I awoke feeling depressed again this morning and have had real trouble shaking the feeling. I find it truly amazing that when I am here
in this feeling, it is impossible to just ‘snap out of it’ even when I know it
is being hormonally triggered. It just feels so REAL and so incredibly overwhelming.
I took a break from the Black Cohosh (and Angelica) for the
first three days of my period and this seems to have sent me into another mini tail spin. I have already gone back on the herbs and hope they kick in again
soon but I am feeling scared that maybe the herbs are not as helpful as I initially
thought; what if it is just coincidental that the mood swings lifted for a few weeks?
Now I have experienced some much needed relief, I really can’t bear the thought
of getting stuck in this emotional quagmire again.
I want so much to be active and useful, there
is so much I could be doing, so much I feel passionate and excited about but right
now I feel completely blocked by feelings of heaviness and futility. I have
considered that perhaps this is a calling for me to ‘slow down’ so I can get
more in touch with my inner self, but when I feel like this that just doesn't seem possible. In fact what I find most disconcerting about being in this
state, is that I feel so completely alienated from myself and my connection to the
Goddess / Spirit. It is like I just don't know what to do to gain any real relief - as I write this I
am crying and I don’t even know what I am crying about...
* * *
I just put on some Florence and the Machine and had a good cry
while dancing around the living room. I feel so much better for connecting to my
emotions and moving my body to release them, especially to Florence who really speaks to me as an artist. It is so easy for me to think I can rationalise my
way out of my feelings, this is a really ingrained habit of mine which I expect was
born out of being emotionally repressed as a child. I always felt things so
deeply but there was never any room in my family for me to express or release my
emotions so everything just ends up in my head. (It's really not surprising that I ended up suffering
from terribly debilitating migraines as a child.)My usual strategy for 'dealing with feelings' is to think my way out of them; first I have to identify ‘the problem’ that is causing the feeling and then to work out a way to ‘fix’ the problem so that I can make the difficult feeling go away. Writing is a fantastic outlet but it relies completely on a mental process and it seems that ultimately I also need to learn how to express and release the physical aspect of my emotions. This is especially true when my feelings get so overwhelming that I can no longer engage my mind to manage them. It seems that in these instances I am going to have to try to remember to disengage my mind and engage my body through music and dance.
Perhaps the lesson here is to learn to befriend my feelings and give them space, whatever seems to be ‘causing’ them; just because hormones are triggering the intense emotions doesn’t mean they are somehow invalid...
Maybe the menopause
is challenging me to stop trying to deal with my feelings in my head and to practise
bringing emotions down into my body so that I can fully express and release
them.
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