Reclaim Your Identity Beyond PMDD
Has PMDD left you feeling like you don’t recognize yourself? In this episode, I share how you can reconnect with who you are at your core and show how you can live a life in line with who you want to be, even with PMDD.
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Have you ever felt like PMDD has thrown your sense of self into chaos? It's not uncommon, especially when PMDD disrupts our lives and prevents us from being the person we once knew. PMDD can alter the course of our lives–sometimes dramatically–and it can make us feel unrecognizable to ourselves.
I recently came across some valuable insights from mindfulness teachers Shamash Alidina and David Treleaven, that resonated with me in a BIG way. So, in this episode, I reflect on some of their teachings on identity, ego, and values, and how they can apply to the identity crisis we can experience in a life with PMDD.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
How reframing your identity in terms of underlying values, can give you a broader guide for your life, allowing you to honor your identity and values, even during PMDD's toughest moments.
How mindfulness can help you separate yourself from your struggles with PMDD.
How ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Training) can help you expand your sense of self, so that you don’t feel like you’ve lost yourself, or become unrecognizable, when PMDD throws you a curveball.
I’ll also teach you an exercise for turning your sense of identity around, so that you can move from pinning your identity to what you do (which might be limited by PMDD) and instead shape your identity around the values that are important to you and what you want your life to look like.
When I did this exercise I found more openness and spaciousness in my life and discovered that I am still me, at the core, no matter my capacity for a specific job or activity. Even on the toughest PMDD days, I'm still me.
And you are still you!
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Title: Reclaim Your Identity Beyond PMDD
Episode number: 7
Date: October 27, 2023
Solo episode: Diane is the only speaker
EXCERPT (00:00)
I suddenly had this really broad guide for my life, rather than a restrictive box I had to fit into. And by understanding my identity more in terms of these values and by letting go of all that pressure, it's easier to not fuse myself to my struggles with PMDD.
INTRO (00:25)
If you want to learn how you can live better with PMDD, this podcast was created for you. This is Mindfulness for PMDD with Diane. I'm Diane and I'm a registered dietitian and lactation consultant. I'm also a mom, a PMDD warrior, and a trauma-informed mindfulness teacher, and this is where I discuss topics related to PMDD through the lens of mindfulness and meditation and where I share all about how mindfulness has gotten me to a place of greater peace and acceptance with my PMDD. I also chat with people who have helped and inspired me along the way, so they can share their wisdom with you too. So let's get started.
SAFETY NOTE / DISCLAIMER (01:17)
This podcast is not a substitute for psychological therapy or medical advice. Please take care when listening to this podcast, as some may find certain words or subjects triggering or difficult to hear. Take only what serves you and leave the rest behind.
WHEN PMDD MAKES YOU FEEL LIKE A STRANGER IN YOUR OWN LIFE (01:34)
Hello, friends, and welcome to Mindfulness for PMDD with Diane. I'm Diane, and as I record this, I am day 17. Today I am mostly just feeling mild cognitive symptoms — my focus feels a little bit less, and maybe I'm a little bit more clumsy.
I was running errands and I kind of just went into autopilot, got there, got inside, before I realized it totally wasn't where I was meaning to go. And it made a difference because I was going to get prescriptions, which were not at the grocery store that I went to. Then I was navigating to somewhere else for another errand and just completely — I don't know, I can't even say that I, like, misread the directions or misheard the directions. I just, kind of, went rogue and went on my own, which would have been fine if I was going in the right direction or knew what I was doing, but I didn't and had to re-route. Just a few funny little things like that today.
But you know what? That's, kind of, the worst that it is today, and that is great, because physically my body feels good and emotionally my mood feels good. Whereas this past weekend — so as I record this it is Wednesday — this past weekend was Labor Day weekend here in the States, and I was, oh, just a mess. I was experiencing extreme lethargy, to the point that my limbs just felt so heavy and, like, they required so much energy to move. Doing just normal household daily tasks was really taxing and was making my body really tired. It wasn't like a fatigue, or an exhaustion, where I felt like I needed to go to sleep. This was a full body weakness, and then it also came with a lot of brain fog. So the cognitive symptoms were actually worse a few days ago and now today I'm actually in a pretty good place.
Man, I don't know if it was maybe a blessing in disguise that I had some really horrific days over the long weekend when no one had to be at school or work and we really didn't have any big plans. I guess it's a good thing. But at the same time, it, kind of, meant that we just didn't do too much. I just wonder if maybe we would have taken advantage of the weekend more. But here's the thing: I was completely incapable of doing anything. What I needed was to rest and take care of myself, and that's what I did and that's what I gave myself, and that's a good thing. My family was fine. I think we watched a movie and my husband and my son watched some Star Wars series that they like, and I think we played a game. So it was a good time.
But, man, when I have a really, really bad set of symptoms, it still can catch me by surprise to this day. Does that happen to any of you? Like you know the luteal phase is coming, you know that these symptoms are coming, and sometimes you can still be blown away by the intensity of them and how badly you feel. I would love to know if you guys can relate. So anyway, that's day 17, and I'm just going to be grateful that I feel so good today and just enjoy today, because maybe tomorrow I won't feel so good.
PMDD, IDENTITY, AND THE CRISIS OF BECOMING SOMEONE YOU DON'T RECOGNIZE (06:43)
So today I want to talk about PMDD and identity — and, more specifically, PMDD and the idea of an identity crisis. I developed PMDD in 2018. I was diagnosed in 2019. Just prior to that, in 2017, I became a mom and simultaneously developed PTSD. So it's no wonder to me really that over the past several years, there have been many times when I felt like I was having an identity crisis. And the reason I have often referred to it as an identity crisis is because my experience has been that PMDD has often prevented me from being the person I thought I was, or from doing the things I had planned to do with my life — and has prevented me from having my life look how I had planned, or how I had expected my life to look, or how I'd known my life to look previously.
THE MINDFULNESS TEACHER WHO CHANGED HOW I THINK ABOUT WHO I AM (08:10)
So recently I was listening to the podcast of Shamash Alidina, who is a mindfulness teacher and a writer and who coaches other mindfulness teachers — and I believe he was actually my mindfulness teacher's instructor, or one of them. And it was actually a few different episodes that I listened to where he talked about identity and ego and values and this idea of a transcendent self or an observing self. And it really resonated with me in a big way.
What Shamash was describing, well, it was really two things — or I took away from it two main ideas. So one is: Shamash said there is research to suggest that when we can get clear on our values, it can not only make our lives better and more meaningful, but it can really help us to step out of a sense of ego and self. And he said that a value is not something you can finish, it's something you bring into everything that you do. And that knowing our values can help us be more flexible about our sense of who we are.
Shamash also talked about the transcendent self and the idea of thinking of yourself as the observer or the witness of your experiences — including the challenging ones — rather than, sort of, fusing yourself to those experiences and allowing them to be who you are.
WHAT IS ACT — AND WHY IT'S DIFFERENT FROM OTHER MINDFULNESS APPROACHES (10:19)
This concept of the transcendent self is one of the skills or pillars of something called ACT, which is acceptance and commitment therapy, or acceptance and commitment training. So ACT is a type of mindfulness-based training that aims to guide the person practicing it to develop what is referred to as the psychological flexibility to face life's challenges with acceptance — and find a richer, more meaningful life in the presence of life's challenges as a result — and with the commitment to taking mindful action in honor of our values.
So the objective of ACT is to guide us to a more value-based life, a richer and more meaningful life. And it's not about taking away the bad thoughts and feelings — it's about learning to live with them in a way that we can feel better about, in a way that serves us, in a way that helps us feel better in our life. And so in ACT there are these six pillars, or what's called core processes, that help develop that psychological flexibility. I won't get into that today, but the point is this idea of the transcendent self is one of those pillars.
Now, while ACT is used as a psychological therapy, it can also have a wide variety of applications, in which case it can also be referred to as acceptance and commitment training. So, while I'm not a psychologist or a therapist, I am fascinated by ACT and have had a lot of exposure to the principles of ACT and how they can be incorporated into mindfulness practice. I have experienced using ACT in my own mindfulness practice and I'm currently taking a course on ACT — so you'll be hearing more about ACT from me over time.
THE EXERCISE THAT HELPED ME STOP DEFINING MYSELF BY WHAT PMDD TAKES AWAY (13:20)
Okay, so back to this idea of the transcendent self. As Shamash explains it, the transcendent self is also about being more flexible about your sense of who you are — which is one of those things that just really jumped out at me: being more flexible about your sense of who you are, and being able to move your attention towards what's meaningful to you. The transcendent self is about being clearer about your values and what makes your life worth living and what kind of life do you want to live.
Okay, so that's what I, kind of, took away from some of these podcasts by Shamash. Around the same time, I was listening to David Treleaven. David Treleaven has written and talked a great deal about trauma-informed mindfulness, and he was actually doing what he called at the time a final podcast episode — where he was saying that he had come to a natural break in his trauma-informed mindfulness work, where he, sort of, felt like he had said everything he wanted to say and had done what he set out to do, and was going to move on to the next thing. But he wasn't quite sure what the next thing was. And so he mentioned this idea of the midlife crisis, but he said that actually, maybe he was having a midlife opening — or was trying to see it as a midlife opening, opening himself up to whatever is next for him. And that one just, kind of, hit me like a ton of bricks as well.
And so I took all of this and I started reflecting on these ideas of values, and not fusing yourself to your challenges or to what you do, but rather what values you want to build your life around. And I also thought about this idea of opening up and broadening your sense of self. And I decided to do a little exercise.
So I made a list of words that I would normally use to describe my identity. Here's what I came up with: dancer, dietitian, lactation consultant, athlete, organized and reliable, anxious, and mental illness, afraid to show flaws and afraid to get into trouble and be seen negatively. And I looked at that and I thought, wow, that is a lot of pressure to put on myself, right? Because the first handful are about things I do — which can change, or circumstances may change, and they have. And then the second set are almost pressuring me to not be a human being, if I can avoid it.
So then I made a second list. I looked at each of the items on my original list and I wondered: how can I shift these to be more about the underlying values? So why are these things important to me? What drew me to these activities and professional roles? What is actually important to me in my interactions with others? And here's what I came up with: movement, health, connection, curiosity, adventure, kindness, being true to myself, being compassionate with myself and with others. And congruence — meaning showing up just as myself, exactly as I am, and being open about that with others, so that my inside experience matches up with my outward expression. And I also wrote function over perfection.
HOW LIVING YOUR VALUES MAKES PMDD LESS ABLE TO STEAL WHO YOU ARE (18:22)
And I realized that this new list — and, by the way, there's a lot more reflecting I can do and will do to understand my values better — but I immediately realized that this new way of viewing myself offered me more possibilities and more openness and spaciousness for my life. I can carry all of these things through my life, day in and day out, regardless of what my capacity is for doing a particular job or a particular activity, and I can carry all these things with me every day without any pressure.
And so, by reframing my identity and sense of self into its underlying values, I suddenly had this really broad guide for my life, rather than a restrictive box I had to fit into. And by understanding my identity more in terms of these values, and by letting go of all that pressure, it's easier to not fuse myself to my struggles with PMDD — and it's easier to honor my identity, my values. No matter how much I'm struggling on any given day, and no matter if I'm all brain foggy or bound to my sofa — I'm still me. I'm still me.
So there's an idea for you. If you'd like to give it a try — if you feel like PMDD has been sending you into a bit of an identity crisis, or if you're feeling fused to your PMDD, like, I guess this is me now, I am PMDD and PMDD is my life — you can try reframing the way you would normally describe yourself into the values underlying those descriptors.
You can also play around with reframing your sense of identity based on how you'd like to show up in the world, using adverbs that end in -ly. So you might like to approach life curiously, kindly, courageously, compassionately. I don't know why I'm using all the C-sounds and Kuh-words, but you get the point. And then, if you like and if you feel ready, you can take it a step further and explore how you can bring those values into your life.
So I get myself a video dance class once a month to honor my values for movement and health. This podcast allows me to connect, to be honest and put myself out there, and hopefully to help others — thereby honoring my values for connection, kindness, truth, compassion, and congruence. So what can you do to honor your values and bring them into your life in a practical way, even in a really little way?
I think that putting our values into practice in our lives — no matter how small those practices are — can help us reconnect with ourselves and help us feel good in ourselves, because we are acknowledging and practicing what is important to us. So there you go. If you decide to try it, please let me know how it goes and what you think of the exercise. If you can relate to this idea of feeling like your experience with PMDD has led you to feel like you're having an identity crisis, please feel free to share that as well.
OUTRO (22:57)
I would love to hear from you. I'm on Instagram @mindfulnessforpmdd. Thank you so much for sharing this time with me today. I appreciate you for being here with me, but even more I seriously appreciate that you are showing up for yourself. And that's it. I'll catch you in the next one. Bye.
Thank you so much for listening. If you liked the show, please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. For links to everything mentioned in this episode, you can check out the show notes, and you can find me, Diane DeJesus, on Instagram @mindfulnessforpmdd. Now I invite you to pause, take a breath, and look around.
