Managing Extreme PMS Symptoms With Cycle Charting (Episode 525)

Full Transcript: Episode 525

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Today I’m sharing a brand new episode in my FAMM Practitioner Series. I’m sharing my interview with Isobel and we get into a number of different topics from PMS to contraception to fertility awareness and everything in between. So before we jump in I’ll tell you a little bit about Isobel. Isobel is a fertility awareness educator through NFPTA and a Yoga Nidra facilitator. She helps women and menstruators with complicated cycles to avoid pregnancy naturally whilst overcoming menstrual cycle issues holistically. Using her deep personal experience with cycling and the tools of fertility awareness and hormonal health coaching, she provides women with the same transformation she had from disempowerment and despair to true freedom. So without further ado let’s go ahead and jump into today’s episode with Isobel.
And I’m excited to be here today with Isobel Ripley. At the time that we are recording, we have been in the program together for almost nine months. Like we’re almost in month nine, which is really really crazy that it’s gone so fast. So without further ado, welcome to the show Isobel.

Isobel Ripley: Thank you so much, Lisa. It’s good to be here. I can’t believe it’s been nine months.

Lisa: I know. It feels like we started not that long ago.

Isobel: Yeah, it’s flown by. But I mean, a lot has happened since then. I’m sure if we reflect back on all the sessions, all the different topics that we’ve gone through, it’s probably like, okay sure, I guess it makes sense.

Lisa: Yeah. I mean, thinking back to the first session, that does feel a long time ago. Yeah. But I mean, I thoroughly enjoy the program, so I always find that it always feels like it goes by really fast. And there’s different aspects of the program — so like the first half we’re really diving into the how to do all the things, and then the second half is the practical aspect, and I feel like it really flies by when you’re in the midst of your client work. So I don’t know if that’s been your experience, but that has been my experience as instructor.

Isobel: Yes, I think it does kind of start beating up I guess, because you’re just in the swing of things and you’re like, okay, now I’m doing my clients and I’m into it.

Lisa: Yeah. Well, I’d love to start by giving you the opportunity to introduce yourself to the audience. So I love to ask the question, how old were you when you had your first period? And I like to ask that as a way to kind of lead us into what you’re doing now. So I’d love for you just to share a little bit about your own experience with your cycles, how you discovered fertility awareness charting, how you got into the work that you’re doing now, and I suppose what inspired you to kind of jump into FAMM as a way to increase your fertility awareness knowledge and everything.

Isobel: So I was about 14 I think when I got my first period. And I was the last of all my friends nearly, and by that point very ready to have it — although about three months before I was like no no no I really don’t want it to come, don’t let it come. So I switched quite quickly. I guess I must have sensed that it was coming and just been ready. And I have two sisters — an older and a younger sister — and for each of our menarche, my mum has really ritualized the event. And she’s done this box for each of us, where over the year or so before our first period she got all of the women from our family and community who wanted to put in a little gift or like a little message or something for us. And so then she presented us with this box and all these gifts when we told her we got our period. And I think that was really a significant thing for me, because I came into it with a sense of this is something to celebrate. And it never felt from the beginning like a burden necessarily — although I was a dancer and I hated that I had to wear these big ugly pads. And so yeah, interestingly, I still felt that I got kind of from the culture of periods are a burden — I got a bit of that, especially through the dance world. And I was very quick to use tampons and just try and hide it.

And then I also went on birth control quite early, like age 16. But even so, I think that experience with my mum has been there all along. And I do think that’s a thread of what — when I kind of decided to come off all of the hormonal birth control — I returned to that. And I was like, oh yeah, this this is an incredible magical powerful thing and I want to reconnect to it. So then I reconnected really strongly. And my experience with hormonal birth control was not great — ranging from the kind of mild just feeling of am I taking this pill every day and feeling a bit disconnected, to some really severe side effects with my mental health when I was on the NuvaRing, and massive changes in my body which were kind of unprecedented shifts that really threw me.
And I sometimes say that I have been doing a kind of informal hormonal birth control study since I was like 14, because I used to be an actor for doctor exams. So I would go in and I would have this scenario that I would have to act out — that I was this girl going in who really needed to be put on hormonal contraception. So from a very young age I was hearing all these doctors telling me these are the options. And so I thought I was an expert. So when I got to my opportunity to go into the doctor, I really knew what I wanted, and I felt quite empowered and I felt like I could go in and say, no this is what I’m having, give me this. So I’ve always felt quite empowered around birth control even though there were those difficult experiences. So then when I finally decided to come off all of it completely, it was final. I was not going on hormonal medical birth control ever again, because I was just done with all of those experiences.

But I remember having the thought, what the hell am I going to do? Because there’s no other option. And so sure, I’m just going to have to be irresponsible now — or like, there was this sense that it was irresponsible of me to come off of it all and not have a plan. And I was very lucky to come across the book Period Power by Maisie Hill, which I think is quite a gateway for a lot of women. And in that book it talks about FAM. And so I just latched on to it and I was like, this is my thing, I’m going to do it, I’m going to make this work for me.
So I really struggled at that time to find a teacher. I think maybe now it’s a little bit easier, but I do still get clients coming to me who are like, I was searching forever — especially in the UK maybe, there aren’t a huge amount of teachers as far as I’m aware. And so I eventually found someone who was teaching the Sympto-Thermal method and I just fell in love with it completely. And it was much more than just a birth control method — it taught me about myself, it taught me about my emotions, my cyclical experience was validated. So I no longer thought that I was broken when I would have this big energy shift after ovulation. And it helped me understand my relationships and why for two weeks I started not wanting to be around my boyfriend or things like that. And it just blew my mind. And I was so passionate about sharing it with other people.

And so for a while I kind of wove it together with my dance work, because I was training as a professional dancer. So there were connections that I was making around kind of body literacy and body awareness. And then I found over and over again that there were just really significant misunderstandings that women were having around just the education piece — like, what is ovulation actually? How many days does ovulation happen? And then I just got started getting a bit frustrated because I really just wanted to do that education piece. So I did the Natural Family Planning Teachers Association course and got my FAM certification. And for a while it was going well, and then I just felt that I was not capable of dealing with the complicated cycles that were coming in to me. And so when I saw that your program was kind of filling this gap in my knowledge — of okay, I can teach someone the birth control rules if their cycle is somewhat regular, and I really don’t know what to do if someone comes in with something out of the ordinary, and that’s most people — and so yeah, now I’m here. And I do feel that it has completely turned my understanding on its head, in a good way, and really boosted my confidence massively.

Lisa: Yeah. Well, I mean, that’s very exciting. And I always love how in such a short span of time we can essentially get like maybe over a decade, a couple decades of your life. So there’s a few things that I wanted to go back to. One small thing — for anyone who isn’t familiar with the NFPTA, do you want to just share what that is?

Isobel: Yes. So NFPTA is a certification to teach fertility awareness method, Sympto-Thermal method. And it’s based in the UK.

Lisa: Yeah. So it’s one of the options for women who are looking to become fertility awareness educators essentially. And I chose it because it was UK-based. And yeah — I felt great, my first few clients after I did that certification, I was just so thrilled to be able to share this with people and had some really lovely clients at the beginning who really helped me learn about teaching and everything. But I felt that yeah, it didn’t fully equip me, as I was saying, in different situations. And I think the mucus aspect — it’s funny because with your method, people always say like, oh this at first seems quite complicated, and people feel that it’s maybe overwhelming. But I don’t feel like it was until I learned the FAMM method that I really understood mucus. Because the categorization when it’s more basic, there’s more room for ifs and buts and maybes. So it was very interesting switching methods.
You said something really interesting that I want to go back to. You said that your mum made you a menstrual box when you had your first period. And I just thought that was the most wonderful thing. And also I just wanted to comment — over all the years of doing interviews, I mean, sometimes a person’s mum makes an effort and makes a big deal of something and it’s not well received. But in your case it seems like you really loved it. Do you want to tell us a little bit more about that?

Isobel: Yeah, I did have a slight element of a strange feeling of like, oh does this mean that all these women know that I’ve started my first period? And a little vulnerability around that. But at the same time it was okay, because I felt very held. And I suppose it’s a testament to the environment that my mum created around it and also our relationship. And now looking back, I’m just so grateful. And I will definitely do something similar for my own daughter if I was to have one. But I think it would be different — it would be my own take on it. And it might be a little bit more on the education side, because I didn’t get any of that. It was more the emotional side.

Lisa: That’s really interesting as well. I always think of where we are at right now — with you having gone through the FAMM program and me being in this field for all those years — there’s no reasonable expectation that our mothers could have had this level of information to share with us. I always look back on their attempts at sharing what they knew and I think fondly of it. So just wanted to say that to you, Isobel. I feel like that was a really special thing that your mum did and kind of like she’s before her time.

Isobel: Thanks — she’ll love it. She’ll listen to this. She’ll be happy.

Lisa: Good job, mum. And your older sister is now a midwife, so I wonder — there’s obviously something in your family that is very curious and drawn to these things.
So as a way to start bringing us into the main topic — you said something really important: the thing you really had to come to terms with and your challenge with your cycle has been your premenstrual phase.

Isobel: And I feel that what my mum — my mum was lucky in that she never had any menstrual cycle issues. She just kind of sailed through her menstruating years, no hormonal birth control. But when I was really struggling with PMS, we didn’t think it was that. We thought that I had bipolar at one point, because no one really around me could see the pattern that was happening. And looking back now, if I have a daughter or something like that, I’m so clued into that cycle that I just think it would be so obvious to me. But it just really wasn’t at the time.

Lisa: Yeah, that’s hard to hear — that you kind of go to that extreme before looking at, could this be related to the cycle? But it’s so common. It also made me think of one of the kind of scary stats that I shared in The Fifth Vital Sign. And it was around teenage girls. So teenage girls who were put on the pill were far more likely to be diagnosed with depression and put on antidepressants. And that’s happening before anyone’s asking the question of could there be a link between depression and contraceptives. Because we know that the pill is associated with an increased risk of — they call it mood changes — but that includes depression and anxiety to panic attacks, all kinds of problematic situations. So the need for the education is definitely there.
So I don’t know if you want to share a little bit about that — what your experience was like with your cycle. I mean, now you know that it was PMDD. But maybe share with us what that was like and what your symptoms were like such that people around you thought it could be bipolar.

Isobel: So I’ve not been officially diagnosed with PMDD. For some time I started going down that route with my doctors and talking to them about that, but I withdrew myself from going there because I wanted to kind of first do the piece around really accepting myself as I was and just seeing if I could actually change how I was relating to that time before I kind of thought more about whether this needed a label. I just felt quite resistant, because I didn’t want to kind of put myself in a box with that at the time.
I suppose it was worse when I was at university. So I went to a dance school which was five days a week, like nine to five, very physical, very exhausting, traveling like an hour across London every morning and back. And I would just have massive breakdowns. Like, not able to really function. And I think I would function — like I was functioning — but I was really pushing myself and pushing through a real big lack of energy and lack of motivation and kind of apathy. And it really was so scary, because I just thought, do I not care about what I’m doing? Do I not love what I’m doing? Do I not care about my friends and my partner?

And so I started talking to other people who had been diagnosed with mental health issues such as bipolar, and I was seeing myself in that because of the big shifts that I was experiencing. But I think looking back, if I’d been tracking my cycles, I would have seen that it was actually only happening on a couple of days each cycle. But it felt so big that I was focusing completely on those. And that’s what’s been transformative about actually tracking — is that you can’t then just focus on the bad, because you’re also seeing the days where, oh actually I’m fine on that day.
And I really benefited a lot from — we just had Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer come and talk in the program, and I really benefited from their book Wild Power. Because it helped me just reframe my experience and see myself as powerful. And now I’m just at the point where I’m like, wow, I’m really sensitive to this cyclical consciousness as they were saying in the talk. And that is really a gift. And at the same time, it’s really been in the last year, coming on the program with you, figuring out that physical side of things and looking back at my charts from when I was having those experiences and being like, ah yes, a nine-day luteal phase — interesting.

And I now really focus on eating well, eating much more than I was before, eating much more when I’m active. And it’s made a massive difference. So I feel like I’m kind of holding two things as true: like it’s okay for me to have these really intense emotional experiences, because that is just life and that’s part of who I am. And I can really support myself and help myself to ease that experience. And so it doesn’t not happen anymore — like sometimes it still happens — but I feel that there’s a level that I’m nourished at and well, that allows me to move through that a lot quicker and to really bounce back. And it’s kind of yeah, much much better than it was.

Lisa: I love that on so many levels. I think one of my goals — like my secret master plan — is to empower our FAMM practitioners to move past that kind of beginner level understanding the menstrual cycle as a vital sign. Like it’s nice to say and it’s nice to understand in a more general sense, but when you’re in the program and you’re able to work with the material and chart your own cycles and kind of go through this process yourself over that nine months together, I find that once you’re charting for a year or more with this knowledge, then you move to a bit of a different place.

And so when I think about what excites me — what I hear from my practitioners once they’ve kind of moved through that process — is that now we understand the cycle more. When you have a shorter luteal phase, so you did work really hard to increase up those luteal phases so that they were not simply nine days. And just based on the conversation that we’re having, having a nine-day luteal is obviously an indication of lower progesterone, which is associated with a higher rate of PMS. And so that physical, kind of scientific aspect of it is coming into play there.
And when you start to incorporate this knowledge and see those shifts, obviously it shows you like, wow, I have the power to make these shifts myself. Like there’s a lot that I can do to improve my hormones. But if in the future you had a really stressful cycle or something were to take place, and you did have a nine-day luteal, although it could be a little alarming — I would hope that now you’re in a different stage of it where it wouldn’t be this shock or surprise. You would look back at your cycle and say, well this was going on this month. And ultimately the place that I love when my practitioners are able to get to is when you’re really dancing with the cycle. So when we’re really putting this concept of the vital sign in action, we’re no longer terrified whenever there’s a fluctuation, it no longer has that same weight. We’re now able to take that as information. And it always helps us to course correct.

There was something else I wanted to touch on, and this was something that I touched on in The Fifth Vital Sign as well. This concept — there’s an old medical term called menstrual molimina. And it refers to the cyclical changes that we go through, but not as a medical problem. Because 90% of women experience some level of PMS symptoms. And so if you think about it — if 90% of women were tired after running a marathon, we wouldn’t be like, oh my gosh, this tired thing is a medical issue. We have to ask ourselves: if the vast majority of women experience some level of shifting and changing as they approach their periods, then can we consider it to be a medical problem?

So I feel like you really expressed it really succinctly when you said that you are accepting that there are these fluctuations. We do experience shifts in energy and different things as we approach different areas of our cycle. And of course Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer in their book Wild Power really just delve into that beautifully. But it’s not to say that we’re saying it’s all okay. Like there’s a level where there is some normal fluctuation that we can expect to experience, but there’s also a level where it’s like not okay. And when it starts to affect your day-to-day life, when it starts to be really problematic, when you find it hard to get out of bed or hard to function or hard to go to work or any of those things, then that is not normal.
And so there’s that like common versus normal — acknowledging that it is a natural shift in phase, but we’re not saying that it’s okay to be in abject misery or anything like that.

Isobel: Yeah, and I have to say I found it difficult — there was a period of a few months where I felt like it was really hard for me to marry those two things. And especially there’s something also going on culturally around the premenstrual phase where it starts to become a bit taboo to say the word PMS or to talk about symptoms around the premenstrual phase, because we’re at the same time trying to normalize that there is that shift. And so for a while I felt like in this weird sticky place. And I have to say, actually having Sjanie and Alexandra on in the FAMM program for their guest lecture — that was like a moment of, ah, it’s all coming together for me. Like it’s okay to do all of it and have all of it.

Lisa: And as you know, I tend to focus on a lot of those tangible aspects of it. Because what I like about the focus on the menstrual cycle is that — so Isobel, if you were hypothetically experiencing some kind of mild symptoms or mild to moderate, one of the ways that we can determine whether or not it’s normal is to quite literally look at your menstrual cycle and determine if it’s generally falling into those parameters. So once you are — like you said — matching your intake of food to your activity level, like once you’re addressing what we always talk about in our FAMM program — our foundational factors — so when we kind of put those FAMM protocols in place, you’re on top of a lot of those things. When we see that your luteal phases are lengthening, when we basically see that overall it’s meeting those parameters, we see some improvement.

And from that, in context, if you have a client who’s in a similar situation — just by seeing that the menstrual cycle is in more normal parameters now — and then when she shares her symptoms, if the cycle is truly healthy, they will be more mild. And that helps us to determine also what’s a bit more normal. So I definitely like that marriage between the emotional aspect of it and acknowledging it with the physical aspect with the actual chart. Because then together we’re not normalizing stuff that isn’t normal. I think that’s the risk when you want to really get into that emotional piece and like, yes, we’re supposed to feel more tired and we’re supposed to go more inward at this time — which is fair, but I think it helps us to balance it because then we’re seeing that the symptoms are matching what we’re seeing. And it’s all checks and balances there. So yeah, I love the concept, but I think because I’ve worked with so many women over the years, there’s a risk of normalizing what isn’t normal if we’re not paying attention to what’s actually happening in the cycle.

So as we start bringing our interview to a close, one of the questions I always like to ask our practitioners who are on the show is — for somebody who is in a similar situation to you — you had already received a fertility awareness educator certification, you were already seeing clients, and for someone who’s in a similar position where they’re feeling not as confident, especially when the complex charts start flowing. And like you said, most of them are, because those are often the women who are seeking support. For someone who’s thinking about jumping in the program, what would you want them to know?

Isobel: I was a little apprehensive at first because I thought, you know, I already have my fertility awareness certification. Do I need this extra training? Am I just chasing after more certification to feel ready? But my gut was really right that this is what I needed. Because the confidence that I have to really take clients through a process that has such tangible outcome results is just so valuable. And it’s also really rich in terms of structure — the way that you model the process — and those things that otherwise we just have to work out on our own over like many many years, like how many sessions is it going to take to go through this particular thing, and how do I do an intake form? All of that stuff makes me feel very supported. And it is like true mentorship in the way that it’s so well-rounded. It’s not just where you get your certification to teach fertility awareness and then you’re kind of on your own to figure out how you’re going to find people and figure out your programs and stuff. It’s really just very well-rounded.
So if you are looking for elevation in your practice in your business, you will get that — I think in maybe places that you didn’t even realize you’re looking for, like I was with the more business side of things.

Lisa: Yeah. And although the business aspect is not something that we generally advertise, it is part of it, and so it always comes up in the program as well. Well, Isobel, I’d love to give you an opportunity to share a little bit about you — so for anyone who wants to learn more about you or work with you.
Isobel: Thanks so much. So my business is called A Better World to Bleed In. It’s rather a visionary title and yeah, I just really believe that this work creates a better world for us to bleed in, and in turn a world that’s better to bleed in is actually a better world for everyone, because it’s a world where we’re safe and respected and nurtured. So I am taking on clients. I’m focusing on the avoiding pregnancy piece and also avoiding pregnancy with those more complex cycles, and so overcoming menstrual cycle issues holistically whilst avoiding pregnancy naturally. And I’m working one-on-one at the moment. I’m living in South Africa at the moment and so I’m all online, but I would love to welcome more clients if anyone is looking.

Lisa: I mean, it’s interesting to me just that you live in South Africa. I’ve never been to that part of the world. But thank you so much for being here today. I’ll make sure to share the links to your programs and all the things, so for anyone who’s listening on the go, you can find all of that information over in the show notes page. And again, Isobel, thank you so much for being here. This conversation was so rich — we covered so many different aspects, and I’m really excited to share it with the audience.

Isobel: Thanks so much.