You're Allowed To Miss Her
Last week I talked about how hard seasons hit harder in peri. This week I want to talk about a different kind of hard.
My Peri Journey
The kind that isn't about a specific event.
The kind that shows up when you're brushing your teeth and catch your reflection and don't quite recognize the woman looking back.
The kind where you're not sad about any one thing. You're sad about a version of you that used to exist and doesn't anymore.
I hear this from women all the time. "I don't know who I am anymore." "I used to be so on top of things." "I used to have energy." "I used to feel like myself." "Where did she go?"
That's grief. Not the grief of losing someone else. The grief of losing who you used to be.
And in peri, it's real. It's biological. And it's happening to millions of women who don't have the language for it yet.
For me, this grief has doubled up recently. I'm grieving my dad. And I'm grieving the version of myself who existed before all of this too. The one who thought her dad would be here for so much more. The one who thought this year would look different. The one who hadn't yet had to figure out how to hold love and loss at the same time.
Both of those women existed. And now, neither of them do.
That doesn't mean the version of you (and me) that comes next is worse. It just means she's different. And the grief for who you were is not a sign that you're stuck. It's actually the first sign that you're paying attention.
The Biology Bit - Dr. Flora's Notes:
Picture it. You go through your day doing all the things you used to do. But something feels off. You're not you. You're a version of you wearing a costume that doesn't quite fit anymore.
Here's what's happening. Your hormones don't just affect your physical body. They shape how you think, how you feel, how you show up, how you respond, how you perceive.
Estrogen influences dopamine (motivation, pleasure). Progesterone influences GABA (calm). When both start shifting in peri, the woman you experience yourself as literally changes. Not because you did anything wrong. Because your neurochemistry rewrote parts of the script.
That is not you falling apart. That is your identity going through a rewrite you didn't sign up for.
(Yeah. That's exactly why I named my program REwritten.)
This Week's Reset
One small thing I want you to do this week:
Write down three things that were true about you five years ago that are still true today.
The habit: Grab a piece of paper or your notes app. List three things about who you are that haven't changed. Not accomplishments. Not roles. Traits. Values. Instincts.
The stuff underneath the shifting hormones. You might be surprised how much of the essential you is still there, even when the surface feels unrecognizable.
Read it back to yourself. Come back to it when the "who am I anymore" feeling hits hard.
Hit reply and tell me one thing on your list. I'll share one from mine.
Ready to Get Yourself Back?
If the "I don't feel like myself" question is the one keeping you up at night, that's exactly the work of REwritten.
We don't just help you manage peri symptoms. We help you meet the woman you're becoming without losing the woman you've always been.
REwritten is my 6-month 1:1 coaching program for women who are ready to rewrite this chapter with intention instead of just enduring it.
P.S. Next week we're getting practical. The holidays are around the corner and if you don't prep your peri body AND your peri mind now, this season will find every crack. Let's get ahead of it together.
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