16. Why You Lose Your Shit So Easily in Your Premenstrual Phase (and What to Do About It)

"Why do I loose my shit so easily in my premenstrual phase? And what can I do about it?" In this episode I'm giving you the answer to these two questions.

I dive into the concept of the 'window of tolerance' and its significance during the premenstrual phase. I explain how it's narrowing during Inner Autumn impacts you and what you can do to navigate it.

00:56 Understanding the Window of Tolerance

01:42 Impact of Trauma on Window of Tolerance

02:57 Premenstrual Phase and Sensitivity to Triggers

05:03 Practical Tips for Managing Triggers

07:19 Communicating with Partners

08:29 Allowing Time for Regulation

12:20 Conclusion and Resources

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Website: www.letmebleedinpeace.com

Email: claire@letmebleedinpeace.com

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Transcript

 Hello and welcome back to the Loving in Luteal podcast. I'm your host, Claire, and today's episode is all about your window of tolerance. So we're going to dive into what it is and why understanding this is really, really helpful for understanding what you need in your premenstrual phase and for managing those premenstrual symptoms.

So, I'm sure I don't need to tell you, and you already know and experience this, but when we're in our premenstrual phase, we're kind of like this walking bullshit detector, and it feels like our fuse is a lot shorter, we have a lot less tolerance for bullshit, but also like, our tolerance for things that aren't necessarily bullshit but kind of wind us up, or trigger us, or activate us, or whatever, it's much smaller, like our capacity to regulate ourselves.

is a lot smaller. And this is where your window of tolerance comes in. So your window of tolerance, the definition of it, is the range of stress or arousal where you can function well and manage your emotions effectively. So there's kind of two components there. It's like where you're functioning well, you're able to do your daily tasks, all of that kind of thing.

And You're managing your emotions effectively. So you're not going around and getting stuff done whilst you're in a massive strop. It's like you're, you're able to regulate yourself. You're able to be with your emotions. You're able to not lash out at other people or, you know, go into this like fight or flight or freeze or fawn.

You're able to really hold the whole range of emotions. And I think that window tolerance, your window of tolerance is something that you can expand and you can grow. And when you've had any kind of trauma, your window of tolerance becomes much, much, much smaller. And just as a kind of side note, the way that you can increase your window of tolerance.

It's by going to the edges of where things are uncomfortable, but they're not unsafe, and not tilting over into that zone where things are uncomfortable and they are unsafe, they feel unsafe in your body. So What can happen when we start to like narrow our window of tolerance is we stay in our comfort zone.

We say, stay where things feel comfortable and they feel safe. And to increase that window of tolerance or that comfort zone, you want to go into those places where it's uncomfortable, but it doesn't feel unsafe. So you can still regulate yourself through it. You're still able to function well and manage your emotions effectively.

But you don't want to tilt over into that place where It's uncomfortable and it feels unsafe in your system. It really flares up those fight or flight responses because that is outside of your window of tolerance. And by pushing yourself outside of that zone, you're shrinking your comfort zone. You're shrinking that window of tolerance even further.

So that's just kind of a side note on like the trauma informed lens of a window in window of tolerance. But when you are in your premenstrual phase, your window of tolerance is much, much smaller.  And this is partly because of all of those, like, psycho spiritual kind of aspects of it that you're really seeing the truth and there isn't that kind of, like, rose tinted glasses, but it's also physiology.

Your nervous system is just, like, less able to, to hold it. I mean, I, so I use an aura ring, um, to track my, like, basal body temperature and my sleep and all of that kind of thing, and My, like, physiology, I show signs of physiological stress more when I'm in my luteal phase. And so it's been really interesting to, like, actually see the physiological underpinnings of it as well and how that correlates with, yeah, how the mind and body is, and the spirit and the soul is all, like, working together.

It's all one, right? It's a bit of a side tangent. But, so basically, your window of tolerance being smaller in your premenstrual phase means Two things. 

The first is that you're going to be more sensitive to triggers, and the second is that you are going to get, when you do get activated, it is going to take longer for you to return back to that regulated state. So we're going to dive into each of these in turn. So the first one, you're more sensitive to triggers.

I just, I feel like this is fairly obvious. Everyone who struggles with their premenstrual phase kind of, um, Has experienced this where it's like things that wouldn't bother them in other parts of their cycle all of a sudden Really really bother them or things that they know are triggers or that activates parts of them You, at other points in your cycle, you can kind of like get enough distance from it.

There's enough self energy there. You can kind of go, okay. Okay. This is a trigger. I'm here. I can be with this. I don't have to like react to it. I can respond instead. But in our premenstrual phase, it's harder. It can be, it can feel a lot harder to do that. It can feel like those kind of Triggers or activations when they come up.

They're very intense and It feels kind of harder to catch them it feels harder to catch them before they go from 0 to 100 percent is something that I've noticed 



So it can really help with this to be proactive about checking in with yourself. To really be proactive about where am I at? What's already simmering under the surface. Can I be with it before it kind of takes over? And this isn't from the perspective of, you know, you shouldn't get angry or you're trying to suppress your emotions.

I don't mean that at all. I mean that when we can catch it sooner, We still have enough self energy to be able to be with the part of us that is activated to be with that trigger. We're able to kind of be with it and offer ourselves compassion and, and work through it and see what there is to be gleaned from it.

Whereas when we kind of ignore it and ignore it, ignore it, or maybe don't notice it, and then it kind of comes up in this massive outburst. It's Can be much more, it can feel much more difficult to kind of really be with that and neither's wrong. But I have found it extremely beneficial to really make sure that I'm checking in with myself And I actually also kind of intuitively feel the need to check in with myself more.

So like my morning routine I feel like I need more space for like journaling in the morning or movement like I need more space when I'm in my premenstrual phase to to ponder and just Be with myself and, um, offer myself that space to kind of explore what's going on in my psyche. So being proactive about checking in with yourself is like a really huge part of this because if your window of tolerance is smaller Doing that means you can kind of go.

Okay, what parts are here? What what you know, where am I at in my kind of window of tolerance because again It's not like a you're in it or you're out of it What kind of is but it's like a sliding scale, right? It's not like quite as binary as that So you can kind of go. Okay. I'm like, yeah, I'm actually I'm kind of reaching You know, that zone where I'm getting outside of my window of tolerance, I'm feeling a little bit dysregulated, and you know what?

I need to give myself like 10 minutes of just Breathing or I need to just go outside and put my feet on the ground for five minutes that kind of thing, you know And you can go. Okay. Are there any parts that need tending to am I suppressing anything or ignoring anything that might boil over later? You know when I don't know something like Seemingly small happens, but it somehow links back to this trigger.

So that's really helpful And this is where it's really helpful to Like, bring your partner into this as well, if you have a partner. Is letting them know, you know what, right now my window of tolerance is kind of smaller. Um, so they kind of can have an awareness of that. Um, so they understand that, you know, your capacity is, is much, much less.

At the moment and you know when you're working as a team in a household, maybe that means that you know They kind of take slightly more use takes like less or you shuffle around the responsibilities However, whatever works for you guys, or maybe it means you have more check ins Or maybe it means you have less check ins and you have more space, you know stuff like that just Having that communication there about, yeah, do you know what, my window of tolerance is really small.

And I think this is the beautiful thing about some of this stuff is, it gives us the language just to kind of talk about our experience that if we didn't have language like, you know, a window of tolerance, it, it can be harder to explain what's going on in a way that other people can understand our internal experience.

So, yeah, bringing your partner in on that can be really helpful too.

So the second way that this narrowing of your window of tolerance, um, kind of practically impacts how you navigate life in your premenstrual phase is that if you do get activated, it's probably going to take you a little bit longer to return back to that regulated state. So giving yourself that extra time and space, if you can, to Let your nervous system settle back down again, let your parts kind of feel safe again.

Because there can be this tendency to expect ourselves to be able to bounce back as quickly as we do in other points in our cycle. And so we go, well, normally it takes me like 20 minutes to calm down. And you know, say you've had an argument with your partner, for example, or, you know, something's activated in you and you're like, Do you know what?

I need to go away and deal with this before we can have this conversation. And there can be this like frustration that it's not simmering down. As quickly and I believe that part of that is because our pre menstrual phase is really that time where We're looking at this stuff We're really looking at this stuff and being with it so it kind of hangs around for a bit longer because it gives us that opportunity But it just means that it might take a bit longer before you go back and have that repair conversation with your partner.

You know, you might go, you know what? I know normally we say like 20 minutes, but actually I think I'm gonna need an hour. I think I'm gonna need a day. I think I'm gonna need until after my bleed. Like, that's fine. And Not shaming yourself or being like oh god like my my regulation skills are so bad And I thought I was getting so much better at regulating myself You know there can be this like shame spiral that happens where we are expecting ourselves to Always have like the same level of capacity and it's just not realistic and it's just not how it works when we have a cycle.

So giving yourself that grace of going, you know what, this is going to take me a little bit longer to just return back to my baseline and back to that regulated state, back to that, you know, where I'm in self and I'm able to be with the parts and all of that kind of thing and just saying that's okay and that that makes sense.

Um, so those are kind of the two practical ways is that you're more sensitive to triggers. So checking in with yourself is really, really important in this premenstrual phase, like being proactive about it rather than reactive to the triggers that can really, really help. And then the second one is it might take you a bit longer to return back to that regulated, calm, compassionate, open space.

And so just giving yourself The grace with that, and again, like, letting your partner know if that is your circumstance, you know, where that's how your premenstrual symptoms show up.  Or even like in work, you know, it's like if something's really frustrating in work, going like, Okay, this is like, this makes sense why I'm finding this harder, like, it's okay.

Um, so yeah, just really giving yourself the grace with that to allow yourself more space and understanding. Giving yourself that understanding that it's okay that it takes a little bit longer just to return back to that baseline when you're in your pre menstrual phase. And this all happens for a really good reason.

Um, it all happens because there's stuff that is coming up that has been it's very easy to suppress stuff the rest of the cycle and then it all comes to the surface and your parts are trying to get your attention a lot more and you know, there's that self archetype if you go back through the episodes.

About, uh, the Muse Beloved, and there's that archetype that asks us to look at the shadows. It's, you know, we're in our pre menstrual phase. We're really being asked to, like, look into the depths and digest, kind of digest the rest of the month as well, and go like, okay, where was that not in alignment? And actually, where can we step more fully into who we are and into ourself and act from a place of wholeness rather than a place of woundedness?

So, there's a beauty to it, at the end of the day, um, when you can tap into it. And if you would like to explore this more, I really encourage you to sign up to my mailing list if you haven't already, and you will get access to my premenstrual survival pack. Gives you a bunch of, like, super helpful, um, like, self soothing tools.

So, these are really helpful when that window of tolerance is much smaller. Um, There's like, I think there's five different, um, different techniques, different guided audios to help you do that. There's an inner critic exercise to help you be with the kind of critical parts that can come up. And then there's like a little bit more information about menstrual cycle awareness and how you can kind of use that to start to dive into the wisdom of your menstrual cycle.

And in doing so, kind of get finding some relief from these intense PMS symptoms. So the link will be in the show notes for that. If you would like to sign up for that and also I drop, you know, a bunch of a bunch of extra tips and content and thoughts to my email community. Um, so yeah. All right. Thank you so much for listening.

I really appreciate your time and your energy And I will see you in the next episode