Psych 101: A Beginner's Guide To Interpersonal Psychic Etiquette and Ethics
Personal Psychic Patterns
Women, Hormones, and Specifically Female Patterns
I realize that medical science has yet to confirm or validate the existence of what we are calling psychic abilities, and there is no known physical mechanism by which they can be measured or tested. Based on personal experience, I suspect that there is indeed some sort of physical component that will some day be discovered. I believe this specifically because of empirical evidence and personal experience linking the adult female monthly hormonal cycle to expression of psychic ability. In layman's terms, if you are a woman, there will almost certainly be a pattern to how your abilities are expressed. To an extent, this is out of your control, however, knowledge and awareness of the pattern can allow you to compensate for this, or at least be aware of what is going on and plan accordingly.
A typical female pattern is as follows.
Ovulation
At or near ovulation, a woman's ability to project psychically is increased. Her range is extended; she can reach farther (geographically speaking); she can reach people who are normally not sensitive to her. The functional implication is this. Many women, if not all, are more sexually ... interested and interesting at this time. A woman tends to unwittingly send off, well, sort of psychic pheromones. This can make a woman vulnerable to the types of psychic predators described above.
Please note that increasing your ability to "send" or "project" does not necessarily reduce your ability to "receive." If a psychic sexual predator (consciously or not) senses your receptiveness at this time, they can heighten the sense of sexual awareness, and feed it back to you, creating a kind of feedback loop that breaks only when the man achieves orgasm. A woman's orgasm is more diffuse than a man's and does not actually break the awareness in the same way. That the sense of heightened sexual awareness is suddenly broken, without the woman actually achieving her own satisfaction, is one of the clearest signs of a psychic "loop" rather than a genuine mutual attraction.
Menses
Like PMS (pre-menstrual syndrome), this timing of this experience may vary from woman to woman. This may happen as your period approaches, as it begins, or as it peaks. Please be aware that for some women, the actual tapering off of one's period can blur seamlessly into ovulation. Likewise, for some women, the PMS and related sensitivities may occur just before the menses begin, just as the menses begin, or just after the menses begin. Look for this pattern to help you predict what change to expect and when to expect a change.
When a woman is at this point in her menstrual cycle, she tends to express, in some way, whatever has been the dominate stress of the previous month. If it has been a pretty good month, she may feel pretty strong, and there may be no particular evidence of anything out of the normal order. The H.A.L.T. acronym becomes important here again. If a woman has been dealing acutely with any of the H.A.L.T. issues, her boundaries may become more rigid that usual or more diffuse than usual, or may blur for a particular and different type of psychic sensing than normally experienced. Dieting can make a difference here. This may be the ONLY time that some women are psychically sensitive. If so, it is entirely likely that they will require more space than usual in relationships.
If psychic sensitivity at the time of your menses is becoming a problem, interfering with other aspects of your life, make a particular effort to make absolutely sure that as your menses approach you are adequately nourished and well-rested. I cannot overemphasize the importance of this. Remember that being grounded helps strengthen your personal barriers.
Pregnancy
Again, this will vary depending on the woman and the child. If the child is also strongly psychic, there may be a blurring of boundaries and the mother may sense the presence and development of the child. Depending on the level of sensitivity, this may reassure or disturb the mother-to-be. Another option is that the child may have very strong psychic barriers and the mother may feel almost pushed out of her own body, or at least that part of her body. Don't fight the child -- you can't win, they don't understand what is happening and you can't really discuss it with them. Try to accept the change, even if it is uncomfortable. It is not unlikely that this may differ from pregnancy to pregnancy. Don't expect that each pregnancy will be similar.
Again, if hormones are a part of a woman's psychic experience, then the changing hormones of pregnancy may cause a change. The type of change may be similar to puberty in that there are a lot of changes and shifting hormone levels. It can be like riding a roller coaster, or for some woman pregnancy may actually shut down their sensitivity.
Postpartum
You can probably guess what is coming in this section. Again, hormonal fluctuations, no predictable pattern. If the child is psychic, they can actually help to stabilize the mother at this time, and close physical contact between the mother and child is unlikely to cause harm. One thing to watch for is if the mother appears to be or feels she is losing herself in the child. There are differences of opinion about how to handle this. The greatest risk is with a very psychic mother and a very psychic child, when the latter is in some significant health risk. If the child dies, the mother may not be able to find her own self again.
Puberty
For some people, both male and female, puberty can bring on an increased awareness of their psychic abilities. For both genders and for both psychic types (receptive/projective), hormonal changes and the resulting emotional intensity can heighten a person's psychic awareness. This can be threatening and disturbing at a time which is already prone to emotionally vulnerability and hypersensitivity. For female adolescents, this vulnerability and heightened sensitivity is compounded by the unpredictability of their hormone cycle, since it will not have yet stabilized into a predictable pattern. Once the pattern is established, try to figure out what it is. Forewarned is forearmed.
Menopause
I don't yet have any personal experience with this. If there is a real link between the female hormonal cycle, it would make sense for menopause to make a difference (duh!). My best guess would be that during menopause the erratic cycle would make life more difficult, since it would be almost impossible to predict when sensitivity might peak or ebb. In this, it would be somewhat like the unstable pattern and vulnerability experienced during puberty. I'd also hazard a guess that the cyclical pattern would even out after the end of menopause. If you know a man who is in touch with his psychic abilities, you could ask him what his pattern is like, and see if the information is at all helpful. I have heard that for some women, the end of menopause, along with the leveling of sensitivity, may bring a new level -- either higher or lower than previously. If your abilities had a clear beginning during puberty, menopause may bring a clear ending or strong tapering off.
