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How Trauma Affects The Menstrual Cycle · Healing Her Story with Riva Jean-Paul

• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of the Healing Her Story Podcast.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Riva Jean-Paul.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a trauma-informed somatic practitioner, menstrual cycle coach, interdisciplinary artist, and host for your show.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Today we are going to be talking about something that has been on my heart and on my mind for quite some time.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: And as I've been exploring this topic, both within myself and within research, it's been very interesting to see the lack of conversation around this particular topic.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: There are studies that I have been coming across and little mentions here and there, but I haven't quite found anything that has gone to the depth of this that I am intending to at least start doing here today in this episode.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Today's conversation is something that could potentially stir something inside of you.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so while we won't be going into any stories, we will be bringing up things that could potentially be challenging or activating, or perhaps could bring an awareness to some of the parts of you inside that maybe need a little bit more tending to.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: So just taking a moment here to maybe check in and see if this is the right time to have this conversation.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: And if it's not feeling like the right time, that is okay.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: This episode will be here for you to come back to in your perfect right time and pace.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: When I first started on my trauma recovery journey, I had no idea that many of the somatic or body symptoms that I was having were deeply connected to my early childhood wounds and the experiences of abuse that I encountered in my teenage years.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: Painful periods, body dysmorphia, heightened anxiety, dark menstrual blood, heavy bleeding, emotional roller coasters, and wild rage were some of the things I experienced when I was still on hormonal birth control and in the months that I decided to get off of it.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: As I continued to heal with breath work and then with somatic trauma-informed therapies, accompanied by menstrual cycle work, I noticed that things slowly began to change.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: As I continued to deepen my studies, I started to become curious about the connection between trauma and the menstrual cycle.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I began researching, and part of that research was also beginning to track my own experiences more closely.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: I noticed some interesting things that all tracked with what I was finding in my research and studies.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: And most recently, oh man, I have reached a new layer, a quite surprising layer, which I will discuss more today.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's important to acknowledge that living in a female body in a patriarchal society is traumatic.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: At least I find it to be.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: From the moment we are born, we are conditioned to abandon our desires, wants, needs, and authority.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: We are asked to perform and produce constantly, in spite of the very real hormonal and biological shifts that are happening in the body that deeply change and shape our mood, energy, and behaviors.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: There is an incredible amount of shame around the female body in our society and the body of women.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: They are hypersexualized, objectified, and silent some more than others.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: And this causes serious distress, whether you're conscious of it or not.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: We wonder why women are diagnosed with more anxiety, depression, and psychological disorders.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: This is why.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: This is the sea that the female body is swimming in every day.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so I just want to normalize and say that whatever you are noticing around trauma and your menstrual cycle is okay.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: And that it's not your fault.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: And because of this, it can make the healing process that much more challenging.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: The world does not make it easy.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, our society makes it extremely difficult, which is exactly why I wanted to discuss this today.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: As Michaela shared in her episode that aired a couple of weeks ago, education is liberation.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: So whether you identify as having trauma or not, whether you're currently bleeding or not, this is important and powerful information that can truly shift the trajectory of your healing journey if you decide to take action on it.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe it has the potential to truly shift the trajectory of someone else's healing journey if you decide to share it.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: Young girls are often not taught about their bodies.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: And as we become women, we think, wow, why didn't anyone tell me this?
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: Or my life would be so different had I known this.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Culturally, we are still treating women's bodies like small white men.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: And as you might know, I used to work in the fitness industry for quite some time.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: And all of the training that I did with some of the most accredited and respected organizations, there was never anything on the difference between the female body and the male body.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: All of the exercises, templates, method, all for men, and the medical industry is no different, which is insane because once you start actually understanding how the female body works, it is clearly very different.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: How so, you ask?
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, one of the biggest differences in the female body and the male body is the endocrine systems, which regulate our hormones.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: The female body has a menstrual cycle driven by cyclical fluctuations of estrogen and progesterone, while men have higher testosterone.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: These hormones influence brain and stress responses.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: There are also differences in our brain patterns and how we respond to stress.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: Studies suggest that females developed an amygdala-dominant response to stress, whereas men show more reward-related patterns.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, a woman's flight or flight response more strongly engages the emotional circuits than a man's.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: Clinically, women's trauma symptoms tend toward anxiety, mood dysregulation, and hyper-arousal, while men often exhibit externalizing problems such as aggression or substance abuse.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: And lastly, that I'll mention here today at least, sex steroids also shape HPA access reactivity.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: The HPA access is very important, especially for the female body.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: It plays an important role in our ability, our body's ability to manage stress.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: The stress access, which is the APHPA access, and the reproductive access, which is the HPG access, are tightly linked.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: Trauma and chronic stress disrupt their balance, altering both cortisol and sex hormone levels.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: As we've talked about on the show before, our experiences of childhood shape our brain and our nervous system, and they can also shape the HPA access.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: Adverse experiences early in childhood can affect the development of the HPA access, which can result in a vulnerability to both mental health imbalances later in life, such as anxiety or depression.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: And it can also cause menstrual irregularities and worsen trauma symptoms.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: So we'll take a pause here and allow all of that to land.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: I personally found all of this information to be not only enlightening, I also found it to be affirming and validating for things that I was already sensing and feeling into in my own healing journey.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: The female body is so unique.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: And as you can start to sense, the female body operates much differently than the male body.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: And how we experience trauma and stress is also very different from the male body.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: And because the female body is ruled by these cyclical hormonal rhythms, how we experience trauma can be quite cyclical too.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: What I'll share next is what I've gathered from my own lived experience.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: When we're talking about trauma-informed care, we have to acknowledge that all our bodies are unique and how it shows up in my system may or may not be how it shows up for you.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: As I've been closely tracking and studying over the last year or so, I've discovered two hot spots where I am more vulnerable, tender, and in a place when the old wounds and imprints begin to arise.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: These hot spots are the follicular phase, also known as the pre-ovulatory phase or the inner spring phase.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: This is the time that comes right after your bleed.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: The other hot spot is the luteal phase, which is also known as the premenstruum or the inner fall, and this is the phase that comes right before your bleed.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: And it makes sense to me because these are transition times where we're shifting from one way of being into another.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I can find these times to be quite unstable.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: We'll dive into each of the specific phases and we'll explore how trauma shows up in these two phases.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love to start with the interfall because I feel like the inner fall is a phase where I hear most women have problems or challenges.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I also feel like it's the phase that is most commonly known as a time where women are emotional and rageful and depressed, or rather experiencing depression.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, let me just say there is something happening biologically inside of you that causes this.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: During this time of your menstrual cycle, estrogen begins to drop.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: And estrogen acts as a sort of buffer to our nervous system.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: It gives us more confidence, energy, flexibility, resilience, and the sense that you can handle things that come your way.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: Without this buffer in the nervous system, the nervous system is essentially raw, and we are more sensitive to stress.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: So with this exposed vulnerability in our nervous system, this is where we can start to see some of our trauma imprints start to show up.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: And this might show up as a spike in anxiety, depression, or self-criticism, which could also like or be diagnosed as PMDD, depending on the severity of your symptoms.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: Let's take a pause there.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: As I've studied what we know to be as psychological disorders, I found it very interesting to find PMDD in there, which on one hand is helpful, perhaps maybe, because there have been studies that have shown that just having a diagnosis can be really helpful because it gives you something to ground into and it allows your brain to categorize and to understand and to essentially kind of label something.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: And while sometimes those labels can be limiting, they they can also be really helpful because you're like, okay, got it.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: This is this is what I have, this is what's going on.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I do feel that a lot of what I understood in my studies of psychological disorders thus far, that many of them do come from adverse experiences in childhood.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so perhaps, maybe PMDD is less of a psychological disorder and more of unprocessed wounds and trauma from perhaps our earlier years, perhaps from the generations of women that have come before us, because think about what all of the women have gone through before you.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: Think of your experience in this day and age as a woman while it is still marginalizing and difficult and challenging and limiting and oppressive.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: It was more so years ago.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: And all of this information is relatively new.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: These studies that have been done are relatively new, and so we're only just now beginning to understand trauma and how our experiences can really affect us.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so the women before us they didn't have the same opportunity to explore things in this way, and all of that unprocessed trauma, it stays in the body.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: It it affects the genes, it actually causes a vulnerability in genes that can get passed down, and that vulnerability also gets passed down.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: Now, on the other side, we do have to acknowledge that we also have the strength and the wisdom that gets passed down as well.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: Both and so it's interesting to consider that as a possibility if you are someone who is experiencing PMDD, which to my understanding is essentially PMS showing up in a more psychological way, unless of a more physical way.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes these things do show up more in a physical way, more in the body, and this is what we know as PMS, which is really a collection of symptoms.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: And PMS is really only PMS because doctors who are presumably mostly white men couldn't figure out what was going on with women.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so they just lumped everything up to be PMS instead of further exploring why women are having pain around their menstrual cycle, why women are having heavy bleeds.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's just it's just PMS.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's been so normalized that we think we're just supposed to feel like shit around this time of the month.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: But what if your PMS was your body trying to tell you something?
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: I tend to experience sharpish pains or sores around this time.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: They're very brief.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: If I'm busying around and not tuned into my body, I miss them.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: When this happens, I know this is something coming to the surface that is ready to be processed.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I find what I need most during this time, instead of trying to fix the symptoms or to make them go away.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: What I need most is to slow down and to be with the sensations or discomfort.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: And when I do that, what I usually find is a younger part that is angry, scared, hurt, or neglected.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: As I've prioritized more of my inner healing work during this time of my menstrual cycle, it really has become my favorite part of the cycle.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: I find I have more energy, resilience, and mood stability, less cramping, less mood swings, and a lot less rage.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: At the end of the episode, I'll share what's working for me during this time of my cycle.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: So that's one hot spot.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: If you are experiencing some of the things I've mentioned here, this is definitely a phase of the cycle where you could lean in to some of the modalities that I'll be sharing here in a bit.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: I will say, just when I feel like I got the ludial phase down, I started having things popping up in my inner spring, which was so surprising to me.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: And this is something I'm still currently moving through.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's like the spring has thawed out.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: Things were kind of frozen and stuck, and now that I've there there's some more movement, I'm now able to see things that I wasn't able to see before.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: I had an experience a few weeks ago in my inner spring that caught me way off guard.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: I found myself very triggered.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I really had to take some time to sit and be with myself and process what was starting to arise, and I did take it to my coach and supervisor and get some more support on it because it was so surprising and not something that I really had navigated before during this time of my menstrual cycle.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: And because of that, I started doing some more research, and I was surprised and a bit relieved to discover that the early spring is another hotspot.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: There was a study of women with PTSD, and they found that their phobic activity, which is essentially fear avoidance symptoms, it was significantly higher in the follicular phase than in the midluteal phase.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: So these women were having more of their symptoms show up in the early spring phase than in the midluteal phase, when stereotypically we might know the midluteal phase being as the more difficult phase.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: At least that's been my experience.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: And as I've read things online and listened to podcasts and read books, I've had this idea fed to me that the inner spring is this time when the estrogen is rising and we are invited to be more playful and curious and um more kind of carefree, if you will.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I was searching and and trying to create this experience in my inner spring with the prescription that had been fed to me, usually through little Pinterest, little those little charts.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I was so again just relieved to discover ah, okay, there's something happening here that does create this this tenderness and this vulnerability here, especially if you're a survivor and you have had things in your early years that have shaped your nervous system and shaped your brain.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not always considered in this work.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: So if this phase of your cycle is something that you struggle with, know that you're not alone.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: There's been more studies too to show that women who have been women who have experienced trauma overall reported more psychological distress during the follicular phase as well.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: So these are just the the few studies that I did find in my research, and hopefully maybe there's um more research being done.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I do wish to continue having this conversation as I continue to explore this within myself and as I continue to learn and research.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: What we can conclude from this discussion and from today's episodes is that these patterns of anxiety and depression and perhaps even somatic symptoms they align with hormonal effects, our symptoms of trauma fluctuate with the cycle.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: And this suggests that our symptoms of trauma fluctuate with the cycle.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: And this suggests that estrogen and progesterone modulate stress and emotion processing, which is just very interesting.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so it seems like if we can prioritize keeping our hormones balanced, that we can also promote keeping our stress and emotions balanced.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: And perhaps that works maybe the other way as well.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not quite sure at this point.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: So it's interesting to know that just as our energy ebbs and flows, our ability to concentrate on certain things ebbs and flows, our anxiety and our depression and our symptoms of trauma ebb and flow as well.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: And this work is about learning how to work with these ebbs and flows instead of trying to work against them.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so if we know, okay, I perhaps have some vulnerabilities in my system because of the things that I experienced as a young girl, or in my early childhood years, or maybe even my teen years, or perhaps there are some things you experience in your adult years as well.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: So if you know that, and you know that there's potential to be more susceptible to anxiety and depression, perhaps there are things that you could do to better support yourself during these two hot spots with the intention of keeping things more balanced and also with the intention of really optimizing your healing process.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because I know that these are two hot spots for me.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: I can now prioritize certain things during these times and maybe not do or incorporate certain things during these times.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: So as we close today, as I always like to end with some practical tips and action steps that you can take, I'll share what's been working for me during these two hotspots.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: We'll start with the luteal phase because, as I've mentioned, this is something that I feel like I've gotten a pretty good handle on.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I find that because there is this um the sensitivity during the luteal phase, that really big um cathartic, activating, intense practices during this time may be not helpful.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: At least that's been my experience.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: What has been working for me during this time of the cycle because again, estrogen is low and there's this vulnerability in the nervous system, we can still work with what's arising just in a more gentle way.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: And this can be done with gentle breath work.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: I've talked about somatic breath work in one of my previous episodes.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: If you haven't listened to it, I invite you to go back and give it a listen.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot to learn there about how breathwork can be an incredible ally on your healing journey.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: I also really enjoy doing IFS during this time, which is internal family systems.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: One day we'll have uh uh experts on IFS come on and share more about this.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I find that this is just such a wonderful modality for me to weave in as these younger parts, um, usually my um younger tender parts arise during this point of the cycle.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I currently do my IFS over on Insight Timer with some of the practices that you can find there from various therapists and practitioners.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I recommend checking that out if you're curious about IFS.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, you can always look for IFS therapists and practitioners as well.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot out there.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: If you just search IFS, you will find a ton of information.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: I also really enjoy journaling during this point of my cycle.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: I can allow myself to essentially just kind of vent vent to the pages of my journal about all the things that I'm um experiencing, about all the things that are coming up, and I find I can get a lot of clarity and a lot of relief through a practice like that.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: If I allow myself to really just go for it and allow my pen to take me wherever it takes me, and yeah, make it a priority during this time to do that, even if it's just for a little bit.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: Another modality that could be supportive during this time is art therapy or any sort of creative practice that you might have on your own, whether it's painting or drawing, or perhaps you enjoy more expressive arts.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: And during this time of our cycle, this is so helpful because we really are more focused in our right brain during this time of the cycle, and our right brain is more connected to our intuition and our creativity, and so this is a wonderful thing to really lean into during this point of your ludial phase.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: We also do get this sort of kind of neutrality that can come during the ludial phase, I find, at least in my experience, and so it can be easier sometimes to really take a step back and see the truth more clearly.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so I really enjoy doing my inner work during this time because you can essentially kind of cut through the bullshit, at least I find, and you can really um get to the root of things.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: So those are some things that have been working for me during this part of my menstrual cycle, specifically when I'm wanting to support my trauma recovery and healing.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: Now for the follicular phase or the inner spring phase, the only thing that I can really share at this point is one thing that I've been doing for the last six months or so during this time, and that is acupuncture.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: And anything else, I'm I'm still navigating this time, to be quite honest.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: And again, we'll have this conversation again, and I'll continue to explore this within myself, and as things become more clear, I will definitely share here.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: As I shared that that inner spring really um really caught me off guard.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's um it's brought me to a new point in my research and in my understanding of this this topic specifically.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I hope you found today's episode insightful and helpful.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: As always, if you have any questions about any of the things that we discussed today, you can find my email in the show notes.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: If this is a conversation that you would like to spark with another woman in your life, or perhaps maybe there is someone you know that has been struggling with PMDD or trauma or PMS, then perhaps you want to share this episode with them.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: Again, education is liberation, and sharing is how we can really spread this information, how we can really get this information out there.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I encourage you to please do that.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I would be oh, so grateful if you did, as our mission here is to amplify the feminine frequency both within ourselves and within our collective, and reclaiming this part of the female body of being a woman is what I believe an essential part of this process.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: And the more we can understand how our bodies actually work and what is happening, wow, wow, the empowerment that can come from just understanding, ah, okay, that makes sense.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: This is what's happening to me.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you again so much for for doing that, and thank you for being here and tuning in and and spending this time with me today.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: Do not take that for granted and deeply appreciate your commitment to this path as well.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you're here and if you've made it to the end of the episode, I know, I know that you are.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: So, in the meantime, I encourage you to go gently, allow all of this to digest and land.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I look forward to reconnecting with you in our next episode, which will be our weekly cycle sync episode that will be coming out on Monday.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: And this is the Scorpio full moon.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: So this is a really, really lovely conversation, interesting conversation to be having as we are going into this um Scorpio full moon where things can be illuminated and activated.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd be curious to know if you're listening to this the days before the full moon, what uh what might emerge from you um on the other side of it.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I look forward to connecting with you then, and we'll go a little bit deeper into the full moon energy and how to optimize your week using it.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_00: In the meantime, take care of yourselves and take care of each other.