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Welcome to the Period Power podcast. I’m your host Maisie Hill menstrual health expert, acupuncturist, certified life coach and author of Period Power. I’m on a mission to help you get your cycle working for you so that you can use it to get what you want out of life. Are you ready? Let’s go.

Hello, hello my lovely ones. How are you? It’s a gorgeous sunny day here in Margate and it’s also cycle day 15 for me. I’m pretty sure I ovulated yesterday because this morning I noticed that I’m more aware of my personal space or probably a more accurate way of describing it would be I’m aware of my need for personal space. And for me that’s always a strong indicator that I’ve moved into the second half of my cycle, the luteal phase.

Been an interesting week or so for me because last week I had my Covid vaccine and it went really well. I had mine in the evening and I just felt normal, slept well, woke-up the next day feeling great and just had a dead arm really. But then as I was taking my son to school I started to feel a bit different, a bit tired, a bit weird. And basically I just ended up giving myself two days off because I just needed to rest and take it easy. I didn’t feel bad, I just want to say, I didn’t feel bad but I just didn’t feel completely normal, just tired and a bit dizzy and like I wasn’t fully in the world.

And I’m quite impressed with that as a vaccine response because I’m very sensitive to these things. And I just wanted to take a moment to share that with you all because I’ve had lots of DMs and things over in Instagram from some of you who are concerned about the vaccine. But as I’ve shared on last week’s episode I wasn’t concerned or worried beforehand. And nothing about my experience since actually having it has concerned me at all.

Something else that happened last week that I want to share with you today because it involved something that I’ve been working on for a while in my own life. And then this thing happened last week that gave me an opportunity to work on it again. Actually let me take a moment, before we get into this I want to highlight this because so often I see my clients criticising themselves because they have a thought pattern or a belief that just keeps popping up, but it’s going to, that’s how things go.

We’re talking often about things that have been ingrained in you for decades. So why are you expecting that it will magically disappear? Sometimes thought work does work like that for sure. You can just become aware that you’re thinking certain thoughts and you realise how unhelpful they are and the impact they’re having on your life. And you just start thinking another way and it can be that simple.

But a lot of the time these thoughts pop up again or they appear in different areas of your life. You kind of address it one area and then it shows up in another area and requires more work or a different level of work. That’s okay, if you notice that happening to you it’s okay. You’re just human. Don’t judge or criticise yourself for having a human brain because this is true for all of us including me as I will share with you today. So don’t make it a problem.

Now, I spoke about what I’m going to be sharing with you today last month in The Flow Collective, my membership because our theme for the month was criticism. And so many members have been talking about this one sentence that I taught them and how helpful it’s been for them. So I want to share it with you because I know it’s going to help you as well. But before I share this tip with you that’s going to make such a difference to your life.

Before I share it with you I want to share a situation that I found myself in this past week because it’s just such a fantastic illustration of doing this work. And I love being transparent with you about all the things that I’ve worked on and I’m sometimes still working on. Like I said, this is ongoing for all of us. And I’m going to give myself a pat on the back because I can really see the difference in my response to this thing that happened compared to say a couple of years ago. So here’s what happened.

I was on Instagram, as you do, and a post about my book, Perimenopause Power appeared in my feed. And the post wasn’t from someone that I follow but there are some hashtags related to the book that I follow which is why when you all post about the book and use those hashtags sometimes I see your post and I pop up and say hi in the comments. Now, most of the posts that I see are about how much it’s helped people and how you’re so glad that you bought the book etc, etc. But my books aren’t for everyone.

It’s just not possible for anyone to write a book that everyone loves. And that was certainly never my intention or aim. There’s always going to be haters, whoever you are and whatever you do, that’s just how it goes. There’s always haters, that’s okay.

So this particular post appeared on my feed and it was a post in which the person pointed out a couple of things that they liked about the book. And then they talked about the things that they didn’t like. And as I was reading it I could feel my nervous system being activated. I could feel this adrenalin being released. I could feel a surge of energy and my muscles were tensing up, my posture really shifted. I kind of went up and forwards. And my heart was beating faster. I think my jaw tensed up as well.

My body was definitely gearing up for a fight because it was under the impression that I was in danger, like I was being threatened, or accused, or something along those lines. And that is 100% what my brain would have told me. Well, it actually did tell me that but I was able to rein myself in because I’ve got so practiced at thought work. And by that I mean just being aware of my mind and choosing to think differently.

It meant that this didn’t turn into this huge big thing because in the past I would have stewed over this for days, probably a more accurate timeline would have been weeks or months if I’m honest. And I would have just got stuck in the stress cycle and just really ruminated on what someone said about me. Just thinking about all the ways that I could possibly respond and I probably would have lost sleep over it as well. This is not a great situation to be in. But the reality of this situation was just that there’s someone in my phone basically saying words.

So I want to say that again because this is my first tip when dealing with something along these lines. Is to just leave the drama out of how you’re describing the situation. And just describe what’s going on in a really boring way. So my way of doing that was just to think this is someone in my phone saying words. It’s such a great thought to use any time someone is saying something in an email, or a text, or a comment under a post.

When you find your nervous system gearing up for a fight just remind your body this is words on a screen that isn’t a tiger in the room trying to attack you. Sometimes the body needs that reminder. So when it came to this post, I can’t actually remember the things that this person had said. Again, I think that’s a sign of huge progress for me because if this was a couple of years ago those words would be tattooed on my brain forever because I’d be thinking about them obsessively.

But the gist of it was that she had this idea of me or my intention behind the book that I felt was incorrect. So I don’t remember what she said but I remember thinking how has she come to this conclusion about me? I just felt shocked, and amazed, and intrigued as well that someone could read my book and arrive where she had.

And also the thing about books is that they’re only part of someone’s thinking as in the author’s thinking. There’s always things that are left out. And there are things that are in my brain that there’s just no way you could include them all in the book. And it’s also just not possible to get all those details out of my brain. And also when you write a book it’s actually unfinished. This is how I like to think of books that they’re unfinished in that it’s completed by the person reading it and their thoughts.

The same goes for all of you listening to me now. You’ll all be having a different experience of this podcast depending on the thoughts that you are having as you listen. So you’re completing it. So the idea that someone had arrived at a very different conclusion did bother me. I’ll be honest, it did bother me but not to the degree that it would have in the past. It just kind of gently activated my nervous system. So here’s what I did. I read through each of her points and thought is this true? Can I find any way in which this is true? And is there a way that this applies to me or my work somehow?

And I’ve shared before I think that sometimes someone will say something about me and I can find a way in which it applies. So I take that and I learn from it and I grow from it. But with this post I worked my way through her list of points and thought, no, these are not true. And the tendency then which I’m sure you’ll be familiar with is to argue back, to defend and let the other person know just how wrong they are.

And from an evolutionary point of view this makes so much sense because in the past if someone accused you of something like stealing a sheep, then that would have meant being excluded from your social group at a point in history when we were very much reliant on social cohesion in order to survive. And so you would go to great lengths to avoid being thrown out of your community.

So if we feel accused it’s normal to want to defend yourself because your nervous system is like shit, we’ve got to let everyone know that this is not true so that I can stay safe and be in this community. My survival depends on proving this person wrong. So of course your nervous system is going to be activated under these circumstances. It’s literally trying to save you.

That being said there’s a quote I love and it’s something a woman called Byron Katie said and it’s that “Self-defence is the first act of war.” When my coach shared that quote with me last year it blew my mind because my tendency is to feel misunderstood. And my brain loves to defend me even if all those words just only exist in my head. And that’s where the defending is going on. So this is something that I’ve worked on a lot and I’m still working on because it comes up from time to time.

And with this post I spotted that I was feeling a bit defensive, that my nervous system was gearing up for a fight. So I just reminded my body that I was safe. That these were just words on a screen and I really suspect that no matter what I’d said if I was going to say something, that this person would keep their thoughts and their feelings about me. I don’t think my commenting in any way would have been wise. And my impression was that they were quite invested in their thoughts about me.

But I do like to assume good intent especially when it comes to online interactions. And just to be really clear with you all, this person didn’t tag me. She probably had no idea I would end up reading it. I don’t know. Maybe she would have used different words. Had she considered that I would? Maybe not, maybe she was having a crap day, maybe not. We have no idea.

In all likelihood she probably wanted to help other people and protect them from my book because she had a bunch of thoughts about me and my book, which means she feels she needs to take action and warn people about it. That’s okay. It took me five minutes to get over the initial adrenalin pumping and then probably another half hour to get my nervous system to just fully stand down. And then another hour or so to get my brain to the place where those words that I read on the screen were truly okay for me.

And yes in that process I did message my book agent and I messaged a friend because guess what? When we’re in a stress response we like to seek out other humans. But it wasn’t because I was angry. I just wanted to share it. In the past I would have gone to anger for sure. But on this occasion I could just let them be wrong about me.

And that my friends, is what I want to share with you, that you can let people be wrong about you. You don’t have to justify, or explain, or defend yourself, you can just let them be wrong about you and move on, even your romantic partner. I remind myself of this with Paul on a regular basis; it’s really improved our relationship.

And in the end, coming back to the post, I just thought this is going to be such a cool thing to share about on the podcast. And in that moment I felt grateful to this person, genuinely appreciative because she allowed me to do this work again at a deeper level. And to recognise and celebrate the progress that I have made. And it also resulted in me coming up with an idea to share with you on the podcast.

So that’s it for today my friends. It’s a short and powerful one because this is such a great teaching to apply. And I hope it gives you the mental relief that it’s provided me because it’s so freeing to stop giving a shit about what other people think about you and to realise that it is really okay for people to be wrong about you. Have a great week. I’ll catch you next time.

Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of the Period Power Podcast. If you enjoyed learning how to make your cycle work for you, head over to maisiehill.com for more.