One morning in November 2015,
I stood in my kitchen in North Vancouver, Canada
My hands were shaking, my chest tight with anger, as I threw the pills into the trash.
Now, as I write this, I recognize that moment was perhaps the first quiet step toward unconditioning from a system that had failed me over and over again.
{Scroll down to see the Posture Reset Series schedule on Insight Timer}
As a woman, if your skin breaks out, if your cycle is irregular, if you have painful periods and cysts in your ovaries you go to the doctor, take the pills, and say thank you.
That’s what I did at seventeen.
The doctor told me it was genetic. He told me birth control was the solution, the only one. He told me I’d probably struggle to get pregnant someday. He told me to stay on the pills as long as I was bleeding.So I did for the majority of my 20s.
And for years, I watched every woman around me do the same.
But my body… my body kept saying no.
Until, I began bleeding every day for about a year!
Every month, my GP handed me a different pill and said, “Try this one. Maybe this time it’ll work.”
I felt miserable, with no energy, had severe depressive episodes that I could barely get out of bed.
And then came the day they suggested antidepressants for my symptoms, the symptoms that I knew were from me bleeding for an entire year.
The next morning, as I went into the kitchen to take another pill, I had a moment and I asked myself: What is the point of me taking this? These are making me feel terrible. And I’m still bleeding.
So I made my decision to stop taking them!
{Please know: I’m not suggesting you should do the same, this is simply my lived experience. And I know, for many, it’s not as easy as just letting the pills go!}
I didn’t know what would come next, but I knew I couldn’t keep walking the same path.
And this was the beginning of a long journey full of trials and errors.
Looking back, these five chapters shaped my healing journey. In this week’s YouTube video, I’ll dive deeper into each one:
Rockbottom (2013-2015): A full year of bleeding! Exhaustion, depression and frustration with the conventional medical system that kept offering me the same quick fixes that never truly addressed the root cause.
Explorations (2015-2018): Trying countless alternative medicine avenues including Chinese medicine, naturopathy, homeopathy, energy healing, and more… only to keep hitting walls and feeling defeated. And my skin was at its worst, but unfortunately, I don’t have a photo from that time.
Breakthrough (2018-2020): Finally finding the right functional medicine practitioner in November 2018 who ran an in-depth hormonal panel and, at last, pinpointed what my body actually needed. With the right supplements (listed in the video), I began releasing excess estrogen, nourishing my body to produce progesterone again, and regulating my sleep.
Plateau (2020-2021): Feeling worlds better, yet still experiencing moments of skin flare-ups, hormonal hiccups, and a lack of trust in whether or not I could maintain this without supplementation and a lingering fear of stopping.
Coming home to my body: (2021-2023): Coming off supplements, discovering conscious connected breath-work (resources listed in Youtube Description) and somatic work, which opened a whole new chapter of healing and allowed me to process the psychosomatic layers of PCOS and reclaiming my relationship with my womanhood.
And if you want to go deeper and explore your body’s story, take this quiz to see what patterns show up for you!
The way we hold ourselves matters. Not just because of how it looks. But because it shapes how we live, how we relate, and what we’re capable of imagining. Let your body speak. Let it interrupt the collective war and offer you a new way of being entirely.
Client’s Unconditioning ↓
If you feel called to explore working with me to re-pattern your body, regulate your nervous system, and restore your power, book an alignment call here: https://tidycal.com/hedishah/alignment-call
Offerings↓ ↓
4-Week Posture Reset:
Join me for the second week of the 4-week posture reset series on Insight Timer, focusing on different joints and body parts each week: https://insighttimer.com/hedishah/events.
Claiming feminine resilience:
You know those topics that live deep in your bones? This is one of those and I’m so excited to be speaking at this Linkedin event hosted by
end of this month, if the topic resonates, would love to see you there. Join here: https://www.linkedin.com/events/claimingfeminineresilience7345865435172487168/theater/
Thank you for joining me on the path of unconditioning,
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Hedi Shah
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👁️ Bodyworker & Mindfulness Teacher
🌊 Teaching change makers to uncondition their bodies, nervous systems, and voices from systems built to keep them small so they can move, speak, and live with sovereign power.
📲 Website | Youtube | LinkedIn | Insight Timer