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Hey, this is Alexis Haines and welcome to Recovering from Reality,

where I illuminate the messy and magical path of coming home to yourself.

Whether you're on the road to recovery, seeking self-care techniques for surviving the

capitalist machine, or just need a moment to remember that you're not alone in your loneliness,

we're serving up the ultimate truth. Your challenges don't define you, how you deal with them does.

So are you ready to recover from reality?

It's hard to believe that I've been doing solo episodes with you guys for nearly three years

on this podcast. It's also hard to believe that this is going to be my last one,

and I feel like it's better sweet for me. I feel sad because I love this podcast,

and I love this community, but I also feel I feel like it's time for me to step back for a little

bit and to realize my own limitations. I'm someone who will push and push and push until they burn

out, and I'm really trying to not do that anymore. And instead, listen to my body and listen to the

cues that it's giving me that it's burnt out and overstressed. And I'm going to tell you what

those are right now. One, my period cycles are all over the place, and I'm having really bad

PMS. This is not normal. I know oftentimes doctors write us off, and they're like, it's no big deal

if your period's coming every 34, 36 days, or if you skip a period here or there, or if you have

clots, or if you have PMS symptoms, you know, this is just the way that it is. And for me, this is

not normal. And I don't really think that it's normal for any of us personally. Prior to January,

I was having regular cycles like clockwork with no PMS symptoms and cycles that were

moderate to late and only lasted four days. That is like the antithesis of a perfect healthy cycle.

And that was even with my PCOS diagnosis. So stress reduction regularly working out,

...