EP 318 The Mystical Journey of Conception | Kelly Meehan

On today’s episode of The Wholesome Fertility Podcast, Kelly Meehan of @spiritbabymedium discusses her new book,'Notes from a Spirit Baby Medium,' and explores the themes of intuition, spirit baby communication, and the importance of community in the healing process. She emphasizes the connection between past experiences and intuition, the mystical journey of conception, and how babies communicate with their parents. The discussion highlights the significance of understanding one's own energy and the role of community in fostering healing and connection. In this conversation, we explore the profound connection between emotions, consciousness, and the external world. We discuss the importance of self-awareness, the journey of awakening, and the challenges of navigating personal healing while supporting others. Our conversation also delves into the complexities of grief and loss, particularly in the context of miscarriage, and highlights the significance of spirit baby communication as a resource for healing.

Takeaways

• Kelly's new book focuses on spirit baby communication.

• Intuition is a natural instinct that everyone possesses.

• Past experiences can hinder one's ability to trust intuition.

• Community plays a vital role in healing and connection.

• Babies are evolving and communicate with their parents.

• Frequency affects conception and the energy of babies.

• Meditation helps in understanding and connecting with intuition.

• Awareness of one's own energy is crucial for personal growth.

• Our consciousness can impact the world we perceive.

• Awakening can happen suddenly, like a light switch.

• Navigating personal healing requires setting boundaries.

• Grief and loss are unique experiences for everyone.

• Self-compassion is crucial during times of loss.

• Presence and connection are vital in supporting others.

• Emotions dictate much of our health and well-being.

• Meditation can aid in processing grief and loss.

• Spirit baby communication offers a unique healing perspective.

Guest Bio:

Kelly Meehan is a healing visionary, author of Notes From A Spirit Baby Medium - Everything you need to know about spirit baby communication, a birth advocate, and a holistic mother to her sons Rain and Forest. Her loving support and teachings focus on spirit baby communication in conception, energetic fertility wellness, intuitive health with medical intuition, pre-birth pregnancy communication, and sacred grief support in all areas of birth loss(miscarriage, stillbirth, termination & newborn to toddler). Kelly understands how to listen to the unseen and deeply felt world of spirit baby and conscious parenting.

Kelly shares her newest published book *Notes from A Spirit Baby Medium- Everything you need to know about spirit baby communication*This insightful book explores Spirit Baby Communication 101, testimonials and real messages from spirit baby, and how to bring intuition & psychic self awareness into your conception, pregnancy, and or healing birth loss. Available for purchase NOW! Amazon & Ingram Spark.

Kelly is the creator and host of SPIRIT BABY RADIO podcast with over 200 episodes by the end of 2024. She has been in the media on birth related and spiritual podcasts and radio shows as a guest expert, being invited and attending over 40 online global summits with topics such as: fertility, pregnancy, grief, and spirituality. She has been featured in Blogs and magazines, and articles.  She has been on a TV Show (Nighttime Prime) Nick MOMS sharing her work.  

Websites:

https://www.newearthchildren.com

https://www.spiritbabyacademy.com

Social Media:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/spiritbabymedium/

Facebook:Spirit Baby Medium/Medical Intuitive

Facebook:  SPIRIT BABIES: Conscious Conception, Intuitive Pregnancy, & Motherhood

Facebook: The After Life of Spirit Baby- Healing, Connections, & Love

Twitter: @SPIRITBABYRADIO

YouTube:www.youtube.com/@spiritbabycommunication

For more information about Michelle, visit: www.michelleoravitz.com

Check out Michelle’s Latest Book: The Way of Fertility!

https://www.michelleoravitz.com/thewayoffertility

The Wholesome FertilityFacebook group is where you can find free resources and support: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2149554308396504/

Instagram: @thewholesomelotusfertility

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thewholesomelotus/

Transcript:

Michelle (00:00)

Welcome back to the podcast, Kelly.

Kelly (00:03)

Thank you for having me again.

Michelle (00:05)

I'm so excited to have you back. first of all, congratulations on your new book.

Kelly (00:12)

Yay, thank you. Do want me to tell you the title? Yes.

Michelle (00:15)

Yes. Tell us the title and tell us all about it. You've been on the podcast before. If you want to give us kind of like a brief background for people who are hearing you for the first time and haven't heard the podcast before, I would love for you to share your background and then also talk about your new book.

Kelly (00:26)

Yes.

Yeah, thank you. As always, I love Michelle and her work and yay. And I remember when you were writing your book, I was like, it was motivating me. was like, we're kind of like near each other, but then yours came out and it was awesome. And then I'm like, wait, where's my book? And so I'm Kelly. I go by Spirit Baby Media, medical intuitive and mentor. And I support that conception and pregnancy, birth loss in many different psychic energetic ways.

Michelle (00:37)

I love Kelly!

you

Kelly (01:03)

And my new book is called Notes from a Spirit Baby Medium, Everything You Need to Know About Spirit Baby Communication. And yeah, what else are we sharing? What do you want to know?

Michelle (01:15)

Okay, let's talk about it all. Let's talk about first of all, what intuition is how you connect with it and how you've kind of like, figured out that you have that.

Kelly (01:27)

Yeah, I love it. I actually I'm not going to divulge too much of this. I share a story in the beginning of the book on what brought me into the work. And it is a really fun story. And was like, Whoa, it's there. And so really, basically, I've always had extra sensory perception. I was born very different. Not only was it traumatic. I know we all have very traumatic, but sometimes in the trauma, you know, you work harder as the infant to be in the world. And sometimes it does open up other

levels of perceptions and abilities. And I didn't really fully discover that until I was a teenager. I feel like puberty is a very big time of expression. Puberty, you know, we can even go into like moon paws, I call it menopause, like these big, you know, shifts in our physiology, but also into our consciousness. And I just had feeling, perceptions, and it was nonstop after that until today. And I brought it.

my energetic psychological background, brought it into the energy of children and babies and supporting, again, the psychic, the energetic, the spiritual in therapeutic and loving ways. And the book has been written over a decade of my heart in the work. It's like, what have I seen? What have I known? And spirit baby communication is a term, but also,

There's not a lot of books now more after 2020. I feel like there's way more information. But before that, there really wasn't a lot about the before life. And I thought I've been writing the book for a long time and I go into the really the great mysteries because it's not like here is the here's the secrets of the before life, right? It's just like the afterlife of death. There's things that we feel and know because I do feel like it is inside us. There's a wisdom inside us that

Michelle (03:10)

Mm-hmm.

Kelly (03:19)

we are always in relationship with. my mission is to share that. And you just talk about intuition, it's all connected to that because we are naturally instinctually intuitive beings. And we can bring that in any part of our lives, whether in conception, outside of conception. And it's very valuable because we're all born too. We're all, my often joke is you were once a spirit baby being too. we don't, right?

Michelle (03:42)

Mm-hmm.

I love that. That's great. It's true.

Kelly (03:49)

Nobody thinks about that, but like, you know, let's say someone's on a fertility journey and they're struggling. Have you ever looked at your own birth into the world? Most people would say no. I don't know. My mom says it's good or she didn't like it or I wasn't breathing or she had birth loss before me or after and like, whoa, those are big things to the foundational formation of your reality and the consciousness of your parents in those times.

Michelle (03:59)

Right.

Kelly (04:18)

through loss, through struggle, through whatever, and they seep through, right? And so, yeah, remembering we were once all spirit baby beings and we come into this world and many of us, you know, looking to deepen that connection, like where are my children? I'm ready for that next level. And then I feel like then, know, Michelle, then the lessons begin. You know, there's, I don't think it's ever easy.

Michelle (04:35)

Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Kelly (04:45)

You know, like some people say, I guess it's all your perception of ease, right? Because having children is a huge heart commitment. It's not, you know, just, I don't think it's nonchalant. I think it's something powerful in in-between worlds that we bring life into this world. And that's something to reflect with too. It's incredible. And sometimes it takes longer for some people. And some people are still working towards it, you know?

Michelle (05:12)

For sure. And I was thinking while you were talking, there's just so much we're not conscious of. I think about that, like when it comes to intuition, it's just that we all have it. It's built in. It's kind of part of our working. it's part of what made us. It's that connection to why we're here.

but we're so not conscious of so many things and we're not conscious of things that can actually provide us empowerment.

Kelly (05:43)

No, and I blame culture, society, and subconscious programming. I have to laugh. We have to laugh sometimes because it could be very serious and there's a lot of fear. But I know me and Michelle, talked before, we're very optimistic, and even beyond that for the future that...

Michelle (05:51)

Yeah.

Kelly (06:03)

people will be intact with trusting their intuition more and more. And it's a really beautiful thing because your intuition is your own. It's not my intuition. Right? It's like, and that's the beautiful intelligence of just being alive and having a body is that we get to use our energy and connection with it in different ways. And sometimes we need to really slow down and be in the quiet, right?

Michelle (06:13)

Yeah.

Kelly (06:27)

through different practices to find our way, right? Especially when it's noisy, noisy life, noisy town, or maybe noisy city, noisy even upbringing, or maybe there's old energies that are noisy as well. But intuition is, to me, is a basic instinct. It's just like, yeah, like there, and you...

We do all use it all the time. Even if people feel like, I don't know if I use it. I'm like, you can distrust it and ignore it, but it's still there, right?

Michelle (06:57)

Yeah, for sure. Without a doubt. I feel like we all remember a time where we didn't listen to it and it was something important. We all remember those times. We're like, I knew it. I knew it and I didn't listen. And of course we remember it it was such a strong lesson. We felt it and we're like, my God.

Kelly (07:07)

Yes. Yes.

I think those are good when they happen. You know why? Because then it goes, you go, my gosh, like, see, like I told you so. And then you get to go, I feel like we get to stop and pause and have that awareness. And awareness is everything. And then almost to me is like creating a map of it, like a design.

Like, that's that connection and let's see what happens. And then you may be playing around with fear and intuition for a little bit to find the differences, which is very natural. But once we get really clear on ourselves, which is really through embodiment practices, through really healing our old traumas and our wounds, especially with parents, mother and father energies are so big because we get from that and we're like sifting through and finding where we are. And in that, you know,

Michelle (07:55)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Kelly (08:02)

I pride myself in my intuition and I say that with such my own reverence because I do feel like I'm very intuitive and there's no shame in that. And I feel like are there times where I'm unintuitive? There are times where I'm fearful, but not unintuitive. I'm always intuitive, but the fear, if I know, I know myself very well that when fear comes up and there's sometimes, you know, I've managed it where it's fleeing these days.

Michelle (08:18)

Mm-hmm.

Kelly (08:32)

But sometimes big things will come in and I'm like, that sucks. I have to say it. I'm going, ooh, that's an unwinding. was like, ooh, this is big. And sometimes it has a lot to do with our, actually all the time it has to do with our past. Because present time, there's nothing wrong in the present time. And so, you know, it's like, learning the difference. And I do talk about that in my book, On a Conception Journey, Pregnancy Journey.

Michelle (08:36)

Yeah.

Yeah, right.

Kelly (08:59)

healing through lost journey, but I just think basic human nature journey, you're born, you're in a body, you were a baby being, it's like, you know, we're coming into re-remembrance more than anything with it. And that's great. And again, like you were saying, like, yeah, like, I've had times growing up where I could have been in bad situations, you know, when you're like in your 20s, like.

let's go party or do this. then something always shifted me and then something weird would happen. And I was like, whoa, what is that? So it also is very automatic pilot too. Sometimes we're not getting that like loud sound. it's, when that happens, I go, wow, okay. I was like, wow, I'm an automatic intuitive pilot sometimes. And I love that because it just means I'm just connecting with nature and just being, right?

That feels important.

Michelle (09:54)

Yeah, for sure. And also talk about connecting with your own intuition as a person who may not be used to doing that.

Kelly (10:03)

So the biggest obstacle to trusting intuition is going to be your past, right? And the environment that you're in creation with. just like, you know, because think about it when we were little children, we were so pure and intuitive and everything was connected. But then we become a part of the world in a way where we take on our families loads and lessons and it can even go further back. And we do sometimes have to find our way back to it and move into what was always there.

Michelle (10:08)

Mm-hmm. Like the memory.

Mm-hmm.

Kelly (10:33)

Right? So I think if somebody's saying, well, I'm not intuitive and I don't know what I'm doing, I'd say, are you grounded in your body even? And where is your body? Like, what is this vessel? And where is your own heart energy? Right? There's so many different ways we can take it. And then I think that hanging out with other people of like heart, like mind is infectious. And it will change our frequency and vibration to be in those spaces.

Michelle (10:41)

Mm-hmm.

Kelly (11:00)

So communities, this is the future forward energy is all about community. Even I just presented on an energy lecture for fertility community and the women were just amazing because it's like they have that synergistic connection and they were more connected than they probably realize, right? Because that's what we do. We may not even realize it. And I love that because it makes life more spontaneous and but also we're relational. We want connection.

Michelle (11:02)

Yeah, this is true, 100%.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

It's true. it, I feel like when you combine energies, just multiplies the vibe.

Kelly (11:38)

Yes. Yes.

Michelle (11:40)

And when you are going through, you know, I'm going to give you an example. have one of my patients and it happens sometimes where it takes a really long time for them to conceive and they struggle and they go through IVF and then that doesn't work. And I had one actually recently who after finally, after a year and then some of coming to me, she finally spontaneously got pregnant.

but she had connected with her spirit baby because she got these crazy signs that were insane. I'm going to eventually have her on the podcast once she gives birth because I want her to get through it and then have her come on so she could tell the story. but so I have people going through that, but like before you even get to that point,

It could be so daunting. And then you're just wondering why is this not happening? So I know for every individual, it's very unique, but I wanted to get your thoughts on that. Like why sometimes it gets derailed. It eventually happens, but why it can get derailed for so long. And is that something that connects with the spirit of baby's timing or what are your thoughts on that?

Kelly (12:52)

There's probably a lot of different answers for that one, right? Because everybody has their own connection and journey. And it is quite baffling when you're like, deepening and working and then all of a sudden, wow, what just happened? And I think it's pretty even more profound that she actually received communication and that she listened. Yeah, you gotta tell me when this episode comes because I'm so curious.

Michelle (12:55)

Yeah.

She got crazy communication. Some of the stuff was so insanely, it was crazy. She'd get bottle of wine. It was a name that she just knew that it was going to be the name and then she saw the name on TV and then she'd get a bottle of wine with that name and it's not a typical average name.

Kelly (13:29)

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Michelle (13:34)

And it was a girl's name and she knew it was going to be a girl based on that. And even when she got pregnant, she was like, I know it's going to be a girl. She told even the doctors like, whatever, I know it's going to be a girl. And it was a girl. It was just so insane and like really amazing. she kept seeing that before she even conceived. And she kept seeing that also when she had her failed retrievals and she was going to do another retrieval. And that's when she conceived naturally, just spontaneously. But it's

Kelly (13:41)

Bye.

Yeah.

I love that. Yeah.

Michelle (14:03)

know, it kind of defies the odds because you're like, well, I don't have any proof right now. And I can base it on my history and say, how's, how's this possible? How would this happen? But then it does.

Kelly (14:17)

This is where I'd say, yeah, this is where I'd say some things live in the realms of mysticism, right? Especially with baby. And I know I've seen stuff like this happen before where it's like the struggle, the struggle, the struggle, and then pushing with intervention and all of a sudden baby comes naturally. And I've seen this with a few different women over the years. And it's like, it blows them away and they're so confused and everything comes down to frequency.

Michelle (14:44)

Mm-hmm.

Kelly (14:44)

And when I use the term frequency, every single person is set in tone to a certain frequency. And we can even look at it as though we have a sound to us. And you know this because think about people that you meet and you're like, do not get along with them or they don't even see you because your frequencies are different radio stations. And there's nothing wrong with that. And babies are coming in, they are coming in more evolved.

Michelle (14:56)

Yeah. Yeah.

Right.

Kelly (15:08)

And I'm not saying that the mother or father are not evolved enough, but there's something in the energy field from the history, sometimes from ancestors and the past that is still in clearing. And sometimes it has nothing to do with the mother or the father in a sense, but also has to do with the baby. But also sometimes it's just one side of the lineage of the energy in the family without blaming anybody. There's a lot of parts to that. And I feel like

when we can build a communication practice that feels connected and sometimes babies will just come in as that. It's just like, I'm coming in, please listen to me. I'm gonna send you signs, I'm gonna like throw it in your face. And some people, by the way, you know this, some people would still ignore it, right? It's like, so I suspect a lot of the women that I meet, especially over the many, years, oftentimes miss the sign symbols.

Michelle (15:48)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Right. Yes.

Kelly (16:04)

that are coming through and they'll say something and I'm like, you literally just told me, I don't know if you realize that, that is your baby communicating. It was like, whoa, really? Because we're looking for something really big, right? And you can get those big signs, but you're gonna have to go deep into your multi-dimensional self. You're gonna have to really cut away this reality in a way that is gonna let your own energy grow and see the very many possibilities.

Michelle (16:34)

Yes, key.

Kelly (16:34)

And if you can't, it's okay. I have a friend who sometimes I talk to her and she's like, I don't know what you just said, right? So I'm like, yeah. I love her and it's just like, but it's so honest. Yeah. And this is the story of my life. I'm starting to get used to that because I just got into this massive rant yesterday with my husband and he's just like looking like, okay.

Michelle (16:46)

I can relate to that.

Kelly (17:02)

I was like, I know it doesn't make sense, but I was like, it's hard to put the energetic frequency vocabulary into this earth body and knowledge. It's almost like it feels a lot harder. I know many of you that are tuning in, are in communication more than you realize. Some will be very visual and feeling and auditory and others, it may be more dull. But what I do know is that babies do hear their parents. And so even if you're in...

I'm communicating one-sided or through a serenade, through song, poetry, through words, through journaling. Your baby hears you, 100%. And the whole part of trusting that is like, feel like babies are awakening parents to wake up to themselves, to know who they are. And so many women I see is like, especially when there's a miscarriage or later loss, right? You are literally being initiated into two worlds of energy. And there's a deep healing in that and it's...

It's not so scary. Yes, grief is just terrible and my heart goes out and we feel it, but something else is like cracking through. It's like people use the word bringing heaven to earth, right? How are we going to do that? How are we bringing the death space, the heaven space, the earth space all together in a way where there's a sense of understanding harmony and connection? Well, we are in many different ways and some would disagree, but you know, again,

the energy of the baby realms, not even babies, so much more advanced. They're in communication with us all the time and we just have to be open. I say listen, but I know listen is a challenging word, but it's true. It's like full on body-heart listening. How about that?

Michelle (18:41)

It's like receiving really. That's how I see it. It's kind of like being in a receptive place where I feel like sometimes you can get really used to speaking rather than receiving. But I'm talking about the subtleties too, you know, I think the subtleties are things that we don't often hear. And that's why I think meditation is so powerful because it gets us quiet enough to be able to receive, to almost kind of improve our antenna.

to receiving something outside of this world.

Kelly (19:09)

I feel like, yeah, I love that. The three things I wanna say when you said that came up in my mind is like, really to achieve really good kind of spirit baby, fertile energy connections, conception struggles, is number one is knowing yourself in meditation, but not doing it without two and three. So two I would say is, do you have a healer, a guide?

coach or somebody that can actually work in love space with you. It's not just, I'm going to give you these instructions. Like I'm holding energy and love and connection with you because the practitioners and the healers, if their frequency is more elevated, guess what? You're not going to come in their space unless your frequency wants to move into that. And the third one would be people. I feel like community togetherness. I feel like those three is like literally just the best equation.

for healing and being heard and moving into your psychic space because think about it. You meet, you know, I know you meet many women as I do where they feel like I call, I'll call it right now a psychic loneliness. They have these extra sensory perceptions. They feel like they're alone.

Michelle (20:16)

Mm-hmm.

Kelly (20:21)

what am I doing with it? I feel like I'm just, it's not worth anything. And then you see the light or at least I do in them, they just start sparking up like, my gosh, you see me, you hear me, you know me, I'm allowed to speak this way. And then it adds to the journey, adds to their up leveling of their own inner frequency of co-creation really with life and where you want it to, where they're wanting to go and build those next parts, you know?

Michelle (20:47)

Definitely. Well, I don't know if you know this, you probably know this, that I'm like, really love Joda Spence's work and I just came back from a retreat and every time I go, I learned something new. And one of the things the big thing that he really talks about is that

we hold a frequency, our emotions hold a frequency. And so when we have certain emotions, what we typically do is we wait for the outside world, which really is our manifestation of whatever is going on inside internally. When we wait for the outside world to shift so that our inside can feel better, but it's actually the opposite. It's kind of holding a frequency that we want or an emotion or a vibration that we want, and that will influence the outside world.

Kelly (21:33)

you

Michelle (21:33)

there's a lot of science that is showing us that our thoughts and our consciousness and our controlled consciousness and kind of like lasered perspective and perception can impact matter. And they're seeing that with there's a show that I was watching on Gaia. I forget what it was called. I think it was like the creative universe or something like that. But

Kelly (21:47)

Hmmmm

Michelle (21:56)

I remember the exact name. And they were talking about these professors at major universities talking about quantum physics and how we are so attached to an old paradigm of reality, which is way more materialist, but that is such a small perspective in that whenever we see something that's outside of that, lot of times scientists will dismiss that because it doesn't fall under their

Kelly (22:10)

you

Michelle (22:24)

perspective and what they have solidified as real. And so it becomes very dogmatic and we're not really seeing the truth of reality and the truth of reality does not just consist of the matter. It also consists of consciousness and the interplay between the two. And it's really fascinating. So basically our consciousness can impact the world in which we're seeing this,

Kelly (22:32)

Mm.

Michelle (22:51)

that our consciousness is perceiving. And not only that, this is starting to become realized in science. So this is what's crazy about it is you were talking about us reawakening, but it's not just within ourselves. We're actually starting to see this in the world.

Kelly (23:11)

And I think we're gonna start seeing more. I that there's gonna be more, I call it almost like a light switch. Like some of us will be in the trenches like waiting around like, what's happening? I always have to laugh like, what's happening? Like are people, yeah, yeah. So what's gonna happen with a lot of the sleepers? It's gonna be a light switch and so all of a sudden people are just gonna be on. It's some of the people that slow. I feel like for me it's like,

Michelle (23:23)

Yeah, there are the people that are sleeping when you're sleeping. You don't want to wake up. It's too comfortable.

Mm-hmm.

Kelly (23:39)

I felt, actually felt like an awakening at 15 years old. So I've had to go through the trenches for, along the trenches. I think more of the awakenings came in the 1950s even, but it's like, and then it's been a journey where it's like, am I allowed to speak this way in a dense world where they're like, no, I was like not allowed to speak this way. I was very shy, quiet, kept things very inward. And of course the, you know.

Michelle (23:42)

Mm-hmm. You were one of the first early risers.

Kelly (24:06)

as humanity keeps shifting, we have permission, right? It's like, all of a sudden we're allowed to own our own connections and we see it more and more, but it's gonna be like a light switch. But I love what you just shared. That's freaking amazing because when you said that, it made me think of like water. You know, people are doing these experiments again where they're like yelling at water and like, this like really, but like not just yelling at the water, but like giving your like dark energy to it and then connecting with, and you're just thinking.

Michelle (24:10)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, you could see the crystals.

intention.

Kelly (24:35)

my gosh, because when you think about we're made up of so much water, it's like, my gosh, like what is the impact on that? And you're right, there is the science spirit kind of, I always feel like they touch each other, but I still really feel they're supposed to be separate. They can intertwine with each other and science believes that they have to prove everything, but they can't, it's silly to me. And I feel like we're evolving out of that because everybody...

Michelle (24:39)

Yep. Yeah.

Yes.

Kelly (25:04)

has a different energetic perspective, but also we're in different frequencies. So we're not gonna have the same things. It's like medicine, it's like healing. Yeah.

Michelle (25:12)

But it is a form of communication where it's going to awaken people who are very, or identify as more science-based minded. And so that it does include that group of people.

And I think that that's important as well, because for a while what happened was in this documentary, that one guy was saying that people used to believe in transcendence and they believed in this kind of like a, this spiritual world until science came along and then dismissed it. And then they said, well, that can't be true. And so that it kind of like took us away from that spiritual aspect. And it was kind of looked down upon from, an educational perspective. And then.

Kelly (25:25)

Yeah.

Hmm.

Michelle (25:52)

Now they're starting to see it. Now, of course, the idea is, that when consciousness is able to impact reality, there is no way you're going to fully be able to dissect that. It's just not going to be possible because it's constantly ever flowing, ever changing as much as your imagination. So you can never really that down. However, it still gives way to somebody who's completely asleep and does not.

Kelly (26:02)

No.

Yes.

Michelle (26:19)

look at the spiritual aspect naturally as we do to open up to it. So kind of like in some weird way, I believe that it's meant to be because it is one way to get everybody on the same page. And then eventually, of course, really awakened.

Kelly (26:30)

Hmm.

Yeah, you say that I get this image of somebody wrapped up in their little blanket on the bed in their slumber. Like, hello, it's time to wake up. It's time to wake up. Let's shake things up. But some things do get really shaken up and other times you, you know, I've watched a lot of people involved and from afar and some more intimately. And it's quite fascinating because somebody that has future information at times or medical intuition, I want to fix everybody and heal them.

Michelle (26:46)

Yes. Yes. It's like bright light.

Mm-hmm.

Yes. I totally understand you. I get you. I feel the same way.

Kelly (27:09)

And then I have to step away and look and go, it's none of my business, right? Yeah. This is a good one. You tell yourself it's none of my business because we're not in charge of that. think that if we are evolving in our own space, then we ripple, right? And I know you know that it's like, that's the piece because I had to watch it. Yeah. Especially with family. Family is really hard, right? Family, you're just like,

Michelle (27:25)

Yes. I think that's the hardest part of doing our work or being healers. It really is. Yes, that's the hardest part. I think that's the biggest challenge is like when you know what you know and you know that it can benefit somebody and you could be like, here, I'll give you the key. I know exactly what you need, but you can't say that. You can't until they're ready or they ask because

Kelly (27:47)

It's very painful. I've even seen that with friends of friends and I'm like, just walk away Kelly, because you just, I'm like, can't, it's hard. We all have different levels of suffering. But then when you see people really suffering and you're like, ugh, like, yeah, it's like, okay. And then I have to go inward to my own suffering and go, what is that? What is the need?

Michelle (27:57)

Mm-hmm.

Kelly (28:10)

I know you want to help that person, but they are not there. They don't want that. And it's like, I just have to send that with love and just peace and not dwell on it. Right? Because it's like, that's all we can do.

Michelle (28:11)

Right, exactly.

Yep, 100%. It's like, you're just aware of it. It's almost like being like a neat freak or like a personal organizer for a living and then going to a really messy place and you're like, okay, I just have to let go of that right now and just let it be.

Kelly (28:32)

I wanna like, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, and then ground into our own self, create our own boundary and then just be like, okay, it is what it is. But I think I always wonder if that will be ongoing in my reality because of who I am. Like I just see things through a different lens and I know that and I've accept that. And I used to think it was really bad. And I used to think that something was wrong with me. And now I've moved into deeper levels of self love that I...

Michelle (28:42)

Yeah.

Kelly (29:05)

perceive things differently and it's okay if people don't understand it. It doesn't really matter. I say as long as we're just connecting with love and respect and presence with each other because we're not gonna all understand our own individual journey, especially in conception. know, some struggle, everybody struggles in a different way or even birth loss. Everybody miscarries in a different way. Yes, there's like, there's a topic, there's this, that, but the impact.

Michelle (29:10)

Yeah.

Yeah, for sure.

That's true.

It's true.

Kelly (29:32)

is gonna be very unique for each person. And it is a real deep spiritual calling when there's this conception struggle or there's loss. If we can just begin more to nourish it, even in the medical environments, to look at it, and I'm sure you do, from that more whole space, but also like, okay, you're a physical body, but how are you feeling in your emotions? Like, our emotions dictate so much of our health, you know?

Michelle (29:54)

Yeah.

yeah, big time. And I think a big part of it is really not learning how to process them or having that shut down that aspect of it. know a lot of people, they go to the doctor, they miscarry in the hospital or the doctor says, just go home and go back to your life. And there's no, there's no in between. And I mean, their spouses aren't like,

skilled in therapy, like they don't know how to go through it either. And so it's kind of like, it's a really difficult thing because you're just like, now what, how do I process this? And part of it is really allowing yourself to digest emotions, just like you do food, you need to process it so that it doesn't sit and stagnate and then get stored in the body.

Kelly (30:42)

I've had women speaking about miscarriage for a moment, because this is a very big topic I can get into because it's a lot of my specialty accidentally has come through in my work over decade. And what I noticed is that the biggest thing when a woman goes into has a miscarriage, the first thing I want them to go into is tenderness and self-compassion. And I say, you don't have to think about what the next step is. There's no plans. And women that don't slow down, I see they have a major

Michelle (30:50)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Kelly (31:12)

traumatic energetic wounds to heal. And it's okay, that may or may not happen, but it's more of like addressing, can you slow, because I, you know, a woman has lost, there's pain, there's feeling, I don't want to slow down, right? Maybe that's even it too. And everybody says I'm okay, I'm moving forward, but then I hear, you know, I've many times where, well my partner, especially male partner,

Michelle (31:14)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Kelly (31:33)

They don't understand. I don't know if they feel anything or sometimes they feel so wrecked inside. They don't know how to deal with it. And I'm like, what is this what we're doing to the world of like, know, miscarriages of birth loss. There's even if it's the tiniest spec, there's a connection there and the body feels the separation of light. And there is no respect and women need to intuitively, right, wake up.

Michelle (31:38)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Kelly (31:58)

to feel like they deserve that. But when we're in grief, we're not very clear when we're in literally the traumatic moment of grief. You're not like, okay, I'm gonna go, you know, do this, do that. I remember my recent deaths I've had to deal with. My friend was like, what do you need? And I said, I don't know. And she's like, well, let me do something. I'm like, I don't know. Because I was just so in the weeping.

Michelle (32:02)

That's true. Yeah. It's true.

Yeah.

Kelly (32:25)

the overwhelm, the visitation and the healing of it. And what she did was so communal, she brought me over homemade soup and bread. And I remember just not eating like at all because that's where I was in the beginning. And I'm just like, I guess I can try to eat. And it just lifted my spirits. I'm like, yeah, I need food. And just to have her there and just to share some memories and feelings. And it was like, this is what we're not taught, right? It's like, so.

Michelle (32:35)

love that.

that's really beautiful. Yeah.

It's true.

Kelly (32:55)

when there's a loss or birth loss, infant loss, child loss, and you're not in it, like maybe it's a friend or a family member, you have to step in. They're not gonna ask you anything. And I feel like, yeah.

Michelle (33:05)

Right, that's true. And just really the presence. I think the presence is the medicine. That's the comfort.

Kelly (33:12)

Yeah, and it's gonna happen. There's gonna be, know, loss is gonna happen, but it's again, I think addressing it. And I do have a whole chapter on miscarriage specific loss, but I also have something really cool in the book. I feel like I haven't shared this enough. I keep forgetting. There are seven QR code meditations in the book that you can actually click and listen live. Not live, but like it has music to it. And then they're made specifically through certain areas where one is pregnancy.

Michelle (33:30)

Ooh, I love that.

Kelly (33:41)

One is conception, I have a couples one you can use. I also have for fertility, like embryonic connection, miscarriage, I even have stillbirth, which is, know, later loss. I even have termination. There are specific meditations made that I feel like can just help provide that heart communication and just moving forward with spirit baby awareness. Yeah, I love that I was like, put that in there.

Michelle (34:02)

Mm, I love that.

Kelly (34:07)

And then it has a link too. if you can, you like, can't use the QR code. There's a link and it's like literally linked to my website and you'll have it forever and you can download them. And there are some favorites people are telling me right now, like, I really love this one. And I do it all the time. it's really fun to hear that because it was one of my favorite ones that I made like a long time ago. And it's interesting that people are so linked in and some are more visual feeling. It's a little bit of everything. Cause I know we have a little

you know, we all have different connections. And so that you get that in the book as well.

Michelle (34:36)

It's true.

my God, I love that. Well, you guys got to check out her book. It is amazing. It is notes from a spirit baby medium, everything you need to know about spirit baby communication. It is an amazing book. I've read it myself.

I got to have an insider's peak before it came out. And and I just know Kelly comes and does her work from the heart, like fully full on from the heart and from the light. And really anything that she talks about, is aligned with light. So I highly recommend you guys check out her book.

Kelly (34:58)

That's right.

Michelle (35:19)

I highly recommend you guys check out her and for people actually who do want to check you out, how can they find you?

Kelly (35:28)

So the best way to reach me is at newearthchildren.com or it's also spearbabymedium.com and my Instagram, a lot of people love connecting there is at Spear Baby Medium.

And you can, yeah, check it out. And there's even a book page so you can access the book. And it's offered through Amazon. It's offered through IngramSpark, which is global distribution Barnes and Noble. And you can get paperback or an ebook. And I just recently put on my website a PDF because I don't have ebooks. so if you're like, I want that PDF. There you go. I have everybody covered.

Michelle (35:59)

Mm-hmm.

Perfect. And she also has an amazing podcast.

Kelly (36:09)

Yes, thank you Spirit Baby Radio, which I'm coming up to 200. Yay. Thank you. Yay.

Michelle (36:13)

Amazing. Congrats and congrats on the book and always amazing talking to you. And I'm so happy you got to come on today and thank you for joining us today.

Kelly (36:27)

Yes, as always, Michelle, I love you. Thank you for having me. It's always fun. And I'm very excited to keep sharing the beautiful work, similar to what you do, bringing in that deep level of consciousness, healing. And I know you bring spirit baby energies into your space too. Thank you.

Michelle (36:44)

Awesome. you.

EP 295 The One Thing I Suggest to Everyone I Work With

This solo episode delves into the profound impact of meditation on fertility and overall health. Highlighting the often overlooked aspect of mindset, Michelle explains how stress and the resulting cortisol levels can negatively affect reproductive health. She shares her personal insights from over 20 years of meditation practice and references ancient wisdom as well as modern research, including Dr. Joe Dispenza's work on the mind-body connection.

Key Points Discussed:

1. Introduction to Meditation

2. Mind-Body Connection:

3. Practical Meditation Tips:

4. Overcoming Common Meditation Challenges:

5. Protecting Energy and Boundaries:

6. Meditation Techniques and Benefits:

Check out Michelle’s latest book here: https://www.michelleoravitz.com/thewayoffertility

Follow Michelle on Instagram @thewholesomelotusfertility

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/thewholesomelotus/ for more tips and updates.

For more information about Michelle, visitwww.michelleoravitz.com

The Wholesome FertilityFacebook group is where you can find free resources and support: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2149554308396504/

Transcript:

Meditation and fertility

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Wholesome Fertility Podcast. I'm your host, Michelle Orvitz, and it's been a while since I have done my solo podcast episode. And today I wanted to talk about the role of meditation and enhancing fertility. And I've talked about meditation before, but it is such an important topic that I want to talk about it again.

And so today I'm going to talk about the benefits of mindfulness or just meditation, many different types of meditation. And why it's so important when it comes to overall health and fertility health. It is often one of the things that is really missed and taken off the list. Many people who come to work with me, whether it's online or in person, they share with me that they're eating the right things, taking the right supplements, they did everything.

And most of the time when I ask about the mindset aspect, it is not the same. That really [00:01:00]priority. So it is something that I find myself really taking like a session or two just discussing because it's something that can be very abstract. And of course it's invisible. Our mindset, how we think is often something that runs in the background.

And it's kind of like this programming that we have that's in the background of our life. And we often don't pay attention to it. We often actually get distracted and don't even realize that our reaction to things that are outside of us. comes from our mindset. And there are many different ways that we can react.

There's many different ways that we can take it in. And so there are aspects of our mindset that we don't even realize are happening. And we may not even realize that they can impact our hormones, they can impact our sleep, and they can even impact our cravings and what we [00:02:00] eat. So this is why. I say that although it's invisible and although it is very abstract to really look at, it is so important.

And it's probably, if anything, the number one priority that I usually try to address when I work with patients and when I work with my patients. Customers online.

So I know that there's also a debate on stress and fertility, and there's always the argument that people at war times are really, really stressful events, get pregnant. And while this is true and a valid argument. That doesn't take away from the fact that when people stress, that increases cortisol, and cortisol is a hormone, and that can impact many different things for both men and women, and we know that men's nervous system can impact male [00:03:00] reproductive health. And for women, cortisol competes with progesterone, and it can impact progesterone. It can also impact sleep, which has a cascade of events. It can impact hormone production and hormone 

regulation. So all of these things are very important and stress does impact the body and how , the state of mind is impacts physiology. And we're seeing that. And slowly by slowly we're starting to get a bigger picture through modern research on just how much The mind can, in fact, impact the body and impact reproductive health.

So these are just some examples, but I also have my theory. So my theory is this. is that we have an incredible intelligence, this divine intelligence that programs our body. We have [00:04:00] blueprints in every single cell in our body, and that is the DNA, and it has instructions, it has information, and it can turn on and off.

This is called epigenetics. It can turn on and off to be healthy or not healthy, and it can go into a state of health or dis ease, and And this really is something that happens based on our environment and our environment or our internal environment, our blood can have stress hormones or it can have hormones that are more beneficial for growth.

And this responds to our state of mind. So we have this incredible vast intelligence within our body. And my belief after meditating for over 20 years, actually more now at this point consistently, I know that when I've gotten quiet[00:05:00] and this is kind of like something that I know just based on my experience.

And this is something that a lot of other meditators will say. And most of the intuitives that I have on the podcast feel that when I ask them, how do you get into your intuition? How do you connect? Most of them will say, or meditate and give yourself that opportunity to connect with that divine intelligence.

So this is what it is is that now we are living at a time where we don't have a lot of opportunity to connect with this divine intelligence. This divine intelligence is available to us because we are made with it. So we can connect with it anytime and part of, if you haven't read my book already, the way of fertility, a big part of really the inspiration for that is based on a lot of the ancient wisdom [00:06:00]that is at the heart of Chinese medicine and also Ayurvedic medicine and a lot of like these old medicines and way of life.

Thank you. And if we look back to what the ancients told us, they gave us a lot of hints and a lot of amazing, amazing information that is so rich with wisdom. And one of the things that you'll find over and over again is that they all point us to go within, which is really interesting. They always say the answer is within, and there's always kind of like this direction to go within.

When you do meditate, it makes a lot of sense, but we're living in a world that doesn't even acknowledge the within anymore because there's so much distraction, there's too much information constantly bombarded with lots of information, the algorithm, all this stuff that just comes [00:07:00] at you, whether you're on YouTube, social media, or just the internet.

And while that can be great. And it could be a huge tool. And this is one of the amazing things about technology. I mean, there's a lot of benefits to it. However, there can also be an imbalance with that. And that takes us very, very much away from our wisdom and the quiet within and that part of us that knows, and this is why.

I feel like it's so important to really make that space to connect with yourself because your body is so smart. It communicates with you. You can communicate with it. And my philosophy, my own perspective on this, through Chinese medicine is one of the things that I know is that the reason we do acupuncture, the big reason, I mean, obviously there's so many different people with so many different [00:08:00] needs and acupuncture is different based on those needs.

However, one of the biggest ways it works is it really creates an opening so that the chi or life force within the body, which is intelligent, by the way, that is able to go into areas that don't have as much, either they're blocked from excess or they're deficient. And they need more of that energy and more of that intelligence and more of that consciousness to fill it because once it does, then the life force comes back and that life force or that area that's, I guess you can say being ignored, because there are blockages or there's some kind of reason why.

That life force is not getting to it. Those areas can get that consciousness, that life force. And when you [00:09:00]meditate and you focus even within your body, you can actually bring that life force just with your awareness alone. So you may know that I'm a huge fan of Dr. Joe Dispenza's work. I've been to three of his retreats.

Two of them were a week long, incredible, incredible retreats. And I see people overcoming major terminal diseases just from his retreats alone and also the practices that he shares. And one of the practice is. really paying attention and bringing your focus into the energy centers of the body and he'll go through the different energy centers, which in ancient times were called chakras and paying attention to them, just bringing your awareness to them brings life.

So it kind of is like [00:10:00] light, almost like the light of your consciousness. You can imagine is like the light of the sun and infusing a plant or some life force living thing.

And, I think it's pretty cool because a lot of what he does and a lot of the work that he does and the meditations that he does, he actually has a research team that comes with him and they research and study. probably close to half of the participants at the retreats and they see how the meditations impact them and how they literally shift and change their way of being.

And I remember one of the things that he talked about was That when you're laying down, he has you laying down after the meditation and he said it's really good for regulating the nervous system. And when you're laying down, he said you're able to absorb almost like how hypnosis works and you're able to gain [00:11:00] suggestion or like get a programming.

But he said, it's not a programming of anything that anybody's saying. It's connecting to this vast intelligence. that we're all a part of, that we all come from. He talks about it as the quantum field of infinite possibilities, but this intelligence, this coherence that starts to happen. And the ancient used to look at it as the yin and yang balance.

They looked at the harmony between the elements. They described it in different ways, but they're all pointing to the same thing. And the bottom line is, is that we are part of this vast Intricate, incredible intelligence. And when it's healthy, when it's working optimally, it is working with coherence. And when it's not.

It's moving away from that. There's less consciousness. There's less intelligence. There's a blockage to that intelligence. And you can say that's like a blockage to the chi because the chi is not just life force. Life force cannot be without the intelligence [00:12:00] that's running it. So when you are not connected to that, and that's where a lot of people have listened to some gurus talking about meditation, it's really connecting to cosmic energy, cosmic intelligence.

There's a difference between the energy that you get when you're sleeping, although very important. And there's a difference between the energy you get when you're meditating and connecting with cosmic intelligence. And so that cosmic intelligence feeds your body. And when it feeds your body, it gets you closer to better health.

And as we know, fertility health relies on good health, and you need to have an overflowing amount. of nutrients, energy, chi, blood, really an overflowing. Why? Because in order to sustain another extra life, you need that overflowing of energy. When you have difficult emotions [00:13:00] and you are experiencing things that are very draining, which often can be counteracted with meditation, because meditation helps you even out that energy so that When triggers come, they will not zap you as much as they would if you're not energy consolidated, which is what happens with meditation. This is kind of part of meditation. It's a side effect, but a good side effect, one that is welcome. And that one that feels really good when you're actually getting that. So when you're able to do that and it protects you, it almost has a layer of energetic protection when you are experiencing a challenge, you're able to regulate and come back to yourself faster. And I'll tell you one thing, emotions when we're talking about an overflow of energy and all the things that we really need, because reproduction is so energy consuming. When you do experience really difficult emotions, those things [00:14:00] can really zap you out.

Your energy and we've all experienced those times where either we deal with drama or something comes up or a really difficult exchange We at the end of the day are so drained And so that's why it's very very important to protect your energy Part of it and this is kind of a side note is boundaries.

Honestly, like Cutting out maybe temporarily certain relationships that are too draining. This is something that you need to protect. You need to protect your fertility journey. Like going through this is very, very taxing as it is. So it's important really to work on your energy. And one of the biggest key ways really is meditation is really allowing yourself to experience the emotions that come up, sit with it.

Feel it. And I will say some of the most common things that cause resistance in a lot of my patients or my clients. These are [00:15:00] the common things that I hear when it comes to meditation and after I suggest meditation. The first one is, I just can't sit still. Well, I have news for you. Nobody can, it's because the mind is called a monkey mind for a reason, because it goes from, it's like a swinging from one branch to the next, to the next, to the next, and that is your thoughts.

So that is the typical nature of everybody's mind. It goes from one thought to the next. That's normal. So you're not really meant to stop thinking when you're meditating. You are building a muscle of your attention so that when you do have thoughts, you become aware of them. You catch yourself. You don't judge yourself.

You don't say, no, no, I shouldn't be thinking, or no, no, this is bad. You just observe it. neutrally and then go back to your breath or go back to the mantra, whatever it is that you're anchoring in. You repeat that over and over and over[00:16:00] again until you can start shifting that habit of getting lost in the thought.

When that happens, naturally you will learn to become more present when you are facing a trigger. So a trigger comes up. You feel it, but then your awareness becomes stronger than the trigger because you're meditating, you're training your mind to notice things. And that is when it doesn't have a hold on you.

That's why some people can really get sucked into that trigger and then other people can get into the state of the executive mind function and not get triggered emotionally. When we get triggered emotionally, which does happen and there's nothing wrong with that. But when we get triggered emotionally, those are those moments that zap us the most.

So this is really about empowering your mind so that you're able to consolidate your energy as much as possible,[00:17:00] because ultimately that is going to benefit you overall if you're on the fertility journey.

Another common block I see for people who are first trying to meditate is that they believe that it doesn't do anything. And, and that's another mind perspective. So the mind will give you thoughts about things to do. To deter you. It's almost like a little trickster, that freaking mind.

It'll give you thoughts and it will plant ideas and you can either bite and take them as fact or realize, wait, that's just the thought. Let me keep doing this to explore. And so your mind is going to convince you that you're not doing anything, or your mind is going to convince you that you need to do a lot more or you're going to get bored.

Here's the thing. If you're used to being on a certain pace all the time, it's going to feel strange at [00:18:00] first to shift that piece and get to a receptive yin state. So the yin and the yang. Yang is pretty much. Like the majority of everything right now in our world, it's just, everything's go, go, go. And too much of that burns out energy.

So we need to go back to the yin. Meditation is a more yin, receptive state. And doing that, shifting gears is the most uncomfortable thing. Shifting realities, shifting gears, shifting rhythms can be very uncomfortable if you prepare yourself for that in the beginning of your meditation practice, meaning when you first start to slow down, meditate and create a practice routine, then you know that that discomfort will not last forever.

When you know that it's temporary and it's just shifting of gears, it's the turbulence that happens when you're shifting levels of consciousness. When you prepare yourself [00:19:00] for that and you just know that, then it doesn't feel as difficult. And another thing that can really help with that is becoming aware of that.

Hey, That's interesting with curiosity, kind of paying attention. I feel a little agitated. What does that look like? What does that feel like? So instead of going to the thoughts of that, start feeling what your body feels like when you're experiencing that become observant of that. It's like looking at a picture upside down.

You're starting to notice different things. You look at the shapes. So you're breaking down the experience of what that feels like. So that it's not so scary and your knee jerk reaction is not going to be to resist it because ultimately that's what it does. Your mind will have you resist things or get too attached and that's the push and pull that happens that causes us to have suffering.

This is what Buddha taught about. about how desire, like strong desire or strong resistance are the two [00:20:00]things that cause us to suffer because we're basically saying no to now, like what's happening right now shouldn't be, it's either missing something or it has too much of something. And meditation gets us into the neutrality of seeing things as they are without judgment.

And so that we become more empowered In this moment. So ultimately a lot of what I like to put on the podcast are things that are empowering 

and my top, top, top thing would be start a meditation practice daily. So one of the ways you can start a meditation practice that will be, in my opinion, a more successful way to start is to start out with just a few minutes a day. what happens is you're not going to give yourself too big of a task of meditation for too long.

You just start with a couple of minutes a day. And even with like [00:21:00] five minutes a day, you're still going to get benefits just even with five minutes a day, allowing yourself The opportunity to connect with that divine intelligence, five minutes a day in the beginning. And the thing is, anybody can come up with five minutes a day.

Even if you're extremely busy, you can wake up five minutes earlier and just meditate in the morning. So it's all a perspective. So what happens is when you do five minutes a day, or even a short amount of time daily, every single day, repeatedly, your mind will realize and come to terms with the fact that you now have a new habit and five minutes a day is so doable that you can make it easy to repeat something over and over and over again if it's very short and then your mind will accept it as this new thing.

Once your mind starts to accept it and it becomes more natural and intuitive for you to do, [00:22:00]then You're going to even feel naturally. inclined to increase the time because your mind will start to settle over time and then it's going to want to have more of that quiet and crave it at times. And you're going to feel that it feels really good because it's going to make you feel more clear in your mind.

And you'll find that it also saves you time. So even though you're taking time out to do it, your mind will start to work more efficiently. You'll be more clear minded and more intuitive and more sharp with your work that things that usually took you longer you'll find start to get done faster.

So some of the things that I would suggest if you are new to meditation that are really, really simple is every day find one specific spot in your house. that feels comfortable. It could be a room. It could be something that you're a room that[00:23:00] you're in, but maybe a little corner where you can sit down on a cushion or you could sit down on a chair or a couch anywhere that feels comfortable and quiet.

And you do want to set it up so that you're not going to get interrupted for the time that you're meditating. My suggestion is this, do not do this on your bed because naturally your body associates your bed with sleep and you will fall asleep. Don't get discouraged if you do fall asleep. Sometimes people nod off and then they come back.

That's okay. That's just your nervous system regulating. What I do suggest is regardless if you cross your legs or if you have your feet on the floor, always have your spine erect so that you're not laying down. I also suggest having your hands on your knees and the palms facing up. receiving energy.

And you could choose to focus on a couple of different things. You can choose to focus on your breath. [00:24:00] You could choose to repeat a mantra in your mind, , and you can look up seed mantras,

Which are ancient Sanskrit mantras that have an energetic frequency, even if you're thinking them in your mind.

Or you could literally start to focus on the sensations in your body and scan your body and all the sensations that you're feeling at the present moment. And really bring yourself back to your body and seeing how certain thoughts impact your body and where you're feeling energetically certain emotions, because that brings more consciousness to that area.

You could literally spend a whole five minutes just focusing on the uterus and focusing on that area and really, really putting your consciousness into that. The bottom line is you are finding different ways to anchor yourself into the present moment. So whether it's body sensations or a mantra or just focusing on the breath, all of those things are happening in the now.

So you're training [00:25:00] your mind to focus on the present moment. That being said, you're going to find yourself wandering off and that's perfectly normal and okay. It's part of what you're doing. You're training your consciousness to catch yourself. You're catching and then you're bringing back, catching, bringing back.

So you catch yourself going off, you bring yourself back to whatever it is that anchors you in the present moment.

If you find yourself incredibly uncomfortable, do not let that discourage you. Keep going. It's one of those things. When you first start working out, you're not going to feel really easy. lifting those weights. It's going to be uncomfortable. It's going to be painful. It's going to make you sore for the next couple of days.

It's the same thing. Growth and shifts and changes don't happen easily.

There's got to be some kind of discomfort sometimes, and that's okay. It's being comfortable with the discomfort because If you're allowing yourself to be comfortable with [00:26:00] being uncomfortable, eventually you're going to find that the things that make you uncomfortable in life will not have a hold on you as much.

And you're going to feel more smooth and easy with your energy overall.

And I can say for me personally, meditation has changed my life and I speak to a lot of patients and clients and I see how it impacts them and also impacts their fertility and their menstrual cycle. It's incredible. Meditation is an incredible, incredible free medicine that we all have access to and it is one of the most overlooked things.

Although now, I guess it's becoming a little bit more of a thing of recent times, but I definitely highly suggest if that is something that you've not looked into or if that's something that you thought You just are not meant to do. I really hope that this episode [00:27:00] Shifted your perspective on that and if you have any questions, you can always DM me on Instagram.

I'm always there I'm pretty quick to respond Most times if I can and my handle is at the wholesome lotus fertility So I really hope you enjoyed this episode and I hope you have an amazing day.

EP 287 How Mindfulness Can Serve You on Your Fertility Journey | Josephine Atluri

Josephine Atluri is an author, certified life coach and an expert in meditation and mindfulness. A graduate of the University of Chicago, Josephine followed her passion for total wellness and has helped thousands of people overcome adversity to find joy. She supports and empowers organizations and individuals through her wellness retreats, classes and written work. Plus, her experience creating her modern day family of seven children via In Vitro fertilization, international adoption and surrogacy inspires her work as a highly sought-after fertility, pregnancy, and parenting mindfulness coach.

Josephine hosts a popular podcast, “Responding to Life: Talking Health, Fertility, & Parenthood,” where she interviews guests on their inspiring responses to life’s challenges. Her parenting mindfulness expertise and fertility advocacy work has been featured in the Huffington Post, Motherly, MindBodyGreen, The Bump, Prevention, Well+Good, and Woman’s Day. Josephine is the author of the books, “Mindfulness Journal for Parents” and “5 Minute Mindfulness for Pregnancy.” She also sits on the board of the nonprofit, Shero’s Rise, an organization dedicated to uplifting girls in underserved communities.

Website & Social media links (Facebook, instagram, twitter)

Website: www.jatluri.com

Instagram: @josephineratluri @respondingtolifepodcast

Url: https://www.instagram.com/josephineratluri/

YouTube Channel: https://bit.ly/3kIxDHQ

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephine-atluri-0aaa32129

Information on Josephine’s retreat can be found here:

https://www.jatluri.com/retreat-1 use coupon code LOTUS to get a discount!

Summary: Josephine shares her background in fertility mindfulness and meditation and how she got into the work. She discusses her own infertility journey, including failed IVF cycles, the loss of twins, and the decision to pursue international adoption and surrogacy. Josephine explains the concept of mindfulness as awareness coupled with curiosity and compassion. She emphasizes the importance of being present and using breathing techniques as a tool for reducing stress and finding calm. Josephine also talks about her books on mindfulness during pregnancy and parenthood and her retreats for women.

Takeaways:

• Fertility mindfulness and meditation can provide coping strategies and overall wellness care for individuals trying to build their families.

• Mindfulness is a lifestyle that involves being aware of oneself and the world, and it can lead to reduced stress, better sleep, improved immunity, and better relationships.

• Breathing techniques are a powerful tool for moving from a state of stress to a state of calm, and they can be practiced anywhere and anytime.

• Mindfulness can help individuals navigate the challenges and anxieties of pregnancy and parenthood, and it can be incorporated into daily life through various modalities.

• Being present and practicing mindfulness can lead to mental clarity, emotional freedom, and a deeper connection with oneself and the present moment.

For more information about Michelle, visit www.michelleoravitz.com

The Wholesome FertilityFacebook group is where you can find free resources and support: 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/2149554308396504/

Instagram: @thewholesomelotusfertility

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/thewholesomelotus/

Transcript:

Michelle (00:00)

Welcome to the podcast, Josephine.

Jo (00:02)

Thanks for having me. I'm super excited to be speaking with you today.

Michelle (00:06)

Me too, so I'd love for you to start out with giving us your background and how you got into the work that you're doing.

Jo (00:13)

Yeah, so I am specializing in fertility mindfulness and meditation, and I was working in healthcare upon returning back to work many years ago. And I brought my consulting background with my healthcare background and went into meditation, but I was using it for more corporate wellness. And then I realized that,

when I was going through my own infertility journey that I could have really used these tools. And that's when I decided to pivot and really focus on providing mindfulness and overall wellness care for people who are trying to build their modern day families. I remember very well just feeling really stressed out and not having coping strategies. And so that's my...

biggest aim with the fertility mindfulness work that I do.

Michelle (01:15)

And then if you don't mind actually sharing your own journey

Jo (01:19)

Yeah, no, absolutely. It's actually started, it's like the 20th anniversary of when we first did our IVF cycle, feels like forever ago, which it is. And we knew we had to go straight into that because of healthcare issues, I mean health issues. And we went into it pretty naively because we were in our 20s and I thought that because...

of our age that it would happen pretty quickly. And it didn't. We went through a few infertility clinics and it didn't work out. Many failed cycles. We did end up getting pregnant with twins only to lose them at 17 weeks. And that's when we decided to pivot into international adoption. We always had that in our back pocket as another path to parenthood for us.

Michelle (02:10)

Sorry.

Jo (02:18)

given our history and so we pivoted there and then we were able to adopt our first son who's now 17. We adopted him from Kazakhstan and that was quite an experience. Then once he was home we decided to give IVF one more try. We switched to a third clinic and we became pregnant again. They threw the kitchen sink at me as the medical term is sometimes used.

and I was able to deliver the twin successfully. And through that cycle, we actually were able to freeze a number of embryos and they weren't doing any of the many tests that they are doing these days back then. And so we kept them on ice because of the sort of the traumatic experience from the loss and then having to be on bed rest and all of this. I didn't.

think that I could carry again. And so we decided to just sort of keep the embryos on ice until we could figure out what to do. And it wasn't until many years later that we decided to pursue the option of surrogacy. It wasn't an option for us to begin with because of the prohibitive costs. And so we worked with an amazing surrogate and she delivered our second set of twins.

Michelle (03:34)

Mm -hmm.

Jo (03:47)

boys, our first ones are boy -girl, and then we had a couple more embryos left and many years later we decided to give them one last chance or go through this process one more time and worked with a different surrogate who was also as equally as amazing and then we had our girl twins, so we have one of each kind.

Michelle (04:13)

Oh, wow.

Jo (04:13)

And that's how we created what I call our modern day family of seven kids through adoption, surrogacy, and IVF. Mom's story.

Michelle (04:21)

Wow, that's such a story. And that's why I wanted to go over it because what's interesting is that it has so many different ways to parenthood in one. You know, there's so many different ways to do it. And a lot of times people are afraid of choosing certain ways. But then ultimately, I always find out when talking to people that they don't regard a thing, everything happened for a reason and that connected with them to their child and however way that came about.

Jo (04:30)

Yes.

Michelle (04:49)

So I love hearing stories like that just because I mean, it's amazing, like just human life and the way your path leads you that you don't initially expect it to lead you and then you

up having blessings coming in the way that they want to come.

Jo (05:07)

Exactly. Yes, it's definitely not what we expected, but I totally believe in how things are supposed to just happen that way. It's not to say that it was not a very tough journey and a lot of lessons learned. And I do make a lot of comparisons in articles and things like that about the difference between IBF and adoption and surrogacy. There certainly is a lot of overlap.

in many levels to it, but yeah, definitely was a learning experience. And in all of those different paths to parenthood, definitely could have used fertility mindfulness in all of it.

Michelle (05:48)

Yes. Yeah. So, I'm totally with you because I think what happens is a lot of times when people are going through this or couples are going through this, they're just, they're figuring it out. They're trying to map out and like figure out how to navigate it. So I think that just by itself could be so overwhelming. And then they're looking at the diet, they're looking at the supplements, they're looking at like what kind of other treatments they can do or fertility clinics. And so all the sort of check boxes, but...

So often the one thing that is so pivotal and that is often missed is the mindset, like in how people feel and cope with it, because ultimately it's not even about, I mean, a lot of times people will look at the mindset in order to have that as an avenue to help boost fertility. However, all of that aside, it's just so important to take care of yourself at a time that.

of so much confusion and so many different thoughts, opinions, and it could be so overwhelming. And that's the time that mindfulness I know as a meditator myself, like just the impact of what it can do to your mind and how it shifted and changed me. And I know that when I speak to other people who meditate, that it can really, it just changes your life in so many ways. It consolidates you. It makes the, it's almost like the static.

die down so that you're much more sharp and you're in tune with yourself and your own inner intelligence and it connects you. So I really think that there's so much power in that. And then also, I think often people think of mindfulness as just meditation. However, I'm sure as you know, like,

is amazing, but it also teaches you to be mindful in your life actively, like in real time. So I'd love for you to.

talk about mindfulness, what it is and how you can really implement it in your life and why a person hearing this should really consider doing that.

Jo (07:53)

Yeah, no, I mean, I agree totally with everything that you were mentioning. And the way I like to describe mindfulness in just a very simple way is to bring it down to awareness. So it is awareness coupled with a gentle curiosity and compassion to oneself in the process. And so awareness can be anything from being in tune with what's happening to you.

mentally, emotionally, physically, the world around you, as well as your interactions with other people. So like you said, you know, it can trickle out into all parts of your life. And in fact, when I describe mindfulness, I call it a lifestyle, not just a one -off thing that you try to squeeze into your day via a meditation for like five minutes or something.

If you're able to tune into this awareness of yourself and the world around you, then it can really impact all the different buckets of your life and lead to things like reduced stress and better sleep, improved immunity, and better relationships with your partner, your kids, your coworkers, different things like that, because you're really tuning in.

to how you're feeling and when you're able to do that, you're able to respond to life versus being reactionary, which so many of us do. And so that, when you think about all of those benefits, it can really impact your fertility as well, your whole fertility journey as well, as well as way beyond once you...

are able to move past that and go into different facets of your life. And so one of the biggest tools that I like to bring mention to people is breathing techniques. And like you mentioned, a lot of times a misconception is that meditation is equivalent to mindfulness and that's it. But there are so many different modalities of mindfulness that can cater to many different types of needs and abilities.

and you're not just tied to meditation. I know a lot of people as they're starting out get really discouraged because they think, well, I can't sit for more than two minutes without having thoughts in my mind. And that's another whole misconception is because you're not supposed to really complete your mind, rid your mind of thoughts. It's really just the interaction of those thoughts. But going back to this idea of different modalities of mindfulness, you can do...

Michelle (10:28)

Yeah.

Jo (10:42)

different things like journaling, affirmations, you can do walking meditations, eyes open meditations, and the one that I brought up were breathing techniques. And the reason that I love, I bring this up when it comes to fertility meditations is because you can bring it with you on the go. So, you know, whenever you're at the nurse's clinic, getting your blood drawn, or if you're getting a scan, or if you're waiting for your doctor to speak about your next round, different things like that.

your breath is always with you and that's why it's a super powerful tool. And it's also powerful because it can move you from a state of stress, a state of fight or flight, into your parasympathetic nervous system, which is your rest and digest and brings you back to this baseline of calm. And all you really have to do is just start to notice your breath and...

make it more intentional by slowing it down. You can count, you can do, you can manipulate your breath in so many different ways. But if you're able to just slow it down and make it more intentional, then you're bringing yourself back into this state of calm. And it's super helpful when you're getting really worked up in any of these infertility appointments that can cause your stress, your cortisol levels to just skyrocket, right? So that's why that's my number one go to.

in general, but especially for people who are in the midst of their fertility journey because it's something you can pull out whenever you need.

Michelle (12:14)

Yeah, and I love that you mentioned that because a lot of my patients will say sometimes they'll go to the doctor's office and they really do have like a legitimate anxiety and they feel it in their body. And it brings them to a state of such anxiety that they go blank. They forget what they wanted to ask, which I always say, just write down the questions beforehand if you can, but they'll go blank on, and sometimes even if...

they're not fully on board with what the doctor says. They'll just, they, you know, they won't be able to respond with clarity. When you do get into the breath, it really helps that mental clarity, which I feel like, especially when you're on the fertility journey, you need it more than ever.

Jo (12:57)

Yes, no, absolutely. That's a great point about, um, about having clarity and asking questions because I can raise my hand to having that experience. I'll have all of these questions, all of these thoughts running through my head and then I'll meet with the doctor or the nurse and they'll say something. And then all of a sudden my mind's in a tangent and I'm not present. And I think about all of the things that maybe that I claim that I did wrong because a lot of us.

you know, blame ourselves during this journey at one point or another, or I start to project into the future thinking about like, okay, now here's my calendar, right? We're all tied to this calendar. I'm going to have to do this, this X, Y, Z. And you're just, you're not even there. And you walk out of that appointment, not having answered your questions and not having clarity about your next steps because you just weren't present. And that's the other thing about mindfulness is that when you're aware, when you're in tune with,

yourself and your surroundings, that brings you into the present moment. Because you're not thinking about how you were feeling before. You're thinking, okay, I'm tuning in right now. How's my body feeling? How am I feeling emotionally? What kind of mental space am I in? How am I interacting with this person? And that's all in the present moment. And when you take that pause to be able to just take stock of yourself and your situation,

you really can have that moment of clarity. But if you're going backwards, you're going forward, you don't have that clarity. You're just everywhere else but the present moment. And so that's another huge benefit of practicing mindfulness, is that you're able to really tune in and be present. And just a side note to this is that you can practice it in meditations, you can practice it in journaling.

And the more that you're able to practice even just tiny little moments throughout the day and over time, it's just more about consistency. The better able you're, you can pull towards that like present moment awareness during moments like this with the doctor or the nurse because you've practiced it and you've created that neural pathway in your brain to be able to, to pull into the present moment, right? Because your brain's a muscle and your, your,

just like you're exercising it. You're exercising it to be in the moment. So that's the beauty of consistency. It's more about trying to work that muscle every day, work that ability to be present and mindful and aware versus having to like work it out for an hour. If you could do it for a couple minutes a day, it's totally to your benefit in all aspects of your life.

Michelle (15:46)

And also I'll mention this is being present allows you for mental breaks from everything too, because when you're thinking about the future, you're thinking about the past, you're not being present. And when your mind is constantly on something that is worrisome to you, then again, you're not being in the present moment. When you can train yourself to be in that present moment, you actually allow yourself to come up for air and you're able to just lose yourself in the moment when you're.

having a moment of going out or doing something that you could take a break from everything mentally, that's gonna give you more energy when you come back to all of the different challenges that you're facing. And I think that that is so important. It's kind of like filling your tank. it is this level of emotional freedom that does happen.

simultaneously when you are present. And I think about a lot of what the ancients always used to refer to as liberation of the self. And liberation of the self is really just like, we are so caught up in identifications, thoughts. This is just the human condition. So this isn't something to be like, we all have this, you know, it's just part of our human condition is that we can get very caught up in our mind movies.

And our projections, our fears, most of the fears that we have actually don't really come into fruition. And we have a negative bias, which is really there to protect us from like anything dangerous. And so our mind does tend to go there. And this helps. And they've talked about it throughout history, you know, through centuries, all these ancient teachings about liberation of the self.

And liberation of the self simply means is just being able to like fully immersed, be immersed in the present moment, which is the only real moment. It's the only moment that has life force because everything else is an illusion. It's not truly happening in the now and isn't fully alive in this present moment. and I also look at awareness and I think to myself, awareness by itself, this is, uh, I think science needs to catch up to it. And I think that in some ways it,

It does. If you think about Qigong or even yoga where you were like really present with your body, there's life force that is inherent in awareness itself. So when you start to focus on areas of your body that feel stuck, you can actually open it. I felt it literally opening in my body as I brought awareness. So it almost like areas that feel stuck are kind of like devoid of consciousness.

in our body and ourselves and awareness opens that up because it just awakens you to this aliveness that can only happen in the now. That's the biggest condition about it.

Jo (18:39)

Yeah, no, absolutely. Great points.

Michelle (18:42)

definitely fascinating. So talk about like, if somebody is really not familiar with this and really new, and is also like how I used to be, I used to work in the city in New York City, and it was very much in the corporate world. And this is like before I got into meditation. And

you almost get so stuck in like the project, the demand, whatever you need to do. you know, I don't really believe in a type A personality. I know that people talk about that a lot. I think that you can wear it, but you could choose to wear whatever you want. You could choose to like, go into the frequency of type B or whatever it is that you want to be. And we get to decide it's the identifications, but.

I was at the time identified with a very type A personality. And now I would say, I wouldn't even say B, like I'm more free because of the mindfulness. So for somebody who is not familiar with how to get themselves into that parasympathetic, and they're so used to being in the frequency of do, do, do, and like, let's get things done. Let's run after it, you know, that kind of thing. What's an easy way to...

get back in tune with yourself and ease yourself into the present moment.

Jo (20:02)

Yeah, no, that is a great question. I think that is a function of society, whether you identify with a type A or not. It's just that we're driven to produce and to be busy, and that's a marker of success, especially in the United States. So to try to pivot into this other type of living, this other type of thinking and doing,

It has to just be a little bit, it won't be as intuitive, right? So you kind of just have to set yourself up and your environment for success. So it's not really a matter of habits. A lot of research has shown it's more how you set up your environment that will be a indicator of success for yourself. So what I mean by that is, let's say you decide to want to try the meditation.

So then you would figure out when in your day is really realistic. And this is kind of the process that I go through with clients. So we do like this mindfulness audit, I call it. And so you'd simply say, okay, well, I'm a morning person or I'm a night person. And I'm not going to try and get you to do something in the morning when you're really not typically productive then. It just doesn't make sense. It's rather than trying to fight what your existing systems are, we're trying to work with it.

So if you're a night person, then we would figure out, all right, well then how about we tie it to something, this act of mindfulness that you'll start to practice with something you already consistently do so that way you're stacking it onto a habit that has proven to be very successful for you that you just already do. So for example, that would be, I always bring up the example of brushing your teeth. So if you're already doing that at night,

than now just pairing it with the mindfulness activity. So you can choose journaling, doing a gratitude list or practice, doing a mindful stretch like yoga for a few minutes, you can meditate. I mean, as I mentioned, so many different modalities. You just pick one and try it out for maybe try it out for a week and see how it works for you and then try a different one. But the consistency here is that you're doing it always.

before or after you brush your teeth for X amount of minutes. And it's more about the practice of doing it. And so being aware in the moment and trying to be very gentle and compassionate to yourself about the experience. So not walking in with these expectations of you need to accomplish X, Y, Z in order for it to be a success. Because if you do that, then you kind of set yourself up for failure because you may or may not meet.

those goals and then you get down on yourself and it becomes this negative cycle. Just sort of walking in without any expectations aside from the fact that you're going to be able to, that you will set aside the time, the X minutes to do it and then it's done and that's it. So whatever happens during that, during those minutes is just left for you to really experience in the present moment.

That's a huge piece of mindfulness is just having that gentle compassion and that curiosity of like, well, what are the possibilities? Like what can actually happen? I don't know. And we'll see, right? Every day is different. We wake up different every day. I mean, every moment or hour, we have a new experience for ourselves and a new sort of frame of mind that we're operating from. So that's how I, in a nutshell, kind of work with someone or suggest in my articles and books.

how they can get started if this isn't something they've ever dabbled in before and it can feel really overwhelming to start a new habit like this, especially if it doesn't feel, if it feels like the opposite of how you normally operate in life. And then I just like to infuse little mantras for myself or just little reminders. And so for this, especially for a type A personality, I would say, I am focused on...

being versus doing. And so I don't need to accomplish like a ton of things during this moment. I just need to be here. And so I like little reminders like that, but you know, whatever works for you, especially as you're going through this, you might be aware of things that can give you success. So I would always try and infuse that as well into this new practice.

Michelle (24:40)

And I love that you said in this moment, because I think that when you give yourself permission, even if it feels very strange for you to be in a different state of mind, if you just tell yourself for this moment, I'm going to give myself permission be present just for this moment, then it doesn't feel as overwhelming. And it doesn't feel like you have to change everything in your life.

It's just for this moment to give yourself that mental break. And then your mind eases into that state. And then possibly that state of more ease can start to come into different parts of your life. But I think that is such a good point. You know, just giving yourself that permission and those affirmations or those words can make such a difference. And it sounds so simplistic. And I find that the simplistic things are the most powerful.

and the most overlooked for their power.

Jo (25:35)

Yeah, but also can be the hardest because I think we overcomplicate things and something simple doesn't feel right. It feels I'm missing something here. I'm not doing this properly. And that's where the idea of just being and walking in without so many expectations.

Michelle (25:47)

Right.

unfamiliar.

Jo (25:59)

and just being curious and compassionate with yourself is that's why those are really big pieces of the definition of mindfulness.

Michelle (26:08)

sure. And then another thing that I do actually want to talk about is the deterrence that come up in the mind while you're sitting in mindfulness. And so that's kind of the difficult aspect of being still is that you're going to become aware of what's happening in the background of your mind that you typically are not aware of because you're so distracted by the external noise. So that when that does come

lot of Buddhists,

teachers, they teach that we have these deterrents, we have these, what do they call disturbances that come up in the mind. One of those disturbances, well, one big part is our thoughts and the thoughts that come up. And those thoughts can be meditation is not for me. I personally see that to be a disturbance and it'll stop a lot of people from moving forward.

Jo (27:02)

that's true. That goes back to that myth of the fact that we're not supposed to have thoughts or disturbances, especially when we're meditating, that our mind should be clear. And that's just not the case because we have between 60 ,000, 80 ,000 thoughts a day. The way I like to kind of describe it to my clients and my books is that it's more about your interaction with your thoughts.

because then if you think about it, you'll take that process back out with you into life. So for example, you're sitting for, let's say you're sitting for two minutes in meditation, a thought pops up. Now it's up to you to figure out, well, how am I going to move on from this? How am I going to respond to this? And there are many tricks, I mean, tricks. There are many techniques.

like labeling, like, oh, that was a sensation, or oh, that was a criticism, or that was a to -do list. You label it. For some people, labeling makes them feel better, and they're able to move on. Some people are more visual. They have a thought. They need to imagine putting it in a cloud, pushing it away, or putting it on a leaf, on a body of water, pushing it away. Some people just need verbal sort of cues. And so instead of,

that visual, they can just tell themselves almost like a mantra. I acknowledge that thought. I will get back to it after this and then return back to their breath. Right? So there are many different ways you kind of need to figure out and try as well, which one works for you. But the idea here is you're having an interaction with a disturbance. And that is what happens to us every minute of our life outside of this.

Michelle (28:32)

Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Jo (28:51)

Mindfulness practice right so you're at work You're busy doing what you need to do and a text pops up. There's that disturbance so now now that you've practiced this in your mindfulness habit of How do I deal with something that pops up like a thought or disturbance? Now you're able to practice it in quote -unquote real life because you've done it in your mindfulness practice and so now you kind of can your mind can go back to that moment of

Well, I was somewhat calm. I was getting into a calmer state and I recognized it and I said, okay, I'll get back to you later. I'm still doing something and you get back to what you're doing. You take a deep breath. You say that to yourself and you go back to whatever it is you were doing with work. And so that's how mindfulness can really benefit us when we're practicing it into applying it into outside of that moment of practice.

into the rest of our lives. And that's why I call mindfulness a lifestyle, because if you're able to practice it there, you're able to do it with all the millions of distractions that we get throughout the day. And so that's why I think it's just so beneficial to have those interactions with the thoughts and I welcome them versus getting worried about having them and telling myself that I'm not good at meditation because in the back of my mind, I'm reminding myself.

I'm practicing this for life and this will serve me outside of this moment.

Michelle (30:24)

I love the techniques that you mentioned because one thing that I noticed is they're all very neutral. So it's just kind of like, oh, that's interesting. A thought, well, I'm planning my day. You know, something that kind of comes and you're labeling it like this is planning. This is that labeling in this

is just more like, oh, that's that. And let me go back to the breath. So when you're looking at it neutrally, you're not getting sucked in emotionally. It's not.

something that really takes too much of your energy is just observing and seeing. And also when you're neutral, not too attached to that thought. So I love that.

Jo (31:03)

Yeah, that goes back to that whole facet of mindfulness, of compassion, right? But also curiosity, because you're curious as to, oh, well, why did this pop up in my mind? Okay, clearly my mind wants me to remember this, but I'll be kind to myself. This is not a huge deal. I'll just get back to you. I'll get back to you later.

Michelle (31:26)

Yeah, totally. And so you mentioned your book. So talk to us about your books and how it can help, because it sounds like you have a lot of this information in your books.

Jo (31:38)

Yeah, so I have two mindfulness books. One is for when you're already pregnant and infusing mindfulness into your pregnancy. And so it has examples of different mindfulness modalities that you can do throughout the pregnancy. So whether that's yoga, journaling, gratitude practice, meditation, all those different things that you can try. So that way it really sets you up.

for your pregnancy and your delivery, but then because you've practiced it during your pregnancy, you can take it with you into your parenthood. And that's actually the second book is a mindfulness journal for parents. I find I first wrote the parenting book and then, and then I realized, you know what? It's hard to incorporate new things when you're in the midst of trying to be a new parent or trying to pick up a new skill when you're already.

well into parenthood, it would be so much better if we can introduce this in pregnancy because then you've really worked on these different modalities and you've gotten them under your belt, gotten a taste of them and you can bring it with you hopefully once that fourth trimester sort of is past you and then you're able to use those tools you learned in pregnancy. But yeah, so I try to use those because as in many different parts of our life,

we can benefit from tuning in and being aware as we discussed.

Michelle (33:10)

I will say, in working with a lot of fertility, when people do get pregnant, I feel like that book would really be beneficial because a lot of times people have pregnancy after loss or even pregnancy after the fertility journey could be a really anxious time. So one of the things I really work with a lot of my patients on is mindfulness, especially during that time during the pregnancy, because every test, every scan,

Jo (33:26)

Yeah.

Michelle (33:36)

could bring up so much anxiety and just go into the doctor's office. So I think that especially during that time, it could really be so beneficial to learn that.

Jo (33:46)

Yeah, now that's totally a great point. I did put a page or two referring to that, the trauma that you experience from, if you're coming from a background of infertility, because you're right, every little thing can be a trigger. And now that you're pregnant, it just feels super stressful. I mean, that's how I felt after having experienced that loss and it just wasn't a pleasant.

pregnancy for me, which is why I just was honest with myself and said I can't do any more pregnancies. It just took its mental toll on me, but absolutely, you're definitely more triggered by a lot of things that other people may not even think of as something that could trigger you.

Michelle (34:26)

Yeah.

Yeah, for sure. No doubt. So for people listening to this that would like to learn more about you, listen to your podcasts or find your books, how can they reach you?

Jo (34:47)

Yeah, thank you for that. So my website is J -A -T -L -U -R -I .com and on there you'll find a link to my podcast which is called Responding to Life, Talking Health, Fertility, and Parenthood where I'm gonna have Michelle speaking on as well as links to my books, both books which actually you can purchase on Amazon or Barnes and Noble, wherever. And I also do...

retreats just for women in general. It doesn't matter if you're in the infertility process or not. My next one is November 8th through 11th in Palm Springs. And yeah, it's so great. And I did one last year in the same area. And it was really just like this magical and therapeutic moment. It's called rest and renewal because we all need it. And lastly, you can find me on Instagram.

Michelle (35:27)

That sounds amazing. I love Palm Springs.

Yes.

Jo (35:44)

at Josephine R. Atlery and I share a bunch of mindfulness tips for everyone going through infertility, pregnancy, into parenthood.

Michelle (35:55)

That's amazing. And actually quickly talk about the they include?

Jo (36:00)

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's four days, three nights, and I teach a lot of mindfulness workshops, but then I also bring in other practitioners to do a sound bath. We've done aura readings. I take people to the hot springs. I do a breathwork class, because I also teach breathwork. We do like these wish beads, intention setting. This year we're doing those vision boards. And we're...

Last year we did a cacao ceremony. So I throw in a lot of stuff. It is, I want women to feel nurtured because we're just always doing so much for other people that we never take time to just care for ourselves. So I wanted to give women this experience where someone is just caring for them in this really comprehensive way. So it's super.

Michelle (36:31)

I love that. That sounds so fun.

And talk about having a reason to be centered and present. Because I think that when you're away from your normal, definitely like seeing the normal things that it will trigger not being present or your mind will go off into, oh, I have to do this, that, and the other. When you're in environment, you're so accustomed to thinking like that, that when you're in a retreat and getting somewhere where you are in a group,

you feel bad looking at your phone. You don't want to. It's part of like, you want to be part of this group and the energy that comes together too. I really believe strongly in that. I go a lot to Joe Dispenza events because you cannot beat the energy of community. There's something in the energy of everybody coming together with that same mindset and with the hopes of growth that is powerful. I think that we work together almost like a neurologically. It's like neuro...

were like neurons that fire together like Joe Dispenza says, but it's true. You start to really uplift each other as a whole collective.

Jo (37:58)

Yeah, so I mean, I think it's that energy that you bring into it and everyone's like minded. So they're bringing that same energy with them of wanting to, um, to level up and, and experience that rest and renewal. So, uh, for your listeners, uh, if they, um, they can get $150 off with the code, uh, Lotus, they just, um, go to my website and they can see the link and all the information for the next retreat.

Michelle (38:26)

That's awesome. I'll put it in the episode notes. All right. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Josephine. I, we've been following each other on Instagram for ages and I was like, Ooh, I like her. She has like good energy. And I, I just like followed you in general.

Jo (38:29)

Yeah, perfect.

Michelle (38:42)

and then I'm like a big, huge family too. And I knew you went through the fertility journey too.

So I was always interested in talking to you. So it's really nice to have you on the podcast finally.

been a pleasure. Thank you so much for coming on.

Jo (38:55)

Yeah, no, thanks so much for reaching out, Michelle. This is such a great conversation and such a great resource, your podcast for the community, truly. So I'm excited to have you on my own show so you can share your wisdom there as well.

Michelle (39:10)

Thank

EP 275 What really is egg quality? And Four Ways to Improve it!

I'm sure you've been hearing a lot about egg quality if you're searching the internet and trying to figure out how you can improve your fertility health.

In this episode, I'm going to be talking about what egg quality is and four different ways that you can improve it. So egg quality refers to not only the chromosomal health, but it also corresponds to something called mitochondrial health. 

I will be covering:

• What contributes to egg quality

• Ways you can improve egg quality

• Why the digestive system is so important

• Research that shows certain exercises that improve mitochondrial function

My fertility book “The Way of Fertility” is going to launch soon and I would love to have you on the launch team!!! You’ll get to read it first! The application is more formality! https://www.michelleoravitz.com/TWOF-launch-team-application

For more information about Michelle, visit www.michelleoravitz.com

The Wholesome FertilityFacebook group is where you can find free resources and support:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/2149554308396504/

Instagram: @thewholesomelotusfertility

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thewholesomelotus/

Transcript:

[00:00:00] So I'm sure you've been hearing a lot about egg quality, especially if you're searching the internet and trying to figure out how you can improve your fertility health. And you've probably even seen the book, It Starts With The Egg, which I highly recommend if you haven't already read it, it has amazing, amazing information. And today I'm going to be talking about what egg quality is and four different ways that you can improve it.

So egg quality refers to how chromosomally normal an egg is. And it also, besides just the chromosomes, it also corresponds to something called mitochondrial health. And mitochondria is It's an organelle in the cell, so it's basically a part of a cell, and it's considered the powerhouse that produces something called ATP, and ATP are basically energy units. And through ATP and the energy, if you [00:01:00] want to compare it to Chinese medicine speak, it really comes down to qi.

It's like life force vitality, basically, and how do we produce it? I will talk about that and how to really protect it and support it. So. So Chinese medicine, we talk a lot about qi and a lot about the energy and a lot of the ways that we do support qi. One of the ways is through nutrition. So there's many different ways to really support it. And it's found that mitochondrial health declines with age, as well as oxidative stress. So, you'll find a lot of times oxidative stress increases with age.

So, a lot of the anti aging market focuses antioxidants. So antioxidants basically means that it's protecting the cells from oxidative stress. And the mitochondria really is at the heart of it. And the mitochondria can be [00:02:00] protected through these antioxidants. So the antioxidants can protect the mitochondria. And then it provides more energy units in the cells. And then when that is the case, it will help the cells to develop more correctly. So it'll give the energy basically to the cells to fix themselves. So even eggs that end up being really good quality, they're not necessarily always perfect. It's just that if it has a lot of energy And it is able to basically correct itself.

So that's why there's always this kind of controversy with checking or testing embryos because sometimes they can start out not being 100 percent normal. But part of the process that it goes through is that as it grows, it can normalize itself. And in order to do that, it really has to have robust energy to do so.

So in a sense, really, technically speaking, you can actually. [00:03:00] Decrease or reverse your biological age through choices that you make with your nutrition, with your lifestyle, with the movements you choose, the exercise you have, and your mindset. Lowering stress. I mean, there's many different things that you can do to improve your overall energy and I'm going to be talking a little bit about chi and mitochondria because it's kind of like one in the same.

It's just described in a different way. So there are definitely things that you can do to support it. So I'm going to be covering four and number one. Okay. It all starts with nutrition. Nutrition is really important when it comes to Chinese medicine. The spleen and the stomach have a very important role and they play a role in the digestive system.

And each organ or organ pair has a direction. And in Chinese medicine, the spleen and stomach are in the center. [00:04:00] So a lot of different ones will be like east, west, south, north. And The spleen and stomach are the center, and that is actually very symbolic because they're really the center and the heart of everything as far as post Heaven qi, which is basically the energy that we have and create after we're born.

The pre Heaven qi, and I've talked about this before in past episodes, is all about genetics. However, now in modern day science, we know that there's something called epigenetics and our choices and what we do with our food choices and our lifestyle choices can impact how our genes express themselves. So the same way that it impacts how our genes express itself, it also impacts the genetic protection of our cells.

Our cells are just tiny little versions of ourselves. And a lot of those make up who we are. [00:05:00] So it really comes down to our cellular expression. So if we can do that for our own cells, of course, the important cell is our egg cell. But it also for men is the sperm cell. So a lot of what I'm saying for women.

does actually also apply to men with sperm health.

So nutrition is very, very important when it comes to fertility health and protecting our egg health and supporting it because number one, it is really the source of where we get our chi. It's the source of where a woman builds blood and both of those are really important when it comes to fertility health because reproductive health requires a lot of energy.

And the proof to it is that egg cells have hundreds of thousands of more mitochondria than regular cells. Regular cells can have a couple of thousand, [00:06:00] depending on the importance of the cells. So the heart cells a little bit more than a regular cell in the body, but an egg cell has the most.

We're talking really, really a lot of mitochondria because it's important for it to be equipped with a ton of energy in order to produce new life. And this is why I always talk about The energy that a person has is really, really important. And when a person's energy stores are depleted, it can impact fertility health because the body's not going to prioritize reproduction.

It's going to prioritize survival. And I say this over and over again, because it is such an important point to keep in mind. So when it comes to eating, it's important to really consider number one, your gut health and eating more antioxidants and. I'm kind of throwing in an extra one, the gut health, the gut health really is a reflection of your spleen and stomach condition and it's important because everything that I'm going to be talking about really, as far as the [00:07:00] nutrition goes, depends on your gut health.

So if the gut health is optimal, it's able to really transform the food into energy. So number one, Eat more antioxidants. So antioxidant rich foods are super important. So I'm going to give you a couple of examples of antioxidant rich foods. So something you probably have heard before, a lot of people talk about it, but things like berries are probably higher on the antioxidant level.

When it comes to fruits, so things like strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, you know, all those dark colors and pigments in the food come from antioxidants, so berries are really important, but then also ones that are not as common, things like acai, tea, tea, Has been shown actually in CCRM.

They have their own acai Supplement and they did a study to show that it improves egg quality. So that's really [00:08:00] huge and that's something that you can include in your diet and then foods rich in beta Carotene such as carrots and sweet potatoes are really important and dark leafy greens so you'll see like dark leafy greens such as spinach And chards, and also beets are really important. Now, keep in mind too, beets are root vegetables, and what does that mean? They grow in the earth, and earth is an element that is connected to the spleen and stomach. Earth also has spore based probiotics. And that's actually where spore based probiotics come from, comes from the soil.

So that's really, really important if you want to help nourish that energy of digestion. So beets are really important and they also give a groundedness to your energetic being. So you really do feel more grounded. When it comes to Ayurvedic medicine, they always talk about the different doshas that [00:09:00] people have, doshas or body types, and they also have elements.

And the dosha that is vata, which is a little bit more air, it doesn't have as much grounding benefits from something like beats because they are getting more earth energy. So earth energy is always going to support your spleen and stomach, which is always going to support the wellbeing of your digestive system.

Another thing that has tremendous amounts of antioxidants is dark chocolate. So you can get raw cacao that is not processed. And that doesn't have added sugar or dairy, and you can mix it in and make certain foods that are healthier that don't have sugar. So there are ways to get it without having to get the sugar, which you'll typically find in like chocolate bars or more chocolate.

 Then something that is often skipped is animal proteins or animal sources of antioxidants. So wild salmon is very [00:10:00] rich in antioxidants. And beef liver as well, which is high in vitamin A and also is a great source of CoQ10.

So getting that antioxidant rich diet is really going to support egg health and It's going to support the mitochondria. 

So, number two, is really exercise, but I'm going to focus a little bit more on yoga and just a little note about exercise and movement. Yes, exercise and movement is super important when it comes to getting your energy and the chi and also supporting mitochondrial function. But it's important to note that too much exercise can have an adverse effect on your mitochondria and too little movement.

It also has an adverse effect. So it's really important to keep it balanced. And one of the best ways to do that is through yoga. I'm a big fan of yoga. Yoga has been around for thousands of years. It also incorporates breath work, which is important to support [00:11:00] ATP production, but I'm going to talk about that in a bit.

And yoga. Also helps calm the nervous system, which also helps our bodies rest deeper so that they're able to create more energy. And there's been studies that show that yoga can improve mitochondrial health and not just that, but it also has been shown to reduce autoimmune inflammatory arthritis. So if it's able to reduce inflammation through arthritis, think about What else it can do? It could probably do that with a lot of other things and especially The fact that it is able to help with the autoimmune specifically inflammatory arthritis and what I've seen is that when you're working on the nervous system, you can also work on the immune system and regulating your nervous system is important to support your immune system as well and how it functions because our [00:12:00] bodies really have these signals and those signals do speak to our bodies or our cells And our cells communication, when it's confused between our bodies versus something else outside of us, that's information. It's our cells information and how it processes it and how it translates it.

So if our nervous system, which is really a communication system in our body is regulated it would really impact your immune system as well and how your body processes information and what it perceives as either friendly or unfriendly. And when it gets regulated, it makes sense that yoga would help with that as well and calm it down. Because since it calms the nervous system, I find it fascinating that it's also calming an inflammatory arthritis that is derived from an autoimmune condition. So [00:13:00] this can also be due to the fact that when you're doing yoga, you're also breathing because a lot of times you inhale to certain poses and exhale to certain poses. 

So yoga is a great way to truly balance the body, but it also can help with mitochondrial health, which reflects in egg quality. So number three ATP which is the energy units in mitochondria are actually produced, with the help of oxygen. So breath work can also help. And I highly recommend something called the breath of fire. And the breath of fire is very difficult to explain through the podcast. So what you could do is you can actually just YouTube, look in YouTube and see, because then you'll have a lot of people describing what it is, but it's a diaphragmatical breath that you do for a long time.

You can do it [00:14:00] from either a minute to five minutes. Some yogis do it for a very long time. And what it does is it helps your digestive system.

It's called skull shining because it also creates clarity in the mind. And it helps in the area of the abdomen, which is, well, the location of the eggs in the uterus. So digestive system and the pelvis, they're very similar, very close together.

And they also work really well together. So they're important. And a lot of times when I have people come in for acupuncture, I treat both. 

When I treat the abdomen, I put points for both digestive system, as well as reproductive health in the pelvic area. If you don't want to do breath of fire necessarily, that's okay. You don't have to necessarily do a specific type of pranayama. All you have to do just to make a difference is to breathe really deeply in and out consciously. And you can do that for a few minutes where you're breathing all the [00:15:00] way in. Holding your breath and then breathing all the way out slowly. And you can count, count it to anywhere from four seconds to eight seconds, or as much as you're able to, to slow down your breath, but also to increase its capacity. So you're kind of increasing the lungs capacity to support oxygenation.

What I also suggest is to do this outside if you can, to really do this with. Outdoor air that makes a big difference. There's a quality in outdoor air that cannot be beat and you're getting like fresh oxygen Preferably if that outdoor air is in a place where there's lots of green And trees and you're getting quality oxygen and finally number four is sunlight, specifically early morning sunlight. So sunlight is amazing for many different reasons, but number one, it improves vitamin D levels, which are super important for mitochondrial [00:16:00] activity and function and deficiency of vitamin D has been linked to unexplained infertility, as well as recurrent miscarriages, which would make sense that.

To be deficient in vitamin D is probably impacting the quality of the egg and the sperm. So this is good for both men and women. Really everything that I'm mentioning here can also be applied to sperm health as well.

So, sunlight not only improves vitamin D, but it also increases the production of cellular melatonin. So, melatonin, often we hear as the sleep hormone, however, it also works as an incredible antioxidant, very potent in the cells. And that antioxidant in the cells has been shown to help with Improved mitochondrial function, And it's also found in the follicular fluid, which is produced by the ovarian and granulosa cells. [00:17:00] And melatonin seems to play an important role in the regulation of follicular development and ovarian function.

So obviously plays a very important role , when it comes to egg quality.

So that concludes the four top ways that you can improve your egg quality and I really wanted to, in this episode, explain to you really what it is, what egg quality is as best as possible in a way that you can understand that it really comes down to anti aging. And so the same things that people would use for anti aging could benefit egg quality.

And obviously those are just four, but there's so many other things that you can do to improve your egg quality. So I hope you enjoyed this episode and if you want more information and perhaps get some more free fertility content. You could visit my Instagram, which I'm very active there.

And my handle is at thewholesomelotusfertility. And if you [00:18:00] do like these episodes and are enjoying this, podcast. I would really love it if you can rate and review this podcast on Apple music. And if you think somebody can benefit from it, please do share.

So thank you so much for tuning in today, and I hope you have a beautiful day.

EP 274 Why Meditation Can Support Your Fertility Journey and How to Overcome Common Obstacles to the Practice

I cannot underscore enough the power that the mind can have in impactingour bodies. Acupuncture works on the mind from our meridians and energetic flow, but the mind can also impact the body’s energy flow as well.

In this episode I will cover what meditation is, why thinking that it’s not for you is simply a thought that the mind constructs when it’s uncomfortable,and how to overcome that!

My fertility book “The Way of Fertility” is going to launch soon and I would love to have you on the launch team!!! You’ll get to read it first! The application is more formality! https://www.michelleoravitz.com/TWOF-launch-team-application

For more information about Michelle, 

visit www.michelleoravitz.com

The Wholesome Fertility facebook group is where you can find free resources and support:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/2149554308396504/

Instagram: @thewholesomelotusfertility

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thewholesomelotus/

Transcript:[00:00:00]

Welcome to the wholesome fertility podcast. I'm Michelle, a fertility acupuncturist here to provide you with resources on how to create a wholesome approach to your fertility journey.

So on today's episode, I'm going to discuss a little bit more about meditation. And I'm also going to discuss something that typically happens in meditation and it is a deterrent. It's a deterrent for you to continue meditation. It's something that happens often to many people and it causes people to stop meditating.It also causes people to think. Meditation is not for me. I'm also going to discuss why it's important when it comes to your whole body's energy flow, not only your body's energy flow, but of course what reflects[00:01:00]overall health, your fertility health. So how can meditation help? There have been links that show that meditation mindfulness can impact fertility, health, reproductive health, and yourbody overall.

And it also helps your sleep, which is incredibly important for your bodyand also help your, your digestion. So not just body, but fertility health. So all of those things are important for your hormone balance. So in so many different ways, meditation can be incredibly powerful. It also taps into our inner terrain as I love to call it our inner terrain. So in Chinese medicine, we deal a lot with blockages and energy flow. And one of the ways that we can access really the body's energy flow, not something that's always talked about is through our awareness and our meditation. I've literally just through my awareness, my[00:02:00]meditation, my visualizations, sitting there with my mind have released major blocks or like, uh, knots in my back just by watching it.

Dr. Joe Dispenza talks about how he healed his body through visualizations. It's incredibly potent and powerful. It's something that science is starting to catch upon our minds and how powerful, just how powerful our minds are. When we do ge tinto a state of meditation, there's many different ways to meditate. What we're doing is we are starting to learn to master ourselves, really it's a form of mastering ourselves, it's a form of self mastery and it helps us become aware and bring ourselves to the present moment. In the present moment, when our mindsare aligned in that present moment, we talk about alignment, I talk about it a lotmyself.When you're aligned and you are in the present moment.

You are more vital than when your[00:03:00]mind is off somewhere else. And you can see that just as an example of how effective you are when you're focused or when you're multitasking, for example, or thinking about something else. You're spread too thin. And your mind is being divided and compromised and not in the present moment. 

When you are in the present moment, most people talk about like the state of flow. There have been a lot of books written about it and psychologists have talked about it. The state of flow that happens to athletes or artists when you're really focused on that present moment. And ultimately what meditation does is it trains your mind to come into this, the present moment and how it does that is by number one awareness because you can't train your mind to go into the present moment if it's not aware that it's not in the present moment and that actually happens a lot.

I know it sounds almost obvious, but it's very, very[00:04:00]often that, for example, we're driving. Maybe an hour. We literally cannot even recall what we were seeing. We're like from where we left and then all of a sudden we have arrived and we have no idea what happened. Where did that time go? How, like, how did it even happen? You don't even remember the ride because your mind was going off on something because you've taught yourself how to drive and your subconscious mind took the wheel. It's automatic. It knows what to do. And it's just, it's done it so many times it's become like automatic.

And so when your subconscious mind takes over, your mind can wander off into all kinds of different places away from the present moment. And you're totally fine, you get there safe, you know how to do it, your body knows how to do it, you almost train your body, your body is your subconscious mind. So that's pretty much how that happens. So when it comes to meditation, there are many different ways, but they[00:05:00]pretty much do the same thing.

And so it's all about finding one type of anchor to focus on. So you can focus on either a mantra. or even body sensations, or a breath, your breath. Many times, a breath or a mantra is typically what is most commonly used. So, say you're focusing on the mantra calm. You'll repeat that word in your mind, and they say not to do it like a metronome, just to kind of have it go in and out. Almost organically. So whenever your mind, so your awareness, the awareness aspect is what catches your mind when it's going off. So your awareness catches your mind when it's planning or like leaving the present moment into some other story or something that happened looking into the future or thinking about the[00:06:00] past ruminating and your awareness is what's going to catch that.

And what you do is you gently bring it back to that mantra or to the breath. So you're pretty much just training. It's almost like riding a horse. You're taking, you're taming this horse, which is your mind and you're making it, you're bringing it back gently, not making it, you're bringing it back gently to.Whatever it is that you're focused on, that object of focus, which could be a mantraor it could be the breath. Or sometimes what I like to do, and you can start out on meditation like this, is just interoception, which is body awareness, becoming aware of your body sensations. You can scan your body.

That's something that sometimes people like to do. You could focus on your uterus. You can focus on the heart. Anything that you feel, and what's great about interoception is it actually through your awareness helps you to realize what's happening inside your body. And when you are aware[00:07:00]of what's happening inside your body, you can utilize your breath, like the sensation of your breath and your awareness and your attention into that area and almost like breathe into that area and release it. So you can almost feel that internal blocks within your body centers. So you can feel it, um, where the chakras are, if you're familiar with chakras, but it doesn'teven have to be chakras. It could be really anywhere in your body that you're feeling almost like a stuck feeling or something that'snot moving.And by breathing into that area and putting your focus and your state of mind, youknow, kind of your awareness. You're over time going to release it. It's just naturally what happens because you're bringing that divine intelligence, kind ofthat intelligence, but you're using in a way that's focused to release that area.

So over time that impacts your body, it actually has a very calming effect on your body. And if you just do something where it is an object of focus, like the breath[00:08:00]or a mantra. What you're doing is you're training the mind and it can be uncomfortable at first. Any new habit that you're doing is always going to be uncomfortable if that is not where your mind is used to. It's going to want to go where it usually goes because that feels comfortable. So whenever you do something new, that could be very triggering. So getting into meditation, when I was talking about like getting that. That resistance that we get,that a lot of people get, that makes them stop meditating.

What can happen is you get the sensation, right? The sensation is that your body's like, I don't like this. Or your mind's like, I don't like this. And your body's going to feel it. It's going to start feeling edgy from sitting still. And it's going to say, this doesn't feel right. This doesn't feel like natural for me.

And that not feeling natural is going to open up a resistance and that resistance is actually going to impact your thought about it. And your thought will conclude, you know what? Meditation's just[00:09:00]not for me. I'm not built to meditate. And it will convince you that. And I've seen, and I've talked to, and I've actually been one of them. People who have started out thinking meditation is not for me because they thought that they had to like not think about anything or that they felt really uncomfortable.

And then ultimately, if they still stayed with it, eventually they break through and then they realize They're getting benefits from the meditation. So my personal opinion is Meditation is for everybody who decides they want it so it could be for everybody and I'm not saying that you have to do it. But if you do give it a chance

Eventually, just like exercising is good for the body. I mean meditations good for the mind and the body eventually it will provide some benefit. And part of it is, is because it's training the mind to come back into the present moment. So when you're saying a[00:10:00]mantra and you're focusing on the mantra and you're becoming aware of the mantra, when are you saying the mantra? You're saying it now. And so when your attention is focused on that anchor, that anchor, like a mantra, or a breath is happening in the now. So you catch yourself, but you gently bring it back. You don't force yourself. You don'tget mad at yourself. You just let the mind go where it goes. It's, there's a saying called monkey mind, and it describes.

Meditation or like the, what happens in meditation and the mind will jump from one thing to the next. So when you see monkeys go from one branch to the other, that's how each branch is a different thought. And your mind will go back and forth and all over the place. And that is the nature of the mind. So you're not really supposed to stop thinking because it's almost impossible. And you're going to feel. Like a failure, if that's the case, because you can't really[00:11:00]stop thinking. Your mind's always going to go in that direction. It just likes to sway. It's almost like a branch is swaying in the wind. It's just going to go back and forth and it's always going to do that. But what you could do is over time, train it to come to the present moment. And when you're doing that, and it's not about stopping something else, typically. That doesn't work when you're trying to stop something. So like a negative with a negative, you don't really cancel something in your mind or like a state of being what you could do is redirect. So the same thing with habits.

If you like to, I don't know, have wine. I always say, just have chamomile tea instead, do something to substitute it or redirect it somewhere else rather than just have a void. Because that usually doesn't work. The mind wants to focus onsomething or it wants to get directed somewhere else. So when you give it something else to focus on or you redirect it, then it'll eventually fall in line and then it will start to be more in the present[00:12:00]moment.

When you become in the present moment and it starts to, you start to get more into that place, it really is a state of alignment because when your attention is focused on the now you're bringing more vitality to the moment. Because you're aware ofyour body or aware of your state and it becomes more alive and that vitality impacts your body. I like to talk a lot about the mind and I'm sure you've heard me talk about it a lot. The reason is, is because acupuncture, you know, what I do is basically we work alot on energy. But by working on the energy in the body, it impacts the mind, but it's kind of like a double sided thing. It's a relationship. The mind can also impact the energy in your body. So you can actually, without necessarily getting acupuncture, although I do really highly recommend it because it is powerful. There's been a lot of, uh, amazing things that I've seen. Incredible things.

One that I[00:13:00]shared on Instagram a while ago, I actually pinned it on my reels. It shows the blood before and after acupuncture. Mind blowing because it'ssomething that the textbooks have always said. And now, interestingly enough, on so many levels, science is catching up to what it really does, what Chinese medicine has been talking about for many years. And they talk about it.They literally say that the blood moves, it moves the blood and it increases Qi. And you can see the blood vessel, like you could see the blood cells becoming more spherical and also moving, like moving a lot faster. It's like they're coming to life. 

It's incredible. So back to what I was saying, not only can you do it through the body, but you can also do it through the mind. You can impact the body through the mind by visualizations, by sensations, by becoming more aware. So your awareness by itself is intelligent. Your awareness by itself kind of[00:14:00]aligns you to that divine intelligence. That really iswhat designed your body to do its thing.

And the way acupuncture works is reallyto start that up to wake up that divine intelligence and to create balance and harmony so that your body isable to self heal and do its thing. Do what it was designed to do, which is self heal and self regulate. Typically the body always knows how to do that, but sometimes it has to go in an uphill battle for many years. Because of lifestyle choices, whatever it is, and this is why we create, we establish that harmony by doing acupuncture, but you can establish that harmony through your own awareness, just by being present. So, have you ever been on a really great vacation where nothing else matters? Now, was it really that nothing else matters, or was it that you just said the[00:15:00]conditions where I am allowsme, or I'm giving myself permission now to fully let go mentally because of the conditions, the conditions that you placed on your life and saying, well, in order to feel really relaxed, I need X, Y, and Z to happen. I need to be by a beach. 

Does that necessarily have to be the case? Sometimes imagining a beach can have the same impact on your body. Just imagining the waves, hearing them in your mind can have an impact. So imagining something has been shown to have the same impact on the body. As the actual real thing.

So an example is, and I always use this exercise a lot of times when I do in person workshops, is for people to imagine a lemon and squeezing that lemon and like really tasting that lemon. What happens? They start to salivate. Did they really have a lemon? Why did they start to salivate it? Why did their body respond as if they already had[00:16:00]lemon?That they really squeezed it in their mouth? That's the question. Like, can you just make your your mouth salivate that way? No. The imagining of the lemon automatically created almost like an instinct in the body, so.That is just one really, really clear cut example of how powerful the mind is. So when you're bringing thatdivine intelligence and really.

Realizing that your mind is intelligent and your awareness, it's not even your mind, your mind's a tool, but it's your awareness, your consciousness, and bringing it to full alignment into the present moment is incredibly powerful for the healing aspects of your body. So, with Chinese medicine, of course, we go through the body, we go through the channels, and that impacts the mind, but that doesn't mean that Impacting the mind doesn't also impact the body. I've treated people where[00:17:00]physically I'm helping them a lot. You know, I'll treat them with certain patterns, but their mind habits and their thought patterns are so strong that even though they'll feel better if they leave for a little while, they'll go back to the same thing. This is one of the things that actually inspired me to certify in hypnotherapy.I'm very interested in the mind, obviously, but like, that was something that I wanted to learn because I said, why is it that even though we're getting better physically, it just keeps going back to the same thing. And then I'd hear in the language, the same repetitive. Words. And that means that obviously what you speak about is what you think about.

So it just reflects the same repetitive thoughts and beliefs. And was it those beliefs that kept putting people in the same position and, um, having the same conditions over and over again. And I love to give the example of the people with.

Dissociative[00:18:00]personality disorder where they have different personalities come out that they've seen allergies shift like people having hives from orange juice and then the hives disappear with the different personalities and then also eye color changing. I mean, it's crazy, but it really impacts the way the body expresses itself Like, why is that? It's not like their genetics are changing. What is it? It's like the brainthoughts and the beliefs and the patterns can completely shift what your body is acting like. So that to me is another example of how powerful our minds are.

And one of the best ways to go into this default. State and default, not in a negative way. Really default meaning going back to our own nature is by our awareness. Just our awareness by itself is intelligence and by staying aware, we're also[00:19:00]being receptive and we're allowing our own mental antenna to connect to that divine intelligence. And I know this because I've been meditating. I know this beyond. Even things that I've read in books, it's a knowing that you can only know through experience. 

And it's something that is very hard to really explain in words, but I'm trying. And it's something that I highly recommend you try. And what I often recommend if you do want to start a meditation practice is you don't have to do this like for 20 minutes a day. You could start out with literally two minutes a day, no more. And what you do by doing that for two minutes, You can handle anything, even if it's uncomfortable for two minutes, just sitting there and making your object to focus your breath. Or justpaying attention to your body sensations, which again, similar to the breath and the mantra, they're happening in the present moment.And so doing that, kind of[00:20:00]tuning in and being in a receptive, aware state of becoming aware, becoming aware of your mind going off and then come bringing it back gently and just continuously encouraging it to come to the present moment, whatever that object of focus is, and just sitting with it when you do that over and over again, over time for two minutes a day. You are going to basically convince your mind that this has become your new habit. So I highly recommend doing this at a time that you're doing something else already. Cause everybody has some kind of repetition or some kind of habit that they do. So your habit could be having coffee in the morning or tea or exercise after exercising or taking a walk. There's always something that you do every single day and it could be in the beginning of the day or at the end of the day, anchor the two minute meditation to that specific habit. So it could be before or after something that you do. It could be before or after having that tea in the morning [00:21:00]o r after the exercise or before that exercise or anchor it to something that you do every single day. When you anchor a new habit to an old habit, That's another way to get your mindon board. And when your mind gets on board, it's very similar to starting an exercise routine. Once you get into it, you start to crave it. It becomes part of what you want to do. It becomes part of your habit. And when you're doing that, you actually get your mind on board. Then, once you have that repetition, and I always start with two minutes a day, the reason being is because you could do anything for two minutes. It's not like that big of a deal. It doesn't request too much from you. And then it gets your mind intothe habit of doing it every day. And then, little by little, you're going to naturally want to increase that time.

You might even want to after, like before the two weeks, and I would say like do it for two weeks. Another thing that I would highly suggest if you're[00:22:00]really not familiar with meditation, you want to find out a little bit more. This is something I suggest often for my patients to do with their partners is to watch on Netflix. Headspace series, and it's a series that is amazing. It's little cartoons that describe the meditations. It's short enough. It's a little cartoon. It's entertaining. It describes the science behind a lot of these meditations, and it'll take you through a different meditations for each episode. And at the end of each cartoon, they take you through a guided meditation of that which they just explained. So that's something that I highly recommend. So I hope you got value from this. I highly recommend starting or at least trying to start a meditation practice. I can't tell you how much it's changed my own life. I can't tell you how much I've seen incredible benefits with the patients that I work with that started meditating.[00:23:00]

So I know that it could be a little challenging at first. Know that, keep that in mind so that you realize that you're going to get through it, just like any challenge. When you get through a challenge and your mind knows that it can overcome, it gets stronger, and it stays, you know, that type of pattern gets stronger and stronger, and you also prove to yourself that you can overcome. So, I hope you got value from this episode, and thank you so much for tuning in.

Have a beautiful day. So that concludes today's episode. You can find all of the links mentioned on the episode notes. If you're enjoying these episodes, please take a moment to share and leave a review. Reviews mean everything to podcasters and I really enjoy hearing from my listeners.

You can also find me on my website at www.thewholesomelotus. com or email me at info at thewholesomelotus. com. I love hearing from my listeners. If you're interested[00:24:00]and want updates as well as a free ebook on my top 10 fertility boosting habits, you can visit my fertility page on www.thewholesomelotus.com.

I thank you so much for listening in and hope that you have a beautiful day.[00:25:00]