E279: These Emotional Patterns Are Keeping Your Hormones Stuck

This one will step on all of our toes (including mine!)

 Women who do everything "right" - the supplements, the sleep hygiene, the breakfast protocols - are still struggling. And the reason isn't what most practitioners will tell you. It has nothing to do with the magnesium you forgot to take or the genetics you were handed. The root cause goes deeper than that, to something a little more uncomfortable to look at: how you're actually showing up in your life, day to day.

If stress is coming in faster than it's going out, and if energy is leaving faster than it's being replenished, physically and emotionally, your brain receives a very clear signal: not safe. And a body that doesn't feel safe will not balance its hormones. Full stop. And I say that as someone who has had to look at her own life and ask some hard questions about it.

Here's what you'll hear in this episode:

• Why your symptoms might actually be serving you - and I mean this in the most uncomfortable, eye-opening way possible. (Spoiler: a free pass to be grumpy for one week a month is still a pass you're cashing in)
• The stress math no one talks about - what happens when more is coming in than going out, and why the women who seem to be doing the most are often the ones running the biggest deficit without even realizing it
• What I've been working on in my own life - including something a coach I love shared about the words you speak over yourself every day, and why what you're saying before 8 am might be keeping your nervous system stuck in a way no supplement can fix

If you've ever thought "I know what I should do, I just can't seem to make myself do it", that sentence alone is worth sitting with after you listen.

This one is for you if you're holding everything together but running on empty. If you wouldn't totally mind a migraine once a month just to have one day when nobody expects anything from you. (Yes, I said it. Yes, I've felt it too.)

Grab something warm, maybe a journal, and hit play. I'd really love to hear what comes up for you when you listen.

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Don’t forget to subscribe, share this episode, and leave a review. Your support helps us reach more women looking for answers.

Disclaimer: Nothing in this podcast is to be taken as medical advice, please take informed accountability and speak to your provider before making changes to your health routine.

This podcast is for women and moms to learn how to balance hormones naturally in motherhood, to have pain-free periods, increased fertility, to decrease PMS mood swings, and to increase energy without restrictive diet plans. You'll learn how to balance blood sugar, increase progesterone naturally, understand the root cause of estrogen dominance, irregular periods, PCOS, insulin resistance, hormonal acne, post birth-control syndrome, and conceive naturally. We use a pro-metabolic, whole food, root cause approach to functional women's health and focus on truly holistic health and mind-body connection.

If you listen to any of the following shows, we're sure you'll like ours too! 
Pursuit of Wellness with Mari Llewellyn, Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark, Found My Fitness with Rhonda Patrick, Just Ingredients Podcast, Wellness Mama, The Dr Josh Axe Show, Are You Menstrual Podcast, The Model Health Show, Grounded Wellness By Primally Pure, Be Well By Kelly Leveque, The Freely Rooted Podcast with Kori Meloy, Simple Farmhouse Life with Lisa Bass

Transcript

E279: What I'd Tell You About Your Hormone Imbalance if I Wasn't Afraid of Hurting Your Feelings

00:00:00

those talks with your best friend where they see something that you do not see and they say it and it hurts a little, but it also is so true and so valid and something that you needed to hear. Today, this podcast is the hormone balancing version of that. I'm going to dive into what I would tell you about your hormones and what you are doing that is causing your hormone problems if I wasn't afraid to hurt your feelings. I have never talked about this

00:00:30

this candidly on a podcast, but this is really on my heart today. And I think that it needs to be said. So I hope that you are ready to hear, ready to listen and ready to really take responsibility and make changes based on this information. I think that if you are in that headspace, this will be so empowering. And if you are late, late luteal and struggling, this is something to listen to, hold loosely for a few days and then maybe come back to in a week or so when you feel

00:01:00

you have different context. So when we are talking about hormone imbalance, we have to understand that there is a root cause that doesn't have anything to do with supplements that you're not taking. It doesn't have anything to do with your genetics, and it doesn't have anything to do with food or even breakfast, which I know is shocking from my typical podcast episodes. And

00:01:28

Even though all those things are important, there is something that is even more root cause to hormone imbalance. And that is the way that you are showing up in your life. And there is always an issue with stress and energy coming in, being imbalanced with stress and energy coming out. Especially for high achieving women, this will hit hard and it will

00:01:56

potentially touch some things that you maybe didn't want to think about, but will truly move the needle for you if your heart and your mind are open to hearing them. So when I say stress coming in versus stress coming out and energy coming in versus energy coming out, that there are imbalances, these are two separate things. So when stress coming in is more than stress going out, so stress that you are receiving, stress that you are in close proximity to, stress that you are creating yourself, all of those things

00:02:26

imbalanced with stress going out of your body, what you're able to process, release, let go of, forgive, you will have an imbalance of safety in your body just based on that. And when energy coming in is less than energy going out, this is physical energy but also emotional energy. So things like physical nutrients and energy coming in but also

00:02:52

the way that you're replenishing your emotional energy. If there is less energy coming in than going out, then there is an imbalance. And both of those imbalances directly signal to your brain that things are not safe. And if you have hormone imbalances and you are a high achieving woman, you innately feel this already, that things are not safe.

00:03:17

in whatever that looks like in your life, whether that's relationships or money or time or sleep or just any resource that is not unlimited, that there is not safety, that there is not enough. This is a core foundation of hormone imbalance because of the cycles of safety that your body is looking for and what your brain is receiving.

00:03:43

And so when we look at stress coming in versus stress going out, it is so easy, literally the easiest thing in the world to feel like we don't have control of that. And with energy too, I'm a busy mom. I have a business. I have a husband. I have people in my life, right? So there's always something going on. And it's so easy to think that these things are out of our control more than they are.

00:04:09

There is truth to the fact that we are not totally in control. Only God is in control. And the more that we believe that, I think the easier it is actually to lean into this. But if we think that we are in control of these things, there is only so much that you really are in control of. But what if we think we are a victim to our energy, resources and time, then we are also doing ourselves a really big disservice.

00:04:35

So the things that you actually have more control of than you think are your energy, energy in versus energy out. Even if you have outside reasons that your energy is not great, there are always things that you can do to improve it, even if it's a little bit.

00:04:54

And having that context and that mindset that you can do something about it can make a huge difference long term. Because if you start to believe you have a small impact on it and that it's not all out of your control, then you have

00:05:09

the ability to make bigger changes as you go. So for example, with energy, an example that I hear a lot is babies or toddlers or husbands still waking someone up in the night. And so they're not getting enough sleep because someone else is waking them up. This happens to me as well. And it is so hard not to feel like a victim when someone is waking you up and not letting you sleep. This is something that puts me over the edge more of the time than I would like it to. And

00:05:39

The truth is there are changes that I can make with the time that I go to bed or the expectations that I have of my four-year-old and when he will wake up, when he consistently shows me this is the time he wakes up and I expect that he will wake up 30 minutes later than that. My expectations are changing how my energy is because I expect that I can go to bed at 10 o'clock and will not have to wake up till 6.30 and that's not true. I will be waking up

00:06:09

at 6 because that's when he's waking up. And so these kind of expectations can not only drain our energy because we're actually going to bed too late for the time that we really get woken up, or it can drain our energy because we start off our days with a terrible attitude because something is not going according to what we would prefer to happen. And that drains your energy as well. Having a negative mindset and being grumpy truly drains your emotional and mental energy. So we do have control over things like

00:06:39

Another way, even if your sleep isn't great, that you can actually support your energy is with intentionality in the energy that's coming in. So if sunlight gives you energy and you need that battery charge, then figuring out a way to make it happen with the people that you're with, the work that you have, whatever that looks like, understanding that you can prioritize some things for yourself, even if

00:07:04

they don't feel convenient. Because the truth is doing things that are convenient all the time has made us whiny, entitled, with less ability to do hard things, with more ability to be distracted and moody, and all of the things that we don't want. And so when I say we, I'm talking about myself too. I'm talking about my family. We are all working on these things. But having the context that you actually are in control of

00:07:31

at least how you react to the situation makes a huge difference. This kind of goes into my next point, which is you are in control of your mindset. This is a hard one, okay? This is a hard pill to swallow for me too. And it's also true. We get to be in control of how we see things. And so for my example of my four year old waking me up in the morning,

00:07:54

Some days I choose to believe that he is doing the best he can, that he is not out to get me, that he is not wiggling specifically so I cannot sleep. And those days feel different when I'm laying there giving him a cuddle and looking at his cute little face and he's so excited that it's morning and he just wants to get up and do things and he wants me to play with him and he's just so excited for the day. The context is so different than when I am just

00:08:22

so annoyed, so grumpy, starting out my day that way. And then I'm grumpy to everyone because they have inconvenience to me and not given me what I wanted, which was enough sleep. The same situation can happen.

00:08:34

And the way that I choose to react makes a huge difference in how quote unquote bad it is, right? And I know that's somewhat of a silly example, but also not because I think we've all been there, right? Our sleep is precious, especially when we are cutting ourselves a little bit on the short side because of all the things happening. And so the way that we choose to see things can truly move the needle.

00:08:56

And it's also the hardest work to do. One of my favorite things, this comes from a coach that I know, Tessa Romero, she has the MomSet podcast, 10 out of 10 recommend. Something that she talks about is using IAM statements to help change how you see things. So when you are speaking in this.

00:09:14

absolutely lines up with scripture, that what you are speaking over yourself, that the tongue has the power of life and death and what you are speaking over yourself has the chance to create words of life in your day or truly words of death and destruction in your day. And so if you are speaking over yourself, I'm sick of this, I'm tired, I am exhausted, I am overwhelmed, and you are speaking these I am statements over yourself, you truly are changing what your brain believes and how your body is sending

00:09:43

signals. And so if we can change things, even just a little bit, instead of I am tired, saying, I am going to use the energy I have the best way I can, for example, right? Just choosing that shift and saying, I am going to prioritize the most important things with my energy. Even if we're just, even if we're speaking toward children, not just speaking toward children, obviously they learn an incredible amount from the way that we react to things.

00:10:11

But if that's your reason for not doing something is I'm tired, we can say it to them like, I am going to do this instead because I need to use my energy.

00:10:23

the best way possible. And so taking the intentional time to change what you usually say is a very challenging and it also makes a really big difference over time. So shifting our mindset little by little to what is actually true, which is for most of us, we actually are exactly where we want to be with our children, with our families in a career that we love, whatever that looks like.

00:10:51

And that doesn't mean it's easy. It also doesn't mean that we are the victim. And having that victim mindset makes a huge, huge, huge difference in your energy capacity and in your stress. Because if everyone is doing things to you to bother you, are going to feel drained. You are going to feel attacked. You are going to feel angry, irritable, all of the things you don't want to feel. And it's going to cause more stress and less energy in your body. And if you believe

00:11:21

that your family around you is doing their best, that they are ready to change their behavior when you talk to them, that you are an example to them, then the entire environment shifts and it doesn't shift in two seconds, but it shifts over time. And so this is something that I am working on very consistently, not perfectly by any means, but I see a shift in my family every time I am consistent with it. The next piece that I was going to talk about is words.

00:11:51

And I've already kind of covered it, right? When we speak words over ourselves that are words of life, when we speak affirmations over our family, when we take the time to memorize scripture and speak it, when we take the time to guard our tongues and not just let all of the annoyed words come out when our husband gets home or when our kids do the wrong thing for the fifth time or the 13th time or the first time today, whatever it is that is your limit for that day,

00:12:18

being able to hold your tongue. I did not prepare for this with scripture references, but there is a

00:12:25

is a Bible verse that says, that talks about holding your peace by holding your tongue, essentially. And this was really profound to me a couple months ago, as much as it may or may not should be so profound, but just the expression holding your peace, that it means being quiet. It means holding back the words that you want to say. It is honestly incredible how much that can replenish

00:12:52

your energy versus just speaking out a bunch of negative words because you're frustrated. And taking the time to ask the Lord to guard your tongue and then to ask him what to say instead is so similar to holding your words and counting to 10 or walking away and just taking the time to be intentional with your words. That also makes

00:13:15

such a shift in your family and in the environment around you over time. And we have control over that. So even if it isn't a great day, even if everyone is fighting, we have control of how it affects us when we are intentional. And that does not make everything perfect

00:13:34

but it does make it better. And the more of these little signals our brains are getting throughout the day, that we actually are not a victim, that we actually are who we want to be, that we actually are speaking words of life, even when it feels really hard, these signals of safety start to change something deep down and rewire not only our brains, but our nervous systems over time. And we are also, this one might be the worst one, we are also in control of our emotions, which is different

00:14:04

than our mindset, but our emotions dr beliefs and they also come from beliefs. So when we believe that everyone is doing things to us,

00:14:17

The kids are doing things to us. They're leaving out their stuff to us. Our husband is not putting the compost out to us, whatever it is, right? It feels like a personal insult. Then we believe that we have the right to be angry and bitter and resentful. And all that does is slows down our body's healing and is really hard on our relationships as well. And so believing that we are in control of our emotions

00:14:45

And starting to not only change our emotions, but change our beliefs around, or changing our beliefs starts to change our emotions over time. And so if we believe instead, they're doing the best they can. And so am I. We show up from a different place emotionally. And those emotions may not be quite as hard to control in the way that we're overflowing with our tongue if we start to have different belief systems. And so how you show up as a mom

00:15:13

You are the thermostat. You are the weather guide for your family. And how you show up as a mom absolutely impacts how everyone else shows up. Is this 100% fair? Probably not. But is it true? Yes, it's true.

00:15:29

And there's obviously a reason why we hear the saying, if mom is not happy, nobody's happy, right? And it's true. And this is why you're here because you believe that deep down, you believe that how you are as a mom affects your family in a really big way. And this does not need to lead to guilt and shame and condemnation. This needs to lead to freedom and joy because you

00:15:53

make an incredible impact on your children and on your husband. Because even though he is a leader in so many ways, you are the emotional leader and thermostat in your family. And when you are able to fill your cup in the ways that are necessary to have reasonable energy and reasonable mindset and reasonable words and emotions, then you are truly changing the trajectory of your family.

00:16:23

You are not doing anyone any favors by not taking care of yourself and by not taking the time to take each of these things to the Lord individually pretty much every day, to be honest. Because when you are physically not taking care of yourself, not getting enough sleep,

00:16:44

because of XYZ, whether that is all the house things that you still have to get done or all the work things that you still have to get done or just staying up late because it's fun because everyone's finally leaving you alone. When you are not getting enough sleep and then you're having so much more trouble controlling your emotions, your needs, you are not doing anyone any favors by doing the extra things.

00:17:07

Or another one that feels more sacrificial is just being too busy taking care of the kids to keep your blood sugar balanced. It doesn't feel like you have a choice, but you are choosing that to some extent, because if you can feed your children, you can feed yourself. Taking a moment to step back and not look at those things you're doing as a detriment to your hormones, like skimping on sleep, skimping on going to workout or working out at home, skimping on eating enough,

00:17:37

Those things are a sacrifice that hurts your family and you. It doesn't give anyone more because your family would much rather have a happy mom than whatever time you are spending on something else that causes you to be giving from an empty cup. That's a hard one to swallow as well a lot of the time because it feels so much easier to just think that you're

00:18:04

kind of like a superhero and you can just get along with no sleep and no food and whatever and just survive for however many years until the kids learn to take care of themselves. And to some extent, it's not true. It will not be true forever. You might be a superhero right now, but all superheroes eventually run out of steam when they haven't been eating or sleeping or exercising enough over time. And so the physical things do matter, absolutely. And

00:18:32

If you have the physical things in line, but the emotional side is a really big struggle, then we have to honestly look at both, because if you are really giving from a physically empty cup, it's so much harder to keep your emotions in line.

00:18:47

If you have so many deep rooted beliefs that are keeping you struggling with your emotions and with your words and with your mindset, that is also draining your energy and creating signs in your body that things are not safe. And that is something that you do have control over. Not ultimate 100% control, but you have a lot more control than you might have been believing. The very last thing that I want you to sit with, and I truly would love

00:19:17

for you to journal on this. I would love for you to send me a text message in the show notes or send me an email and just tell me what you think about this episode. Tell me what comes up for you. I would love to have a conversation with you about this. But the last thing is your hormone imbalances are serving you in some way if you're still having them. If that feels untrue, I want you to think about it. You may still be getting some type of benefit from these symptoms

00:19:46

like a free pass to be grumpy. Sometimes it just feels good to be grumpy. Okay? I know it does in the short term. It doesn't feel good in the long term. It doesn't feel good in my walk with the Lord. It doesn't feel good in my relationship with my husband. But sometimes it just feels good in that moment to be grumpy. So a free pass to be grumpy because you always are for one week out of the month, that's serving you in some way. Is it serving your actual goals in life? Is it serving you even in that moment? No. And

00:20:15

There is some subconscious belief that it is serving you that is keeping you there, that is keeping you from making the emotional and physical steps to make a change because it doesn't feel worth it if you're still getting something out of it. There are multiple other examples that I can give, but even for a tired mom having

00:20:39

a migraine one day of the month or having period pain for one day of the month where you don't have a choice, quote unquote, but to go to bed or like forget the quotes. I've had migraines that have taken me down and it really feels like you do not have a choice. If you're down, you're down. And in some ways, I have even felt this myself. There is a relief to an excuse to rest, right? Even if you feel absolutely terrible,

00:21:03

it feels good for no one to be expecting anything of you for a little while and then you can't, you can't, right? And so using these examples, dig in for yourself and ask yourself, what are you, what are you getting from this? How is it serving you in some way? And the real question that you need to ask instead is, are you ready to let that go? Are you ready to let that go and find something that is serving you better? Like,

00:21:28

in my migraine example, being so run down and exhausted from running yourself ragged throughout the week that a migraine and a chance to go to bed at 6 P.m. kind of feels good, even though it feels so bad. That means you need rest, like actual rest. It means you need to be going to bed earlier those nights. It means you need a break, right? And we can always get creative with how that happens.

00:21:55

if we're open to the fact that it can change. Asking yourself what do you really want? If having these hormone imbalance symptoms is serving you in some way, do you want to stay there? Do you want to let it keep serving you? Is that just the season that you're in? Or do you want to make a change? And do you need help uncovering these things for yourself so that you can start making the physical changes that you know you should do, but you can't seem to make yourself do it?

00:22:22

Or you can start making the emotional changes that you need to do, but you've been giving yourself excuses. Or you've been just truly believing that you actually are the victim of these circumstances and you haven't had the clarity that there are changes you can make. Either way, you can make a change. You don't have to do it by yourself. And you do matter as the wife, as the mom, as a woman,

00:22:50

As a child of God, you matter. You are worth investing in, whether that's time or money or resources. You absolutely can do it. And I'm here to help if you're ready for coaching, if you're ready for a deeper dive on the emotions and the physical side.

00:23:12

then you can always reach out to me. You can always just message me or email me hello at AliciaDrews.com and just tell me that you want to talk about coaching and we'll have a conversation and we'll see if it's right for you. Regardless of coaching or not coaching, I hope that you will sit with some of the points in this episode and pray about it and ask God what your next change is. Because we are called to keep growing. We are called to keep

00:23:40

working toward the goal of being a good and faithful servant and controlling our tongues and controlling our emotions. And we are raising kingdom children and we are raising arrows in the hand of a warrior. And when we are exhausted and depleted and hormonal, it is so easy to forget that. It's so easy to forget that we are in a spiritual battle that matters, that our lives matter, that our children matter, and

00:24:09

that we are called to show up and do our best. And social media and just the world around us don't call us to do our best. They tell us it's normal to be exhausted and grumpy and all the things that we feel. And so sometimes we just believe that. But the truth is we are called to do our best and we can change when we believe that we can. So go back through this episode, pull a couple notes to journal on,

00:24:39

I will be doing the same because sometimes I need to be my own coach and sometimes I am. So love you girls. See you next week.