Reclaiming “Hysteria”: Why Losing Control Might Actually Be Part of Healing.

A selection from John Henry Fuseli's The Nightmare, 1781

When was the last time you felt completely undone? Not slightly emotional, not mildly overwhelmed, but honestly, fully, wildly human?

So many of us spend our lives trying to hold it together. We work hard to stay composed, appropriate, reasonable, and “in control.” But what if the parts of us that feel chaotic, big, expressive, or emotional aren’t problems to fix… but something sacred we’ve forgotten how to honour?

The Troubled History of the Word “Hysteria”

The word hysteria has a long and complicated past — and most of it hasn’t been kind to women.

It comes from the Greek word “hystera,” meaning womb. For centuries, “hysteria” was used as a medical label for women who expressed strong emotions, sensitivity, intuition, or behaviour that didn’t fit societal expectations. Anxiety, grief, desire, empathy, overwhelm — instead of being understood as human experiences, they were pathologized.

What was actually happening?

Women who stepped outside restrictive social roles were often misunderstood or seen as threatening. Their natural emotional range didn’t fit the rigid, controlled structures surrounding marriage, religion, and gender norms. And so the label hysteria became a way to dismiss, shame, and control those expressions.

The tragedy goes deeper. When someone is confined or suppressed, their distress usually increases. Emotional overwhelm becomes louder when it isn’t allowed space to move. And historically, those heightened reactions were used as proof that women were unstable — reinforcing the very systems that caused the suffering in the first place.

Many of us still carry echoes of that conditioning today.

We fear being “too much.”We worry about seeming irrational.

We try to manage or mute our emotions so we appear acceptable.

And yet, what if our emotional expression isn’t a flaw, but a pathway back to ourselves?

The Power of Safe Emotional Release

There is profound wisdom in learning how to release energy, tears, rage, grief, joy, laughter, in safe, conscious ways.

This isn’t about losing control in destructive ways.It’s about allowing ourselves to feel honestly.

When we create healthy containers for expression; movement, breathwork, creativity, ritual, therapy, sacred community, something opens inside us. The fear around emotion softens.

The intensity begins to move rather than stagnate.

Paradoxically, the more we allow ourselves to feel, the less “out of control” we actually become.

We build emotional resilience. We grow self-trust. We loosen our attachment to outside approval. We deepen our relationship with mystery, spirit, and the unseen layers of life.

And in that softening, our true essence begins to shine through:

our humour our uniqueness our creativity our sensuality our artistry our aliveness

What If Nothing Was Ever Wrong With You?

Maybe hysteria was never about brokenness. Maybe it was about wildness.

About the parts of us that don’t fit into small boxes.

About the soul insisting it cannot, and will not — be domesticated.

Instead of suppressing these parts, we can reclaim them with care, grounding, and reverence.

Not chaos for its own sake. But emotional truth as a sacred practice.

Wild Power | Reclaiming the Feminine Rhythm

I’m not the only one speaking about the sacredness of emotional and cyclical expression. In their book Wild Power: Discover the Magic of Your Menstrual Cycle and Awaken the Feminine Path to Power, authors Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer founders of Red School, offer a profound re-visioning of what it means to live inside a cyclical body.

Their work reframes the menstrual cycle as a pathway to personal power, creativity, and self-trust, rather than something inconvenient to manage or suppress. They teach that we each move through “inner seasons” every month, a gentle, intelligent rhythm that mirrors nature itself.

Inner winter (menstruation) invites rest, reflection, and spiritual listening. Inner spring brings renewal and curiosity. Inner summer opens into radiance, expression, and connection. Inner autumn offers discernment, truth-telling, and emotional clarity.

Instead of seeing fluctuations in mood, energy, or sensitivity as “irrational” or “hysterical,” Wild Power invites us to view them as messages, essential intelligence from the body-soul interface. When we honour these shifts, rather than override them, something extraordinary happens: shame loosens, intuition strengthens, nervous systems soften, and we come into deeper relationship with life itself.

Your body is not a problem to control. It is a living oracle to collaborate with.

Pope and Hugo Wurlitzer remind us that what has been dismissed as “too emotional,” “too sensitive,” or “too much” is often the very doorway into sovereignty, authenticity, and feminine leadership.

The cycle becomes a teacher, one that guides us in setting boundaries, cultivating rest, honouring desire, and trusting our inner timing.

In this way, Wild Power acts as a beautiful counter-spell to the long legacy of hysteria.Where hysteria once labelled women as unstable or broken, Wild Power reframes cyclical experience as holy, intelligent, and deeply creative.

It’s not about perfection.It’s about relationship.

A relationship with the body. With mystery. With the feminine principle of life itself.

And when we reclaim that relationship, we reclaim our wildness not as chaos, but as a grounded, embodied source of wisdom.

An Invitation Into Playful Liberation

I believe healing asks us to become more whole, not more controlled. To integrate our softness and our storms. To meet our inner world with curiosity rather than fear.

And because I love creating spaces where emotional honesty is welcomed, I’m putting together an

experience designed to help you reconnect with your inner wildness, gently, consciously, and safely.

More details are coming soon.

Until then may you trust your feelings a little more. May you allow your truth to ripple through your body.And may you remember that your fullness has always been your birthright.

This is a beautiful article about the impact of female artists and Hysteria