Situationship to Soulmate
This podcast is for YOU if: You're feeling stuck in the cycle of hurtful and harmful dating and intimacy experiences. If you feel like no matter how hard you try, you just can't stop making the same mistakes over and over again in your romantic relationships. If you are over "hookup culture" and "situationships", but seem to still attract people who can only give you that level of commitment. If all the people you date and sleep with have one thing in common: they inevitably leave you feeling hurt, confused, and betrayed.
Situationship to Soulmate
How our Menstrual Cycle Impacts Sex, Dating, and Relationships
Ever wondered how understanding the menstrual cycle could be the secret key to unlocking the patterns in your mood, energy levels, and sex drive? This episode is your ultimate guide to decoding the four phases of the menstrual cycle and their profound effects on your daily life. From the low energy and low libido during the menstrual phase, to the peak energy and libido levels of ovulation, and the mood swings and low libido of the luteal phase, our menstrual cycle impacts intimacy in many ways. Drawing from personal experiences and professional insights as a therapist-in-training, Shelly demystifies how our hormonal changes impact relationships and sexual health.
Learn how heightened libido and increased lubrication during ovulation can spice up your intimate moments and why period sex might actually alleviate cramps. We also underscore the importance of communication with your partner, especially during the luteal phase, when PMS or PMDD could amplify anxiety and relationship doubts. Fluctuating libido is perfectly normal, and self-compassion is key.
Want to learn more about your menstrual cycle and tracking your period and ovulation? Check out my free guide: https://shamelesslyshelly.thinkific.com/products/digital_downloads/period-cycle-tracking-guide
Follow me on TikTok and Instagram @shamelesslyshelly + @situationshiptosoulmate
if you are someone who just thinks of your menstrual cycle as you're either on your period or you're not on your period, I think this episode is going to be really helpful for you, not only in educating you about what our menstrual cycle actually is, but also with learning about how our menstrual cycle and the four different phases because yes, there are actually four phases of the menstrual cycle it's not just when you're on your period or when you're not on your period how those phases affect dating and relationships and sex. I personally believe that this topic should not be so stigmatized or like taboo. If you found me from TikTok, you already know this, because I talk about topics on TikTok that are not talked about, a lot like sex education and preventing pregnancy and all that fun stuff. So over the past year or so, I have gotten really interested in learning more about what our menstrual cycle actually is, and this is partially because I started really noticing how much my menstrual cycle affects me, particularly when it comes to my mood and my energy levels. So I am someone who can really really feel pretty much the moment when I am done ovulating and I've entered my luteal phase, which, if you're hearing the word luteal phase and you're like what the heck is that? Don't worry, I'm about to explain it all to you. But yeah, my kind of interest in this area started because I started noticing like, oh, this, like week or week and a half of each month where I kind of feel a little bit more down, where I just don't feel motivated at all to do anything, could that be related to my menstrual cycle? So I kind of started learning more about it and realized, yes, it actually is related to that.
Speaker 1:And the other reason why I started becoming more interested in this topic was because I'm a therapist in training, so I'm completing my master's program in mental health counseling and I'm currently interning at a sex and relationship private practice therapy practice and a lot of the clients that I work with are women or people who menstruate. And I noticed differences in my clients depending on where they were in their cycle. So my client would come in and be complaining about, you know, just feeling more anxiety or feeling more depression or just not feeling in the mood to have sex, and almost every time they would kind of mention offhand like I mean, my period's about to start, but I don't know if that's part of it or not. So I really started digging into this because I was like you know what, not only to help myself, but also to help my clients. I feel like there's a lot more to this whole menstrual cycle thing than a lot of us were ever taught.
Speaker 1:So the first phase that we'll talk about is obviously the most well-known. It's called our menstrual phase, when we are bleeding, when we're on our period, and this phase is the beginning of our cycle. So we can think of our cycle in terms of days. The total days of our cycle is the days between the first day of our period and the first day of our next period. So day one of our cycle is the first day that your period starts, and if you use like a period tracking app or anything, it'll kind of tell you. So that's what those numbers mean. If you're looking at your app and it's saying that you are on day 14 of your cycle, that means that 14 days ago is when your period started. So yeah, like I said, the menstrual phase is obviously the most well known.
Speaker 1:It's the one that people tend to think of when they think of a menstrual cycle, and some people describe it as kind of our inner winter, so like when you're on your period. You are probably not going to feel like being as social. You're going to have lower energy in general. You're going to probably have lower libido. You might not be feeling as likely to have sex, especially at the beginning, like the first day or two of your period. Obviously, everyone's different. Some people still do feel kind of higher libido during their period.
Speaker 1:This can sometimes be because you're going into your follicular phase. Follicular phase technically starts when your period starts, but sometimes it's easier to think of it as starting right after your period ends. But either way, your follicular phase is when your energy is starting to increase. So towards the end of your period you should be feeling your energy increasing a little bit. You should be feeling more like yourself. So you know a lot of us those of us who have like pretty severe PMS symptoms, which is like premenstrual symptoms, so the things that you feel right before your period starts a lot of us will feel a lot better once our period starts, especially after the first day or two when we maybe don't have as like heavy of bleeding or cramps. So our follicular phase we will, especially at the second half of or like the end of our follicular phase, we'll start having higher libido, so we might be more in the mood for sex. We have higher energy usually, and this is because estrogen is starting to peak, so the hormone estrogen is rising in our bodies and also oxytocin is also increasing oxytocin some people call it the love hormone. So around the middle of your cycle, if you have a typical 28 day cycle, like again after your period's over and leading into the ovulation phase, which is the next phase you are kind of feeling higher energy, maybe higher mood, higher libido, things like that, and that is because of oxytocin and estrogen rising.
Speaker 1:The follicular phase goes into ovulation. Ovulation is the third phase and it's probably the second most commonly known phase of the cycle, because ovulation is when you ovulate, you release an egg to potentially be fertilized by sperm, so this is the time when you can get pregnant. So, like I said, estrogen and oxytocin both are at their highest peak at the end of the follicular phase and during ovulation, and this causes higher libido. And one interesting fact about this that I think is really cool is that biologically our bodies are programmed to try to conceive, to try to make a baby. So that's also part of why we might feel higher libido. We might feel more in the mood to have sex during ovulation or leading up to ovulation, because our body is trying to get us pregnant, because the only time when we can get pregnant is in the five days before ovulation the day of ovulation because actual ovulation only lasts for 24 hours, fun fact and then maybe one day after ovulation, so there's like seven days total that we kind of consider our ovulation window or our fertile window or our ovulation week, and during those days your body is literally trying to help you get pregnant. So that's part of why you might feel hornier during that time. So, again, if you're tracking your cycle using an app, or even if you're just looking at a calendar and tracking it, that way you can kind of see that the middle part of your cycle you'll probably be feeling your best.
Speaker 1:Everything is kind of at its peak, the least enjoyable phase of our cycle for most of us, if not all of us. So the luteal phase is like the seven to 10 days usually before our period starts. So this is when ovulation is done and our bodies are basically preparing for implantation to either happen or not happen. Implantation happens about 10 days after ovulation. So during the luteal phase, our hormones are kind of going all over the place. Progesterone is higher, the hormone progesterone, and that is actually the hormone that's the most likely to affect libido. So because our progesterone levels are increasing, we are more likely to have a decrease in libido. So we're more likely to feel like we don't feel like having sex once ovulation is over in that week leading up to our period, and you also might notice like a lower mood, more anxiety, lower energy, and all of this can also obviously contribute to libido.
Speaker 1:I do want to say that, although it is normal for us to go through these different hormonal changes and feel differently in different phases of our cycle, like I've been talking about, technically, if our hormones are balanced, if we're kind of at our peak health, we should not have super, super intense PMS symptoms. So if you are experiencing like really severe mood swings or really really painful periods, like really painful cramps or really heavy bleeding, where you're bleeding through like a pad or a tampon within an hour, for example, or if your periods are lasting longer than about seven days, those are all some signs that your period would be considered irregular or that your cycle would be considered irregular, and we don't need to just suffer through that Like. I think that a lot of times, unfortunately, a lot of doctors will say things to women like, well, that's just how it is. Or yep, there's nothing we can do about that. Things to women like, well, that's just how it is. Or yep, there's nothing we can do about that, which is kind of insane when you think about it, because this is literally something that happens once a month, like, or every 28 days, or however long your cycle is like, for our entire life, up until we either get pregnant or we go through menopause. Right, like this is not just like, oh, like once a year. I'm experiencing this. It's like.
Speaker 1:I know I've heard a lot of other people say this, but I truly believe like if people assigned male at birth were, if they went through what we go through with our cycles, there would absolutely be more resources and more people would be talking about it, more doctors would take us seriously. Unfortunately, there is this difference in how women and men are treated in the medical field, and I could do a whole other episode about that because it makes me very angry, but I just wanted to make that caveat that if you're listening to this and your takeaway is like okay. So it's totally normal that like once a month, for a week or more, I just feel like complete shit and I like can't get out of bed or I have, you know, terrible mood swings or blah blah. While that is not uncommon, I would not say that that is normal, in that you should try to get help for that. Like there are ways to improve your PMS symptoms, to improve how you feel on your period, and there's a lot of things you can do that are pretty simple changes in your lifestyle, for example. I know it sucks, I have struggled with this myself, but consistent exercise can be really really good for regulating our cycles, and doing some sort of more laid-back forms of exercise, like just going on a walk or doing some yoga when you're in your luteal phase or on your period, can be really really helpful. I know it's really really tempting to just lay in bed and do nothing and, trust me, I do that many months when I'm approaching my period or on my period. But I have noticed a difference when I do kind of encourage myself to like even if it's literally just a 15 minute walk, like just get up, move your body a little bit or do like a really gentle yoga practice. It really does help.
Speaker 1:Okay, so let's talk a little bit more about how our menstrual cycle affects sex. Like I've already mentioned, we are more likely to have higher libido during our follicular and ovulation phase of our cycle and lower libido during the luteal phase and our menstrual phase. But there's a few other things that are affected that I think are interesting. So one is lubrication. So not only do most people feel a higher libido around ovulation, but your body actually produces more natural lubrication. So you might notice more discharge or just being naturally more wet down there around ovulation, and this obviously can help to make penetrative sex more enjoyable. But it also is what we call fertile cervical mucus, which is what helps the sperm to be carried to fertilize the egg. So that's kind of why we have more lubrication during ovulation, because, again, like I've already said, our body is basically trying to get us pregnant at all times. Not to freak you out, but yeah, it's just interesting to know.
Speaker 1:If you notice that sex physically feels better during ovulation, it could be because you are naturally producing more lubrication. Now, like I said, a lot of women might feel lower libido during their period, but that does not apply for everyone. Some women actually might feel a higher sex drive and that is thought to be, at least in part because you know some people might think it sounds gross, but period blight can provide a natural lubrication as well, so it might feel physically better during that time. And a fun fact that I learned a few years ago is that having an orgasm can actually help relieve period cramps. Something about the muscles contracting and that happens during an orgasm actually helps your period cramps go away. So that's another fun perk of period sex. That might also make some people more horny during their period because they know that that might actually feel good for them.
Speaker 1:Like I just went over, our follicular phase and our ovulation phase are the parts of our cycle when we're going to be more horny, we're going to have higher libido, we're going to be more likely to want to have sex. So I guess you can think of this in two different ways. If you're dating, right, if you're going on dates, you might want to think about the fact that you might be more likely to have sex with someone that you don't know as well during these phases of your cycle. And there's nothing wrong with that if that's something that you enjoy, but it's just something to keep in mind. You are more likely to be like, oh my god, this person is amazing, I want to be with them forever, blah, blah. Because all of those the oxytocin, the feel-good hormones are at a peak within you.
Speaker 1:So it's kind of like a good thing and a bad thing to plan dates during this time, because you got to just know that for lack of a better way to say it it could just be your hormones that are telling you that you really like this person. But, on the other hand, if you're going on dates during your luteal phase, you might be more likely to like cut someone off or to say like, oh, I'm not interested in this person and maybe it's just your luteal phase and it's not that you don't actually like them. I think it's a good idea to make sure that you've gone on dates with the person for at least one full cycle before you make any sort of judgments or assumptions about how you feel about them or even how they feel about you, because, again, if you're going on a date during your luteal phase, you'd probably be more likely to have higher anxiety, to be kind of reading into things that you don't need to be reading into, to be like you know, oh, it seems like maybe they don't like me anymore, when really that might not be the case. So, yeah, basically just think about how your menstrual cycle affects your dating life and then, if you're in a relationship, don't be afraid to talk about this stuff with your partner. Even if you're in a relationship, don't be afraid to talk about this stuff with your partner. Even if you're in a relationship with someone who does not have a menstrual cycle and you feel like, oh, my partner is not going to understand, because you know they don't experience the same things that I do, you'd be surprised how much they can understand. My boyfriend is awesome at being aware of when I'm in my luteal phase and like have lower energy, I'm more likely to be irritated or annoyed at him. I might pick a really stupid fight and he at first will be confused and then he'll be like, oh yeah, you're in your luteal phase, like it's a real thing. So just talk to your partner about it, explain to them you know how, how it affects you, how our menstrual cycles affect these different areas of our life.
Speaker 1:And one thing I wanted to mention, kind of similar to what I said about if you're dating. But if you're in a relationship and you have really severe PMS or you might even have something called PMDD, which is I'll probably talk about more in another episode. But it's which is I'll probably talk about more in another episode, but it's basically a more intense and severe version of PMS you might be more likely to feel anxious or to feel less trust even towards your partner during your luteal phase, and this is something I've heard from a lot of women that they will suddenly feel like, oh my God, I need to break up with him. Or oh, what if our relationship isn't gonna last? Or they start having all these doubts that they don't have at any other time and they realize it's because the luteal phase again causes you to have higher levels of anxiety and that definitely can affect your relationship. So I think again, talking to your partner and saying like, hey, I'm gonna do what I need to do to try to work on this. You know, maybe you're going to work with a therapist or you're going to look into different supplements or different things you can try in your lifestyle, like exercise or different routines you can change to help you during your luteal phase, which I definitely recommend. But I also think it's totally fair and again, there's no shame in saying like, hey, I might come across a little bit more insecure or like higher anxiety. I might be like I might just not seem like myself during my luteal phase. And it's nothing against you, you're not doing anything wrong, you're not causing me to feel this way, there's nothing wrong in our relationship. It's literally just my body and that damn progesterone and the different things that are happening that cause me to act this way or feel this way. And also I want to say, please do not shame yourself for not being in the mood all month long.
Speaker 1:This is something that I hear a lot from women that I work with, like they feel really frustrated and like there's something wrong with them when they don't feel horny all the time, you know, or their partner feels like they're not having sex as much as they want to be having sex. And what I often will ask my clients is like do you notice any correlation with your menstrual cycle and your levels of your libido? You know, and sometimes they don't, but a lot of times they do. A lot of times they'll come in for a session and be like really not feeling great feeling really kind of frustrated and defeated and feeling like I just never feel like having sex and blah, blah and it's so. You know, my relationship sucks and all this stuff.
Speaker 1:And then they'll almost always say, like I mean my period starting in. And then they'll almost always say, like I mean my period starting in, like a in a few days, but like I don't know if that's why I'm feeling this way and I'm like, yes, that is why you're feeling that way, or at least it's, at the very least it's, it's a part of why you're feeling that way. Right, like it might not be the entire reason. Maybe your relationship also sucks. I'm not going to judge that, because that's not my job as a therapist, but, like I said, I just really want to encourage you to not shame yourself, to not feel like there's something wrong with you for not being horny every single day of the month, because the fact is that men operate on a 24-hour cycle, whereas we operate on a 28-day or however long our cycle is. So men can wake up every single morning and theoretically be just as horny as they were the day before. Women or people who have a menstrual cycle we do not wake up every single day feeling the same way we felt yesterday or a week ago or two weeks ago because of how much our menstrual cycle affects us. I want to encourage all of you out there to not feel like there's something wrong with you for not being horny every day.
Speaker 1:I hope this episode was helpful to you. I'm definitely planning on talking more about these subjects. I also talk a lot about it on my TikTok, shamelesslyshelly, and my Instagram, which is also shamelesslyshelly, so I would love for you to follow me on there, if you haven't already, although I'm sure a lot of you have found this podcast through my TikTok and I appreciate you supporting me. And, yeah, I'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 1:Let me know what questions you have about this subject. Feel free to message me on TikTok or Instagram. You can also send me an email at shamelesslyshelly, at gmailcom, and I would love to hear from you there as well. And, yeah, I definitely plan to talk about this more, like I said, and I'm also going to start bringing in more subjects around sex to this episode or to this podcast because, again, as you know, if you follow me on TikTok, I talk about sex on that channel a lot, and so I want to kind of bring that more into this podcast. So if you follow me on TikTok and you are wanting me to talk about some of the subjects that I talk about on TikTok more on this podcast, I would love for you to let me know. So, again, just send me a message or send me an email and, yeah, looking forward to creating more content that's helpful for you all.
