15. How Your Attachment Wounding Might Be Showing Up in Your Menstrual Cycle

In this episode, I explore how attachment wounding might reveal itself in the menstrual cycle. Focusing on two primary examples, I encourage you to notice how struggles with separation and boundaries during your menstrual phase can be linked to underlying attachment issues. I also touch on how poor boundaries and people-pleasing behaviours can exacerbate premenstrual symptoms.

01:00 Struggling to Separate and Take Rest

02:38 The Sacred Task of Separation

03:42 Navigating Attachment Wounding

05:17 Personal Experiences and Insights

07:38 Energetic Separation and Self-Care

09:41 Boundaries and Attachment Wounding

10:59 PMS and Overextending Boundaries

14:02 Inner Spring and Childlike Innocence

15:21 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

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Transcript

 Hi my love. So today's episode, I'm super excited for this and I think this is a really juicy topic , and might be full of truth bombs. I mean I feel like it's kind of what I deliver a lot of the time but this episode is all about how your attachment wounding might be showing up in your menstrual cycle and contributing to some of the challenges that you experience.

So, I'm only going to discuss two examples in this, because I feel like they're the two really, really potent examples, but there are many ways that this can show up, and I think this is another way our menstrual cycle can really highlight to us what needs tending to. And of course attachment wounding is such a, an in depth topic and so nuanced, and  it's so different for every person, so.

Just bear that in mind as you're listening, and again, as always, take what resonates and leave the rest. So the first way that I want to discuss is struggling to separate and struggling to take rest and your own space on your bleed. So right before our bleed, possibly the few hours before, or the day before, or a couple days before.

There is a really sacred task to separate from the outside world, to prepare us to go into this womb cave, this Experience where we have shed our outer world skin and we are raw and we are open and we are vulnerable and we are so connected with Source divine intuition, whatever you call it. Whatever you want to call it.

Whatever word it is for that you use for all this otherness. In order to connect with that fully and deeply, we have to shed our hard human skin, our, this, the skin that we wear to navigate the external world and other people's energies and if you're anything like me and you're a highly sensitive person, Or neurodivergent.

You'll probably feel this even more acutely, this sensitivity when you're on your bleed, and, and this need to kind of shed that, shed that outer layer, that skin, that kind of hard, protective layer that's there, that is not bad, that is absolutely necessary. We have to have our You know, we have to have that layer there to be able to move through the world, otherwise, it would be very, very, very overwhelming.

But when we're on our bleed, right before, it's really important that we can shed that. And in order to shed that, we have to separate from the world, right? We can't, well you can, but it's very difficult to really truly surrender into that and shed that. Outer layer if we're still really out in the world and interacting with people and obviously there's like Limitations to this right because we live in the real world and not everybody has the luxury of completely separating.

I don't mean I don't mean that. I don't mean that you have to drop all of your responsibilities for five days. Although it would be beautiful if we could all do that. But, and that is the ultimate goal. But what I mean by separate is it can even just be this like energetic shift of like, okay I am really prioritizing me time.

Of course, we're always kind of prioritizing it. But really this is important now, you know, when I have that spare five minutes I'm not gonna use that spare five minutes to spend it on someone else. I'm gonna use that To nurture myself and to offer that love back to myself. And if you have attachment wounding, particularly if you're, you lean towards the anxious side of the spectrum.

And I really, I'm going to put a little caveat here that I really dislike. The traditional attachment styles and the way that it's talked about because it's very rigid, and it's very, , puts you in a box, and actually attachment styles are a massive spectrum, , and we can shift according to who we're with, or the time of the month, or Um, you know, as we progress on our healing journey, so I think the way that we traditionally talk about attachment styles can be a little bit, a little bit simplistic, I think, , and also massively demonizes avoidant attachment styles as if they're all narcissists, which is just like absolutely not the case, and I think it's often narcissism and avoidance, um, narcissism and avoidant attachment style get mixed up in, in kind of Instagram and TikTok and kind of, you know, um, pop culture and media and stuff, so anyway, Bit of a side tangent, but, , if you lean more towards that slightly anxious side, or if you have that tendency there to really need to be around other people and, and, and really need that connection to feel safe.

This task of separating can be really, really tricky, and I speak from experience that I have both avoidant and anxious tendencies. I, I kind of Flick around. Um, but I have definitely struggled with that separation in the past. I've really, I, there's one distinct cycle that is coming to my mind. There's one distinct time where I was like, Oh man, I really want to separate.

But this little wounded one within me, this part within me just felt so scared to do it. And she just felt. terrified of separating she's like. No, why would we separate? That's, that means that, like, we're gonna be alone and we're gonna die and it's just gonna be awful, because of course when you're a baby if you are left alone you, like, that is like a, a critical thing, so there's that narrative there.

And it was really profound to notice this, just those two days, I think it was, yeah, two days before my bleed. I just felt so, like, scared and insecure and just, oh my god. And as I sat with that, and this is the beauty of this work, is as I sat with that, I could see this little girl and I was like, oh, this is my attachment wounding.

There's a part of me that knows the sort of whole and self part and the Muse Beloved, right, like we've just talked about. She's saying, okay, it's time to, you know, the truth here is that it is time to separate from the world. It is time and the, you know, my bleed is calling me and I'm being called to separate from the world.

And at the same time, there was this part of me that was terrified to do that. And. I think I had always experienced that, but this, this bleed, it was just particularly potent and, and obvious to me, and I really had the space to sit with it, so. And as I sat with it, I could go, okay, it's alright my love, I'm here, like, and held her hand as we separated, and, and I could offer that reassurance to her.

And I remember that when I I had gone through that. It was one of the most powerful bleeds I've ever had. Um, it was, it was so potent. It was incredible. And I just felt so connected to myself and, um, and to Source, Divine, Menstruality, Consciousness, whatever you want to call it.  And really had some incredible downloads and yeah, it was really beautiful.

My point here is, that if that attachment wounding is showing up, you might be struggling to truly quote unquote separate from the world, and again, this can just be an energetic separation, because We can't always, you know, drop all of our responsibilities. Um, but that can be enough to kind of trigger that attachment wounding.

So, if you, maybe next time you come into your bleed, just notice how that feels for you, how it feels to separate. How it feels to go through that transition of going, No, okay, I need to, I need to step back from the world. I need to take a 1 percent shift. away from the world, because that's sometimes that's all it needs, you know, that's sometimes that's all we need is what a one percent shift we don't have to do the whole kit and caboodle, you know, we don't have to drop all our responsibilities all at once, we can just go okay what is one percent of what, what would I like to give myself in an ideal world and what is one percent of that that I can give my, give myself.

, just notice how that feels. And maybe it feels really great for you. Maybe it feels so juicy and you're just like, oh, thank god. And that's amazing. Or maybe it feels impossible and maybe it feels really scary or You know, maybe it feels really shameful for you. Maybe you feel really guilty at doing that.

You know, this is all just information and I, I don't want to frame this as like, oh, this is really bad and it's resistance and that's not what I am saying at all. This is all so beautiful and all makes so much sense given your personal history and your blueprint of your cycle and psyche. It all makes.

Perfect sense and it is all completely perfect because what we're doing here is this is information This is information to get to know ourselves more to heal to grow to expand our capacity to hold our full spectrum of experience as human beings, so this is all Really beautiful and so so welcome and we're not Shunning or labeling anything as bad, even if it's uncomfortable, it might be uncomfortable, doesn't mean it's bad.

And the second way that I want to talk about, and it's kind of linked to similarly with the separation, because when we don't separate, we then don't, we're not able to rest as much on our bleed. And again, energetic separation is sometimes enough. It doesn't have to be like an actual physical, I'm gonna go live in the woods for five days.

Although wouldn't we love to do that? That would be amazing. But when we can't do that and then we don't get the rest that we kind of need on our bleed, it then has an impact on the whole cycle. And then That can make our premenstrual symptoms just like so much more aggressive and completely wild. But the other way that that PMS can be heightened, and this is again towards your attachment wounding, is if you're really bad with boundaries.

And again, I am speaking from experience as a recovering people pleaser. I have chronically been a people pleaser all of my life and Boundaries has been a real thing that I've had to learn. And, yeah, learn how to be comfortable. And it's still, of course it's still a journey. I think it'll probably be, you know, it always will be.

There are different layers to this stuff, right? But your, as we've discussed in previous episodes, PMS is absolutely a sign that you might not be sticking to your boundaries, or expressing boundaries, or expressing your needs. You're somewhere where you're giving a part of yourself away, or over giving, right?

Because this can be the other thing with boundaries, it's not always about what we, how other people are treating us, it's also about how much we give to other people. So it's not just having boundaries with other people, it's having boundaries with ourself as well. And again, this is all to do with attachment wounding, because What are we trying to do when we're over giving and we're like, oh my god, I'm such a giving person I just like I'm such a people pleaser and I put myself, sometimes we wear it as a badge of honor And it's really not because what we're doing is, and this is, this might feel uncomfortable, but it is quite manipulative because we're not doing that from a place of, oh, I just love this person.

We're doing that from a place of protecting ourselves from abandonment. We're doing that from a place of hoping that that person will have a specific reaction, that they will stay with us, that they will love us, right? We're not doing that. From a place that's completely detached from the outcome and that's what I mean by manipulative is that we're hoping for a certain thing We're trying to Get the other person to feel a certain way about us or not leave us or whatever So we often wear it as a badge of honor, but actually it's it's really not and if you're interested in learning more about that Kind of perspective.

I really would recommend Vanessa Bennett's work She is a codependency expert and she is just absolutely fantastic and Yeah, love all of her work. I highly recommend But so, yeah, your attachment wounding is showing up in PMS, where you, where it's saying, Hey, you know what, you're overstepping your own boundaries with how much you want to give to other people.

And that's coming from a place of people pleasing rather than authenticity. And also highlighting where your boundaries with how other people, um, treat you are perhaps, could do with some strengthening. And a lot of that is rooted in attachment wounding. It's rooted in this. Desire to not be abandoned this desire to have other people love us

and again, none of this is bad None of this is you know, we're not we're not labeling anything as bad or wrong or anything like that. It's just information and So that is another way that it can be really interesting to track when these parts of yourself show up in your cycle because that's part of the work with healing.

PMS. If you really want lasting relief, you can't just look at inner autumn. You have to look at, okay, well inner Autumn is telling me my boundaries aren't strong. Where am I? Where am I overextending myself? Is it when I'm on my bleed? Is it when I'm in my spring and I'm feeling very child-like? And like that kind of comes out?

, is it in my summer when I'm feeling like I've got loads of energy, but actually have a bit of a tendency to over give, you know, that kind of thing.  So those are the kind of two main ways I wanted to talk about but there are, you know, your attachment wounding can show up in so, so many ways and actually as I said that, another way it can show up is in your inner spring because this is often associated with our inner child and that childlike innocence which if You have attachment wounding, of course, can feel quite scary, um, and those, like, little parts in you that just want to be loved and held and just kept safe can show up in our Inner Spring as well, so That's another little, a little third one as well to add on.

But as with all of this, you are the authority on your cycle and your psyche. You know, and your menstrual cycle will show you if there's any attachment wounding showing up. So this is again where menstrual cycle awareness comes in and that practice of checking in daily and seeing when those parts show up and why they might be showing up in that certain phase or that certain day in your cycle and looking, collecting that data.

You know, it's, it's all data. It's all information that we can kind of go back and go, Oh, okay. Yeah. I can see a pattern there. And then. And then you can kind of be with those parts of you that are showing up. This is quite a juicy topic, the attachment wounding, and of course it's quite in depth, but I'm going to leave it there.

But I would love to hear, yeah, how it resonates, how it doesn't resonate. , I'd love to, yeah, just hear how it's landing. And I am so grateful, as always, for your time in listening to this episode, and I will see you in the next one.