# My hormonal journey ##### Your Perimenopause Blueprint Workshop --- ![](https://youtu.be/JKSOsrYyt9E) --- ## Summary > - My hormonal journey began long before perimenopause, with mood swings and self-loathing in my teens and twenties. > - Menstrual cycle awareness helped me understand changes in my moods, energy, and motivation. > - In my late thirties, I began to notice changes and study perimenopause more seriously. --- ## Transcript Now, before we get into your perimenopause blueprint, I actually want to share with you my hormonal story. In my twenties, I realized that I probably should have started talking about my teens because I started my period when I was 13. There's a span of 7 years there that I initially overlooked. In my twenties, I felt like something was wrong with me due to this hormonal rollercoaster. The same was very much true in my teens, especially during puberty. In my twenties, I was constantly hormonal, experiencing mood swings that affected every part of my life—my fitness, health, relationships, and mental health. I just didn't know who I was, and I was trying to create myself based on comparison. I was looking around, seeing how other people were doing things, and trying to figure out what I should be like. I felt the need to be perfect, which made that decade really difficult. I think that's true for many women and people in general who are still trying to figure out who they are despite thinking they know it all. In photos from that time, I thought I was very fat and struggled with body image. I didn't like who I was at all and hated myself, experiencing proper self-loathing and anxiety. It was a tough time, probably because I was trying to be something I wasn't, not living the true version of myself. In my thirties, it was all about work. That’s when I started my business and my family. I was also very focused on fitness, running a lot of fitness classes. That decade was aimed at achieving success through more money, more status, and more high-end goals. I also started to get to know my menstrual cycle, and menstrual cycle awareness became a big part of my life. I came across the idea of inner seasons and began to understand myself based on my menstrual cycle. This was life-changing. I learned how my moods, energy, and motivation changed throughout my menstrual cycle, recognizing that I had different personas from one week to the next. This understanding made me realise I wasn’t crazy; it’s just how women’s bodies work. In my mid-thirties, I won an online course about the third age woman, which covered perimenopause and menopause. Initially, I did nothing with it because I thought I was too young and that the topic was too niche. However, in my late thirties, I began to notice changes in my hormones and revisited the third age course. I also added other women's health courses to understand what was going on with me and to help others who were experiencing similar issues. Perimenopause started to become more mainstream, which was great. From around age 37, I began studying this information seriously. I found that there's an idea that perimenopause and menopause are pathologies that need to be stopped or changed. While there are horrendous parts, I believe there must be a better way to handle it. Now in my forties, I am coming up to 42. Over the last two years, I believe I've been perimenopausal. I haven't had a test, but that's for another workshop. I've been addressing my symptoms, which you'll see later in the workshop. I'm all about making midlife a new beginning for me, letting go of what no longer serves me. It's a powerful decade, and I think it gets more powerful as we get older if we lean into it. Perimenopause is a chance to get to know who I truly am. There are books focusing on physical symptoms and others that emphasise the transition's significance. We get to decide what to do with this period, putting things in the "fuck-it bucket" that no longer serve us—fear, comparison, playing small, not feeling good enough. Currently, there are symptoms going on, but I am addressing them. We're in a liminal space between the normal reproductive stage and menopause. This transition can take a long time, with some research suggesting it can last up to 10-15 years. Even if it’s just 3-5 years, it's a significant part of our lives. If you think of perimenopause as the opposite of puberty, where hormones were all over the place, the same thing happens now, but in reverse. It’s a huge part of our lives, and it's something we need to lean into despite all the symptoms.