Hormones get such a bad rap. Unfairly, I may add.

I tend to think of hormones as the musical notes that create a song to dance to. When they are in balance, the dance is beautiful, but when they are all over the place, at best it becomes comical, and at worst it’s just not funny, downright irritable, and a tad dangerous.

Hormones don’t tend to go out of balance on their own without external influence though. You may or may not know what has caused your imbalance.
Something else important to note here is that hormones are in fact chemical messengers. They travel through the blood supply, and require biofeedback, so if something is not quite right, and the message doesn’t get through, they will keep on trying!

As a teen I was put on the birth control pill by a well-meaning GP to help bring my cycles to a regular place… big mistake and totally unnecessary. I then dabbled with different synthetic hormones to avoid pregnancy, as you do when you follow a mainstream model of body care.

Luckily and very thankfully I managed to overcome the years of abuse that my poor body took.
Fast forward several years (and four children) my first surrogacy journey involved IVF, and despite being a natural cycle from my end, it was suggested that I took a FSH (follicle stimulating hormone)to guarantee that the clinic knew exactly my day of ovulation, to coincide with frozen embryo defrost.

Little did we know that one little particular injection would cause years of trouble. My ovaries hyper stimulated, and as a later found out can cause issues within the body, messing up the endocrine system.

So many people (GPs included) dismissed this finding… but why? Why do some people not understand that changing (or damaging – temporary or not) one aspect, let’s say one musical note, and the whole song goes out of sync!
So, whilst going through the 4 plus years to help my friends to create their family, we just plodded on, doing our best with my then “new song”.

Now that I’m 6 months passed my last ever pregnancy, I’m totally ready to get my song and dance back to exactly where it should be for me.

How? Taking back control over my internal control room (using self hypnosis etc), foods (hormone balancing clean foods, rather than hormone disturbing typical British/US diets, massages (Mizan Abdominal Massage, as well as full body massages) steam rooms to help clear the toxins in my body, avoiding hormone disrupting plastics and toiletries, but do you know what I consider absolutely crucial to all of the above. Stress relief and sleep!
You can do all of the above, but if you aren’t handling external stress very well, and not getting a good amount of sleep at the correct times, your facing an uphill battle.

So, right now, my personal goal is stress management.
I am a lone parent of four daughters. Two are home educated, two are in mainstream secondary education, I am the main carer, the provider, the housekeeper, the chef, the food shopper, the animal care provider, the peacekeeper, oh I could go on of course. Until my children leave home, and my responsibilities lighten up a little, then I will continue to have these stress triggers… but it’s how I handle them that matters most.

So, starting points for me:
1. Self hypnosis, meditation and mindfulness.
2. Keeping my consumed toxins to a minimum (cosmetics and toiletries very much included)
3. My beloved self care massage from the Mizan principles. Plus massage for lymphatic drainage whilst my body finds its new song and dance.
4. Regular sleep patterns so that my body knows what to expect.
5. Hormone balancing foods such cauliflower are incredible.
6. Herbal support.
7… the rest will fall into place as I walk this work in progress journey.
Importantly, rather than focusing on what isn’t right yet, I will keep looking at what has changed, and keep stepping forward. This is a beautiful new song.