When Cycle Awareness Becomes a Cage: The Shadow Side of Menstrual Protocols

We’re living through a powerful collective remembering:

Of our rhythms.

Of our blood.

Of the wisdom encoded in the menstrual cycle.

For many of us, learning about the four phases of the cycle—follicular, ovulatory, luteal, and menstrual has been profoundly healing.

It’s helped us reclaim what we were never taught.

It’s validated why we feel so different week to week.

It’s allowed us to honour our bodies rather than push against them.

But like anything sacred that gets filtered through systems of productivity and performance… there’s a shadow side.

When the Map Becomes a Script

I remember reading all the things that said ovulation was supposed to be the time I’d feel my most confident, sexual, radiant, magnetic.

And so I expected that.

I planned for that.

I tried to feel that.

But instead month after month I found that my anxiety peaked around ovulation.

My energy felt scattered.

My inner critic got louder.

And it made me question myself.

I’d think: What’s wrong with me? Why aren’t I thriving in this phase like I’m “supposed to”?

But nothing was wrong with me.

What was wrong was the belief that I had to match the map.

We Can’t Protocol Our Way into Presence

Even the most beautiful frameworks when applied rigidly can become another way to bypass what’s real.

Just because the luteal phase is often labelled as “sensitive” or “introverted” doesn’t mean it always is.

I’ve had moments in my luteal phase where I’ve felt the most connected, the most alive, even the most sexual.

And I’ve had times when my bleed feels grounding and sacred… and other times when it brings up deep grief.

The point is: no protocol can account for your lived experience.

No chart can replace your intuition.

No calendar can speak for the conversation happening between your body and your soul.

The Same Is True for Microdosing Protocols

This isn’t just about cycle awareness.

I see the same pattern with microdosing.

People often come in wanting the perfect protocol:

Tell me what days to dose. What stack to take. What dose is ideal. How long I should go for. What the outcome will be.

And while structure can be supportive at first, it can also become a crutch or even a new form of control.

I’ve worked with women who felt anxious on dose days because it wasn’t “working” the way they expected.

Others who continued taking doses they didn’t need, because the calendar told them to.

And many who overrode their body’s clear signals in order to stay “on protocol.”

But microdosing like menstruation is not meant to be rigid. It’s meant to be relational.

It’s a dialogue. A co-creative process. A tuning-in, not a ticking-off.

And when we let go of the idea that healing follows a formula, we create space for something more honest. More intuitive. More alive.

The Real Invitation: Relationship, Not Rigidity

Whether you’re tracking your cycle or working with plant medicine, the deeper invitation is the same:

✨ Slow down

✨ Listen first

✨ Trust what’s here—even if it doesn’t match the map

Our cycles and our healing paths are not machines.

They don’t run on fixed timelines or predictable outputs.

They pulse, spiral, shift, and surprise us.

And when we stop trying to control that and start building relationship with it we step into a very different kind of power.

You don’t have to feel what the books say you “should.”

You don’t have to microdose how someone else told you to.

You get to meet your body where she is.

That’s the real work.

And the real freedom.