Hormone Reset with Poornima Peri

MICHAEL J: Can you imagine a world where the pill bottles gather dust on your shelves and become relics of the past? You know, a society where we realize that the very answer to liberation from chronic disease may actually live within us. But, Poornima Peri is a health maven with an audacious mission to help women go medication-free by resetting their hormonal imbalances in just 87 days. 

Based out of Australia, she’s a certified practitioner in both the Energetic Breakthrough Method and Hormonal Balance. What sets her apart is her personal journey with various medical conditions. A turning point came when her mother was diagnosed with stage four cancer, and that drove Poornima to dive deep into research, get certified, and, most importantly, transform her own health. She managed to shed 30 kilos (66 pounds) and free herself from a life tied to medication. I definitely want to hear about that, and we’re going to talk about it today. She’s here to unlock the Pandora’s box of hormone health for all of us – and men that includes you, too! Hold on to your seats. You’re about to learn why life in its most vibrant form will be tied to hormonal reset. Here we go. 

POORNIMA: Thank you so much for having me, Michael. It’s truly an honor to be part of your podcast and share my expertise.

MICHAEL J: Welcome to the show! Let’s start from the very beginning. Share the moment when you realized that conventional medicine wasn’t the only answer to your health challenges.

POORNIMA: It was during my second pregnancy in 2015 when I conceived my second child, and then the routine blood tests that you have to do to ensure that everything is fine with the pregnancy showed that I had high TSH levels. TSH stands for thyroid stimulating hormone. So, it was then that I realized that, you know, if during the pregnancy there is this issue, the moment somebody hears of thyroid, at least I have heard a lot of times that once on thyroid medication, always on thyroid medication. So that said, being pregnant with such wonderful news and then being diagnosed with thyroid issues was a big no-no for me. But I had no choice but to take those pills to ensure that my pregnancy proceeded without any hurdles. So that’s the starting point, at least subconsciously, when I think about, you know, that this is not the place I want to be in. But I had no choice at that point in time. But that’s the trigger.

MICHAEL J: Wow, wow. What were the darkest days that you had because you had multiple things that were affecting you? And what was it that really got you into the mindset of gotta change?

POORNIMA: So, throughout the pregnancy, I did enjoy my entire pregnancy. I didn’t want to stress about taking pills because mentally, I had told myself that after pregnancy, I would be going off them. Now, I don’t know why I did that, but probably because I never liked taking medication. I thought I would find a way, or I was so innocent that I perceived that post-pregnancy my thyroid levels would come back to normal because it was only identified during pregnancy that they had risen. But after the pregnancy, what I realized was, or rather, what I did was, I actually stopped the medication without consulting my GP, my gynec.

I also fell into postpartum depression, which means I was crying for no reason. I still remember the day when my mom was about to leave for her place, and then I cried and asked her not to go. Now, I don’t know why I cried even to this day. I will not be able to say the reason, but I knew something was off in me. Then my mom asked, “Did you stop taking the thyroid medication? Did you get your numbers checked?” I said no, I haven’t gotten it checked. And then the numbers were really soaring high. This was a couple of months after delivery. So, the postpartum depression, along with what I was going through with my mood swings and my thyroid numbers, made me think that there has to be some way out. It cannot be that I have to be on medication for life.

Then came the ankylosing spondylitis, which, according to doctors, is an autoimmune disease. Diseases are classified as autoimmune when the medical fraternity cannot identify a reason behind them. So, yeah, I was put on steroids, and I think it was a complete hodgepodge of a journey that I had with thyroid issues, postpartum depression, ankylosing spondylitis, and the aches and pains that I was carrying in my body. I had to make a decision. Enough is enough, there has to be another way out. Let me tell you, I was not even in my early 30s, probably 30 or 31 back then when I was going through all of this. There was this fear of, “If I’m like this in my early 30s, what’s going to happen to me in my 40s and 50s, and later in life?”

MICHAEL J: So, I have a question for you. One of the things that you said is that you stopped taking your medication. Okay, and that was your own decision, not your doctor’s decision, right?

POORNIMA: Yes, I would say, “Never ever do that.” I did that, and let me put it this way, probably I did that and that is the reason today I’m also off medication. But otherwise, I would say that’s not the right way of handling things. It’s good to consult your GP, good to consult your gynecologist before you do that. It was an unconscious mistake on my side with the quest of wanting to see myself go off medication. So, not something that I’d recommend.

MICHAEL J: Did you go back on any of the medication after you stopped it? Or at some point, did you just say, “You know what, we’ve got to work on the hormones first, and then we’ll see what happens.”

POORNIMA: Yes. So, with all the drama that I was creating in my life, which included crying, not being able to take care of my second child, and feeling frustrated most of the time, I had to put myself back on medication. So, I was taking a high dosage of Tyrosine, 50 micrograms of tyrosine. And then I had decided that, you know, unless a doctor consciously tells me that I can bring myself out of it, I will not stop taking it.

So, probably I started working on understanding. I was talking to several people, which is something we do. I was Googling to identify if we can go off those pills. I was talking to people who were struggling with thyroid issues. And every time I was disappointed because the answer always was, “Once on thyroid medication, always on it.”

MICHAEL J: I have heard that so many times.

POORNIMA: Yes. And every time I heard it, Michael, I would be like, “Oh, my God, there has to be a way out. It cannot be possible that you want to get into it, you have to always take it.” And my quest has always been to identify.

MICHAEL J: Okay, so what actually made you look at hormones as an answer to all the problems that you were having? How did that happen?

POORNIMA: Probably, for me, my problems mattered. But, what mattered most or what actually allowed me to dive deep into hormones to understand why we have imbalances was my mom’s situation. So, my mom is a very healthy person who takes care of her diet, exercises, is not overweight, and has always been active throughout her life. She has taken care of us, raised us, and traveled 200 kilometers on a daily basis. I know it’s difficult for me to convert it into miles, but yeah, 200 kilometers every single day so that she wouldn’t have to stay somewhere else. We lived in another city, and she traveled up and down so that we could be with her. She did all of it.

One night, or I would actually call it an overnight, it was on the morning of January 9, 2019. I remember it so well because it was my eldest son’s birthday, his seventh birthday. The mood and the aura were all about celebrating, and then my dad broke the news of my mom’s MRI report, which didn’t sound good. When I say it didn’t sound good, he said there is a tumor. When you hear the word “tumor” mentally, you switch off because you perceive it to be cancerous for whatever reason. Unfortunately, in my mom’s case, it turned out to be true.

It was a malignant tumor, and we were also told that it wasn’t the origin of it. Long story short, when Mom was diagnosed, she was actually bedridden at that point in time because there was a tumor in her spine that was not allowing her to move. She had to be bedridden most of the time, and when she did walk, she could only get up for her basic necessities of life.

So, when that happened, I had just landed my first job in Australia. Like I said, it was a moment of celebration with my son’s seventh birthday and my first job in Australia, which I was supposed to start in a week’s time. On the other hand, my mom’s news broke. I had no choice, and I’m so glad that I had no choice. I made the decision to leave my first job and go back to be with my mom.

MICHAEL J: What really got you into the hormone part, though? I mean, that’s not the first thing I would think of usually. I would think of something like, you know, whatever kind of Eastern medicine is out there – meditation, yoga, exercise, herbs. How did you get into hormones?

POORNIMA: Yes. So, it’s because I go back to my mom’s elaborate study that the doctors had to do. Again, there is a lot of perception with cancer as well that we think when a person is diagnosed with cancer, they are immediately put on chemo, but not all need to go through chemo. My mom’s oncologist was very keen to understand where the root cause is, what type of cancer it is, and what treatment it needs. She was fortunate enough not to go through chemotherapy in the form of IVs; instead, she was put on medication. So, when that was done, we were looking at her estrogen and progesterone levels.

When we were identifying the type of cancer it is, we were looking at whether it’s ER positive or PR positive, and how it’s balanced, etc. That kind of drove me to understand what exactly estrogen is, what progesterone is, and what happens in our body. How does testosterone work in a woman’s body? So that’s the trigger for me to get into studying and understanding more about hormonal health.

MICHAEL J: And then when did you actually go on the internet and look into it? Did you search and talk to doctors? Was it because of the thyroid issues you were going through that you focused on hormones?

POORNIMA: So, thyroid issues, as well as hormones and COVID, were all a part of my mom’s health struggles. I was told it’s because of the hormones, estrogen and progesterone, and an imbalance in them. So, when that was told to me, of course, I went on the internet; that’s what most of us do. While I’m not someone who believes everything that’s on the internet, I choose what to believe. So, I think it’s a strength in me. I don’t allow the internet to control my thoughts. I pick things that resonate with me. While I do get scared after seeing my mom’s situation, I also love myself enough not to be controlled by what is being shown. But, my study and research started there to understand what exactly hormones are.

MICHAEL J: So, when you started at first, you were doing the hormone therapy for your mom. Is that right?

POORNIMA: Yes. So, Mom was going through hormone therapy and not chemotherapy. So that’s also a kind of, you know, revelation that not all cancers need to go through chemotherapy. It’s just a perception that I carried, at least. I don’t know, probably you might be aware of it, and our viewers might be aware of it, or there are several things if one gets diagnosed with cancer. But what I thought was, it’s just chemotherapy, that’s what I have heard and seen, etc.

So, when Mom was put on hormone therapy tablets, I was like, “Oh, wow, this is something very interesting. She doesn’t have to go through chemotherapy, and there is an alternate way of treating it.” So, what exactly is hormone therapy? What happens, and how does that therapy impact her hormones? I started studying that as well.

MICHAEL J: Okay, and so what were the things that you were seeing happening as the hormones were taken? Were they administered intravenously or by mouth? How were the hormones taken?

POORNIMA: It was taken by mouth, and it was one tablet at the same time every single day for Mom to get started with. So I was like, “Oh, my goodness. So, if medical medicine has advanced so much that we don’t really know much of it. We are not aware. And I think we are not aware because we don’t have to be upfront about it.” But like I said, there are so many therapies, and it was only then that I realized that there are so many therapies to treat cancer, and each cancer is looked at differently.

 It’s not just the chemo that we perceive as the solution for any sort of cancer. So, it was a pill that she was taking at the same time every single day, and that actually supported her alongside radiotherapy that she was going through. We were also exploring alternative forms such as vegetating under suit job, where you go through needle therapy, acupuncture, to be precise. These are all the methods that we tried; we didn’t stick to one particular thing. But these are also the treatments that we explored to help her with her tumor.

MICHAEL J: So, what was the thing that you actually saw her getting better with, I’m assuming, but you can tell me about that. And then did you decide to try it yourself? Is that what happened?

POORNIMA: Yes. So definitely, Mom was getting better with the treatment she was receiving. She went from being bedridden in January 2019 to starting to walk without any support in April, which was a significant success in itself. From there on, it has been on the positive scale. Within 18 months, she went into a state of remission medically, which means there were no active cancer cells in her body any longer. That’s a huge accomplishment.

Now, if someone asks me what helped her get into that state, one, it’s definitely her strong willpower. She’s a very, very strong woman, and I always think if I could have even 25% of what she has, I would be a different person. But yeah, that said, it’s her willpower, and I think the support system played a huge role. I was with her, taking care of everything that needed to be taken care of, taking her from one doctor to another, one therapy to another, being that friend, speaking to people, and asking them not to bother her. All of these also provided significant mental support for her.

So when we did all of that, there was a huge improvement. And as I mentioned earlier, the meditative practices that she engaged in to calm herself and her soul also started to heal her internally. It’s a combination of everything. I cannot pinpoint one particular thing and say that hormone therapy medication was the only reason. No, there are many people who have taken that and have not been able to sustain. I think it’s mainly her willpower coupled with hormone therapy, radiotherapy, the acupuncture I mentioned earlier, and the meditative practices she engaged in, and how she allowed herself to heal from within.

MICHAEL J: That’s amazing. So, at what point did you decide you wanted to try it yourself?

“

I realized that the major contributor to hormonal imbalances is the way we subject ourselves to stress.

POORNIMA: That was the trigger. I started to understand why imbalances happen. I mentioned earlier that she was very conscious of her diet and exercise, but that didn’t prevent her from being diagnosed with a life-threatening ailment. It made me dive deeper into understanding why any ailment can affect our bodies.

I realized that the major contributor to hormonal imbalances is the way we subject ourselves to stress. When cortisol, the stress hormone, dominates our bloodstream, other hormones like estrogen and progesterone are affected. This hormonal imbalance can lead to various health issues. So, at that point in time, as my mom started to see changes, I thought, “If she’s able to see improvements, how about working on myself?”

I was still taking thyroid medication and going through a lot of emotions while supporting my mom. My brother was there, but he had work commitments, so I was with Mom 24/7. I was going through a lot of emotions myself but couldn’t express them all in front of my mom. When I returned to Australia, six months from January to July, I began working on understanding what I could do for myself.

MICHAEL J: Gotcha. What was the first thing that you did do?

POORNIMA: Honestly, when I came back from India, where my mom lives, I went into depression. That’s because I had taken too much of a load on myself. So when I visited the GP over here, she said that I would be classified as clinically depressed and probably put on pills, antidepressants, if I didn’t bring myself out of it. At that point, all I knew was that I didn’t want another medication, and definitely not antidepressants.

So the first thing I did was I wasn’t working. Since I had let go of my first job, I had to look for another job when I came back. I told my husband that I would take some time; I wasn’t going to look for a job immediately. But first, I wanted to focus on my mental health. That’s when I started doing things I loved but hadn’t done in years. I started baking, walking in nature, and attending yoga classes. I walked every day, a total of six kilometers, and went to a yoga class every single day. I started enjoying the sound of birds chirping and did things I had never done before. This transformation helped me move from a state that was clinically classified as depressed to a person who started to live and enjoy life.

MICHAEL J: So, were you taking hormones at this point, or were you just understanding that life was better if you started exercising, walking, and thinking more about yourself? Is that what really kicked it off, or was it the actual hormones themselves?

POORNIMA: I think that’s what pulled me into it. When I started to see shifts, I aligned it with what I had studied about my mom’s situation, what she was going through, and why she was going through it. Throughout our childhood, she was always in a stressful situation. Remember, the 200 kilometers I mentioned she used to travel? She barely slept for three and a half to four hours every single day for a couple of years. Sleep plays such an important role for us to heal, burn fat, and recover.

So when I uncovered the reasons why my mom probably put herself in a place where she was diagnosed with stage four cancer, I knew what I had to avoid to prevent myself from being classified as clinically depressed or facing any other health issues. Being in nature, doing things I loved, shifting my perspective towards life, and enjoying the present made me happier.

This shift in my outlook on life also intrigued me to explore what else I could do. I circled back to the idea of reversing my thyroid issues and getting off the medication. While doing these activities and gradually seeing improvements, my numbers were gradually coming down, but I was still taking medication. So, I visited my GP and asked her what we could do about it. I had been on medication for a while, and she suggested that if I could manage it and bring my levels down, we could try taking it every other day and slowly reduce the dosage. However, she didn’t mention completely discontinuing it. But in my mind, I was determined to come off it.

MICHAEL J: At the same time, were you actually losing weight? If so, what were you doing? Were you following a specific diet, or was it due to the exercise or some other factors? What was causing you to lose weight during this time?

POORNIMA: Yes, so it was definitely a combination of factors. Walking six kilometers every single day played a huge role, and I was also doing yoga. I had also adopted different dietary patterns to help bring my weight down. During my mom’s illness, I was probably not at 90 kilos; I was a bit less, around 70 to 73 kilos. However, that was still not my ideal weight, especially considering that I was still on thyroid medication. Thyroid and weight are closely related, and I now know that if we work on thyroid, weight can naturally come down.

During that time, I focused on my weight by walking, doing yoga, and even Pilates. My weight was gradually decreasing, and my thyroid numbers were improving because I was happier and in a better state of being. I loved myself, was in joyful circumstances, and my mom was also recovering well, which made me feel proud and happy. All of these factors together, as a package, helped me reduce my weight and improve my thyroid numbers.

MICHAEL J: How much do you think happiness and exercise played a role in getting you and your mom back into good health? What do you believe is the absolute key to this transformation?

“

No matter how much exercise you do or how conscious you are about what you eat and how you eat, if your state of being is not consciously cultivated, all these efforts might only work superficially and not yield the desired results

that we desire and deserve.

POORNIMA: I would say it’s the state of being. No matter how much exercise you do or how conscious you are about what you eat and how you eat, if your state of being, which, in my case, is happiness and joy, is not consciously cultivated, all these efforts might only work superficially and not yield the desired results that we desire and deserve.

MICHAEL J: How do people get to that state that you got to, where you could lose the weight and get off the medication?

POORNIMA: It’s a conscious choice someone has to make; we will have to be aware of the different levels of consciousness that we put ourselves into. So if I have to give the audience a view, usually we are in only two levels of consciousness, which are “things happen to me, to me, to me.” Like when my mom’s situation came up, I was like, “Why does this have to happen to me at a time when I’m actually celebrating my new job? I have to get into it.”

But then the situation has come where I have no control, and it always happens to me on that level of consciousness that I put myself into, which was not supportive. It’s a victim consciousness, where I perceive that things happen to me. And then when I went to be with my mom, I thought, “Okay, now that I’m here, I will do everything by myself, right?” I did not care to ask for support. And even if people would come to support, I would be like, “You’re right, you’re working for my brother, he’s working. So you’re working, I will take care, I’m here, I will take care.” So, it’s about shouldering the entire thing by myself.

Since most of us are in these consciousness states, that is the reason most of the situations, diseases, and ailments happen to us. So, when I had put myself in a “by me” consciousness, what happened was I had taken so much load that after a certain stage, the elasticity of a rubber band can only be to a certain extent, right? So, I had gone to an extent where I had lost my elasticity and could no longer take it. And then while probably the elasticity of a rubber band cannot be rebuilt, I had to rebuild mine. And that’s when these are all from the energetic breakthrough method that I have allowed myself to study.

It’s based on the consciousness that you are in, and your state of being happens. The more we are in the “to me” consciousness, we are thinking about our things happening to us, and we get upset with anything that happens around us. In the “by me” consciousness, we again get upset because we think, “I have to do this; the government doesn’t do anything. I have to do that.” So, when you realize that, Michael, it’s easy for someone to then put themselves into a state that is the state of being of joy, happiness, love, and laughter.

MICHAEL J: What is the opposite of “things happen to me”? In other words, a lot of people are like, you know, “my car got wrecked today,” or “my dinner is burned,” or “I have to pick people up.” What’s the opposite of these things constantly happening to me? How do you get out of that state? And then, is it “things happen for me”? Is it “things happen against me”? Are these things just happening? What is it? How do you describe this state?

POORNIMA: Yes. Then you ask this question. The first thing that comes to mind is, you know, there’s a brilliant book by Mike Cerny. I’m not getting the full name of the person. The book is called, “The Art of Detachment.” So most of the time, we have a lot of attachments to everything, materialistic and non-materialistic, you know, everything for that matter, from a pet to a car, right? We attach ourselves to emotions, and we think everything is ours, right, Michael, a singer? So, when we kind of learn the art of detachment, he beautifully explains in one of his podcasts, where he speaks about being an observer of what happens in your life. It can be any situation. The moment you become an observer and observe things, you will know that things happen for a reason.

Now, if I give you my example, when it was my mom’s situation, when I had to let go of my first job, while I lovingly did it, but I also felt that it’s the first opportunity that I have got to work in Australia, and letting that go. I wasn’t sure if I would get anything else after I come back. But later, I realized that the opportunity which I let go actually allowed me to step into the Australian federal government as my first job, something that people dream and desire to get into, after ages of being in a country. I got that as my first job. I would not have known that then because I don’t know it’s something that’s coming later.

But now when I look at things, and if there is something that happens, for example, the car wreck that you just mentioned a couple of weeks earlier, we just hit the curb, and actually had a very minor crash, but it made the car look as if it was a major one because the airbags had all popped out open. And we were hurt because of the airbags, but not really hurt because of the crash. And now in such a circumstance, usually my husband and I would be like, “What the heck, why has this happened to us? Now what do we do? How do we take it forward?” But this time, rather, we were like, “Okay, we have been part of this, let’s be safe,” which is excellent. I’m so grateful that nothing has happened to me and my husband. And that said, we will stay as observers to understand what’s the next step. That also allows you to think with clarity, rather than creating confusion and putting yourself in a state of no value. You know, there is no clarity, and you get frustrated easily.

MICHAEL J: Gotcha. I’ve asked this question to a lot of people, and the answers are always illuminating. Let’s say that you are on stage, and there’s a microphone. You are onstage in a big stadium with 100,000 people, maybe even 200,000 people, and no matter what you say into that microphone, there are wires running to everyone’s brains, and they’re going to listen, believe, and act upon it. Whatever you say, it’s almost like mechanical hypnosis; they’re going to be under your influence. What do you say to those people? And what is your desire for people to learn from you?

POORNIMA: The first thing that I would do, and this comes very intuitively to me, is to have them place their feet on the ground, close their eyes, take a deep breath, and observe what’s happening over here. Clear all that out to be able to be present in the room for me to say what I would like to. Most of the time, we fill ourselves with hundreds and thousands of thoughts, and no matter what someone says, it’s difficult for people to get into that state of being. So, for them to be there, it’s about clearing everything; it’s the clutter in the mind that we have most of the time, and clearing that clutter to be in that state. Probably after that, it’s about anything that you say gets absorbed into the DNA.

MICHAEL J: Are you going to say anything to them? I don’t want to put words in your mouth. What is the message that you want to give them so that they all believe?

POORNIMA: Oh, I mean, I think it’s more about this message here. I would say it’s definitely related to health because that’s where I come from. Many of us perceive that we want several things in life, from good jobs to good cars, probably a good house, a good family, and good relationships. My strong belief is that once they put themselves into that state of influence, I allow them to put themselves into that state. The thought that I would want to imbibe into that DNA would be if there is no health, it does not matter how much of anything else you have, because if that goes inside, I think people know what to do.

About Our Guest

Poornima Peri struggled with thyroid, postpartum depression, ankylosing spondylitis, and plantar fasciitis for years, and suffered the downsides of taking steroids to relieve pain caused by hormonal imbalances. Her mission is to teach women they deserve to live life medication-free, so they can do more for themselves and their loved ones. Get her book Hormone Reset on Amazon! Find more about Poornima and read her full bio here. 

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