A Softer Path: Remembering, Reclaiming, and Embracing the Hormonal Shift

For most of my life, I have moved fast.

I was the one who could keep going.

The one who would hold it all together, even when everything inside me was cracking.

A mother.

A partner.

A space-holder.

A businesswoman.

A woman with purpose, with fire in her belly, and an ache to do things differently.

But in that doing, I forgot something.

I forgot how to be.

How to be soft.

How to listen.

How to receive.

And if I’m honest, I didn’t have the tools. Or the safety. Or the language for what my body was trying to tell me.

For years, I lived with PMDD—Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder.

But I didn’t know that’s what it was. I just knew there were days, sometimes weeks, where I couldn’t recognise myself. My mood would drop. My rage would rise. I’d swing from shame to silence to overstimulation. And then, like clockwork, it would pass—and I’d feel like myself again.

Until the next month.

It’s easy to blame yourself when you live like that. Easy to assume you’re the problem. That you’re too sensitive, too emotional, too much.

So, you armour up. You overperform. You dismiss the signals. You self-soothe with productivity and self-punishment.

Because what other choice is there?

And then, perimenopause came.

It didn’t announce itself with a bang. It crept in quietly. Fatigue that lingered longer. Periods that changed shape. Emotional sensitivity that deepened. I thought I was burning out again.

I thought maybe it was just life with three kids, a business, and a high-functioning brain that never stopped spinning.

But this time, something was different. My body wasn’t just nudging me. It was insisting I slow down.

For the first time, I truly listened.

The Journey of Remembering

It would’ve been easy to keep going. To seek another solution. Another supplement. Another test. Another protocol.

But deep in my bones, I knew I needed something else.

I needed to remember.

To remember what it might’ve felt like to be held, rather than expected to hold. To remember the softness that once lived in my body before survival hardened me. To remember that I am not here to push through the most sacred transitions of my life as though they’re inconveniences.

This season - this hormonal, spiritual, soul-deep shift- is not a problem to solve. It’s a portal.

And that remembering came with grief.

Grief for all the times I overrode my body. Grief for the cycles I didn’t honour. Grief for the versions of me that needed compassion, but only received correction.

I don’t say that with blame. I say it with love. Deep, compassionate, maternal love. For myself. For every woman who has walked this path without a map.

The Conversation Around HRT

Lately, I’ve been exploring HRT. Not as a last resort. Not as a failure. But as an invitation.

An invitation to support my body. To stabilise the fluctuations. To give myself what I never knew I could ask for.

HRT, for me, is not about erasing the past. It’s about meeting my present with softness. It’s about partnering with my physiology in a way that honours my spirituality.

For those of us who have lived with PMDD, the idea of adding more hormones can feel terrifying. We’ve lived on the edge of hormonal chaos for so long. We’ve been burned by dismissive doctors, bad prescriptions, and the sense that our bodies are too complex to be trusted.

But what if this time it’s different? What if this time we get to choose from a place of power? What if it’s not about fixing, but supporting?

When I speak to other women, I hear the fear. The shame. The worry that HRT is giving in. That it’s not ‘natural’ enough. That we should be able to do this on our own.

But here’s what I’ve come to know:

There is no gold star for suffering. There is no shame in needing support. And there is no blame for not knowing sooner.

The more I explore, the more I realise how many women are craving this deeper permission. To change their minds. To soften their path. To honour their body’s story without apology.

There Is No Shame In Your Shift

It’s taken me years to get here. Years of overriding. Years of punishing. Years of feeling like my body was the battleground I had to conquer.

Now, I see her as my home.

This body has carried three children. She has held my grief. She has performed under pressure.

She has survived.

Now, she gets to thrive.

And that looks like slowing down. That looks like HRT. That looks like reimagining what power and productivity even mean.

It looks like grace. It looks like stillness. It looks like whispering to the parts of me I once silenced: "You're safe now. I'm here. I'm listening."

An Invitation to the Women Walking This Path

If you are navigating PMDD or perimenopause… If you are waking up to your body’s whispers after years of screaming… If you are realising that your hormones are not betraying you, but trying to bring you home…

Know this:

There is space for you here. There is no shame in your sensitivity. There is no blame for the burnout. There is no failure in asking for help.

This is not the end of who you were. This is the beginning of who you’re becoming.

The path may not be linear. You may have to try things, then try again. You may grieve the woman you thought you had to be.

But I promise - there is power in your softness.

There is strength in your slowing.

And there is healing in your remembering.

You are not broken. You are breaking open.

Let this next season be one of deep care. Not as an act of retreat, but as a radical return to your truest self.

A Softer Path: Remembering, Reclaiming, and Embracing the Hormonal Shift

And when you meet the next version of you - balanced, grounded, supported - I hope you greet her with the same love you’re learning to give yourself now.

Because she’s not new.

She’s you, remembered.