Taking My Own Hormone Advice

The links below are good summaries of how often we’re exposed to pesticides and how pesticides affect us as endocrine disruptors, which are hormone-disrupting chemicals. Endocrine disruptors can negatively impact any organs affected by hormones, causing imbalances in the thyroid, slow metabolism, sex-hormone related cancers like breast cancer and prostate cancer, infertility, birth defects, developmental disorders and sexual development problems.

Often the small amounts of endocrine-disrupters we’re exposed to add up in different places like our cleaning products, make-up, pesticides and plastic materials that have entered our food chain, etc. And those combinations plus our own levels of stress can accumulate and cause problems for us.

In aquatic animals, who absorb more quickly than humans, studies show when they’re exposed to endocrine disrupting chemicals, they have lower levels of serotonin and the males have increased feminization. Some male frogs in the pesticide-filled run-off water from farms have multiple sets of babies. I watched a special about it on PBS and was shocked. Years later, Amazon’s The New Yorker docu-series did a follow-up on the scientist who was on the PBS special and they shared how the chemical companies were trying to discredit him because he made them look bad. I was so grateful that PBS and later, The New Yorker, were using their platforms to share important truth.

If you’re having any hormone-related problems, or you’re interested in long-term self-care in this way, eating organic gives us a less exposure to these chemicals. Using natural cleaners around the house like baking soda and vinegar and getting rid of chemical cleaners can help too. And learning how to regularly detox our bodies helps to clean out the inevitable intake of endocrine-disrupting chemicals.

I’ve been learning about these things for years, but have had a hard time taking actions and committing to a consistently cleaner lifestyle. I think it’s hard to do without therapy. They may seem unrelated, but I emotionally eat, so whenever I’m overwhelmed, the clean diet goes out the window. I tend to only take care of myself when I get in enough pain. And I seem to be able to walk around in pain for a decade or so before I reach my level of “enough”.

Luckily, I’ve been doing a lot of therapy. And it’s helping so much. My relationship with myself, and with food, and with Shane, and with my family, and with life in general, has changed for the better.

Last year, four loved ones passed away. I gave myself permission to comfort-eat. And I’m glad I did. But a blessing in disguise has arrived from it… I gave myself a little health problem.

I had an easy lady-cycle until I was 21. Then I became a vegetarian and ate a lot of soy, dairy, sugar and wheat for 6 six years. Then a nutritionist let me know my body doesn’t want soy, dairy, sugar or wheat. When I eliminate those things for about a month and a half, my cycle is easy again.

But when I don’t, all hell breaks loose. It’s been over a decade of monthly problems, but I seem to have amnesia about it each month and continue my behavior.

Grieve-eating was important for me to do. And now it’s given me the gift of more physical pain. Which is actually what I needed to finally bring my hormonal problems into the light and work to heal them. I’m grateful for a medical problem I’ve developed and hope it’s enough inspiration to slowly change my self-care habits over the next six months.

I’m also grateful for my past medical problems that have led me down an unplanned path of learning that so many health problems can heal. The hope and power in that knowledge is spectacular to me, and the slowness at which it’s possible and the honesty with oneself that it requires, keeps me connected to a vulnerability and groundedness that I adore, but would otherwise naturally avoid.

I tend to focus on telling others what to do, on “helping” by giving unsolicited advice to people who often aren’t interested in it (thus the unsolicited part!), and on hyper-researching as a way to numb out and never focus on myself. So thanks for letting me start this as some sort of PSA. I think I’m basically writing it for the one person who is actually asking for this help and advice… me. Ha.

I repeatedly return to focusing on myself through out each day. It’s not a habit for me. Trying to save everyone else is my habit. A friend of mine has been using the phrase “closed feedback loop” a lot and I like it. My closed feedback loop of thought and action used to circle around from focusing on others back to focusing on others. Now, at least sometimes, it starts with them, but ends with me. So I’m glad I did it again. Any way that I can remember to include myself is great, even if it’s messy and flailing. I just want to be patient with my growth. Slow and steady seems to be the only effective thing. And there is no race at all. (Inhales, exhales… )

Sending love and light to us all as we walk this journey of life!