→ Learn to read your own body & hormones. Download my free Cycle Tracking Guide: https://www.karindawholistix.com.au/cycletracking

In this episode of Oh My Menses, I’m inviting you to stop treating your hormones like the problem and start seeing your body in a different way... as a wise smoke detector, perhaps.

Hear me out: if you’re dealing with period pain, breakouts, mood swings, bloating, cravings, or irregular cycles (with or without a PMOS/PCOS label), I’ll show you why those symptoms are “smoke" setting off the alarm, but not the “fire” causing the smoke. And how quick fixes like suppressing symptoms or “regulating” cycles with the Pill can be like taking the batteries out of the alarm.

I break down what’s often happening underneath (inflammation, stress, nutrition gaps, insulin resistance, toxic exposure, boundaries, and your baseline sense of safety), why symptoms can roar back when you stop suppressing them, and why real healing may require changing your life, not just adding another pill or protocol.

TIMESTAMPS:

00:28 Cycle check-in: day 20, luteal phase, cinnamon bun, unexpected dopamine
03:36 Introducing the smoke detector concept — your body as a built-in alarm system
05:00 Hormones as messengers, not the problem — why mainstream medicine shoots the messenger
07:00 Symptoms are smoke, root cause is fire
08:30 How pharma advertising sells the fake firefighter
09:51 Period pain unpacked: inflammation as another smoke signal, not the fire itself
13:00 What's actually driving the inflammation: the full list of modern contributing factors
17:36 Irregular cycles: what the pill is actually doing (and not doing) to the fire
19:00 What's needed for regular ovulation: safety, nutrition, insulin, stress
21:46 Why suppression backfires: the fire is still burning when you come off the pill
25:30 The most devastating version: trying to conceive after years of suppression
28:19 Part two: your body isn't dysfunctional, it's responding to a dysfunctional system
29:30 What actually needs to change: perception, safety, relationships, not just diet
30:51 A real patient example: when treating symptoms would have done more harm than good
34:00 Soul-level work: why physical protocols fail without changing your internal baseline

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SHOP & DISCOUNTS

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TRANSCRIPT:

[00:00:00] Three, two, one. Here we go. Starting off the podcast with a shot of my herbs 

Actually, what's in this? Am I gonna be offended by the taste? Didn't even think about that.

Shout out to anyone who watches the video. I feel like you get so many extra little tidbits that you don't get on the audio.

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Oh My Menses. I am your host, Karinda. I'm a women's health naturopath and fertility and menstrual cycle, cycle educator and enthusiast.

If I am genuinely doing, like, my own cycle check-in for the day, as I always invite you to do at the start of every episode. It's just taking a moment to, like, check in with yourself in the context of where you're at in your menstrual cycle or in your stage of life.

I mean, I don't know if it's just 'cause it's [00:01:00] Friday, but I'm feeling really good. I'm on day 20 of my menstrual cycle. And I'm feeling grounded. I slept in by, like, two hours this morning.

I mean, I didn't have to be up by a specific time, which is a blessing in and of itself. Uh, so I'm trusting that, yeah, my body just needed a little bit of extra rest and I, I gave her that this morning, and yeah. Went to the post office to pick up parcels and there was, like, an extra parcel that I didn't know would be there and, like, that's...

I think that's given me, like, a little bit of dopamine and the local cafe had a rare supply of, um, fresh cinnamon buns and I was like, "Okay." So I've got my soy mocha. I've had my cinnamon bun. I've had my morning walk, morning light exposure. But I'm notice-- I'm noticing that it's easy for me to, like, sort of just stare out the window and start to drift off.

So that's definitely the, the luteal phase kicking in, going inward, inviting in self-reflection and [00:02:00] introspection and all that fun feely stuff

So that's where I'm at. Where are you at? Where are you at in your menstrual cycle, and how are you feeling in your body? How are you feeling in your mind? How are you feeling emotionally, spiritually even? Yeah, it can just be a beautiful thing to, like, check in with yourself, full stop. But when we can add that lovely layer of the menstrual cycle on top of that.

Just acknowledging the fact that we are not static beings. We are dynamic. We are ever-changing. And if you're in a female body that has a menstrual cycle, you are not gonna be in the same hormonal landscape, uh, every week or even every day of, of a month. You're changing. And so it can be really helpful to tune into what your different phases are.

Tune into yourself as you traverse from one period to another, as you go through ovulation, as you go through your luteal phase. If what I'm talking [00:03:00] about sounds like absolute gibberish or if you know a bit about the menstrual cycle but you'd like to learn a bit more about it, you can download my free Cycle Tracking Guide.

This is the entry level understand your cycle, uh, resource that I created with you in mind to just help you get a lay of the land of what's going on in your female body, what the menstrual cycle is, why it happens, what the different phases look like, feel like, how it all works, and how you can harness the power of said cycle.

So check out the description wherever you're listening to or watching this, and you can download your free Cycle Tracking Guide today. In today's episode, maybe a quick one actually, 'cause there's just this concept that I've been holding onto for many months now. After I was recording some reels, I just worded something in a, a way that was good and surprised me.

And this is the concept of your body as a smoke detector, a fire alarm of sorts.

And [00:04:00] just the nature of suppressing symptoms and what's actually happening when we're taking certain treatments and

the different ways that we can react to that fire alarm when it goes off.

Okay, so maybe I'll include this, maybe I won't. But I recorded a good reel about this. And I like what I said.

You had a crystal ball and you could be like, "What is my body trying to tell me?" You kind of do already have that in the form of your menstrual cycle and your beautiful, beautiful sex hormones. They are so misunderstood. They are so misunderstood. They are simply messengers of our body. But the problem is that we have- Oh

shot the messenger too many times. Mainstream medical system has shot the messenger. Mm-hmm. They've gone, "Lady, see, you're a female and it's your hormones

that are the problem." And maybe I'm just dumb, but how can your natural female physiology that you were born with, that's encoded into your DNA, that your ancestors from times past, [00:05:00] for generations and generations have experienced, how can that be the problem? Can we flip the script? Maybe there's things in our modern environment and our modern lifestyles that are triggering our hormones in such a way that they're gonna kick up a bit of a stink, and that's gonna look like symptoms.

It's gonna look like the mood swings. It's gonna look like the hormonal breakouts. It's gonna look like the bloating, and the teariness- ... and the sugar cravings, and the tense muscles, and the overworked mind, and the shit metabolism, and the period pain. Our body is just trying to get our attention. The best method it has to do that is through our hormones.

They are chemical signalers. They are messengers. And they're also just responding. Now, if I installed a smoke alarm that went off when there was a fire, I'm not gonna get mad at the smoke alarm for going off because it was responding to danger that it was designed to detect. And yet here we are-

choosing to shut down our hormones when they are simply responding to things in [00:06:00] our environment- Oh, wow ... that then signals danger. Too much stress, too much working, too much toxic exposure. Okay. Environmental estrogens- Okay. There you go. All the way now ... fake food, way too many carbohydrates, nowhere near enough protein, too many pesticides in the food- You wanna be in here or you wanna go out?

too many toxic people that we're still saying yes to. Not knowing how to say no. Disrespecting our own boundaries. Your hormones are responding to the really, really superficial physical stuff, and all the way down, down, down, down, down to the deeper spiritual stuff of the soul. Your body has this amazing inbuilt communication system, and we're just encouraged to shut it down 'cause we just can't be bothered with the signals anymore.

Ooh, okay. God, nothing like, uh, the words of past Karinda to help a modern present-day Karinda feel invigorated. I'm like, yeah, wow, that is a great way of putting it. So let's just break that down before I go any further, ' cause what I'm gonna talk about next is what we can do about it.

So [00:07:00] there are a couple of key points there. Modern medicine when it comes to women's health and hormonal specific issues tends to treat hormones as the problem. And so the goal becomes shut down the hormones, turn off the hormones, replace the hormones, suppress the hormones, you know, because they're seen as the problem.

You're getting these symptoms because of these hormones that are associated with these symptoms is, is how they look at it. Seeing the body as a smoke alarm, a smoke detector Your body is designed to detect and respond to sources of danger. And again, if we're using the smoke alarm, the smoke detector analogy, that would be smoke.

Smoke is a sign that something's burning. There's a fire somewhere. Like there's, there's danger somewhere. Weep, weep, weep, [00:08:00] weep. You know, go find it. And in the body, our symptoms can be seen in a very similar way. Our symptoms aren't the fire, but our symptoms are telling us there's danger somewhere. Can you please go address it and keep yourself safe?

But again, mainstream medicine treats the symptoms as the fire. Put the fire out and you're all good. We literally see this in marketing and advertisements for over-the-counter medicines. For, uh, if you've ever seen a, a commercial for, uh, like a reflux medication, they will literally portray reflux as a fire in your stomach and their medicine is like these creamy white cooling like firefighters putting out the fire with, with their, with their medicine.

it's not, it's not really what's happening. It's not how it works. It's not the best [00:09:00] analogy, but, but it sells. But it sells 'cause it's, um, it's an easy analogy to relate to, to be honest, but it's a lazy analogy. They're not talking about, "Ooh, okay, hang on. Well, what triggered the reflux?" You know, they're not looking at diet factors.

They're not looking at, specific issues. They're not looking at how your sphincters are functioning. Uh, they're not looking at your nervous system and how that can relate to all sorts of digestive issues. If there's any other issues going on in the stomach, if you have a chronic suppression of stomach acid, which can result in having large outputs of it that result in acid reflux.

You know, just, just to give you some, uh, some specific points there for that one specific example. But the symptoms aren't the fire. The symptoms are just saying, "Ooh, something's, something's off." And if I'm going a bit further down that [00:10:00] path to give you some ideas of like what I mean, what I'm talking about, in one of my previous episodes, I did, uh, talk about the causes of period pain.

Just as an, just as an example. I was using it as an example for something else. Just to demonstrate how many different things could contribute to period pain outside of, like, a diagnosis of endometriosis. I mean, also including, um, period pain associated with endometriosis, but, you know, beyond diagnostic labels, so to speak.

So period pain. Is period pain the problem? Is period pain the fire? You having intense cramps, painful periods, heavy periods every cycle, is that the problem? It's easy to see it as the problem when that's as far as we look. "Well, what's concerning you?" "My painful [00:11:00] periods." "Okay. Well, let's turn off those periods.

Let's put you on the pill so you have lighter periods, or you can skip your periods altogether, and it's not even a true period, but we're not gonna talk about that. Um, well, let's get an IUD inserted, and then you might get some periods, but they'll be really lighter. And again, they might not even be true periods, but don't worry about that.

You know, the period's the problem, so let's fix the period by turning it down, silencing it, shutting it off." But all it really requires to see this totally differently is to ask the question, why? You get to the period pain and then go, "Okay, what, what came before the period pain? What's setting off the period pain?"

And if you go immediately back, um, depending on how far you wanna go into the science, you'll learn about inflammatory path- pa- pathways and pain signaling molecules, and all these different compounds in your body are part of your [00:12:00] immune system that can contribute to what we call pro-inflammatory cascades.

A sign of inflammation is pain, right? That's like the kind of immediate thing that is happening to cause period pain. Now, some, some marketing will take it a step further. You know, they won't just go, "Your period pain's the problem. Take this. It'll fix it." They'll go, "Yeah, look, our medication targets these inflammatory pathways that are causing your period pain."

You know, look, it makes sense. This is the specific, you know... You might see COX-2 inhibitor, because that's one of the, that's one of the pathways that can, uh, trigger inflammation and cause pain. And you know, that's why they're literally called anti-inflammatories, because it's like, oh, we target the pathway that causes inflammation, you know, to turn off the pain. Okay.

I suggest we go even further back and we go, "Okay, [00:13:00] I understand that inflammation can lead to period pain, more intense cramps," whatever. What is trig- okay, two things. What is either triggering an amplified inflammatory pathway? What is causing more inflammation in your body? Or two, what is an obstacle on the path to inflammation resolving in your body?

So there can be a couple different things. Inflammation is also not the fire. Inflammation, it's not the root of the problem. Inflammation is just another form of a smoke detector going off. Inflammation is built in to your human physiology as a [00:14:00] pathway to repair and heal. It sends blood flow to areas that needs it.

It directs immune cells to areas that need it. It creates swelling. It creates... If old tissue needs to die, it will help facilitate that. It will help lay down new tissue. It will cause redness. It will cause pain because there's literally more, you know, wherever it's happening in the body, there is more fluid, blood, cells being directed into that area.

That area is sensitized. It's activated because an issue has been detected, and so it's, they're sending out the response team. Inflammation is a healing response team within you. But again, if we treat that as the fire and we just block inflammation, we're not addressing what that inflammation response team was being sent out to.

Does that make sense? So something was already imbalanced that [00:15:00]was triggering the inflammation, whether it was, like, just a, a standard inflam- inflammatory response, or whether it was a really amplified, severe inflammatory response. So we have to go back. Go take it back a step further. Okay, what was causing that?

Now, without going too much in depth, you know, there are, uh, there's an array of things in our modern environments that can create higher levels of inflammation or make it more challenging to, for the inflammatory pathway to resolve. 'Cause in an ideal healthy model, it's okay that we get injured, it's okay that we get sick, it's okay that we get infections.

Because the baseline response is like, "Oh, we've got an issue. Send out the inflammatory response team." Inflammation does its job, and then it comes back down, and we go back to our baseline. But with a lot of factors in terms of what we eat, what we breathe [00:16:00] in, what we drink, what we say, what we think, who we surround ourselves with, the plastics that we're exposed to, the viruses we've been exposed to in our past, antibiotics that we've taken, anything that affects the gut microbiome.

Like, the, the, you know, how much sugar we're eating, how much wheat we're eating. Um, if we have any, like,

intol- intolerances or mild allergies that we haven't addressed, and we keep putting those foods in our body. You know, are we hydrated enough? So, so, so many factors. I couldn't even... Well, I did begin to tell you all the factors , but there are s- I, I couldn't even give you a complete list. There are so many factors that will create or contribute to, uh, a malfunctioning inflammatory response.

Inflammation that doesn't resolve, you could also call, call it. That results in the symptoms that are annoying the shit out [00:17:00] of you.

So we have to look at all those factors and that's where I love naturopathy and that's where I love the work that I do because the first 90 minutes that I meet you, that I meet a new patient, we are going through all of that. We are turning over all the stones and going, "Is it you? Is it you? Where's the real fire?"

'Cause we know the period pain isn't the real fire and we know that even by ascertaining like, okay, yeah, you've probably got higher inflammation or an unresolving inflammatory response in your body. That's not even the fire. What's the fire that's setting off those smoke detectors? Let's briefly delve into one more example.

In the case of irregular cycles, so maybe your period comes every 30 days for a bit, and then it creeps up to 35 days, and then it drops down to 24 days, and then it goes back up to, like, 40 days, and it's- and you've just got irregular cycles, and maybe your period goes missing for a few months or longer.[00:18:00]

Maybe you have a diagnosis of PCOS, maybe you don't. That's okay. We're just looking at this symptom of irregular cycles. Your periods are irregular. If you went to a doctor or you went to a gynecologist, they would look at that and they would go, "Oh, you've got irregular cycles. Well, what we can do is we can put you on the pill, and that will regulate your cycles," is what most women, I find, are told.

And, uh, there you go. And unfortunately, and I covered this in a recent episode as well, that's not what's happening when you take a hormonal contraceptive pill. It's turning off your whole cycle, and you're getting a withdrawal bleed when you take the non-active pills, or the sugar pills.

But they see that as correcting the problem, 'cause the problem was irregular cycles and we've rectified that I say, okay, go back, go back a step. The irregular cycles, not the fire. I guarantee you something was happening before the irregular cycles started. So take it a step back. Okay, well, what's, [00:19:00]what's needed for a regular cycle to occur?

Well, we need healthy, uh, signals between the brain and the ovaries. We need to make sure that there's normal ovarian development. We need to make sure that the follicles in your ovaries are developing properly and maturing to a point that enables ovulation. Ding, ding, ding. We need regular ovulation in order to have a regular period, ' cause the more regular ovulation is, the more regular your period is.

Okay? You ovulate, and then 11 to 17 days later, you get your period. Unless you fall pregnant, that is how it biologically happens. You cannot get your period... If, if it's a true menstrual bleed, you will not get it 17 days after ovulation. It will always come within that 11 to 17-day window. So we go, okay, so ovulation is irregular for some reason.

Ovulation is being delayed, or ovulation is [00:20:00] being skipped. Okay, why is that?

So we go back and go, okay, well, what do we need for regular ovulation to happen? Well, you need to feel a baseline level of safety, physical safety, and psychological safety. You need to have adequate nutrition in terms of the macronutrients that you're taking in, carbs, proteins, fats. You need to be hydrated enough as well.

But then also on a micronutrient level, there are specific targets that can help regular ovulation. If you are... You know, your weight can be a huge influencer as well, whether it's under or over a, a healthy spectrum. That can start to throw ovulation off because of the safety signals or lack thereof that that sends to your brain.

There might be chronic stress that could be suppressing ovulation. There could be a nutrient deficiency that's maybe not directly suppressing ovulation but is a part of the picture. [00:21:00] There might be a lack of protein intake. There might be the thing that I've been blabbing on about for the past few months, insulin resistance.

You might be experiencing a degree of insulin resistance that is altering the hormones that are being produced at the level of your ovaries that is impacting and impeding and interfering with ovulation.

So there are all these factors. And again, same scenario, why I love naturopathy. We spend the first 90-minute session together going through all of those potential factors to understand what is relevant to you. Not just what causes irregular cycles textbook, but what is causing these irregular cycles for this specific individual in front of me?

So they're just a few off the cuff examples. So body as a smoke detector, our symptoms as the smoke, the root cause as the fire, and the difference between how [00:22:00] mainstream treatments treat the symptoms as the fire versus how a more holistic root cause approach knows that there is something beneath the symptom that was happening first to cause the symptom, that is the real fire.

It takes a bit more searching

It takes a bit more effort. It might take a bit more investigation. It might take a bit more time

But the upshot is that you're not living in this state of suppressing, suppressing, suppressing, suppressing. Because guess what? If your body is trying to express something and you are suppressing it, that can create more issues in the long run I see it with period pain. I see it when women started having period pain when they were as young as 12, 13, 14, 15.

They're put on the pill. It's maybe in some cases it, like, improves a bit. The bleeding is lighter. They think they've got a regular period. There's [00:23:00]less pain because there's less buildup of the uterine lining. And then maybe they're getting a side effect after a few years, or maybe they're old enough and they're ready to start a family, and that's just where they're at in their life, and so they wanna come off the pill.

And then the pain floods back in. Because the fire, the first fire was never put out.

In the case of irregular cycles, same issue. Okay, you get your first period at 12, and maybe they're fine for the first year or the first six months, and then they start to get irregular, and maybe you're getting more symptoms. And then you go to the doctor, you get an internal ultrasound. "Oh, yeah, I, I mean, look, there's a little, slightly polycystic ovaries, but not enough to call it the syndrome, you know?

So we can go on the pill, and that will help regulate everything, and, you won't have those unpredictable periods anymore." Okay. And so you do that for a few years, and then same situation. Maybe you're done being on the pill. You wanna [00:24:00] try, you wanna go off of it for a bit. Maybe you're old enough.

You're ready to start a family. Cool. You come off of it, and then what happens? Oh, shit, the, your period doesn't come back for, like, six to 12 months. And then once it's back, it's not regular. Your cycles are just as imbalanced and irregular, if not more so, than they were before you went on the pill.

Because those irregular cycles you were getting that led you to the pill, they were happening for a reason. There was some set of factors in your life, in your body at that time that was causing that irregularity, that was causing that imbalance. But we didn't find that fire at that time.

We put on the fake firefighter. We put on the Band-Aid suppressive treatment of the pill. And so that fire was never put out. And so you're on the pill for all these years, and underneath there is still, if [00:25:00] those factors that caused the irregularity in the first place aren't being addressed, they are still lurking beneath the surface.

For as long as you're on the pill, they're still there, they're still there, they're still there. You come off the pill, they're still there. And so they're gonna cause irregularity

And that, that's probably the most devastating example I see in cases of people who are trying to conceive. They've been on the pill, or they've had the Implanon in, or they've had the Mirena in for so long for, for, they've, they've been on that for longer than they've had natural menstrual cycles.

And then they're ready to start trying.

And they're not getting the results that they want. Because that fire's still burning. Because the pill, the Implanon, the Mirena was not putting out that fire. It was just disguising it. It's like we can also compare it to, like, taking the batteries out of the alarm, [00:26:00] right? Now, I'm guilty of this. I'm guilty of this literally.

If we have a s- faulty smoke detector, if we have a faulty smoke detector and it goes off, and I'm looking around for all sorts of things that could be setting it off, and I'm like, m- and I'm confident there is no fire, there is no smoke, maybe it's telling me to change the batteries. You know, uh, it's not.

It's setting off a full-on signal. It's not just the battery signal. I take the batteries out. I think in every rental home I've been in, at one point it got to a point where it's like, ah, just, just unplug the smoke detector. I will admit that. In terms of my analogy, that is not what we wanna do with our bodies.

But that is what we do when we take these treatments that literally just suppress symptoms. It's the equivalent of taking the batteries out of the smoke detector. And sure, maybe that smoke detector was going off once at fault, but if you keep the batteries out of [00:27:00] that smoke detector, you are gonna be missing a lot of smoke signals; you're at risk for missing a fire.

And I guess we can also see, like, looking after our bodies as

you know, replacing those batteries. And that might be the equivalent of, you know, staying hydrated, being mindful with what you eat, eating as many whole foods from the earth as possible, protecting your stress and your nervous system like your life depends on it, you know? Protecting your peace. Maybe they're the, some equivalence to, you know, changing the batteries, keeping the batteries up to date in your smoke detector.

'Cause we want that smoke detector to work. Our bodies are designed to experience symptoms when something is wrong. Whether it's really, really wrong or whether it's just a little bit off. You know, it's a spectrum, right? I don't want, I [00:28:00] don't want you thinking like, "Oh my God, something's terribly wrong with me because I get period pain every month," or, "Because sometimes my cycles are longer than I expect them to be."

No, this is not the cause for panic. This is just the reality of symptoms happen for a reason. And it doesn't mean it's a really severe reason. It could just be a little sign of imbalance. But the bottom line is that you deserve a holistic, thorough investigation that finds that fire, that gets to the root cause of what is happening Okay, I'm gonna play a part two to that reel that I made, and I might not keep this in, but let's just put this in.

Ever wish you had a crystal ball and you could be like, "What is my body trying to tell me?" You kind of do already have that in the form of your menstrual cycle. So you don't need a crystal ball to understand what your body is trying to tell you. You don't need another pill. You don't need another quick-fix protocol.

You don't need another four-week program. You don't need a [00:29:00] strict diet. The answer's worse. You kind of need to change your life. Your body isn't dysfunctional. It's responding appropriately to a dysfunctional system. And correcting that level of maladaptation requires some big changes. You need to change how you see the world.

You need to change your relationship with yourself and stress. You need to work on what triggers you and how you are gonna cultivate a sense of internal safety in your body. You need to learn how to use foods and your routines in a way that also cultivates that sense of internal safety in your body.

You need to realize that the sun is not here to kill you, and that it is maybe one of the most easily accessible medicines that we have for our hormones. You need to understand how artificial lighting is screwing with your metabolism, and maybe even sabotaging your fertility. It's not easy. I can't even lie about that.

It's not easy. But is it easy to keep living the way that you're living? Is it easy to keep running from symptoms, knowing [00:30:00] that they'll just snowball into a way bigger problem for your body? And I think another important question to reflect on is, is this what we wanna teach our daughters and granddaughters?

Do we wanna show them that it's okay to put your body last? And it's okay as long as you're adapting to this dysfunctional system that was not designed for our female physiology, that was not designed to suit our biological rhythms. Just a thought. No crystal ball needed. Your body is giving you all the information you need.

You just need to decide that you wanna change. Damn. And just a quote from, uh, one of my clients who commented on that reel, uh, which she, she, like, quoted from the reel that I just wanna, like, emphasize, "Your body isn't dysfunctional. It's responding appropriately to a dysfunctional system." Yeah.

So this was, I recorded this in February 2026, so earlier this year, and I was really having a- almost a personal [00:31:00] crisis, professional crisis, both, where I was like, "Oh my God," like I can't just, you know... A new patient comes to me, and they may be in so much pain and discomfort, and it can be easy for my first reaction, my first instinct, is to wanna be the fake firefighter in the reflux medication ad and, like, just turn everything off and calm everything down so they can just feel, you know, less discomfort, so they can not be in, in so much pain.

but if that is for a woman who is working way beyond her body's capacity and is skipping breakfast, you know, five out of seven mornings of the week and is drinking barely a liter of water most days and has heart palpitations every other day and loses her train of thought frequently because she's feeling so [00:32:00]overwhelmed and anxious and is holding on to stressful relationships because they're just familiar to her and she doesn't think she deserves better, would I really be doing her good if I just helped her body adapt to those circumstances?

If I just made it easier for her to push through and keep doing what she was doing? And what she was doing was damaging her body and not nourishing herself. What she was doing was not conducive to the fertility that she wanted in two to three years time. And sure, I could give herbal, nutritional anti-inflammatories.

I could just turn off all the signals, sh- try to shut down all the signals. But it either wouldn't work for very long, or it just would not be doing her any favors at all. Because the signals aren't the problem. Your body isn't the problem. Your body is [00:33:00] responding appropriately to disturbing factors. Your body is responding appropriately to the circumstances in your environment

that are creating a sense of imbalance in your body, that are somehow cock-blocking good health from you

And so I just hit this point where I'm like, "Yeah, I need to have some harder conversations with my patients about what is frankly causing their issues." And it's... And, look, sometimes it's way smoother than I think. But sometimes it is really challenging because kind of like I said in this video, you kinda need to change your life.

You need to change your perspective. You need to first know how you're perceiving the world around you, and then if you realize that your perception of the world is not one that is conducive to health, and healing, and how you want to feel, you need to do a bit of an overhaul, you know? [00:34:00] Yeah, it might include, you know, the stuff I always talk about, diet, lifestyle, work, beautiful herbal medicines that can help support your body back into that balance.

Great, great, great, great, great. But it might also be bigger than that. It might be the soul level work that I mentioned. Because we can, like, do all the good, like, physical stuff. You could even be taking medications from wherever. But if we're not changing how you, like, see the world, and so your sense of internal safety is always being, like, informed by your perception of the world, and that's an inherently negative one that you've taken on or that, that, that was shown to you, that was taught to you, that you've just cultivated naturally without even thinking about it after years and years of stress or certain traumas, then that lack of safety signal is gonna continue to be perpetuated throughout your body, and your symptoms will prevail. The period pain will keep happening, the irregular [00:35:00] cycles will keep happening, the breakouts will keep happening, the bloating will keep happening, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, because your baseline level of safety is not one that's conducive to health and healing

So Stop trying to force the alarm off. Stop taking the batteries out of your smoke detector. Your body is a really wise system. Your body is a really wise smoke detector. And your hormones, your hormones are how your body has this whole interconnected web of communication from one part to another.

Hormones are how your organs talk to each other. Hormones are just the messengers of your body. They might be carrying some smoke. They might be, like, trying to point to a fire. But they're not the fire They're not the problem They're just sending you a message that they're hoping you will respond [00:36:00] to by searching for the real fire and by-- they're really hoping that you're not gonna sh- respond to the alarm going off by taking out the batteries

That is just some food for thought for you today, on this day that the episode finds you. If this is your first time here, welcome. Thank you so much for clicking or tapping on me today and for, uh, sticking out to the end. Welcome, welcome. And if you're not new here, welcome back. Thank you so much for continuing to show up.

I'm so grateful for your support. If you liked what I-- anything I had to say this episode, I would love, love, love, love, love if you could like this video or rate the show, five stars on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Wherever you're listening, you can follow, and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, YouTube. It helps me get this message further, spread it out far and wide beyond my wildest [00:37:00]imagination, in such a way that it could really, really help change the lives of way more women way more women.

And that's my dream, and that's my goal, and that's why I do my work. Thank you so much for being here. If you have any questions at all, my inbox is open. You can message me on Instagram. My emails are open. Email will be down below. I'd love to hear from you. Take care, and I'll see you in the next one. [00:38:00]