058: [FEMININE FLOW] Divine feminine meets Chinese Medicine with Ariele Myers

Embark on an enlightening exploration of fertility and feminine energy with our esteemed guest, Ariele Myers, a revered acupuncturist and fertility virtuoso. This episode promises to guide you through the delicate symphony of Chinese medicine, offering profound revelations on how aligning our lives with our deepest womb wisdom can catalyze personal and professional metamorphosis. Witness the harmonious blend of ancient practices with modern insights as Ariele brings her wealth of knowledge and heartfelt experiences to the forefront, illuminating the path for women everywhere to reclaim their health and vitality.

Ariele Myers gracefully navigates the sacred alliance of yin and yang energies, highlighting their pivotal influence on fertility and personal growth. She unravels the tapestry of challenges that disrupt our fertile essence, from hormone-disrupting pollutants to the pervasive disconnect from our feminine core. As we traverse from the physical to the ethereal realms of health, Ariele illuminates the powerful interplay between our environment, lifestyle choices, and the energy we embody. This episode is a treasure trove of wisdom for anyone seeking to deepen their connection with their body and fertility, as we weave the eternal wisdom of Chinese medicine into the fabric of our daily lives.

Concluding our intimate conversation, we delve into the transformative potential of embracing holistic perspectives on common fertility setbacks. Ariele shares her pioneering ventures, Wisdom of the Womb and the Whole Woman Collective, which serve as beacons of empowerment, uniting experts to discuss the multifaceted aspects of fertility and overall well-being. Join us for a soul-nourishing session that transcends the ordinary, as we celebrate the essential balance of energies that resonate within our beings and ripple out into every facet of our existence.

To connect with Ariele:
 
IG:  wisdomofthewomb
TikTok:  wisdom_of_the_womb
FB:  allwomenarefertile
Pinterest:  wisdomofthewomb

www.wisdomofthewombonline.com

Transcript

Kasia: 0:01

Hello and welcome to the Other Way, a lifestyle podcast exploring uncommon, unconventional or otherwise alternative approaches to life, business and health. I'm your host, kasia. I'm the founder of Inflow, a woman's wellness brand that designs intentional products to help women reconnect to their unique cyclical rhythm and find a balance between being and doing. This podcast is an extension of my mission within Flow. Here we provide intentional interviews with inspiring humans, trailblazers, researchers, spiritual teachers and more on the journey of doing things the Other Way. Now, today's guest is no exception.

Kasia: 0:47

Today, I welcome Ariele Myers to the podcast. Ariele is a licensed acupuncturist, certified herbalist and founder of Wisdom of the Womb, moon, mother Botanicals, the Fertile Mama Method and the Whole Woman Collective. She is an incredible teacher and healer, and today we dive into a very flowy podcast mixing up science with energetics and more. We're covering Chinese medicine's point of view on fertility and infertility, the importance of feminine energy when it comes to conception and what that even means. Lifestyle practices you can practice today to boost your likelihood of conception, the pillars of fertility health, translating common Western conditions around infertility into how Chinese medicine views them, the power of feminine pleasure in conception and pregnancy and the feminine experience, and so much more. Now, without further ado, let's dive on in. Ariele, welcome to the podcast.

Ariele Myers: 1:51

Thank you so much for having me on now I can see myself.

Kasia: 1:54

Perfect Surprise it was better before.

Ariele Myers: 1:59

I'm just kidding.

Kasia: 2:00

You look great. Well, I'm so happy to have you here glowing on screen as you do off online. When I met you, so pumped. We have so much to cover today all around fertility, chinese medicine, dive into some herbal stuff too. But before we do all of that, there's a question I ask every single guest, and that is what are three words that you would use to describe yourself?

Ariele Myers: 2:27

Yeah, I thought about that. I would say passionate, playful and then definitely inquisitive.

Kasia: 2:34

Oh, I love that, I love that and that definitely comes across online. I always love to ask this question, thank you, yeah, because sometimes people are perceived away online and then you hear these words and you're like, wow, that just adds so much depth to who they are professionally or how they show up. But the way that you show up online definitely is reflected in those words.

Ariele Myers: 2:56

Yeah, thank you. I like to think who I am in life is how I am in work and all aspects. So yeah, it's kind of a cross the board.

Kasia: 3:06

I love that. I love that. That's the goal, I love that. And so just to kind of jump into your professional background, you're an integrative fertility specialist, a licensed acupuncturist, certified herbalist and a womb keeper Love that, by the way and that's quite an impressive background and I mean I guess it makes sense because fertility is such a complex area and it's not like a one size fits all solution. And I absolutely love this topic because women and men, frankly, and all of us, however you identify, feel like we're really undereducated in this area, and so it's wonderful to kind of come at it from just all these different angles of how to optimize and prepare for what's a really impactful journey.

Ariele Myers: 4:01

Yeah, I mean of all those things and so interesting because even though I do have that background, I feel like I used to practice much differently and I had a private practice and I was really into functional medicine and just really like exploring what it means for me to be a woman on this planet, like without all of the degrees and the education. It's like just really like I have a womb, so how can I relate to other women?

Kasia: 4:29

That is so beautiful, and I would love to jump into that a little bit, because you already called out that you my favorite topic. Yeah, you already called out that. You mentioned that the way that you are at work is very much aligned with the way that you are in life in general, and I find that, at least in my experience and I know that I'm not alone in this, because I've spoken to a lot of women that it almost feels like those two things are at odds, and so I love that you brought up that you yourself keep your own womb right, like you are a woman with a womb, and that's part of your experience. I'm curious, what did that tipping point look like, to kind of switch from maybe having a little bit more duality to having that all be connected?

Ariele Myers: 5:11

That's a really good question and it's pretty distinct like time in my life. It was a pretty I'd say kind of like decisive action I took. I used to like, right after I graduated from acupuncture school, I opened my practice it was in Hoboken, new Jersey at the time it was called Ariele's Pathicary and I loved it, but I was definitely like constantly learning and feeling like I needed to learn more and even though I had my acupuncture degree and herbal, I was like let me become a functional medicine practitioner too and then let me open this other location in Jersey City and open up with this IVF clinic. It was more. It was like I just kept feeling like I needed to learn more and do more and at the same time, I was like having my kids. So I was like pregnant and like trying to figure out like, well, how do I be the kind of mom I want to be, which is a really like attachment parent style mother, while also having this career and I loved work, like I loved acupuncture and Chinese medicine and I loved the apothecary and I loved my patients.

Ariele Myers: 6:16

But I definitely had this feeling of like nothing was really making me feel or nothing really hit the spot where I was like I've done enough for like I've. There was like kind of a discontent and then, at the same time, like with my patients, it was great because I had a really high success rate. 75% of my patients were getting pregnant. But I was really focused on that this few and you know it wasn't just a percent rate at the time. It was like individual women that I was forming a relationship with and I kept feeling, like with the ones that were not getting pregnant, there was like a deeper level, like a deeper place that I wanted to go and like none of what I had learned in acupuncture school, none of the functional medicine stuff, was like tapping into it and it felt like, even though it wasn't conscious at the time, it was kind of this underlying knowing like the thing that was missing in me was the thing that I couldn't access in them. And so, yeah, I decided my husband developed an autoimmune. Now my ex-husband I just got divorced last year, which is a whole other part of my journey, but yeah, he developed an autoimmune.

Ariele Myers: 7:24

We decided that New York was not the place for us and his you know stress level and we moved to Colorado and I was kind of done with fertility, as far as I knew, I was like I'm going to sell my practice and move to Colorado and kind of like dive into whatever was next, which to me felt like a real exploration of like this realm of the divine, feminine and nature and earth connection, and so, yeah, so that was really the like, the breaking I don't want to say breaking point, but it did feel like a real split, like, okay, I've gone as far as I can and what I see is this kind of super achiever, you know, I'd say more like masculine energy role. I'm an Aries, I'm very young, so like that's natural for me, but like really diving into this, this realm of the feminine. And then, once there, I couldn't help but see it all through the lens of fertility and it was like, oh yeah, this is what's been missing.

Kasia: 8:18

Full circle, full circle, oh my gosh. Wow. It's kind of wild to think that sometimes you have to, in a way, walk away from something to then come back to it and see it from this different lens, with different perspective and like a fresh set of eyes. I can so relate to your journey, by the way, and, as you know, kind of probably attested by the thousands of people who work with you and follow you online. I'm not alone in that. I'm so curious, like kind of reflecting, and this is probably a very loaded question, so I'm curious even to see how you might answer it. But as you kind of look at almost like that integration of the background of your knowledge in Chinese medicine and then this divine feminine space, like how do you blend them together? Because, you know, I don't know if I, if I showed this in our email, but I actually spent a couple of years studying Chinese medicine.

Kasia: 9:16

I did not graduate from the program. Yeah, I walked. I walked away from the program. It wasn't the right fit for me to finish and practice, so I went about halfway through, but I was pretty shocked to just see, you know, that there were elements of it that felt very intuitive, but then there were other elements that were very prescriptive and it almost feels like how do you merge those two together? So, tactically, what does it look like for you, like in your, in how you think about it or practice, or you know kind of approach it?

Ariele Myers: 9:48

Well, I should share that. I'm not. I'm not actually practicing one on one anymore, like I don't have a. Actually I did open here after I moved, but it took kind of COVID for me to be like this is actually not what I my like passion is not there anymore and I really was into the online. I didn't share that, but when I moved here I was, I was like done and then I started getting was continuing to get all of these recommendations and referrals and I just put put everything online, like my class and my products, and and then I thought I was done with it. Famous last words.

Kasia: 10:22

It finds you Keeps coming for you.

Ariele Myers: 10:26

I think I'm grateful because my background in Chinese medicine I mean, it definitely was like a lot more medical than I expected it to be. I think when I went to school I was like I'm going to be learning about like myths and angels and arch you know, and like all of the, and it was like really a lot of science, like Western science, eastern science it was. It was so I'm grateful for that because it was a really good background. And now, and it's so interesting because just in my, in my personal life too, it's like everything now is kind of this real exploration of the polarity, of yin and yang. Like you know the words masculine and feminine they get a little bit edgy these days because I think a lot of people are kind of deterred by that kind of language. But so I should say that masculine doesn't only need to live in a male, just like feminine doesn't only need to live in a female. We could say yin and yang if it's more comfortable, but like really exploring that, that polarity, and like how they live in me, how they live in my work and how they live in each, each person that we're working with. It's not as easy to like explore that when someone just reaches out and is like, what kind of tea should I drink? But you know, when we, when someone really wants to go deeper and explore that, we have. We have tools, and I don't know if I'm really answering your question, but I think for me, I really see that as like a sacred marriage, you know, like the, the education, and like the, the structures and the framework.

Ariele Myers: 11:53

For me that's very like yin and yang, energy. It's like containing. It's masculine, it's like here's what you need to know. And then the yin, the feminine, for me, is like what do you feel? What? What's your body's response like? It's really just the, like mind and the, and the body and the womb is like so much. It's like that, like original. You know, matter, it's like that, the, the matter, like earth, you know. So that connection to our body or connection to the earth, the connection to our senses, how we feel, and I don't think that that's really. I think we're getting back to it a little bit, but it's not something that historically has been like honored or respected or like followed. You know, like, oh yeah, you, you feel you have an intuitive hit that we should go that way. You know, not many people listen to that. They're like what is the map say?

Kasia: 12:41

Yeah, in fact, we're kind of taught to ignore that. Like, once you actually start thinking about that, it's pretty wild to consider, right, like especially women. You think about diet, culture. We're told what to eat and how to look a certain way, and you know, that's just one of the many, one of many examples of ways that we ignore our physical cues to like kind of mold and shape and force our body into a certain direction. So I think it's really powerful.

Kasia: 13:10

Also, which you mentioned about yin and yang, I remember when I first saw the symbol of both yin and yang I think it's pronounced Tai Chi, tai Chi, right, yeah, and there was just something so beautiful about it because in the text, as I was reading about it, they talked they whichever author this was, so I can't name them right now but about how yin lives within yang and yang lives within yin, and so, even though they are kind of melding together, there is an existence of one within the other, and I think that that is something that we often kind of forget. Like that is when I think about that balance that you mentioned at the very beginning of striving towards. The way you show up at work is the way you show up in life. That is the ultimate balance of both of those energies and I love that to have like a living breathing example through the computer screen.

Ariele Myers: 14:03

Mutually, I mean, I'm trying mutually engendering. It's like they support and build and grow each other. And when I think about polarity, and I think about that like creative force that is needed for that spark of life to occur, to create new life, I think about you know the ends of the battery, like if you don't have that polarity, you just won't have that electricity, which I see as like that spark, whether it's to create life or to create poetry or music or passion or just a feeling of aliveness. It's like we need that both. And I think that's when things get toxic is where, like one is more important than the other, like we've been coming out of what 4000 years, where it's the most important thing is science and mental consciousness and productivity, and you know, achievement and forward moving and striving and conquest, and it's like, okay, look how far, yeah, we needed that, that's important. But like it almost feels the pendulum swung and it's like that alone. What are we going to do next? Fly to Mars, you know? Like maybe, I think, I think we're trying.

Kasia: 15:06

so yeah, giant, phallic spaceship.

Ariele Myers: 15:11

Yeah, so it's like you know what. What else is is essential. That's been missing from this, and there's certainly in I mean toxic feminine in it too. I think we talk a lot about the toxic masculine and kind of gives men a bad name, but there's toxic feminine too, and I think just really the two together coming to support each other is is essential.

Kasia: 15:32

So important. So I think this is a perfect segue into one of the top questions I think that you probably get and I have top of mind here when we think about fertility and fertility issues. What are some of the things that get in the way? And you can kind of answer this from like a very broad perspective, both energetically and then physiologically. I feel like you can kind of look at both of those. So what do you typically see? Yeah, or from your experience. So I'll do both.

Ariele Myers: 16:03

I'll cut because I think, like you know, as within, so without, that's like a big topic in Chinese medicine. But or we could say, like the, the micro and the macro. But if we like zoom out, it's like what I was talking about, like a total connection from the value and the importance of the feminine, you know, and whether it doesn't really matter, if that was intentional, to kind of have women not be that connected to their bodies. Our bodies are like truly overly medicalized, like how many of us had like a rite of passage around our first, our first period? How many of us recognize like the beauty and the like divinity of our menstrual cycle is just something that we're like, oh, that's annoying, stick a tampon in there. How many of us are like, oh, I'm bleeding.

Ariele Myers: 16:50

You know what's my connection to, like the earth and the tides, and so I think that's a big one. But on the bigger scale too, it's like our disconnection from the earth. We could be like, well, that's an energetic thing, right? What does that mean energetically when we're living on a planet that is pretty unwell, like it's 30 degrees hotter than it should be in Colorado right now. It's like 60 degrees in January. So there's that.

Ariele Myers: 17:16

So, whether that's like ignoring or or just not paying attention or shutting down, but also like the the reality of what we're doing to our planet, which is spraying most of our crops in America with, with glyphosate which you know, with a roundup, which is a truly, truly, truly toxic, like destroyer of our microbiome and our microbiome, our gut health is so crucial for fertility, for overall body health, for mental health, for reproductive health.

Ariele Myers: 17:48

So that's like a, like an actual scientific. You know when we could be like, oh, the energy of not connecting to the earth. But it's also like, yeah, but what does that mean? That, like most of our crops, we're not even eating them. They're going to produce plastics, microplastics. So then that's also an endocrine disruptor impacting men maybe more than women right now, but it certainly impacts us as well just to have too many plastics and especially in the case of PCOS and where we have estrogen dominance, that is an issue. So I think sometimes, when I talk about our connection to the earth, people are like, okay, that's woo-woo stuff, like the energetic connection, but there's a real physical reality to that which is very much impacting our fertility.

Kasia: 18:33

Absolutely, and I had Jenna Hua on a couple of months ago. She's the founder of a company called Million Marker, who talked about actually endocrine disruptors. Her company is actually one that helps women test their bodies for the levels of endocrine disruptors that are present within their bodies and, teaser for everyone, we all have endocrine disruptors in our system. These are chemicals that are known as forever chemicals. They're difficult to remove and I will hyperlink some of the research that is actually associated with fertility issues in animals, and they're running randomized control trials now about the impact that endocrine disruptors have on fertility in humans, which is just wild. This is stuff that is just totally permeated throughout our bodies, and so I'm so happy that you mentioned it, and it does affect men and women, and I think that's really important to note because you need both in the picture, right.

Ariele Myers: 19:34

Yeah, there was something like I was reading something that was like the sperm count of the earth testosterone level of a 19-year-old now is equivalent to like a 75-year-old in the 60s. Like, are the sperm count, testosterone levels are just plummeting because of all the microplastics and estrogens. So, and you know, even eating organic it's like it doesn't even. I mean, yes, we all should, because that will change the industry. But like even organic farms, like the roundup is like absorbed into the air and then when it rains it's pouring down on everything. So it's like, you know, really, I say like, eat organic to shift the industry as much as possible.

Kasia: 20:13

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Hey, ladies Kasia here, sorry to interrupt, but I just wanted to jump in and piggyback off of Ariele's earlier comment about how our society is not set up for balancing the energies of Yin and Yang, aka masculine and feminine, and, as Ariele mentioned, masculine and feminine from an energetic point of view, not just gender structures. We talked a bit about how hard it can be to flow between the state of being and doing, rest and creativity and execution and productivity, and how often productivity can feel at odds with rest, pleasure and embodiment. This is something that I've noticed in my own life and one of the most powerful ways of shifting that this past year has been by practicing an attunement to my cycle. This is what cyclical living is adjusting your diet, movement, mindfulness practices and more to align with your cycle. And this is exactly what inflow, my planner, does. Rather than structuring and planning your goals around a traditional sense of time and Monday through Sunday, et cetera, inflow merges the structure around day planning and goal setting with embodiment practices and lifestyle practices diet, nutrition and movement adjustments in alignment with your cycle. It is seamlessly integrated into your day so you can tap into that feminine energy. I already shared on the podcast how hard it has been for me, as a type A woman, to do this, and this is actually why I designed this planner. For those of you who know me, I have a background in software development and it was super intentional for me to design, first and foremost, a physical product, physical planner around these practices. So when we write, we actually attune to our bodies. If you want to learn more about inflow, head to inflowplannercom and, for all my listeners out there, if you want to get a discount on any purchases, use code podcast10. All right back to the episode.

Kasia: 22:27

I'm curious, then, from shifting to some of the conditions that are very common as that women may be diagnosed with when they're struggling with their fertility or perhaps preparing to go down that journey. I know endometriosis, pcos those are some of the common issues out there. I actually did a little bit of research right before to kind of pull up. We have ovulation disorders like PCOS would be an example. Tubal infertility damage or blockages the fallopian tools. Endometriosis that's where the uterine lining kind of starts to spill out of the uterus, uterine or cervical abnormalities, and then early menopause.

Kasia: 23:10

I'm curious, as you kind of think about women who come to you, perhaps online, and or kind of reflect on a lot of these conditions from a kind of Chinese medicine point of view. Do these conditions also show up? Or like, how does Chinese medicine view infertility or fertility issues? And I know that can be tough, right, because it's really really different for every single person. But just to give folks like an idea of the philosophy, because in Western medicine we bucket things this is what you have, this is what you have. Well, actually it could be a whole range of things, and having one of these conditions is not like a sentence of never exactly.

Ariele Myers: 23:50

Yeah so what I loved about, especially something like I'll go into the other ones, but what I loved about unexplained infertility. I mean not that I loved unexplained infertility, but it was like someone would go to the doctor and they'd say you have unexplained infertility, meaning we don't know why you're not getting pregnant. It's been over a year and you're not getting pregnant unexplained infertility. But they could come to an acupuncturist and when I say acupuncturist I do mean someone that studied Chinese medicine, not like a chiropractor or doctor who's taken like a 30 hour course that can stick needles in they're totally different medicines and that feels important to clarify. So someone who's studied Chinese medicine. And then we can just look at the patterns of imbalance in your body by feeling your pulse, by looking at your tongue and basically what we start to look for. It like can get so in depth and deep, but it starts so simple, which is like do you have hot or do you have cold? Do you have excess or do you have deficiency? Do you have stagnation? Is there blockage or is there like an underabundance? Is there? And then we start to look at your like, your fluids, like do you have yin deficiency or do you have yang deficiency? Do you have blood deficiency or blood stagnation. So for 10 different women that come in with unexplained infertility, they could have 10 different diagnoses.

Ariele Myers: 25:04

In terms of Chinese medicine of, like what might be contributing to their imbalance that's not allowing for them to get pregnant. So, whereas a woman might go to a doctor and feel kind of hopeless, like oh, there's something wrong, I need to be fixed, I love that. Acupuncture and Chinese medicine I think gives them an opportunity to really like know themselves better. Like oh yeah, I do have trouble falling asleep at night and tend to be a little anxious, like that that could be a little blood deficiency or that could be a little bit of excess heat. So it's not like problem to be fixed, it's almost like a way of connecting to myself and just understanding how everything in my body is related. Like often we see fertility is just this like separate thing, like that I won't know until I try to have a baby, like I might be infertile. It's like well, it's actually a part of your overall health and your overall well-being and if you've had digestive issues all of your life, like maybe that would become something that might contribute to infertility. In my 12-week course that I have, I have like the overview of each diagnosis like so, pcos and what that might look like from a Chinese medical perspective.

Ariele Myers: 26:12

What's happening on a Western medical perspective, what that might look like in Chinese medicine. So in Chinese medicine we see that more as like dampness, like an accumulation of dampness which is basically like A. It's like a metabolic issue. It's not just like a fertility issue, it's like a total body, systemic metabolic issue which is almost like, if you imagine that your energy is supposed to move clear, like air, it's almost like all your energy is kind of moving through like a fog, like pea soup, so it's almost like everything's missing. So it might slow things down and you might have a more difficult time ovulating. Or you might think sink when there's damp, but like will become heavy, so you might get like a little hair on your chin where things tend to settle, or like settling cysts on your ovaries. It's like energy going downward.

Ariele Myers: 26:59

And then I also like to look at what like the not everybody, but like a tendency of what the like emotional or spiritual component of that might be. So like if you have a mist that's kind of surrounding all of your organs, is that like a boundary thing where, like maybe it's hard for you to set boundaries, so you kind of are creating an energetic one and like I just tell people, when I say things like that, like I say that with each kind of condition, like here's a tendency, I see, and kind of like try it on, like I don't want to be the person that's like this is what you have, you know, remind everyone that they're the expert of their body and to just kind of sit with it and decide if that fits or not. So some women are like yeah, that's actually I don't know how to say no so, and other people are like no, but that doesn't feel relevant to me at all.

Kasia: 27:47

Yeah, I think I read I don't remember the exact number but every single person at any given time is going to have probably at least four different Chinese medicine patterns going on in their bodies.

Kasia: 28:03

And I mean, I think that's like a powerful reframe because we have this idea one Chinese medicine from like an overall perspective. The goal, as I understand it, is actually bring you back to as much balance as possible, but just know that even balance will still have like certain patterns showing up that might be stronger than others, and I think that's really, really powerful, because the idea of us getting to a state and then staying in that like perfect state without things shifting and moving is pretty much impossible. It's like trying to control the weather and that's a powerful, I think, also reflection in looking at like the earth cycles and nature's changes. Like that is present within our bodies as well. So I love that you called out that. You know cause. I was really curious to actually ask if certain Western conditions are typically correlated maybe with some patterns of dampness or stagnation or whatever for the different condition, and it's nice to see that perhaps there might be a little bit of that, but it doesn't sound like. It's like a T right To the T.

Ariele Myers: 29:10

Yeah, and like definitely, endometriosis, like that's blood stasis, blood stasis, and so it's like bursting out of the vessels. And with that one I often look at like well, is there rage? That sometimes, and a lot of times with endometriosis, I also see like a transgenerational womb trauma not always, and this is one of the things where I'm ooh, like a couple of years ago we could have said transgenerational anything and people would have been like oh my God, that's so like new age, whatever. And now with epigenetics it's they're actually like oh, that's actual, a real, really something that's happening in the body that they're studying and it's like a legit thing. And so I always say that like I love science, I'm all for science, and I feel like science hasn't even begun to catch up with the magic of our body and I do feel like the principles of Chinese medicine, I mean, it's been around for so long. So there's just, yeah, there's like a lot, a lot there that sometimes science is like that makes no sense until we study it more, and then it does make sense.

Kasia: 30:10

Oh my gosh, 100% slight tangent but, I think, deeply related. There is an organ, an organ in Western medicine that was discovered five years ago, that Chinese medicine has been talking about for thousands of years the interstitium Uh-huh like totally yeah, they, yes. I will link the radio lab episode on this because it's absolutely mind blowing. I think it's going to change how we treat things, but it just goes to show you that there's so much that we don't know and that's why I think Chinese medicine is just so beautiful in terms of like, looking at holistic patterns as opposed to being like. This is the box that you belong in, so I absolutely love that.

Kasia: 30:53

I want to go a little bit deeper on endo. Well, for two reasons. One, I do know that a lot of our listeners have endometriosis, a lot of the women that listen and also I myself have it. So I just feel lucky to get to chat about this. But I'm curious from a Chinese medicine point of view and maybe you have or don't have insight into this, but from the Western point of view, my understanding is that the physiological condition of the endometrial lining, kind of moving outside of the uterus, is something that is not really quote reversible, right? How does Chinese medicine view that right Like? Is it possible to get to a state with endometriosis where some of the symptoms are reduced right and there is, as you mentioned, perhaps less stagnation if that's one of the patterns that is present? But is it something that someone can find like complete recovery in any of these conditions? Actually, I think maybe I'll ask that broader question.

Ariele Myers: 31:51

That's a good question. I mean, with endometriosis specifically, I feel like now they're starting to explore the possibility that maybe it's actually either its own autoimmune condition or that it's like really closely linked to autoimmunity. So certainly, like you know, doing things like an autoimmune paleo diet and like reducing inflammation and lowering stress levels, I have seen people with the use of herbs and acupuncture in Chinese medicine, lessen the severity of their endometriosis. There's also like silent endometriosis, which is that it's not actually the blood, it's like a mucus that's forming. It's like a clear lesions instead of blood filled lesions. So that ends up being more like damp heat accumulation as opposed to like blood and heat. It's one of those things that I feel like if we don't actually look at and shift and this is a tricky thing this is also one of those things that there's never fall, there's never blame, but there is like a component that it's important to see, like what's leading to it. And it might just be, you know, genetic, it might be generational, it might be the way we respond to certain stressors, it might be the way we kind of hold the tension and energy. So if we're just kind of like treating it without actually looking at, like what are the patterns or the elements that are kind of contributing to it, whether it is like not even our trauma, but just like old trauma that we're storing in the womb that belong to our great grandmother. You know that can be kind of accumulating.

Ariele Myers: 33:28

I definitely don't ever want to promise like, oh, take my herbs and you know you'll see a reversal of it. But we have. We have had women who have it's. The severity is lessened, whether it's the pain or the bleeding or the actual lesions. Often women do have to. I don't recommend ablation like that kind of just skims it at the surface rather than actually going in and taking it out from the root. That is, if you are gonna do something surgical, I'm blanking on like the name of it. But like going in and the root, not just ablation, is the best because if you do ablation it'll just build up right again on top of it, but definitely doing things that are lessening the estrogen dominance and lessening the stagnation. So herbs are amazing for that because they can really help with just.

Ariele Myers: 34:19

It's almost like an envision. It like if you have a river that's just flowing, flowing, flowing and then you start to throw, whether there's like a big trauma and there's like a big log that goes into it or there's just like little buildup over time, like rocks and leaves and sticks and whatever, and it starts to build up right, the water starts to pool and so we have a little we'd call that like stagnation, and then if there's so much blockage there that it actually the water starts to like go outside of the river banks. That's what I see in the metriosis, as it's like the blood is actually like flowing outside of the river banks. So what we first need to do is like remove that stagnation. So sometimes that does require like surgical removal If there's not that much, sometimes just doing herbal blood movers to kind of clear that out.

Ariele Myers: 35:10

It's tricky because sometimes that can encourage more blood flow, which obviously with endometriosis that can be complicated if you're already bleeding a lot. But we've had women who had stage four endometriosis who worked with us and were able to lessen the severity of their symptoms and also get pregnant. So it's pretty amazing.

Kasia: 35:30

Oh well, that's amazing to hear and I think that that was such a good breakdown also around how to think, from a kind of I guess framework point of view, how Chinese medicine and these herbs and some of these changes kind of work together. I think that was such a good visual, because I'm sure that different versions of that visual apply to other conditions. May you get a Western diagnosis or a pattern diagnosis in TCM? So that shifts me pretty well into talking a bit about lifestyle changes.

Kasia: 36:05

I mean talked about the importance of kind of the energetic component, the connection to nature, and kind of bringing your body back into flow and rhythm with nature through foods and movement, kind of changes and gut health. I'm curious, what specific recommendations would you have for women who are on the fertility journey in terms of lifestyle changes to make, because there's so much noise in this area, so much noise.

Ariele Myers: 36:33

And I will say that it's probably going to be something other than what they expect to hear, because I'm sure these women know every single, every food they should eat, everything they should not eat every supplement they should be taking. So I could just go through that list again, or I could say that fertility is so much related to your life force. So what makes your I'm going to be like graphic but what makes your pussy feel juicy? What makes you feel alive? I'm sorry if I offended anybody, but we get so like I got to do this. I'm vitamin D and magnesium and it's like oh, that fucking sorry, I curse a lot too. I should have said that in the beginning.

Kasia: 37:13

That's all right. This is not a PG podcast. We're past that point. Please move on with the pussy choosing description.

Ariele Myers: 37:22

Right, it's like what, you know, I just feel like there's so much life force that gets stifled when we're like what do I need to do? The perfect diet, and and. So if you can just like find what really makes you feel in your flow, like creativity, and whether it's, you know, connecting to things you did as a child, like dancing or painting or or a hike in nature, that's not like to get to the end, but to really like feel all your senses, you know like, because it and and again, this might be the kind of thing that people are like oh, that, like that's like that woo, woo stuff again, but it's actually like when your hypothalamus is not happy, it actually sends a signal down to pituitary to like shut off. And when you're like a yes to life, then that signal turns on and everything starts flowing and your hormones start balancing. So, like finding the things that you can do in life that that bring you joy, not that are like gonna get you pregnant.

Ariele Myers: 38:19

You know, I know that's the goal, but it's like can you bring a little bit of joy, whether it's? You know, I just signed up for this vaginal kung fu class because I'm like that looks like fun, like I'm going to do that, you know, with Kim and Nami. So that's something to look at. But like just things that are like silly and non-productive and like I don't think that's silly for the record. I think it's actually important, and especially in a society that's so values what have you achieved and what's important? You know it's like to do things that are just like turn you on to live from your turn on. Read Mama Gina's book, I think it's actually called Pussy. That's a good one.

Kasia: 38:57

It is it is. We'll hyperlink it below. I remember reading it on vacation once with my family and my dad is like my daughter. What are you reading? I will never forget this Important text.

Ariele Myers: 39:10

Yeah, so, and of course there's like so many other things, like the supplements and the sleep, and I do have like the four pillars which are sleep, body movement I don't even like to call it exercise because that like gives it a whole different look but like move your body in like a juicy way. Oh my God, what are the other two? Food which is like really an anti inflammatory. Inflammation is like the killer of fertility and health and longevity in general. So looking at the ways that you can reduce inflammation, so what were those? Food, body movement, sleep, oh, and sun. Sun is really important, like going outside first thing in the morning and not looking directly at the sun, but like being outside without sunglasses, without like a car window, and actually just like either going for a walk in the sun. It really supports your serotonin and then so your your melatonin levels, which is important for fertility.

Kasia: 40:04

Oh, I love that so like foundation of pleasure, and then those four pillars on top of that which, by the way, I think it's just such a good kind of breakdown of how to tap into that feminine energy, because that feminine energy, in a way, I mean it is the creative energy, it is the energy of both play and creativity and rest, and it has kind of no form, while masculine is like very kind of form oriented, it's like the box in which all this can kind of burst out of, yeah, and I guess that's hard.

Ariele Myers: 40:37

Like I was a very masculine type woman just go to school and get a good you know and go to grad school and open a business and and really like learning about the feminine was like a game changer for me. Like that the feminine is receptive and like what you know as someone who was a doer, to actually like receive other people and when we think about fertility, to like be able to receive energy and take it in front of literally what we're trying to do is take in our partner's energy and receive it fully so that we can conceive. So receptivity, like I say like what does it feel like to like let yourself get like fucked by life, like wow, like we're past the PG You've told me it's okay, but like it's. It's really hard to do because often we want to like control everything, control every scenario. So yeah, there's lots of David. Dana is also a great one. If you want to hyperlink, he's amazing.

Kasia: 41:39

Nice, I will definitely do that. So I mean, I think I might just have to ask this though you, you're a business owner, right? So you understand, and we have a lot of female entrepreneurs that listen to this podcast, so you understand the ups and downs and the challenges and the level of kind of functional masculinity that has to go into propelling a business forward, building it up from the ground, making it happen. How, from a practical way? Now we're talking, maybe you walk us through what you do in a day, in a week, in a month, how do you practically kind of segue from one to the other Very tangibly also share that? For me, I feel like it's a lot more like this or that, right, and if I'm in work mode, I'm in work mode and it can be hard to toggle and switch to the others, to the more feminine, flowy, playful side. So how do you do it from a practical?

Ariele Myers: 42:40

way. Yeah Well, I will share that, especially as my business has gotten successful. It's just now a successful business and I had a lot come up around that because my whole thing was like, oh, the patriarchy is bad for the feminine and capitalism is bad for the feminine, and so it's bad for fertility. And so if I'm succeeding in capitalism, what does that mean In my hypocrite? I really had to look at some of the shadow underlying feelings there. So I don't self-sabotage and so I don't block myself at a certain income level, which I really was doing. And especially since I got divorced and I'm now a single mom, I'm like, all right, I can't be doing good, because I love to do good and not really taking care of my family, which a lot of my early years as a healer, running a business, running the wellness center. It was successful, but not enough to be a single mom successful. So so, yeah, it's really been an exploration and I will say so.

Ariele Myers: 43:46

I've actually been listening a lot to Kelly Brogan. She's done a lot of work on also polarity and the feminine and masculine dynamics that are at play in business and there is like the how does she say it? But there's a way that, like the feminine needs to be able to flow within the container set by the masculine. So it's not that like I switched and like now I'm only feminine and I'm disconnected to my masculine. But I really had to look at like I was living in a pretty toxic inner masculine. We call that our animus, it's like our inner other. So my inner masculine was like don't rest, go do more, that's not enough, you know, like pretty driving, toxic. Whereas now it's almost like I've, within myself, established this like sacred husband who's like yeah, make sure you rest, make sure you're well fed before you do that, make sure you go pee before you sit down and have that interview. Like is like so taken care of my comfort level so that I'm not looking outside for somebody to do that for me.

Ariele Myers: 44:56

I will say I also have two male partners who really let me like kind of just go off and do my, do my thing, like I want to learn about sacred sexuality and I'm 45 so I want to start exploring perimenopause and you know all of that stuff. They really hold the container well, but I also am able to like the masculine is able to speak our truth for us and set our boundaries. It's like that kind of directive force. And yeah, I think of it like have you heard of heurist gammas? It's like that sacred marriage. No, yeah, it's so. It's like the sacred marriage of masculine and feminine.

Ariele Myers: 45:39

And I really just in like studying in a young and masculine and feminine I mean, it's been years at this point but really honoring my feminine and recognizing, like when I'm being hard on myself or when I'm not like devoted to the masculine, the feminine, or honoring my own masculine. So, yeah, it's a, it's a. It's a constant kind of kind of awareness. But I do notice that when I do things from a more like striving, I'd say like masculine place, that's not like rooted in this, like deep trust and intentionality. That's where we get into the thing, where it's like it's never enough, like it's, whatever success you have, it's like then we just have to strive for the next one and the next one, and there's no, there's no grounding energy.

Ariele Myers: 46:24

So the feminine is really it's like something to ground into. So if I start to feel like I'm doing things from that place of like striving, like it's just not going to feel good, like like what I was doing in Hoboken, it's like nothing felt like enough, you know, and that's that's when I know that I'm off. So I think it's just starting to pay attention and not being hard on ourselves for it, but just like, why are we doing the things we're doing? And the reality is, our life isn't really set up for us to like dance around in the garden. And you know, like we, a lot of us, really do need to have that second income or that first income or main income, and we can't only live into the feminine. But I think it's just like really starting to, to explore, even if it's just like that one thing that brings us joy, that we can do on the weekends.

Kasia: 47:10

Ooh, that is so good, and I I'm kind of surprised by the answer as well, because it's it's almost funny in a way that the answer is a reframed version of the inner masculine, like a sacred inner masculine. I love that. I've never heard that before and I think it makes a lot of sense. It's like it is. You know, some people might maybe call that more like a inner parents taking care of you, know you as a child, like how would you treat your child? But I also I love that framing of like the inner masculine container to give yourself that space to take rest or be creative and have some of that play. I mean that is so beautiful.

Ariele Myers: 47:52

Yeah, I can talk about that for like an hour or more, so just kind of rambled. But yeah, it's like there's kind of like a contentment when, when they're in relationship and I can you know, I'm not there all the time Like certainly there's, I'll stop there, but there's a lot of paying attention constantly that that needs to happen.

Kasia: 48:16

Well, I'm going to put on my always present Sometimes needs to be tapered masculine side to let us know that our time is almost up. I could keep chatting with you for hours.

Ariele Myers: 48:30

This was absolutely beautiful.

Kasia: 48:31

Yeah, so incredible and I'm so grateful for you being here before we wrap. Where can people find you? What do you want to tell them about that? You're celebrating and, of course, I'll hyperlink everything below.

Ariele Myers: 48:45

Yeah, so my company is called Wisdom of the Womb and website is wisdomofthewombonlinecom and we have different bundles for different fertility related issues, reproductive health issues. I also just started a group called the whole woman collective and that's to bring on different guests and talk about different topics, because I do love to talk about things that are like I think everything's related to fertility, but like I can go off on a million tangents about a million different things, like money and so to not just be talking about like the basics of fertility, but to really talk about different things. So like we have someone coming on this month talking about pleasure, which you think is like so related to fertility, but it's also just about pleasure, and then someone else coming on talking about human design. So that's exciting to me, because love to talk about different things and I think that's really it. Those are the things that feel most alive to share right now.

Kasia: 49:49

Thank you, and I love human design. I mean, I love both of those topics, but human design is a random question. What is your design? I just to like value, I don't know.

Ariele Myers: 50:00

I'm like so people have told me and I like can't remember. I'm really interested in astrology and I feel like I would love human design, but for some reason, like I, just my brain is not maybe a manifestor generator. Maybe I'm making that up, though, I would expect that for you.

Kasia: 50:15

I feel like I'm going to follow up over email now, to figure this out, but we're not going to go there Everybody. That's like a whole nother podcast. But.

Ariele Myers: 50:23

I'll know in a week, when she tells me she's going to, let me know. So we're going to talk about it, okay, yeah.

Kasia: 50:28

All right, I will follow up or I'll be staring at your stories to figure that one out. It was so amazing having you on. Thank you for joining us today, thank you.

Ariele Myers: 50:40

Thank you so much, it was truly my pleasure.

Kasia: 50:42

Thanks everyone for listening. See you next time. Thank you so much for tuning into the other way. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a five star review. It really helps the podcast grow and I'm ever so grateful. If you want to stay connected, you can find information on how in our show notes. And finally, if you're curious about in flow and want free resources around cyclical living or moon cycles, check out infloplannercom. And, of course, for all my listeners, you can use the code podcast 10 and that's all lower case podcast 10 for 10% off any purchase. All right, that's all for today. See you next time.