Confidence vs. Confusion

Carrie was utterly confused and disheartened when her doctor, the one in whom she had utmost confidence, told her he didn’t think she could have her own child. Confident – “with fidelity”  To have trust or assurance.

Confusion – “with fusion”   To mingle together. A state of bewilderment or lack of clarity.

In any uncertain journey, the mind looks for something to trust; something worthy of assurance. This is confidence. This state of having fidelity, however, has more to do with what can be counted on without fail - something worthy of fidelity. Confusion, on the other hand, means that we have fused ourselves to something that is not worthy of our fidelity. We have lost ourselves in that which changes, leaving us feeling lost.

With confidence there is clarity. With confusion there is bewilderment.

On the fertility journey, there is no more uncomfortable place than feeling lost and confused. When we have bonded ourselves to the changeable; linked our hope to something which is uncertain, there is an innate sense of something being wrong; something feeling uncertain. Feelings of doubt arise, like “maybe this is the wrong course of action.”

So, what is worthy of fidelity? Can you trust a certainty in a particular course of action? Can you trust, with absolute, unfailing certainty, an individual doctor or clinic? Can you have 100 % trust and assurance that things will turn out the way you envision in your mind? No, No, and No. You cannot trust that which is untrustworthy. Every single person, place, thing, and situation, because it is changeable and fallible, has the potential for letting you down, and your heart knows it. You cannot trust anything without. The Tao te Ching reminds us that The Movement of the Tao is return.

Chinese medicine is based upon the premise: All diseases arise from the heart. Therefore, all cures come from the heart. Any state without ease means we are not right with the heart, which houses the spirit. We have placed our reliance on the changeable. We will, therefore, feel confused.

Because there is an inherent longing for something that we can count on with assurance, the mind will look outside for what it can count on. Again and again, external seeking will fail. Until we find that which is infallible, to which we can pledge our undying loyalty, we remain lost and confused. The only answer, the only true resting place is within the heart, which carries the spirit, our true self.

I tell stories of women, previously lost on the fertility journey, who have found this place of fidelity within and trust it completely. They remove their assurance from others. They remove their shaky reliance on doctors, their well meaning partners, family and friends, and lastly from the fallibility of the changing mind. They trust their hearts, the source of love, the source from which the desire to bring forth life arises. And always, always, it proves worthy of fidelity.  Perhaps, right now, in the midst of whatever confusion you may be experiencing, the spirit of your future child is leading you to a place of inner fidelity.

Holding Your Dream

Hope is the thing with feathersThat perches in the soul And sings the tune without the words And never stops at all. -Emily Dickinson

When your dream hasn’t become a reality, do you continue to pursue it, or do you let it go? Many people I have worked with over the years have great difficulty relating to their dream when it remains elusive. Some continue to hold it tightly, and pursue it with everything they have; others let it slip away, little by little, until there is nothing left but despair.

A dream, a goal, a vision pursued, is a function of the right brain, governed by the Liver system of energies, according to Chinese medicine. We create an image in our mind’s eye, and muster up the energy and resources to pursue it. The desire often becomes a reality. But not always. Difficulty arises when we hold tightly to desire and don't let it go. Most liver qi stagnation is caused by the resistance to unfulfilled desires. Look back over your life and recall all of the desires you have had. Have they all become a reality? Not mine. When I was ten, I wanted to live on a ranch in Montana with my husband and three kids and be a roller skating waitress at a drive-in. When I was a teenager, I wanted to spend the rest of my life with my first boyfriend. When I started college, I decided to major in journalism. None of these deeply held dreams came to fruition, but that doesn’t mean they were wrong.  Life molded itself so that my life could fulfill its destiny; not so I would get all that I wanted in the way I wanted it.

When life doesn’t participate with you according to the way you are holding your dream, perhaps you need to hold it differently. Perhaps the thing with feathers that is perched in the soul is molding you, rather than the other way around.

Don’t give it words; don’t give it an image. Let it provide one for you. Open your heart to allow hope to speak in its own language. My longing for children was not a mistake, but the way I pursued it was. I thought I could make it happen according to my timeline, in my way. My children came in their own way. The dreams I held in my heart guided me – I didn’t guide them. My children didn’t come because of my desire or what I did with it. True desires are unselfish and emerge from the heart – the same place through which our fertility comes forth.

Hold the feeling of the dream in your heart. Let it sing its wordless tune through your heart and guide you to its fruition.

Fertility Supplement Call Series

Join us for our most informative conference call series, as Dr. Lewis reveals the most important supplements for specific fertility related cases.  A not-to-be missed series that will answer your questions and leave you confident with your vitamin choices. Conference Call schedule:

General Nutritional Supplementation for Fertility and Ovarian Health:

August 8th at 8 p.m. EST

Endometriosis Supplementation:

August 12th at 2 p.m. EST

PCOS & Sugar Metabolism:

August 19th at 2 p.m. EST

Call-In Instructions:

To join in dial 605-475-4000 then access code 794774#. Those calling from Canada should call 805-360-1075 and then you will be prompted to enter the original number and access code.

1. Please DON'T announce your name when you dial in - there will be many callers on the line and the conference call may have already begun.

2. Immediately press *6 to MUTE your phone line (or use the Mute button on your phone) - this will prevent any unnecessary background noise and static on the line. You can press *6 to unmute your line once the call is opened up for discussion.

3. There are only 100 callers allowed on the call - make sure to call-in early to reserve your space.

4. Please keep topics and questions during the discussion related to the specific call.

Red Thread

There is an ancient Chinese legend about the red thread of destiny. In the midst of the chaos of life, and seemingly random events, according to myth, the gods tie an invisible red thread around the ankles of those that are destined to meet each other in a certain situation or help each other in a certain way. They might become lovers or partners; they might work together or become lifelong friends. One might help another to open their life in miraculous ways. But we can be sure, there is no mistake in our meeting. The further on in life we go, the less random it seems. We can recognize the interconnectedness of everything. We see that even in the midst of overwhelm, there are certain patterns to the workings of life. These patterns are easy to recognize in nature – predictable changes in seasons, weather patterns, growth and life cycles, the way flowers bloom in predictable ways, the perfect spiral of a sea shell…

Eight days after the eighth full moon of each year, the coral reefs spawn throughout the seas, beginning the predictable but hidden renewal of ocean life. The entire universe runs by the laws of nature. So do you. Have you ever met someone and immediately recognized each other as if you had always known each other? Red thread.

Have you ever felt like your whole world was falling apart, like everything you cherished and held dear was crumbling, but didn’t know why or what was on the horizon? A few months or years later, it was clear how destiny was unfolding perfectly. As the old pattern was being destroyed, a new pattern was emerging. More red thread action.

It’s hard to fathom that we are not controlling every aspect of our lives. We tend to get stuck in our beliefs about the way it’s all “supposed to be.” And we lose sight of the fact that it is always working for our highest good. We reach out for something that is within. Your life up to this point has not gotten off track. You haven’t waited too long, missed the right opportunity, or messed up your destiny in any way. The longing for a child is even divinely given. Here is a test: just see if you can get rid of it. If you were in charge of your destiny, you would either be able to manifest a child, or annihilate the desire. You can’t do either. It is being done. You can, however, let go into the miraculous flow of life itself so that it may happen.

A woman I recently worked with, now pregnant, told me that every moment of her life seemed to bring her to the point where this miracle could occur. Every setback, every doctor’s negative diagnosis, every high FSH reading, every sleepless night, was not a mistake. It proved to her that the faith in her heart was stronger than any external circumstance. Red thread.

Retreat Reflections

We just finished an amazingly transformative retreat. It continues to put me in awe when those struggling with “infertility” open up to their true fertility, and become liberated. It isn’t that they let go of trying to have a baby; they let go of the struggling, suffering and agony over not having a baby. Somehow, this helps open the way. One woman who shared that she and her husband love being Fertile Souls, said: “I have experienced a profound shift in my consciousness in regards to what is possible for me, both as future mother and as a woman who strives to be fully expressed.”

Another woman responded after the group-healing circle, “This is, hands down, the best acupuncture I have ever had.”

When couples arrive on retreat, often there is so much pain and despair that this type of shift would seem impossible for them. All that is necessary is the right environment for the heart to open, the body to respond, and life to come pouring through.

I always leave retreat feeling so full – wishing, as they do, that retreat would never end. But life goes on. We return to our lives and our jobs; which oftentimes become transformed by the retreat experience as well.

What is the takeaway? Hope. Abundance. A shift in consciousness like the one described above changes the entire physiology. It becomes irresistible to life.

Summer CEFP Retreat - All Practitioners Welcome!

NEW 2012 RETREAT DATE - Tell your local Practitioner!

August 24 - 26, 2012 Palmer House Hilton - Chicago IL

Cost: $350 (current CEFP members); $500 for all non-members

Continuing Education: 19 CEU hours

Contact us for registration information or for any further questions - http://www.thefertilesoulcefp.org/contact

True Healing True healing involves transformation, at the deepest levels. Instead of merely addressing the branch aspects of an individual’s presentation, we will work down to our own root level, learn and experientially practice how to come to the root level with a patient. Transformation begins by rooting oneself in the Tao. Our fall retreat will focus on taking our entire beings into the Tao, and then working our way out to the two, the three, and the ten thousand things. The movement of the Tao is return.

Friday

4 - 7 p ~ Opening Circle (3 CEU's) Personal and professional issues that impact our practice.

Saturday

8:30 - 9:30 a ~ Qi Gong (1 CEU)

10 a - 1 p ~ Morning Session with Randine  (3 CEU's)

Lecture - Rooting in the Tao

2 - 6 p ~ Afternoon Session with Randine (4 CEU's)

Body wisdom check-in Lecture - The dualistic aspect of fertility

Sunday

8:30 - 10:30 a ~ Qi Gong (1 CEU)

10 a - 1 p ~ Morning Session with Randine (3 CEU's)

Lecture - The three treasures and the forward sheng cycle of the endocrine system

2 - 6 p ~ Afternoon Session with Randine (4 CEU's)

Lecture - The backward sheng cycle of the gynecological and embryological systems Closing Circle

Contraction and Expansion

The metal element governs the continuum of expansion and contraction. Its organs are the lung (inspiration/expiration) and large intestine (fills/expels). It gives meaning, order, and structure to life, and thus pertains more to the left brain and autonomic nervous system functioning. Its emotion is sorrow, which takes us into loss, letting go, and the ultimate grief, death. Spiritually, it pertains to the Po - the corporeal or embodied soul which is associated with the flesh, comes into being with the first breath, and dies with the last. It is not our greatest reality, but a phantom of our true self. When we do not resist that which needs to be relinquished, we move into our deepest energetic state, that of the mysterious pass, where death ultimately results in rebirth. Something new can emerge when we let go of the old.

Many people misunderstand this element. I know I did. I used to think that life was expansion and death was contraction. My present understanding is that it is actually the opposite. After working with fertility for so many years, the subtle energy of embodiment was felt as a contraction of new energy in the depths of a woman's body. Years ago, I started working with Hospice, and noticed that when somebody was leaving this embodiment, there was a great expansion of energy as the spirit was no longer held by the limitation of the physical body.

While this may not be an awe inspiring realization, it has some elements that many of us overlook. According to the Tao, all of life's expressions operate via opposing forces. Openness or expansion begets the ability to hold. Being closed or contracted requires relinquishment, so emergence can take place. In other words, death begets life.

Spirit becomes trapped by the Po as it experiences this existence. At retreat we focus on breath work and letting go exercises to open up to this energetic. We expand so contraction can occur. We let go, so something can take hold.

In the words of the Tao te Ching: Those who try to control... Go against the direction of the Tao If you want fullness, empty yourself. If you want birth, let yourself die. If you want everything, give everything up.

IVF Drugs Linked to Childhood Cancer [Article - Telegraph, UK]

"... Fertility-boosting drugs could more than double the risk of subsequent offspring developing childhood leukaemia, academics warn today.” – Telegraph, UK 4/24/12 - European researchers reported over a two fold increased risk in two forms of childhood leukemia, in children conceived with fertility drugs.

Almost a decade ago, the Wall Street Journal reported: Babies born as the result of IVF with ICSI are twice as likely to be born with major birth defects than those conceived naturally.

Whether or not these research reports can be proven is not significant to me. What I look at is what the drugs are doing. Any drug which stimulates the ovaries to artificially recruit follicles that the body naturally deselected, are already at increased risk. Further, forcefully injecting sperm that are incapable of penetrating the egg on their own, obviously puts the potential of new life at risk.

Nature knows what it’s doing. Our own body’s wisdom selects the follicle that it deems the healthiest to become the dominant ovulatory follicle. Reproductive medicine will sacrifice that one for the drug induced many; just to increase the statistical likelihood that fertilization will take place. IVF drugs cannot and do not increase the health of the germ cells; they force fertilization. If the underlying health is compromised and fertilization is forced, the starting point of the new life is already at jeopardy.

I doubt the procedures themselves are responsible. The drugs? Not so sure. I have always held to the irrefutable fact that nature knows best. When we can enhance the health of the reproductive system during the tonic growth phase of follicular growth when protein synthesis and chromosomal selection occur (months before ovulation), we improve the likelihood of healthy egg and sperm production, no matter what methods are employed.

I lectured on this topic at a workshop which was attended by patients and reproductive clinic staff, including reproductive endocrinologists. As I taught the participants the life cycle of the follicle and what could improve ovarian and sperm health, I asked the medical audience if anything I was saying was untrue. An RE responded, “We know what you’re saying is true; we just can’t do anything about it with what we have to offer, so we don’t pay attention to it. Your method seems to offer that missing ingredient.

Most of the patients I treat are over 40. Most are at an increased statistical risk for chromosomal abnormalities and poor response to IVF. Yet, when they take the time to nourish the health of the body, mind, and spirit, natural conception is more likely to occur. IVF success rates greatly increase. And those that have chromosomal abnormalities, birth defects, and childhood cancers are virtually non-existent. As one of my teachers asked, “What is the truth you are attending to – labs and medical results, or the potential of your own spirit?” To me the latter is where miracles occur; not in the laboratory. Let medicine intervene where it is meant to – after you have done everything humanly possible to improve your own health; not before or instead.

The Spiritual Pivot

One of the earliest recorded works of medicine; the fundamental doctrine of Chinese Medicine is the Huang Di Nei Jing So Wen Ling Shu, dated approximately two centuries BCE. These two volumes (Su Wen and Ling Shu) comprise a dialog between the Yellow Emperor and his physician, Qi Bo, on the workings of nature as it pertains to the human body, the origin of disease and its cure. The second volume, called the Ling Shu or Spiritual Pivot, discusses the theory and application of acupuncture.  Chapter 8 of the Spiritual Pivot makes the recognition, “Before needling, one must be rooted in spirit.”  My interpretation of this sentence is that until one is in touch with one’s spirit – both the practitioner’s and the patient’s, the treatment will be ineffective.

All rue healing comes through the heart, the home of the spirit. If we take this all the way through, there are no healers, unless their primary motive is to bring one in harmony with one’s spirit, where all healing originates.

I teach and work with a community of practitioners whom I consider experts in Chinese medicine and fertility. I don’t call them healers; nor do I refer to myself or anyone else as a healer. We are so cut off from the healing power of our own spirit, if we place our healing in the hands of another; we potentially place ourselves at the mercy of someone who is one step further away from the healing power of our own heart. The word pivot refers to an essential turning point, where one turns away from outer help and toward the power of ones own inner wisdom.

Chinese medicine has shamanic roots where unless a turn is made to the spiritual source within, there will be no remedy, no cure. One will continue to be overtaken by what used to be considered evil spirits. These are no different than what we would consider origins of disease:

External pathogens;

Dietary or environmental toxins;

A posturing of anger that keeps one in a state of internal distress;

A state of victimhood, where one is at the mercy of another;

Unexamined, subconscious fear.

These can show up as chronic inflammatory conditions, hormonal imbalances, cancer, strokes, bleeding disorders, reproductive disturbances, heart attacks, you name it. Where disease has appeared, its origin is in losing ones resonance with ones own heart and place in the world.

Healing can be addictive, if one continues to rely on outside sources for ultimate healing. If there were a true healer, they would render their work irrelevant and put themselves out of business. So, in my view, real healing is helping someone to raise their energetic level to the point where they become their own healer. They transcend the need to be healed.

Fertility Acupressure - Luteal and Pre-Mentrual Phase

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdnni2i6mdE

Fertility Acupressure - Follicular Phase

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWjNX-PxdM0

The Essential Attribute

I recently met with a couple who had some troubling experiences with their past fertility doctors. She was 46 and he was 48. Her reproductive organs were clear, her hormones were within normal limits and he had an adequate sperm count with average motility and morphology. Yet, because of age, the feeling of frantic desperation was closing in on them. While I was evaluating the wife, the husband asked me a very interesting question: “In your experience, what is the crucial factor is in women who are successful in conceiving over 45? Is it hormonal, physical, emotional, mental?” I had to think for a moment, as I hadn’t ever been asked this question before. I paused, looked back on the “miracles” who conceived in later reproductive life, and it was clear what that essential attribute was. Strange as it sounded, I responded, “It is without a doubt this: the courage to follow the wisdom of one’s heart.”

Certainly, as a woman ages, there are changes to her reproductive system. At age 25, a woman as 80% more blood flow going to the reproductive organs than a 45 year old woman. Her hormones are more stable. Her uterus is more receptive. She responds better to hormones. Negative life conditioning hasn’t had a chance to take hold. It isn’t as if we need to recondition all these negative life responses, either. We don’t have time for that.

The Chinese philosophy of reproductive aging could be boiled down to this: At age 25, one is governed primarily by the physical world. At age 45, one must follow a different directive: the wisdom of the heart, known as xin. Heart wisdom is that deep inner sense of knowing we each have when our lives are in alignment. It is a felt sense of power and rightness that is more difficult to tap into when we are governed by the physical world of the senses.

One woman was 48 when she came into the power of the courage of her own heart wisdom. She sat across from her doctor as he sat behind his desk, patronizing her with comments such as, “Don’t you realize how old you are?” and “Furthermore, you aren’t even married.” Having had enough of believing other people’s comments of what she was capable of, she stood up with nothing other than the courage of her own heart to guide her, Thoughts arose such as, what if this was the last doctor who would treat someone of her age and reproductive status? It didn’t matter anymore. The only thing that mattered was that she finally stand up for herself. She said, “Who are you to tell me what I am capable of?” and she walked out of his office, determined never again to let anyone rob her of her potential. She found her husband later the same year. They conceived naturally. She gave birth to a healthy baby boy.

It is rare to find someone who is finally ready to take charge of their own life to such an extent that they encounter a level of courage that demands fidelity of a higher order to ones own heart. But when it comes, it is a formidable force. I have never seen it fail.

Fertility Massage - Femoral Reproductive Massage Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBhifKPeqg0

Can Women Make New Eggs?

A new study confirmed the underlying belief, unproven, that the ovary contains deep, hidden stem cells, capable of becoming new eggs. It was previously believed that a woman’s ovarian potential was determined before birth, and was incapable of being improved upon. While science hasn’t been able to study ovarian potential from healthy, living ovarian tissue, rodent studies have supported the idea that mammalian ovarian cells have a potential to produce new cells. Yet, the only tissue science has previously had to study was pathological or diseased tissue, removed from the body. It was previously proven that menopausal ovaries, when placed in a younger, healthier body, were capable of ovulating again. Science does not know how, why, or under what circumstances those stem cells can produce eggs. The ovaries respond to cues from the internal environment (the blood circulation, hormones, nutritional status, oxygenation, stress hormones in the blood., toxin and antioxidant levels…) and create a follicular environment to mimic the body’s internal response to its external environment. It is within that follicular environment that the eggs (which have been in a dormant state since before birth) undergo meiosis, and wait to see if they will be selected for maturation and ovulation.

Knowing that ovarian tissue is capable of producing new eggs, and knowing that primordial follicles remain dormant until called into circulation by communicating with the body’s internal environment (which is based on her emotional interpretation of the external environment), let me provide a couple of stories from women I have treated.

A woman underwent high dose radiation and chemotherapy, which “killed” her ovaries. She conceived naturally.

A woman in ovarian failure, with an FSH value over 100, conceived naturally.

A woman conceived during her 7^th IVF at age 47.

A woman conceived naturally with ¼ of one ovary.

A woman conceived naturally with only one ovary on the left, and only one fallopian tube, on the right.

A woman gave birth to her first child, conceived naturally, at age 48.

The body is capable of miraculous feats, when provided the right cues. I am less concerned with how to manipulate stem cells in the lab ten years from now, than I am with providing the right environment where the body can call upon its deepest, dormant potential now. While the examples might be clinical anecdotes and not research worthy, the beauty of these stories is that each of the women above had to call upon a higher potential within. According to Chinese medicine, the energy that stirs this primordial potential comes not from the Kidneys (which govern the ovaries), but from the Heart (Spirit’s) interaction with the primordial potential within the ovaries. Energetically, ones highest potential must reach into one’s most basic potential. When an internal pressure cooker is provided (like the fertility journey,) an internal state of tension is produced, requiring one to call upon this higher level of interaction. If it isn’t accessed, the HPO axis continues on its previous (horizontal) pathway of decline. When a woman can access her heart’s highest potential, we can consider it an evolutionary jump, calling upon that hidden (vertical) potential to now manifest at a higher level.

Control vs. Allowing

If you are on the fertility journey, you have undoubtedly been told by those blissfully ignorant of the frustration this journey brings, comments like: “Just let go and it will happen.” Or, “I had a friend who adopted and became pregnant when she gave up control.” I offered a retreat a few years back whose theme was, Letting Go. One very high-strung woman arrived and said, “I didn’t come here to let go; I came here to have a baby!” At our last retreat, one woman recognized, “I’ve been so wound up trying to force myself to let go, I’ve been controlling more than if I simply let myself control.” Tight control vs. letting go are two ends of the same spectrum. When we are trying to move the scales over to one side vs. the other, it is still control. It is impossible to falsely induce a state of letting go at this level, because we are invariably going to find ourselves being tugged from one side to the other.  Albert Einstein said, “You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created.” So how do we move beyond the pendulum of control to a new paradigm? You might start by inquiring within:

What is the underlying desire whose fulfillment you are trying to control?

How do you think you can control its manifestation?

Do you have to alleviate the desire in order to let go?

Can you attend to your heart’s desire while you let go of how you think it must be fulfilled?

Keep your attention on yourself, right now. Attend to the open spaciousness within, the hope you feel in your heart, and the longing that arises to bring forth life. That’s it. Do what you can to restore balance. Balance can’t be forced. It is in harmony with the rest of your life. Let the universe run itself, and attend to your own inner state of being. Don’t attend to yesterday’s errors or tomorrow’s fears. Stay at home, in the wellbeing within your own heart.

There is no need to control your thoughts or emotions, either. Be as you are. Allow life to flow through you, authentically, as it will. Any forced state of positivity is only more control. Don’t you think that the soul of a future child will be drawn to you as you are rather than a forced state of controlling their manifestation? Provide life an outlet, and more will come through.

Be scared. Be sad. Be messy. Have a tantrum about this sucky journey. Stomp and scream when you’re angry. Laugh when you’re happy. Live life fully. Get off the spleen qi diet for a few days. Stop taking your vitamins and herbs. Throw out the BBT charts.  Exercise how you want to rather than how you should. Make love when you have the urge rather than according to the ovulation predictor kits. Find the joy of no control. Act as if you were three and didn’t know any better, and you may find yourself in an open flow of life rather than a static, sterile, controlled approach. Let life live you, breathe you, think you, and emote through you. Let life come through you as it will, in every way. Your hormones will love it!

The Fertile Soul Comes to Omaha - March 23-25

Dr. Randine Lewis, author of The Infertility Cure and founder of The Fertile Soul Method^TM, will offer this Workshop in conjunction with Donna Huber (Thirteen Moons Acupuncture) to focus on the unique challenges couples and individuals face through the fertility journey. We will incorporate five-element energetics, our foundational retreat process, diagnosis, qi gong exercises, diet, massage/acupressure, energy healing, nutritional enhancement, and healing support in a comfortable group environment. Our LOWEST tuition of the YEAR is offered for this event ONLY! The retreat begins on Friday, March 23 (starting time around 3pm) and goes through Sunday, March 25 (closing time around 6pm).

For more information and registration, check out our site here: http://thefertilesoul.com/shop/retreats/re12-0323-the-fertile-soul-retreat

or contact us: info@thefertilesoul.com

Emergence

Once a month I conduct a community call with our community of TCM fertility experts, dealing with real life issues that show up as mental, emotional or physical imbalances, including infertility. Today we talked about the energies of emergence. As we move from winter into spring, nature expresses the energy of emergence. The seeds that have been hidden under ground sprout into shoots, which emerge through the soil as the hidden potential is being manifest.  This very same energy is behind the reproductive capacity of a human being.

The water element, carried by the kidney system of energies, governs our genetic and reproductive potential, and how it can be either strengthened into a strong push of emergence, or depleted where its potential withers before it has a chance to emerge.

We looked at what constitutes that hidden potential. According to Chinese medicine, its basis is a strong sense of ones innate being, that gives rise to the will to live fully and reproduce oneself in the world. Physical means to support these energies are

through adequate sleep, rest, quiet, meditation, a warm foot soak in Epson salts, eating seeds, and nourishing foods like eggs with high potential energy, qi gong, reproductive and femoral massage, and acupuncture and herbs that tonify the kidney essence.. The strongest way to nourish the potential of the kidney energies is to know oneself fully, down to the core, without any masks or roles giving us our identity.

These potential energies can also be depleted by too much exercise, excitement, stimulation, not enough restoration and sleep; eating foods with low potential energy like refined carbohydrates and simple sugars. They are also held back by unexamined fears, which can lurk in the depths and drive unconscious behavior. Fears like “My life will not be worth anything if I don’t have a child.” These types of unconscious fears are counter to knowing and accepting oneself down to the core. When we move into these fears and acknowledge them, they lose their hold over us.

I invite you to look at these fears that might hold you back and bring them into the light where they have no power.  What gives your life worth right now? Can you look at the value of your life without any roles, relationships, or external identities?

From here, the depths of your own inherent worth, there is potential for what can be. What emerges forth as your heart’s greatest longing? Sure, it comes in the form of the desire to have a child. But instead of holding onto the picture of a child as a goal oriented pursuit, bring it into an embodied reality. When you feel the desire for a child arise, what does it feel like in your body? What is the direct, felt experience of what you think it will feel like when that desire is fulfilled? Instead of waiting for the goal to be reached (a stressful pursuit which depletes the kidneys and obstructs the liver), bring it out of the mind and into the body. Feel the visceral sensation of its fulfillment. What does it feel like? Unconditional love? Joy? Feel those feelings now.

Turn your vision within. Find the source from which these energies arise. Look at what might be obstructing them. Let your deepest fears be uncovered. Move beyond them, so you can experience the fullness of your heart’s desire. Take it out of the mind, which will give it a picture, and instead plant the feeling in your body. Let that feeling guide you.

Finally, what is the ground of your life, as it is, that will be nourishing this seedling? How have you been nourishing your life? How much space is there in your life right now for yourself? For a child? What types of emotions are circulating through your system? Is it conducive to allowing new life to emerge? And can you cultivate a sense of faith that life, as it is, can find its way through you?

We will be working with these most potent energies of emergence at our next retreat. I hope to see you there.

2012 - The Year of the (Water) Dragon

Beginning with the next new moon, we enter into the year of the water dragon, deep and fierce. There is a dragon asleep in the heart of humanity. From the depths of the ocean, this dragon rises to the surface, beckoning us into the most fierce approach to life - to awaken to the fire breathing magnificence of our own miraculous power. Some will heed it's power, and some will turn away from its call.

We are not the small beings we have taken ourselves to be; and are not, in fact, what we think we are. We are not victims of life, nor are we at its mercy. We are life itself, and as such are beyond such happenings as birth and death. Our own unfathomable being is so grand that it cannot be contained in a body or a mind. These are mere reflections, vehicles through which our divine magnificence peers through into this three dimensional existence. The face of your own divinity will devour all illusion.

When the power of this dragon is awakened, it will stop at nothing. It is propelled by the fiercest force in all of existence - to know itself as all. This force will consume you and all you have known until it comes to rest in the cave of stillness, knowing its source, containing the pure potential from which all arises.

If you dare to awaken this dragon, it will consume all of its manifestations. It will see past the illusion of the dream made self. It will face and devour all of your fears, angers, sorrows, and conditional love, joy, and happiness. It will not rest until it resides in the unborn grandeur of the unconditioned, in peace that cannot be understood; only lived.

This dragon cannot die. It has never not been. It has always been there, sleeping in  the cave of your own heart, waiting for your invitation. It brings you to the power many dare not encounter. Do not be afraid to come face to face with your own terrible magnificence. You are the life you have been longing for. You have taken birth for this chance. Dare to use the power of the dragon to awaken to the life giving powers of creation arising from the depth of your own being.

Can Foods Make You Fertile?

I was recently interviewed for an article by The Daily Beast, entitled “Can Foods Make You Infertile?” The author wanted to substantiate some research claims about foods that were good and bad for your fertility. It is an interesting piece. I still take issue with the study on whole milk and ice cream being good for your fertility, but they were not looking for refuting evidence; only substantiating evidence. Milk is not good for your fertility, but fat is. Milk fat, butter fat, Omega-3s, coconut oil, flaxseed oil… I still advise avoiding cow dairy products, and including plenty of non-trans fat. Other than that, here is the list from the Daily Beast: 1. Men who drink at least a quart of cola daily have sperm counts almost 30 percent lower than men who drink no cola.

2. Women who eat lots of low-fat dairy products face an 85 percent higher risk of ovulatory infertility than women who consume little or no low-fat dairy products.

3. Men who eat large quantities of soy-based foods produce 32 percent less sperm per milliliter than men who consume no soy-based foods.

4. Women who consume at least one daily serving of whole milk are more than 50 percent less likely to experience ovulatory infertility than are women who consume less than one serving of whole milk per week.

5. Men who are exposed to large quantities of bisphenol-A (BPA), a chemical used in the manufacture of canned foods, have sperm counts about 23 percent lower than men with no BPA exposure.

6. Vegan women are only one-fifth as likely to have twins as are vegetarian and omnivorous women.

7. Men with high concentrations of trans-fatty acids in their semen have 96 percent fewer sperm than men with low concentrations of trans-fatty acids in their semen.

8. Women who consume at least one alcoholic beverage per day have a nearly 50 percent greater risk of ovulatory infertility than women who drink no alcohol.

9. Women who are exposed to large quantities of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), a synthetic chemical used in the linings of microwave-popcorn bags, face an infertility risk ranging from 70 percent to 134 percent higher than that of women with the least amount of PFOA exposure.

10. Men who eat a traditional Dutch diet have sperm counts nearly twice as high as do men who eat a fish-and-produce-based diet.

11. Women who eat large quantities of omega-3 fatty acids are 22 percent less likely to be diagnosed with endometriosis—a common cause of infertility—than women who eat little or no omega-3s.

12. Women who consume large quantities of non-heme iron—the kind found in lentils, spinach, and supplements—have a 40 percent lower risk of ovulatory infertility than women who consume little or no non-heme iron.

13. Women who consume at least 5 percent of their daily calories in the form of vegetable protein rather than meat protein have a 50 percent lower risk of ovulatory infertility than women who consume only meat protein.

14. The sperm of men who consume very low quantities of antioxidants is only two thirds as motile as the sperm of men who consume high quantities of antioxidants.

15. Men whose mothers ate beef at least seven times a week while pregnant with them are three times as likely to have low sperm counts as men whose mothers ate less beef while pregnant.

For the complete article, see:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/12/09/can-food-make-you-infertile-foods-to-eat-and-avoid.html

Fertility Is Within

From the roaring silence of the unborn, life longs to emerge. Pregnant with pure potential, life springs into being with the friction of opposing vital forces, inviting a new life to begin. Ovulation, intercourse, ejaculation, fertilization, zygote, embryo, fetus, baby, child, adult, longing to bring forth life anew.

Will life emerge from the desire that you carry? Nobody knows. What is certain is this – you cannot force life from external measures.

Sure, procedural medicine can try to force sperm into egg, but that’s where the advances of modern medicine begin and end in the fertility world.

The miracle of life, however, is endless.

Fertility is an inside job.

One of the most ancient texts of medicine in existence tells us that all disease begins with the spirit, and manifests in the body/mind. All healing comes from the spirit, and emerges from your own heart. The meridian that connects the heart to the womb and allows life to be made manifest, has no points of its own. It is too deep for any external force to manipulate. Fertility is an inside job.

One of the best fertility meditations I know is to quiet the body and mind, and feel into the spaciousness of your own body. As you breathe in, imagine the connection from your heart to your womb. Feel yourself carry the life-giving blood from the heart to the uterus with every inhalation, and with every exhalation allow yourself to release any tension between the uterus and the heart. Keep opening up further and further with every breath, and eventually you can merge your awareness with the source of life itself. It is not anywhere else but within.