Speaker 1 (00:20):
PMDD shaped my life for 17 years before I could name it, I spent those years searching for answers, questioning my sanity, and desperately seeking treatments that actually worked. My painful journey had an unexpected twist. Helping others heal from PMDD became my life's purpose. Hi, I'm Jess, a board certified nutritional therapist coach, the founder of her mood mentor and your host. This is PMDD PEP Talk, A weekly reminder that your suffering is real, your experience is valid, and your future is brighter than your symptoms suggest. Each week we're going to explore the truths about PMDD that nobody talks about, the kind of truths that shift something deep inside you and make you think maybe there's more possible than I imagined. Whether you're in the depths of luteal darkness or riding the clarity of your follicular phase, you're exactly where you need to be because here's what I know for sure.
(01:18):
Healing PMDD isn't just about managing symptoms, it's about transforming your life. This challenge, as brutal as it can be, is an invitation to know yourself more deeply and live a more joyful purpose-filled life. PMDD might feel like your whole story, but it's just a chapter and you get to write what comes next. Welcome to PMDD, PEP Talk, quick pep talk, pause. Remember that everything we talk about here is meant to educate and inspire. Always team up with your healthcare provider for personal medical advice. All right, now let's get into it. Hello, this is Jess with her mood mentor, and today I'm meeting with one of my integrative menstrual health coaching and PMDD rehab students, Maya, and she is going to share her story with us today. Hi, Maya.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Hello. So excited to be with you.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Yeah, so excited to chat with you. So let's just kind of start from the beginning with your experience with severe premenstrual symptoms. Probably didn't have A-P-M-D-D framework to fit it in from initially, but tell us a little bit about what it was like living with this condition and when it started for you.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Yeah, so I think I first became aware of PMDD probably five or six years ago. I saw something about it on the internet and I read into it a little bit and I thought, oh, this seems hauntingly familiar, but I hadn't sought for it, and it wasn't until I saw some of your content that I really, really recognized myself in it and really felt like something in the PMDD world was speaking directly to me and my experience. And so that was when it really locked in like, okay, this is absolutely an experience that I'm having and have been having for probably 20 years and in the past year. So my cycles have always been irregular, which was always a chronic source of stress. I think the most regular my cycles were, which were not real cycles, were when I was on the pill when I was younger, but those made me feel absolutely insane, and I recognized that.
(03:49):
So I had the sense that my hormones were playing a role in my mental health and my emotional health, but I didn't really know what to do with that aside from stop taking the pill. And in the last year, I had missed I think four or five periods in a row, so I wasn't cycling at all to my knowledge. I have no idea what was going on with my body at the time. It was in a severe response and I wasn't pregnant. It was just my body in a state as a response to probably a great amount of stress in my life and a great amount of change in my life. And my cycle started to come back over the course of last spring and summer, but by I think it was August, I was in such a severe state of freeze and shut down. My inner critic was so loud, my suicidal thoughts were just pretty persistent, and I was having probably seven to 10 days of moderate to severe physiological and psychological and emotional symptoms. So kind of the whole gamut of symptoms I was experiencing in the high range for up to even two weeks, potentially sometimes before I was bleeding. And my cycles were still very long at that time. So I never knew when I was going to bleed, when I was going to get relief, what was going to happen.
(05:30):
I don't think I had even really fully attributed it to my hormones until I saw your content, because I realized, oh, there's this whole aspect of the stages of my cycle that I haven't been able to connect to because my cycle's been so irregular, but here's this person telling me that the psychological things I'm experiencing are related to this. And it all started to fall into place. So came to you totally desperate of totally falling apart.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Yeah. Well, when you're experiencing those symptoms where half of your life, I mean, and there's a fallout too from just recovering from feeling as low as you can go with moderate and severe symptoms. Of course, it's just so dysregulating, but it's really exciting to see that you were able to put some pieces into the puzzle there between your cycle and your mental health because for some reason, the lack of education primarily, we just don't see that there's so little awareness around what is happening specifically with mental health and the cycle, because we've never been trained. So can you tell us a little bit more in depth about what symptoms specifically were the most challenging for you that you were reoccurring experiencing?
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Yeah, so my anxiety would spike to severe levels for a week or 10 days straight. So I would just be in peak anxiety for days on end, and my irritability would rise, I would become really, really sensitive. So I realized that I would take any cue, any external cue would reinforce my inner critic. So I would make up stories all day long that my friends were mad at me, my partner was mad at me, I had done something wrong. I was making situations harder for people by being around them. I was unpleasant. And I don't think the majority of that was even coming out on the surface in a lot of ways. It was just pure internal, constant terror and constant tiptoeing in fear of doing something wrong. I think in the past and past relationships and past work environments, there were times where it would externally project, but I think my mode, because I've been in a lot of new situations in my life, was to just like, oh, I better hide that button that up, keep it all inside, and then I would just be falling apart internally, constantly feeling like I couldn't show up to things, feeling like I was ruining things.
(08:36):
Then on top of that, that was the psychoemotional experience, the anxiety, the irritability, the sensitivity, the depression, the really hardcore self-criticism, just to the point of there's no point of living. I'm flawed and there's no way I'm coming back from this and why would anyone want to be in relationship with me? Why would anyone want to be friends with me? I'm letting my family down, just all of it. Every possible self-criticism just was raining on me all day long for weeks, and I would have a sense that it would let up when I would bleed, but I never knew when that was going to happen. So it was just dread of, I don't know how long I'm going to be in this. But then on top of that, the physical symptoms of the swollen and tender breasts, not just feeling like, oh gosh, I don't even know how to describe the feeling of that. To have something so central to your body just be so sensitive and so tender and really active pain, feeling really inflamed.
(09:51):
It just sets a whole tone for the way that you can show up and meet people and be close and intimate. Even just hugging is stressful, so it makes connection harder. And then I would be, that whole two weeks, I would be bloated. I would be cramping. I would feel like I could bleed any day, and I just have no idea when it's going to happen. I would literally say to people like, well, I just can't wait till I bleed. It could be any minute now, and it would be 10 days later, and it would just be that every day. So that's a lot of just living with,
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Yeah. Well, and I love that you bring in the implications that it does have just for every aspect of your life because it's all consuming. I mean, you can't function normally when you're dealing juggling all of these symptoms and they're on the severe level, and you were saying 20 years since you started your cycle, this has been going on, and so it really is half or more of your life that you've been now trying to navigate this.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
And I forgot to mention the fatigue as well, which was just kind of the umbrella over everything, which was not only am I experiencing psychological, emotional, physical pain, but I don't have any energy to deal with it at all to face it, to apply all of the things that I have learned that maybe would be helpful. There's just this general feeling of I can't do this. I can't manage this, and it impacted my work. It impacted my collaborations. It made it harder for me to show up in certain ways. It impacted everything. There was no corner of my life that it didn't touch and affect.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Wow, Maya so much. Thank you for sharing that and really so clearly depicting what it's really like. I mean, it really is devastating to be living with this and also not have an understanding of what's going on, right? You said it, you felt fundamentally flawed because there were just all of these challenges. You couldn't navigate them on your own, and you also didn't really have a framework that they could fall within until you recognize that PMDD was a thing, and that light bulb moment happened where you were like, oh, okay. This is all making sense now.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
It really was a light bulb moment to see it all plainly and just go down the list and be like, oh, yep, okay. Check, check, check. This is what is happening. And I had wanted to point at different things before, and this just really, it made so much sense and it gave me so much peace so quickly. I was in luteal when I found your work and started tune into the PMDD framework that you were putting out, and I felt better immediately. I was just like, it was still hard. I was still experiencing my luteal symptoms, but I just felt like I think that there is possibility for this to not be the way I have to live my life forever. I think that there's a way out now and I feel it. So that made all the difference too. I mean, that initial glimmer of hope was all I needed to just shift into gear
(13:46):
And really approach what I was doing differently, how I was feeling about it differently. The critic was so loud, and so you are flawed, you are broken. And then I was not wanting, didn't have the energy to, and also didn't want to take good care of myself. I was skipping meals. I was not hydrating thoroughly. I was not doing the things that I know to do for my body. I would neglect working out. I would do all these things that were actively sabotaging my ability to feel better because I didn't feel like I deserved it because I just felt broken and believed. That critic and then saw, started to see a way out, and that really, it changed a lot really quickly, and then I got into the work.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Yeah. So what made you decide to take this approach? Ultimately? There's so many options out there with treatment approaches, and I know that you have explored some of those birth control, but what was kind of your call to take an integrative approach?
Speaker 2 (14:59):
So when I had taken birth control two different times in my life previously, both times they just totally derailed me. And so I knew that that wasn't going to be the approach for me. And I knew that if I just went the allopathic medicine route, that that would likely be the first line. This is what we do, this is what we try. And I just knew that wasn't going to work for me, and I had explored so many other different holistic modalities hoping that it would impact my cycle. Lots of different types of treatments and even specifically hormonal support, trying different herbs and things. And ultimately, like I said, when I saw the first reel of yours that just spoke my language, I was like, oh my God, you're telling my story. I was just like, okay, now I have something to focus on. You were illustrating such a clear picture of there is a route to be taken with this, and I've done it so I can speak to it with authority.
(16:12):
And I just resonated with that so deeply. At the time, I really was definitely not convinced that anything was going to be able to drastically change what I was experiencing, but I had the sense that I needed to try. And really what inspired me was seeing your work, because nothing had resonated with me until that point. That felt like, okay, this is somebody who really gets it, who's been in it, who's done this work. And also everything that you were speaking to really also resonated with what I had already learned about hormone health from all of my previous exploration. So it just felt like kind of a no-brainer.
(16:59):
This is the direction to go. And it was so clear to me that because it was impacting every area of my life, if I didn't start to take action on this specific condition, then I wasn't going to be able to make the progress that I wanted to make in other areas of my life. So in my relationships, in my work with my finances, I wasn't going to be able to get to the point of taking action, real action on those things until I had addressed this part and started to find some coherence in my system and with my hormones.
(17:40):
So yeah, I think I dug through all your free content and I combed through your Instagram, and I was just like, okay, yep. Again, check, check, check. I resonate with all of this. This is the direction I have to go. And it was really very instinctual and intuitive. It was just like my system telling me, you need to do this. And I have stepped into programs and things and paid for different types of healing in the past that I had really high hopes for, and they delivered something and I got something out of them. But with this, I was like, it could really go either way and I could really get something out of it, or I might not, or maybe it'll be like everything else and I'll get a few things. I'll have maybe some new tools and I'll go out back into the wild and figure the rest out myself. So that was kind of my approach, stepping in and my attitude, it was really cautiously optimistic. We'll say.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
I completely get that. Yeah, I love that. And it's realistic approach. This is a very unique protocol. There aren't many people doing integrative menstrual health work, and so what could you really expect? And we started working together in September, the end of September, and we did 14 weeks as we do in coaching. We did eight sessions. And you also have gone through the PMDD rehab curriculum, which is the educational component. So now you're on the other side of it. You've gone through the whole process, and I would love to just hear a little bit about how did that change things for you? What are you coming out of it with?
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Yeah, yeah. I mean, so much much has changed and so much more than I would've let myself expect at the time. I think, I know we'll talk about symptoms later, but I mean just to hop it off, all of my symptoms reduced in length and severity, so that for starters, but there were so many deeper takeaways through this process, and one of them being really, like I said, it was an intuitive process to step into this. And because of the results that I had and the way that it felt throughout it, I really gained a lot of confidence by having said yes to it and having gone through it and having had way more success than I expected.
(20:55):
But the caveat to that is that part of the reason that I was so cautious in my optimism was that I didn't really trust myself to fully follow through or to do the system perfectly and ideally in order to achieve optimal results, because that's how my brain is oriented. I think I have to do it exactly right in order to get the exactly right symptoms that I'm looking for. Instead, I learned that I could take the actions that I set out to take imperfectly. I could do them. I could miss a day here or there, or I could do five minutes instead of 10 minutes on this thing, or maybe I got three out of six of my habits today, but I still had my optimal results and I still met every single goal. So that just gave me the takeaway of the confidence and the trust in my ability to follow through imperfectly, but in my way, in my natural way, and to trust myself in that process and to allow myself to be guided by somebody who's hearing and reflecting back to me what I'm sharing in a way that didn't rub up against my issues with authority.
(22:34):
It was not like I never felt prescribed or I was being told what to do. So I really felt like I had agency to create my own approach to the process and my healing. And that was so empowering because I always thought like, oh my gosh, these core areas of hormone health, I'm going to have to go through every single one with a fine tooth comb and perfect every single area of my life and just take an eraser to all the things that are messing with me. And instead, I realized, oh, no, some cycles are going to be different because some months are different and the levels of stress are different. And so the levels of awareness that I felt to just really be with my symptoms, really be with my cycle, really listen and learn and adapt without the need to execute it flawlessly, was something that I can take with me into the rest of my life, into every area of my life. So that was major change because my perfectionism was totally paralyzing until this,
Speaker 1 (23:48):
Wow, Maya just taking that in.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
Yeah, I'm still taking it in. I'm still landing. All this is still all settling, and the impacts it's having on my life are really, really profound. So I'm excited to see what can continue to blossom from this. This was the early blossoming, and now there's so much more that I feel like I can do with what I've learned and with the changes that have happened.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
Well, and what a relief to not have to be perfect and remove all the things from your life and it be super regimented and strict, because that's just not realistic. And so isn't it just that is not a necessity, so let's just scoot that aside and move forward.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
Totally. And I think even looking back on month one with you, I think I was like, okay, here are my habits and I got to do this every day, and then I would notice that my week would pop up. So there was so much information baked into the process of trying things and exploring and experimenting. It wasn't just like, oh, okay, no. Suddenly now I've got these actions under control in my life perfectly, and that's changing everything. It was like actively, I am in the cauldron with this. I am learning on a day-to-day basis, and that was pretty monumental learning on a lot of levels. So it helped me hormonally, but it's also helping me in general.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
Yeah, you're bringing that kindness and that awareness into all areas of your life, your relationship. You've talked about your career, your future
Speaker 3 (25:55):
Plans
Speaker 1 (25:55):
And all of that. So you really integrated the process into your entire life, and that's something about this protocol, it's different for everyone because you do have the agency, I'm there to support you, but ultimately you know your body, so we need to be listening to your body so it can direct us and you can direct us where we need to go. But the way the depths to which you took your learning points and your self-awareness were so inspiring, and when you're dealing with these symptoms, they're so severe, they're overcoming your life. I think the mentality with that perfectionism is things are so out of control. I feel so bad. So in your head, a lot of times the mindset goes to, okay, well, I would need to do something drastic to feel better because I feel so bad. That's the
Speaker 2 (26:54):
Logic. Complete overhaul, right? Complete overhaul. Nothing is working. Everything is broken. I'm broken. Everything around me is broken. I have to fix everything in order for this to change. And that did not turn out to be true, and what a relief that was.
(27:14):
My mantra coming out of it was small actions taken imperfectly, create big changes. I can take these actions that are coming up through this process and I can experiment with them, and I don't have to apply them flawlessly in order for them to reveal whether or not they're helpful and supportive and whether or not they're going to help me, whether or not they're going to become part of my arsenal. So much of what was going on in my life, so many things were affecting me that I just didn't realize small changes would have such a big impact. I thought, I have to perfect this habit. I have to stop doing this thing, whatever it was, I knew things were impacting me, but I thought if I didn't just cut it out completely or added in perfectly that it was not going to make any changes happen and that wasn't true.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
Yeah, and one of the first places that we saw this, which was super exciting, was the reduction in cycle length because as you said, you were really struggling to navigate this whole situation when you had irregular cycles, and they were so long and it was just dragging on. And one of the first changes we saw from the protocols we were putting into place was achieving one of your main goals that you wanted to achieve in the program.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
Immediately. Immediately, it was the first thing that happened, and I was flabbergasted. I was like, how could it be that just I felt like I had barely started implementing, and it was like, okay, 30 day cycle. That's happened maybe 10 times in my whole 20 years of cycling. I've had an average of a span of anywhere from 32 to 56 days and with probably averages around 45 days for all that time. And that blew my mind, and it really was, it was just like, okay, presence with myself. It was like, I'm going to start looking at these pieces and I'm going to do it with gentleness and having your guidance and your presence and your permission for me to explore it in my own way. Not feeling cattle driven into this is the prescription, this is the model, this is the thing. It was like, here's some information. What appeals to you? What resonates with you? Let's build on that. Let's start there. And that was such a beautiful, gentle approach for my nervous system, especially because we started with the resilience core area. So we started by looking at my stress, and I just couldn't believe the more I peeled back the layers, the more I realized that everything was impacting my stress and my stress was impacting everything else. So I was like, this is the natural place to start.
(30:26):
Whereas my mind had been all busy before we started. She's going to make me quit caffeine and I'm going to have to go to bed at 9:30 PM every night. All these beers I had about the exactitude of the model that totally went out the window, and I was like, oh, okay, cool. I can do this. It's very me to need a program where I can do things my way, but have the information and the permission and the support and the guidance to feel supported, to feel not alone in it. I think, if I'm being honest, just having somebody to talk to about this, who could relate to it, I talked to other practitioners, other hormonal practitioners who couldn't relate to PMDD, and so there's a missing thing there where if they can't relate to it, it becomes really hard. People just don't understand. They're like, oh, you have bad PMS. Like, no, no. And I can't really explain it to you if you don't know. Although I will say my communication about it has drastically changed. My ability to articulate it and share it with people in my life has been another big change.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
As you're diving in, as you're building self-awareness, understanding your pattern, I mean, we do so much data collection and discussion, and that's a big part of the process because we need to see if what we're doing is working and what other factors. There's so much, but that process really helps you get in touch with all of those details. And when you're in touch with all of those details, it's easier to communicate. And you also see your patterns on the page.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
No, oh my God,
Speaker 1 (32:24):
Your mind doesn't have any control over the facts.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
I can't gaslight myself when the chart is right there, that's as black and white as it gets is every day I sat down and charted my symptoms, and here's what I see now. And that made all the difference.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
And we use it from both angles, because what happens when you feel better is then a lot of times you're mentally attacking yourself around that. I see this over and over with clients and students where it's like, oh, well, it's not real. All this fear comes up once you start feeling better and you actually, because seeing the reduction on the page, and there is so many emotions that come out of that, and that's part of the process we worked through too. So it's on the one end of an acceptance of how bad things are, and on the other end of acceptance of things can actually get better, and they're on the page and you can't lie to the page and say that you're not doing better because we have it
Speaker 2 (33:26):
On the paper. Yeah. I mean, just looking from one month to the next and seeing just so many gaps. I didn't have symptoms then. That's crazy. And it would be easy to then be like, well, was it really that bad? But I remember when I realized this is real, and I'm, I'm not going to gaslight myself about it anymore, and I'm not going to let people in my life diminish it, and I'm going to take this seriously and I'm going to see where that takes me. And then from that place where I was so desperate and so unwell in myself, and again, only for two or only for two or so weeks out of the month, so the rest of the time, I'm good. I'm strong, I'm capable. I'm like me and my power, and it's so confusing to be like, why was I like this yesterday? And why was I like this for the last 10 days? And the clarity of seeing it all just like, oh, yep, here's ovulation, and here's where everything starts to shift. But from month to month here, it's dropping and dropping and dropping. No more severe symptoms. Everything becomes manageable. I just blew my mind. Blew my mind.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
Yeah. So can you share a little bit more in depth about what symptoms did we see a reduction in? What was kind of the timeframe, just the facts for people to make it a little bit more clear. I know, but
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Yeah. So I tracked, I went heavy with the symptom mapper, and I tracked all of my psychological symptoms on one page, and I had a second page for all of my physical symptoms. So I was tracking my anxiety, my depression and sensitivity, my irritability and anger, my fatigue. And then I was tracking my breast tenderness, my cramps, my headaches, my skin and my digestion. Or actually, I might've added digestion in later because this was the interesting thing. The more attention I paid, the more I realized, oh, this is actually happening kind of in the same time every cycle. I didn't even notice that before constipation or digestion issues. I hadn't even noticed that that correlated because all the other things were so extreme. And then I was like, oh, okay, here we go. I can start paying attention to that now. I can support that.
(36:12):
But anyway, so I was tracking all of those, and in the first cycle that I tracked, it was severe all across the board. I mean, not every single day, not every single symptom, but they were pretty much all in moderate to severe for a solid 10 days or more before I bled. And then in the subsequent cycles, you can see I went down from probably 10 days of moderate average symptoms to five days of mild to moderate, and then down to where I barely had even any moderate, let alone severe symptoms. I think in the last cycle I tracked, there were no severe symptoms, so they all went down in the length of time I had them, and they all went down in severity. I think there were a couple that my fatigue stayed the same around the holidays, for example, or there were little things like that. But the beauty of that was that I could really see here is the impact of these types of events and situations in life. And I remember really vividly after Thanksgiving, my luteal phase after Thanksgiving, I think it was the second cycle I was tracking second full cycle. And I remember being a little disappointed and kind of like, well, I had such good progress last month and this month it's kind of the same. It's maybe reduced a little, but it's not that drastic change.
(38:04):
And you were like, well, there was Thanksgiving and you traveled for that, right? I had mentioned it, and I was like, yeah. And then as I was thinking, I was like, oh, and there was this thing and there was this thing, and there was that factor too. And this whole mountain of things had happened all right, in the week or so leading up to my luteal phase. And I was like, okay, you were like, it really makes sense that you would be staying in the same range this month. And I was, okay, I think I can accept that.
(38:40):
Part of me was stressed about that. I thought, again, it was like I was luteal, so I thought I had done something wrong, but then you gave me that permission. Sometimes the things, even the things we want to do might be contributing to our stress. Even the things we enjoy might be contributing to our stress, and that's okay. But if you know that, then you can add those layers of support in to improve your response to them in the future. And that was also pretty monumental information. My cycles will change from cycle to cycle. That is the nature of them, and that's the beauty of them. And it's a feedback system. It's a dialogue with my body, and I'm really grateful to feel that I felt so disconnected from my cycle for my whole life and being able to connect to the wisdom of it really again, I'm going to carry that with me. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
Well, and you really shifted from feeling so victimized by this whole experience, and you're coming out of it with this whole new perspective, communion with your body, seeing the beauty and the cycle and what impacts it and what is within your control and without your control, you really are taking a new perspective on the whole experience and the symptom reduction, the shortening in the length of the overall cycle. I mean, you've had such major wins and transformations with this, but looking out, because we're very close to the experience, you really have been able to zoom out and look at the implications that this has for the rest of your life. I mean, you automatically went there and took it there with now what can I do that I'm feeling better? What does this mean for me? All of these big questions that you've been asking and putting the work into different contexts. So huge transformation, Maya, I mean, just across the board in such a short period of time, it's January, we started in September, having dealt with this for 20 years, that's been really quite short.
Speaker 2 (41:12):
It's unbelievable. It's miraculous.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Yeah. One last,
Speaker 2 (41:19):
Go ahead. I was going to say, and I would call it a straight up miracle if I wasn't so aware of all of the thought and attention and presence that went into it from both of us, you in creating the system and then holding the container for me, and then me being able to step into it with that trust and beginner's mind, which we didn't touch on. But coming into it not as somebody who's been in deeply in the realm of healing for the past 10 years and bringing all my baggage from that with it, but just being willing to fully experience it as a beginner and take in the information as though it was new. It's all of that really added up to a really good, solid effort on my part. But that in itself kind of feels miraculous because there've been so many things in my life that I've tried to show up for with this kind of presence that I haven't been able to. And yeah, so it is a miracle in many ways.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
It's a miracle with a lot of thought and attention and hard work because you worked hard to get here and you trusted the process, and you showed up and you collected the data, and you took the action, and you learned so much. You were very engaged in creating this, in the formation of it and this miracle happening. But that was one of my favorite quotes that you said at the end was, this has been the answer to at least 10 years of my prayers, which was just so powerful, such a powerful message coming out of it. So we've gone through the journey with you. We've seen where you started, what it was like living with PMDD, unmanaged, undiagnosed, going through the process here and coaching and with the course, what having experienced, what you've experienced from both ends of the spectrum, what would you want to share with someone who is where Maya was in May or in May in September?
Speaker 2 (43:41):
Well, the thing that I had the hardest time trusting at that time was that I was capable of really fully following through. I had a sense that the material could help me, but I was afraid what had been derailing me would continue to derail me, and that I would lose track, that I would drop the ball, that I wouldn't get results because of my own failing. And so what I would tell somebody who's sitting really in unmanaged PMDD is that you are more capable than because this condition has created an awareness and an understanding and a story about yourself that's false, that it is unmanageable, and that it's overwhelming, that it's too much work, that you won't be able to put the time or energy into it. And so if you're sitting in that place, find that spark of belief and trust in yourself that you can follow through, because I didn't believe that I was as capable as I actually was.
(45:06):
If I saw this interview three months ago, I would be like, I don't believe that. If somebody had told me that I would have the results that I've had, I don't think I would've believed it. So if you feel inspired to take some little action and know that it doesn't have to be perfect and know that it will make a difference, run, run, and do it, because I can only imagine what my life would've been like if I had been able to do this 10 years ago. But I really believe that it showed up right on time. And so yeah, that's my message.
Speaker 1 (45:57):
I love that we are so much more capable than we believe, especially when we're in PMDD Mind. It is a mood disorder, so it is very high highs and low lows. And the low lows have a way of affirming all of the worst beliefs about yourself. It really just gets you into a downward spiral pattern. It's hard to crawl out of, especially when you feel like there's no hope. I mean, when you're told you only have two options when you are told you just have bad PMS.
Speaker 2 (46:39):
Yeah. Yeah. That's really the first thing is take that into your own hands and protect it, because people who don't have it don't know if they can't relate. They don't know. And so trust yourself. Don't let yourself be put down by the societal beliefs and projections about women and pain and suffering or craziness, because there are things that we can do to balance ourselves and bring coherence to all the parts of ourselves and to access the deeper wisdom that is present in our cycle. And so I think part of what always made me feel broken was that I was a spiritual woman out of touch with my cycle. And to be in that arena of life socially and feel so out of touch with this really deep innate sense of self that comes when you're connected to the cycle, I felt really, really flawed. And I'm really grateful to have taken the step into that self-knowledge, not just to relieve myself of pain and suffering, but to really harness the power that's there. And I feel like that, I'm just getting started with that now. So this feels really like the beginning
Speaker 1 (48:11):
For me. Yeah. I mean, when you can step out of survival mode, there's some recalibration, like, whoa, and then the sky opens up and it's like you're reclaiming your life. I mean, you're reclaiming 10 to 14 days at least of having no severe symptoms,
(48:34):
The predictability that you've been able to get with your cycle shortening. But really the thing that people, when we're in the depths of pm MDD, all you can see is just how do I feel better? How do I feel better? I mean, all you want to do is survive the next day, or you don't really want to survive, but you're trying to figure out how to survive. And when you step out of that and you have all this new time and this new perspective, I mean, this has such bigger implications than just for us and our lives and how we feel. It's about how we show up in the world, how we are with our families, what kind of daughter, what kind of sister, what kind of mother, what kind of partner we are. I mean, every single aspect of life that comes into contact with us is impacted by a mood disorder.
(49:29):
And when you can gain a foothold on that and manage it and reduce it, your whole life changes. It's so much bigger than feeling better, and you are seeing that now. It's been such a joy and honor to watch you transform so much suffering for so long into this beautiful perspective. You're not victimizing yourself. You are just opening to the pain and also growing through it in ways that are very unique to you, and only you can guide yourself through that. I can be there to support you, and that's a huge part of it, but it really is your journey. So it's been so fun to be with you on this and see where you've taken the work and how it's played out for you, but ultimately seeing you reclaim that time and purpose and hope for your future.
Speaker 2 (50:31):
Yeah, absolutely. So many gifts, whereas the gray was raining on me all that time. Now it just feels like there's possibilities in the air. And I'll add that I'm in luteal right now, and I've been having what I've started to call gray days, and I'm just recognizing there's no problem with the gray. Gray is not bad. It's I'm a little softer. I'm a little foggier. I'm a little more sensitive, and there are things that I can do to support that, but my mindset around it has fundamentally shifted so I can show up to it in a completely different way, and that feeling like I could show up and do this call from that place in myself and projecting back to three or four months ago when I was absolutely devastated at this time of the month and couldn't articulate myself and was on the verge of conflict with everybody in my life, this is way better. Way better.
Speaker 1 (51:53):
Yes. I mean, it's such a testament to all the work and the healing that you've done. Showing up on, what did you say, 22 day 22 or something like that?
Speaker 2 (52:02):
Day 25. 25.
Speaker 1 (52:05):
Deep in it.
Speaker 2 (52:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (52:08):
Oh my goodness, Maya. Well, thank you so much for meeting with me today and sharing your experience and story and really helping paint the picture. I know a lot of people out there are struggling with these symptoms, feeling alone, feeling hopeless as we both were not too long ago. And it's really, your story is so inspiring and hopeful, and I hope that it encourages people to not give up and just have a little glimmer of hope is all you need to take action in the direction or another.
Speaker 2 (52:43):
It's true. And I really just want to honor you and your journey and your story and your being willing to build something to help people from what you crawled out of that is, in my eyes, that's the ultimate service, is to grow and heal through the biggest challenges of our lives and come out with gifts that we're willing to share. And it's just had such an impact on me, and I see it having an impact on other people, and I'm really grateful and very inspired by your work and the life that you're and creating. It's like I feel like I have, not just the glimmer of hope now that it's possible to change, but the glimmer of what more is possible because of what you're creating. So thank you. Well,
Speaker 1 (53:36):
Thank you for saying that, Maya. It means so much. It's been such a joy to work with you, such a joy, and yeah, it's not over. We're going to see where this goes. You're just at the beginning of this major transformation, and there are so many possibilities opening to you. I can't wait to see where it takes you.
Speaker 2 (53:59):
Absolutely. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (54:01):
Thanks, Maya.
