We're talking about our menstruals!
Taylor Elyse Morrison: Welcome back to another episode of Inner Warmup where your inner work begins. My name is Taylor Elyse Morrison, founder of Inner Workout and you as always are our expert guest.
Let's kick things off by doing one of my favorite check ins, which is just….what's one word to describe where you're at today? Not physically where you're at, but emotionally. How are you feeling? My word today is anxious. I have generalized anxiety disorder. So it's not a feeling that is unfamiliar to me. And I've just been pulling on the skills and my own self care toolkit to help me navigate that anxiety. What about you? What's your word for today?
And I said that my word was anxious, and outside of the the normal anxiety that I experience...I've also been kind of anxiously awaiting getting into this topic. If you read the title of the episode, you know that we're going there. A couple episodes in and we're already getting into some of the conversations that maybe people aren't as comfortable having. We're talking about periods, menstruation, all of that good stuff. So here's the question that I'm posing to you today. What do you know about your menstrual cycle?
I can kick off the conversation by sharing what I didn't know about my menstrual cycle, especially when it first started, which is a lot. I don't think I'm the only person with a period who maybe didn't get as robust an education as I would have liked. When I rewind and think about what I learned in school, about periods, we learned about like, you could use pads. I remember watching this video, and a girl, her pads fell out on the front steps of the school, and it was so embarrassing. And that's what I remember about our field trip to the center where we are supposed to be learning about, like, what was happening in our bodies. This was fifth grade, I think. And so I went through a long time kind of thinking my period was the main event, kind of knowing that there was a cycle, but really thinking that the cycle only mattered if I was trying to get pregnant. And other than that, I just need to worry about how do I manage this period that I have every four weeks or so.
Since then, I've done a lot of work, to get to know each of the phases of my menstrual cycle and see how they impact me specifically. You can paint pretty broad brushstrokes and understand, well, let's say luteal phase. That's when typically PMS happens. And it might manifest as irritability. But it also might manifest as you being really tired. And for me, I get the benefit of having both of those symptoms, in addition to some tenderness as well. And I mean, this isn't me listing off everything that happens in every part of my cycle. But just, I know what happens in my cycle.
I was in a really good spot and relating to it before this whole panorama situation happened. So going back to my original question, I feel like what I know right now about my menstrual cycle is that it's way more impacted by the external environment than I realized, like, my cycle in general is longer now. Different symptoms are happening. And it's because my world is shifting in ways I couldn't have even imagined at the end of 2019.
I'm seeing that reflected in my menstrual cycle. And so now I have this new lens as we hopefully get back to not even a normal, but we enter into whatever's next for us as a society, I need to be more aware of what's going on in my menstrual cycle. Because I have an understanding of it in one phase of my life, it's become really clear that that doesn't mean it's going to apply forever, which I knew theoretically, but now I know that from a really tangible practical sense.
So it's your turn. Take your seat in the expert guest chair, what do you know about your menstrual cycle?
Thank you for taking the time to reflect and to share with me. If your answer to that question was, I basically know nothing about my menstrual cycle, I've been there.
I will link to some of my favorite resources in the show notes on our website. And that can be a good starting point for you to gain some self expertise in this area. You can always head to the community too to connect with other people and learn what they know about their menstrual cycle and they might be able to point you in the direction of some great resources as well.
Thank you for listening and thanks as always for sharing your expertise. Take care!
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Resources:
https://www.instagram.com/berrionlberry/