When Your Menstrual Cramps Are Actually Emotional Stagnation
For years, I thought menstrual cramps and PMS were just part of being a woman. We normalize the use of heating pads, ibuprofen, and other interventions like hormonal treatments. It's what we are taught to do. I tried many natural approaches with some modest relief, but the discomfort for me kept returning, like clockwork, as it does for many.
As a Naturopathic Doctor and Acupuncturist, it took me years to realize my PMS symptoms – and for many of my patients – weren't just a hormone problem. The root cause, for me, was actually unresolved emotional energy – both mine and others’ in my system. My own emotion was rage – so deeply suppressed that I didn't even know it was there, stuck in my body. As I tuned into my own energy field, I found my own suppressed energy, and I also found that I was holding onto other people’s energies.
True healing requires working beyond labs—at the energetic level, restoring flow and regulation to your nervous system and energy field.
When Rage Became My Medicine
I used to think I was Zen. Calm. Spiritually attuned. I didn’t get angry.
Actually, I was disconnected from my anger, not knowing it was there. It was suppressed, buried deep in my meridians and organs, especially lodged in my reproductive system.
During a Qi Gong practice one day in which I was tuning into the energy of my womb and reproductive system, I noticed a feeling of anger—something that I hadn't expected. Not just irritation, but full-body, primal rage. The kind that brought me to my knees. The kind I'd been programmed not to feel, to suppress my entire life.
I also noticed that I was not clear or sovereign in my energy. I was connected to other’s energy. As I tuned in, I could sense that I was carrying ancestral, familial, and relational energies that weren’t my own.
I thought I had been doing my healing work, only to realize I had more work to do.
Now that I had awareness of the emotions and energies present in my energetic system, I could let it safely move.
I did more Qi Gong.
I yelled into pillows. I yelled loudly when alone in my car.
I did meditations and cord cutting practices.
I danced wildly, stomped my feet, and eventually found my way to a Rage Cage where I could break things safely.
I gave my anger permission to exist, to be felt, to move through me rather than stay trapped inside.
I intentionally released energy that wasn’t mine. At first I judged myself for being a little nuts. Then I felt more free and uninhibited. Happier. Sovereign. Empowered.
As one of my teachers says: “If you can feel it, you can heal it.”
As I worked with the energies and emotions in my body, deeper healing —emotionally, physically, and energetically—began.
My menstrual cramps and PMS disappeared.
My cycles became more regular.
I went on to have a healthy pregnancy and gave birth to my second son.
My libido returned—something I hadn't even realized had diminished.
The transformation went far deeper than my reproductive health. Releasing anger unraveled trauma bonds I didn't know I was carrying. It deepened healing in my relationships. It changed the entire landscape of my life.
Your Reproductive System Is Speaking an Emotional Language
In Chinese medicine, emotions aren't abstract concepts floating around in your mind. They live in your body, flowing through acupuncture meridians like rivers of energy.
The liver and gallbladder meridians hold anger. But your reproductive system carries something even more complex—relational energy, ancestral patterns, unprocessed grief and shame, survival instinct, creativity, and life force power.
When emotions like anger, grief, or shame get repressed, they don't just disappear. They lodge themselves in your tissues. For many women, that storage space is the womb and reproductive system. And when emotional energy gets stuck, it can show up as:
Painful menstrual cramps
Irregular or painful cycles
Changes to the uterus, such as fibroids (often diagnosed as “blood stagnation” in TCM)
Fertility struggles that medicine can't quite explain
Changes in libido that feel disconnected from desire
A sense that something is "off" but you can't name it
Your body is trying to tell you something. The pain isn't random. It's communication.
The Problem Western Medicine Misses
When you go to a doctor with period problems, the conversation typically goes straight to hormones. Birth control. Maybe a diagnosis of endometriosis or PCOS. And yes, sometimes hormones are part of the picture.
But what gets overlooked:
Many menstrual issues have roots in suppressed emotions and blocked energetic flow.
Your reproductive system functions on energy—life force, creative power, sexual vitality. When that energy can't flow freely because it's clogged with unprocessed anger, shame, or relational wounds, your body has to express that blockage somehow.
Often, it expresses it through pain.
I'm not saying hormones don't matter. I'm saying they're not the whole story.
When I released anger and external energies through intentional practices like Qi Gong, movement, safe outlets—my energy flow restored itself. My body didn't need to hold onto the pain anymore because the emotional energy finally had somewhere to go.
Anger Isn't the Enemy
Our culture gets anger wrong. We've been taught that anger is bad. Dangerous. Unfeminine. Something to be controlled, suppressed, smiled over.
So, we stuff it down. We swallow it. We hold it in our bellies, our throats, our wombs. And then we wonder why our bodies hurt.
But anger isn't bad. Neither is grief. Neither is shame. These are normal human emotions that need healthy movement and safe release. When we give them space to exist and express themselves safely, they become doorways to healing.
Especially for the reproductive system.
Your womb isn't just an organ. It's a creative center and deeply complex and mysterious container of remembrance—personal, ancestral and collective. It’s a place where ancestral patterns, life force, collective consciousness and personal experiences converge. When you move the emotions stuck there—when you let yourself feel what you've been taught not to feel—you give your body permission to heal, and you also unleash your creative life force energy.
A Different Way to Understand Your Pain
What if your menstrual problems aren't a life sentence? What if they're not a hormonal imbalance you're simply stuck with?
What if your body is asking—sometimes begging—for emotional release?
You don't have to rage in a Rage Cage like I did (though I highly recommend it). But you need to find ways to let stuck emotions move. That might look like:
Qi Gong or other energy practices that help emotions flow—watch this 3-minute video where I demonstrate two simple techniques for moving anger out of your body
Acupuncture to restore energetic flow and release stored emotions from the body
Energy clearing practices, like those in my free energy protection guide for empaths
Using your voice—singing, yelling, speaking truths you've held back
Movement that feels cathartic—dancing, stomping, intense exercise
Talk therapy or healing work
Your body is wise. It's been holding what you couldn't process in the moment. But it doesn't want to hold it forever.
When you move the emotions that are stuck, you give your body—and your reproductive system—permission to heal. Not just to manage symptoms, but to truly restore flow, vitality, and the creative life force that is your birthright.
Your menstrual cramps might be trying to tell you something far more important than "take another ibuprofen." They might be inviting you to address your emotional burdens.
Originally published on LinkedIn on October 16, 2025.
