Hi Reader
Let me preface this email by saying that what I'm about to talk abiout is not about blame and its not about fault, it's about identifying patterns that may seem to be separate from health but are in fact affecting your hormones and fertility every single day.
This is the pattern I've seen working with hundreds of client over the years: A lot of the women who come to me are high-achieving, type-A, used to solving problems through effort, discipline and control. They’re successful because they’ve learned that if they work harder, they’ll get the result they want. They often find hormone health and fertility uniquely frustrating because it's one of the few areas of life that doesn't respond to "trying harder."
There’s a physiological reason for that.
When your nervous system spends most of its time in a heightened state of stress, cortisol remains elevated. Cortisol interacts with the same systems that regulate ovulation, progesterone production, and your menstrual cycle. Over time, a body that never truly feels safe or rested can struggle to prioritize reproduction the way it was designed to.
If you recognize yourself in this - the inability to sit still, the guilt that comes with rest, the instinct to research and optimize your way out of every problem, the need to "succeed" so you're not a "failure" - I don't think the answer is to try harder at relaxing (which usually just becomes one more thing to perform well at). It's slower than that: it's learning to let your nervous system actually downshift in a body that's spent years rewarded for staying switched on.
That starts with asking yourself uncomfortable questions:
Where do I get my validation from? My career, conquering projects, my bank account, my boss, my partner, a finished to do list, being "busy", feeling exhausted after a hard days work, the mirror, my kids's grades?
What does "success" mean to me?
Who would I be without this success?
Why do I feel like rest is lazy? Who did I get that from? If it was a parent, what part of their past were they projecting onto me and why?
Is there an aspect of my life that makes me who I am?
What brings me the most anxiety? What would happen if I didn't have control of that? What would that mean about me?
Exploring the deeper answers to questions like these is honestly a lot of what the energy work and stress-focused side of my practice is built around - not as a replacement for the nutrition, testing, or cycle-tracking, but alongside them.
Because I’ve found that many women experiencing hormone imbalances are living disconnected from their feminine nature in one of two ways- or often both:
1. They are living as though they're designed to function the same every single day.
Women's hormones are dictated by their infradian thythm, a 28-35 day cycle, that shifts hormones, energy, metabolism, and recovery throughout the month.Yet many women expect themselves to perform with the same intensity every day, and don't rest without feeling guilty. They are working 9am-11pm, pushing through exhaustion, wearing burnout as a badge of honor, grinding, hustling, and producing like men, and then expecting their bodies to create like women. A lot of these women have created their identities around their career success, and they prioritize it over all else, including their health. This is more detrimental to women's health than it is to men's because women aren't designed to function the same way every single day of the month. This disconnect can contribute to chronic stress, hormonal dysfunction, and burnout. We need to be able to create careers that fulfill us without abandoning our biology.
2. They’re living from fear instead of faith.
She is ruled by anxiety, doesn't trust in the future, that things will get done, that she's doing a great job, or that everything is going to work out. This leads to a need to be in control all of the time. So many women are carrying the weight of believing that if they don’t hold everything together, it will all fall apart. They feel responsible for every outcome, every detail, every future possibility. This creates a constant need to control, anticipate, and overthink. The feminine is inherently receptive, allowing, and trusting. She has faith - faith that what is meant for you won’t require you to live in a constant state of hypervigilance. Faith that your worth isn’t determined by how much you produce. Faith that your body isn’t your enemy, but is responding intelligently to the environment you’ve created for it. Ironically, it’s often when women begin to surrender what they cannot control and create more safety within themselves that they finally give their bodies the conditions to heal.
This doesn’t mean women shouldn’t build incredible careers, be ambitious, or lead. It means we can pursue those things without abandoning the very rhythms that make us women. Honoring your feminine nature isn’t about becoming less powerful, it’s about discovering that your greatest strengths actually come from working in alignment rather than in resistance.
If you want to talk through where this shows up for you specifically, let's chat.
And if you'd rather just reply and tell me "yep, that's me" - we're here for that too.
