me to feel like i'm not just at the whim of this thing that's happening to my body now i really get to have a lot more self-compassion because if i know if i'm aware if i'm conscious of okay these thoughts and these feelings that my body is experiencing that's the pmdd because this is the week that it's happening and when you don't track your cycle when you're not attuned to your moon cycles at all it's sort of like a fog like all of a sudden your pmdd starts to seep in and it's slow it's like a slow creep so it can hide as you and make you believe that the things that you're thinking are true and i'm just going to be very honest they're not because if the thoughts that you're having are contained to that week and you don't have those thoughts outside of that week it's not you it's your pmdd and this is why i kind of think about pmdd as being the pmdd monster you know like sometimes i call mine sally like sally [ __ ] comes in and i'm like oh god like she's here and being able to even differentiate that way of being like okay that's sally that's not me starts to create some psychic space where i'm able to be more mindful acknowledge okay i'm have i'm having these thoughts but i don't have to attach to them i don't know if i'm explaining that very well again my own calling in sally into the space she starts to get pretty loud um i'm gonna take a pause and this is what can happen also in your pmdd like what happened for me just then my mind completely blanked out and then i started feeling really anxious that i didn't have the through line of what i was talking about like in this moment i can't tell you what i just said like um and so i'm just acknowledging that that's where i'm at and that's fine i got it or at least i i have another foothold of where we can go so seeing as how i don't remember what i just said hopefully there was a period at the end of that so how do we take a more say holistic spiritual perspective to pmdd well the way i like to think about it is that i can't control that i have it i can't stop it i can't change the fact that i'm going to feel the way that i feel but i can change the way i relate to it and this is what i mean when i suffered the most with my pmdd was when i felt completely out of control when i felt like this thing is happening to me and i was just sort of raging against it i felt completely defeated and i really believed the things that my pmdd said to me like i really believed i was a loser i really believed that the things that i wanted to do just weren't going to happen and it started to bleed this like limiting belief and depression and lack of self-confidence um in myself even outside of that one week so i remember when i was working with my hypnotherapist she said uh what if your pmdd was actually your body forcing you to feel all the emotions all the sensations all the things that you've been avoiding for the entire month and that was when my brain was able to kind of snap out of of the like tight limiting belief structure that i had with my pmdd of hopelessness where finally it was like oh my god what yeah like what if all these emotions all these intense feelings that i'm having are like small accumulations of little moments that when they happen you know outside of this week i'm able to kind of like brush off or i'm able to just go like push down because it's not that intense and it's sort of like one by one i'm putting matches into the corner of the room and then that week there's like a fire that i'm oh god and when i heard that it really made me think hmm what if this thing that i've been fighting against my whole life actually has a greater purpose for me what if there's a reason that i have pmdd what if the intense amount of suffering that i have experienced and continue to is serving a greater purpose and that's when i started to do the work that's when i didn't just toss a match in the corner of the room when a feeling came up that i could suppress and i started this practice of outside of my pmdd week letting my emotions flow through me and really processing them and really being with them like you know if somebody pissed me off like if somebody did something that crossed my boundary and i was like oh instead of cramming it down making nice wearing a mask of everything's okay what if when i felt safe i really let my rage out what if i let that feeling of injustice of like well [ __ ] her really come out and so i started doing that and i had for my own sort of um access point i had to begin with sort of thinking about it in stages of ritual where it was contained where it was like okay this is my rage ritual this is my you know grief ritual okay this is the time when i'm gonna just like sit on my porch and freaking cry and just cry and over time as i started doing that i noticed that when my pmdd hit you know the fire was a little a little less you know it wasn't it wasn't taking up the whole room you know it was like okay i can cope with that one thing that i want to make really clear is that even when you believe that you have no control no power to change no agency at all we always have the power to change the way we think about something and for me thinking of my body as this instrument as this like conduit of being able to feel all these intense emotions gave me sort of permission to stop suppressing my emotions and feelings to stop just pushing them down and to let them out now that doesn't mean like at the grocery store i would just you know like lose it but you know i wouldn't um i wouldn't allow myself to ruminate on things or swallow that [ __ ] down you know as soon as i felt safe enough to emote i did it and that really helped me a lot um because it made me feel okay i i can now do something this is helping this is something that actually is is a benefit so the more that i really focused on ritual practice taking a more spiritual perspective i started to expand the way that i looked at my cycle to the whole moon cycle so i think about cycles in this way most people who have pmdd the week before your period is often your ludial phase and that's when the egg or the ovum dies and for me my brain immediately goes to the spooky whoa you know an egg inside my body that has the potential to create life is dying no wonder i feel so shitty you know and i really view the the ludial phase as sort of fall you know if we're looking at it in seasons like you know you're watching the trees die all the plants are going into their hibernation and just thinking about it kind of you know so your your egg is dead you're in this ludial phase associating it with fall um i started to connect that face to this is my grieving phase this is where i'm really allowed to feel sad this is when i'm really allowed to grieve not only for maybe this egg that has died inside of me but also for all the things that i haven't grieved for the month and so for me in my ludio phase what that looks like is i i take time to cry i take time to hold myself i take time to really comfort and hold my body i take time to hug my partner and cry on my partner you know and it doesn't have to have any meaning i just get to cry it doesn't need to be attached to a reason like i don't have to give a reason for why i'm sad or why i'm crying or why i'm in grief because i'm feeling it and so um that's what i do during that phase is i view it as i'm i'm grieving my body is literally grieving and so what that allows me to do is i don't put any expectations on myself because if someone's significant partner died and they were grieving that week you wouldn't expect them to go to work and do you know a great job you wouldn't expect them to you know keep the house immaculate and clean you wouldn't expect them to do all of these assignments like you would not expect that out of someone who is that profoundly sad so i take that and i give myself that same compassion so i do not put any pressure on myself during that phase i do not expect anything out of myself i just give space for my body to purge and cry so then after your luteal phase comes your menstrual phase which is when you're bleeding that's when you're you're bleeding out that egg and this is when we're kind of in in a state of winter when we're hibernating you know when we're in deep rest when we are integrating when we're more internal when we're really okay i'm integrating from this grief phase that i just had you know i'm really letting [ __ ] go i'm really um forgiving myself perhaps i'm forgiving myself um and during that week i'm really mindful about that i take it slow i don't expect much out of my body because my body is purging so i typically only go for walks that feel good i don't do hard intense exercise i basically just do what feels good and nourishing to my body and this is where i really focus a lot on self-care where i keep my body really well regulated i don't add much stress and i listen to the rhythm and pace that my body is asking for which is usually pretty slow and you know historically right when women were bleeding was when they got a break you know it was when they were able to go off and rest you know and that has also you know been viewed sometimes as a negative thing as some women are sent to a hut to go bleed it out for a while but for me i take a view on it of um there's something that we have missed in our culture by expecting women to perform the same as men when they are bleeding between their legs when they're cramping and they're in chronic pain and i feel that if a man had a period we would just you know that would be written in our work contract with whoever the hell we were working with which was like oh you're you're on your period yeah i'm a dude take that day off but if you're in a women's body and you happen to also live in a more western culture for sure you are expected to perform in a way of how a man would perform and i say [ __ ] that i i say [ __ ] that um i really do and i say [ __ ] that because my body just can't and i have a right to still be in the world and work and do the things that i want and i am not any less productive because i need to take it easier that week in fact i'm more productive when i give myself that break that's the irony when i don't push myself i actually do fine i work i come out of it and and this is like we're leading into the next phase which is the uh follicular phase this is kind of like how i perceive spring right so a new egg is emerging right ha new life uh if you watched bambi like everybody's twitter painted you know this is when you feel your strongest this is when you're like kind of more in a masculine energy um and and for me like masculine energy is a bit more you can focus you're clear um you're really strong in your body you feel like you could do anything you're motivated um and so you you can you can start to move and and in this phase in my spring phase in my follicular phase this is when i really push myself this is when i make up for the week that i took off so i will focus on for example because i'm still in graduate school this is when i write my papers this is when i stick to a reading schedule this is the week when i am just like taking in as much information as i possibly can because i can and i'm like a sponge like my brain is literally open and capable of taking that in now if i did that if i tried to do that during my ludial phase during my pmdd phase oh no not gonna happen not gonna happen all it's gonna do is make me suffer all it's going to do is make me feel bad about myself so i'm i'm just not and the empowerment that you feel when you start to do the things that your body has access to during that week you feel great you feel wonderful you're like oh my god i actually can do this i am productive um and that's when you really start to feel your agency your power you're like i got this i can make this happen um i really focus in my follicular phase of building my self-esteem so i make it a point to really take in the good during that time when i'm like look at me go and i start to build a bit of like a positive fighter to compensate for my inner critic that gets really loud during my pmdd so this is when i'm feeding those neural pathways where i'm really giving a lot of attention on the positive so that when the negative will inevitably come up in my brain i have a bit more um resources i have i can at least hear somebody in my head advocating being like okay yeah you're a sad sack of [ __ ] right now but look at all the things that you've done look at all the things that you can do and guess what this moment will pass and guess what you are allowed to be sad and it doesn't mean anything about you so yeah that's that's kind of the ritual i do around my follicular phase then we come into ovulation and this is when the egg drops and you are the most fertile you will ever be your egg is ready it's like we can birth something um and so i really focus on creation during this phase i also focus on a lot of sensuality really stepping into my body because this is also when you're the most beautiful it's also when you smell of sex yep i said that right this is when you smell of sex so this is when i am very hedonistic this is when i am like universe pleasure me i am here to be adored and sometimes like from an archetypal standpoint i view this as my aphrodite phase where you know i get to be pampered where i get to really feel into my sensuality and i get to honor that and i get to be creative i get to dance i get to bask in my own magnificence and so for example if i want to take photos or if i you know want to do something like for instance a job interview right i might choose if i have the power to schedule it during that phase because i'm going to feel really good about myself i know i'm gonna look my best and you know my body is kind of a magnet so it's pretty good time to manifest some [ __ ] [Laughter] so then inevitably after your ovulation the luteal phase starts again and this cycle happens and when you can start to experience the natural cycle of your body connecting to your own moon body what your body is doing kind of under the surface of your consciousness and when you can make that conscious you really start to tap into your body's wisdom and your body's intuitive knowledge of what it has capacity for and what it doesn't and then you can start to plan literally around that cycle and it's not because oh you know i literally can't do that on my ludio phase it's because there's a week that's actually better for me because then i can really enjoy it because then i have access to really do the things that i want to do at that point so when you can take a more positive framework on it because that week is going to return when all that negative [ __ ] filters in so if you're just starting out just to review really track your cycle become a you know a watcher of your moon cycle make it conscious and this is not going to always be fun so this is why i kind of frame it in in more of like a ritual standpoint um because that's what makes it a bit fun for me and if something's fun i'm gonna do it and the more that i do it the more it becomes a habit the other thing that i do is i get very detailed every single day on what my mood is like and i would actually advise if you've never tracked your moon body before to do this particularly if you have pmdd because even in that week of pmdd at least for me i've noticed there's like two days about when it's the worst when i am like hit by a ton of bricks and all i can do is lay in bed and watch netflix and cry and now because i know what days most likely that's going to hit i don't plan anything in fact i even prepare myself of like okay here it comes and because i can prepare and be like all right tomorrow's going to be rough then i get to one tell my partner hey tomorrow's gonna be really rough which gives him a heads up and so then he can help me he's not gonna put anything on me he's just going to be like okay yeah and he's going to be really soft and tender with me and just give me space it also allows me to prepare and have that self-compassion and also kind of fight a little bit and this is what i really want to talk about just in the last few minutes here pmdd is also kind of like facing the hero's journey every month where this freaking dragon comes and is trying to destroy you and every month you gotta pick up that sword and you gotta go to battle and sometimes all you can do is hide behind a rock as this fire-breathing dragon is just blasting fire at you and all you can do is huddle in a ball and avoid getting burned but the more resources you have the more you can be aware of this dragon that's about to come and hit the more prepared you can be to fight it so with that kind of perspective value yourself enough like listen to where you are empowered already and fill yourself up during those weeks when you are not fighting that dragon so that you are truly resourced enough to be able to face it and instead of maybe just like hiding behind that rock as flames shoot by now you have a sword and a shield and you're like all right bring it on [ __ ] like that's that's huge and that's been a huge shift for me and all the things that i do and all the things that i will eventually share with you that i do begin with being able to track your cycle being in attunement with your immune body and the more that you do this the more resources you start to be able to have to fight this dragon that's going to come every month so here we are we've come towards the end i've been talking for an hour wow i'm going to take a moment to honor my body that it showed up today that i pushed through and that i showed up in integrity honesty and transparency and that i i'm grateful that even though it might not be perfect i still showed up and my body showed up um yeah so just that's mostly for me thank you so much for spending this time with me i really honor and respect your journey and i hope that something that i shared today really resonated and landed in your body until next time good luck on tracking your moon body i really wish for you the same peace and grounding that it brings me and until next time another moment of transparency i don't know how to transition i really struggle with transitions they're really difficult and they're really hard for me and my body is just not having it right now so i'm just going to invite the freaking weird and just how my body's doing it and just saying i don't really know how to say goodbye or close this thing and that's okay because i'm just really happy that i was able to spend this time with you and i really hope that something that i said landed for you and if you know you don't want to take up these practices that's fine because my hope is that at least you didn't feel alone and perhaps you could listen to this when you're also in your ludial phase or in your pmdd or in your hell week or fighting that dragon and just know that i'm fighting it too that we're in this together okay until next time just hang in there and i'll chat with you soon

Channel: Elizabeth Ferreira

Views: 14,467

Keywords: PMDD, Witch, Magick, Mental Health, Premenstrual dysphoric disorder, depression, personal growth, elizabeth ferreira, being well, psychology, cycles, women's health, womens health, periods, pms, PMS, coping strategies, coping, practices, somatic psychology, somatic, somatic therapy, therapy, Working With Your PMDD: Tracking Your Cycle, Holistic Approaches, and Removing the Taboo

Id: aftcVjmGvSU

Length: 56min 28sec (3388 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 06 2022