146: Surrender is not Quitting — It’s Releasing Resistance - Yoga for Fertility with Kerry Hinds

The 5,000 year old yoga system is about presence and connecting to the universe, the higher self. So with the yoga, I'm trying to tap into that energetic body and kind of balance it out, smooth it out, create the space, slow it down so that we can find that sense of openness. And when we're there, the surrendering to this, "Ah, there is so much more to this than just my want and my push." So we walked away and we thought, "You know what, if we don't have a baby, we can still have a wonderful life." By listening to the Coherence Code podcast, you agree to not use this podcast as medical advice to treat any medical condition, either in yourself or others. Consult your own physician or healthcare provider for any medical issues that you may be having. This entire disclaimer also applies to any guests or contributors to the podcast. Welcome to the Coherence Code podcast, where we explore how the mind and body work together so you can move from stress and inter-conflict to clarity, calm, and align them. My name is Lauren Brown. I'm a Doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine and a Clinical at the Therapist. And through my work, I've seen that healing happens when we move what gets in the way and allow the body and the nervous system to do what they're designed to do to heal. Welcome to the Coherence Code podcast. My guest today is Carrie Hines. She's the founder of Fertile Body Yoga and she's a longtime yoga teacher who specializes in fertility, nervous system regulation, and the art of receptivity. Now, I wanted to have Carrie on because her work is grounded in lived experience. Unfortunately, she's had pregnancy losses in years of IVF. The good news is that it ultimately ended in her growing and having a family. And it came through a lot of her practices like Yen and Restored of Yoga, Yogan Nidra, and Aravetic Medicine. And at the heart of her teaching is a simple truth that I've learned. When the body is in survival mode, fertility takes a back seat, and creating space not necessarily effort is what restores flow. So Carrie, welcome to the Coherence Code podcast. Well, thank you so much for having me, Lord. I'm happy to be here. My Vancouver friend, we are from the same place. So I'm happy to be with you today. It's going to be great to talk about all of these things. You know, those apps where they can follow your bike, ride your travels. So let's fall. So born in North Vancouver. So we're born in the sea where I live. Then what did you end up going after that? Oh, so then I moved to Squim. Well, Victoria, Squim, Washington, which is like the Olympic Peninsula, then to Germany, then to Boston. Wait, Boston, and that's where you know of Alice Domaer's work. We've had Arva podcast because she does a lot about stress and emotions around fertility. Yes. And I worked at her center, the Domaer Center in Boston teaching yoga. Okay. So, oh, wow. So there's a lot of research throughout our Domaer to our listeners. And I didn't know this until right now. Carrie worked at the Domaer Center. I'm doing the yoga for that. That's amazing. Yeah. For their their mind body program, which became famous, right? It became well, well, well, renowned. Yeah. I mean, I wasn't in the original study, but like a few years later. Yeah. But you were immersed in her program. Like you had that experience and you did the yoga for it. So that's, that's good street bread. Yes. Yes. Thank you very much. Yeah. And so Boston, which is where I started all the fertility yoga, which I'm sure we'll get into. But then we came back to Washington state. So now I live in Levin worth Washington. So up in the mountains and a teeny tiny town. And we're close by. We're still drive. We're still an easy drive. So that's good. Maybe one of you. My family is still there. I could see you. We could have coffee for sure. I'm sure we have common friends here in the Vancouver area. No people that know people that know each other. Yeah. Okay. I'm going to start with your lived experience. And if you're open and willing, you know, like from everything kind of that happened because I find when people hear the lived experience, you got some knowledge and experience of supporting people through this journey. But you also went through this journey. And so I'm sure your work is deeply informed by your own fertility journey. You said, I know I love to talk about the IVF. The IVF. You've had pregnancy loss, which I know is devastating for so many people. You had to, I want you to share about, you know, when or why you stopped some of the interventions like a IVF and how we got pregnant without it and how old were you when you went through all this and how it's impacted your training. So your lived experience, like this hurt. I'm really curious about. And I think my listeners would want to know this as well. Sure. Yeah. Thank you. I'll try and make it 16 because there's a lot. But basically I didn't really think about having kids until I was in my mid 30s because I hadn't really met anybody that I was like, I want to have babies with you. Like it, I was, I was an hour bound instructor, a backcountry park ranger, I was traveling a lot and working at ski resorts, like it just wasn't even really on my mind. And so I met my now husband and I was living in Victoria and he was over, you know what I'm talking about. But in the Olympic Peninsula, so we were doing this long distance relationship thing, lived on a sailboat, you know, so I, we just got married and I moved there, got on sailboat and then we decided to sell the sailboat and he got a job in Germany. So we moved to Germany and I thought, well, maybe this is the time for me to have kids because I never have a job. I didn't, you know, I didn't know what I was going to do, what things would look like for me. And I knew that Germany had a really great social support system for new parents and all of that. So when we got there, we just started trying and, you know, like many people you think as soon as I start trying, it's going to happen and here we go and here's my plan and my story and this is how it's all going to work out. And it didn't. So I ended up, you know, trying for a few months and went to a German IVF clinic, which for us was luckily in our teeny tiny little university town. So that was great. And all Eastern Germany is where we live. So everything was in German and I spoke hardly any German. So I was recruiting friends that I just met. Like, well, you come to a fertility clinic with me and translate what they're trying to tell me. It was like an extra level of stress. So whenever I have people who are, you know, not doing this in their in their mother tongue or their first language, I have a lot of empathy for them and how difficult it can be to navigate that. And so we just started with IUIs as most people do and we, you know, the testing was kind of coming back unexplained slash some male fertility things. My hormones weren't great. So they're like, let's just do some IUI and see, we'll pick the goods for we'll see what happens and we get pregnant on our first IUI actually. And we were like, this is it. Yay. And of course, as you mentioned, that ended in a loss, which was, you know, being in a different country, in a different culture as well, different bedside manner around things. I found this to be a particularly traumatizing moment in the whole journey as it is for many, but it was really hard to navigate not speaking the language and knowing really what was happening in my body and to my body in those moments. So yeah, so we went further along the track. We moved into IVF and this was many years ago. So 15-ish years ago and XC was sort of the new thing on the block and they're like, okay, well, we did a couple fresh transfers. We did some frozen embryo transfers and all of this and, you know, nothing. Oh, sorry. When you said you did a couple transfers. So how many retrieval, so fresh transfers did you do and how many frozens did you do? Do you remember? So we did two fresh and then we did. So we, the first retrieval we got, I think 14A. So this was before PG, like all the testing. No testing. Yeah. We're even growing them out to blast assist then when you first started, like sometimes there were day three transfers versus day five. So we did both. So it was the new, right? It was the new sort of like, let's try day five. Let's do day three. And so we did fresh day three, day five. And none of those stuck and then we had two more egg retrievals, which were frozen embryo transfers. So then they they did frozen five day fish. And again, nothing stuck. And we came to the point where we were like, this is a lot, right? Like we have three years of our lives that we've been living in Germany. And this is what has been become our lives. And we decided that let's just take a take a step back. I was tired. I was emotional. I was, you know, had gained a lot of weight. I cried all the time. I was just in general sort of feeling unhappy. And I was also doing a lot of yoga at that time, which I think really supported me as I was going through things and giving me perspective and a place to land and consistency. So we walked away and we thought, you know what, if we don't have a baby, we can still have a wonderful life, which I think. That's key. Yeah. Is to get to that place. To get to that place. It's hard and you can't get there. You can't fake it. Right. So I think you can't you can't you know, I want to I always say like this idea of being okay. There's two ways to get there. Two general ways. One is life brings you to your knees. Like you just throw up your hands in the air and you're like, you know, I give up like God, you deal with this. Universal energy. You do this. You just brought your knees, which is a force surrender, which is not I think how people would choose to get there. Because that means you've been beaten up pretty bad to get to that place. And then what I do in my work and what you do with yoga, notice, except, who's again, as my process is to consciously purposely get to this place of surrender where you want it, but you're not over attached to it. There's a form of letting go where the resistance drops. So I just wanted to bring that up to our audience that you don't have to you you can there is purposeful ways to do it. So you've gone through just to kind of recap. I'm not sure how many retrievals. It sounds like you had anywhere from two to four retrievals at least. Uh, three. So you had three retrievals and then a couple of transfers. None of those ended up in a pregnancy. The IUI, the you know, you said, I'm an interunitimination God of pregnancy. Unfortunately, lost that. And then you had the time and expense and unsuccessful IVF cycles. Then you kind of stop doing this. And then can you kind of tie in at this point, like it's neat because you got to it, like I don't know how you got there, but that part where you got to is that place of presence, where you wanted the baby, but you still realize you're going to have a wonderful life. I often explain to patients when they say, what am I going to do if this doesn't work? And then I ask, will tell me what your life is like now? And most of them have the most amazing life. So I said, well, then you know what it will be like, if you don't have your baby, you're living that life. Yeah, it's it's so true. I I feel like I often explain it that that moment. It was pivotal because I think my bot and I say it like this, my body exhaled. Because you know, there's so much pressure that we put on ourselves and our bodies to make this happen. And especially as women, as we navigate all the things that we're told we need to do to make, you know, a quality this and that, all the things. So that pivotal moment, my body just was like, oh my gosh, thank you. Thank you. Like I just needed a break, you know, and even though we give ourselves these little mini breaks, like between cycles or something, we're we're still we're still on that train. We're still going in that full speed ahead direction. So yeah, my body exhaled. I think it just it just released the stress just like, I don't say disappeared, but it dissipated. And then two months later, I was pregnant with my first son, which we were like, whoa, what the hell just happened. We just went through three years of this. But you know, I also think that that was that was the arc of our story, right, to get there. And that was the baby we were meant to have at that time. And we then nine months postpartum, I was pregnant again, after having, you know, a very tough postpartum, I will say, and not trying to have another baby, having said once I became pregnant again, which surprised me very much so we were very surprised, because we thought we had our miracle baby, right. So I do have two sons now. They are 13 and 12. So and unpack this because for my lens, you came to this place of surrender to, this is me, my view of it. Because you actually, you were reminding our listeners, you were practicing yoga during this challenging time. And so you were doing things to support. And this yoga, there's many styles of yoga, but the yoga that I really relate to is the what I've learned because I don't practice yoga, but talking to yogis, it's a spiritual practice. We think of yoga as like going to the gym exercise, but yoga. So there's many pathways to presence. There's many pathways to drop the resistance to get into flow and receptivity. I use an approach with my acupuncture and this conscious work or formative noses work, notice acceptors again, and many tools to help people get into this state of surrender where flow receptivity happens. You were doing yoga. And then it's just kind of, it's one of those things it's hindsight. It's not like you're just like living your life and then all of a sudden you realize something's shifted. And for me, the way you described it is we're going to be okay. I can handle this. You were, you didn't like it. Like I always say, you can be at peace in an unhappy situation. You weren't fighting with your reality anymore. And then when that, it's kind of like when people give up and then they get drunk and have sex on the beach and they get pregnant, right. Or get dropped a child because he couldn't get pregnant. And now they get pregnant actually. All those to me are, oh, look, receptivity, the resistance is now dropped. And now flow receptivity happens. And you were able to conceive naturally after I UI with the miscarriage, three retrievals, multiple transfers, not successful. And then you got, you call it your miracle baby, the surrender baby. And then nine months later, you got another baby, not expecting it because you weren't putting effort into it. Yeah, I felt there was a spaciousness that opened up. And I think, and I say this to my students in yoga class, too, like the magic happens in the space, right. When things are tight or forced or, um, everything in fear, like it's, it's this action that we're trying to have babies so hard and we're just squeezing and holding so tight that we're not letting anything in. We're not being receptive. And so when we release and we say, uh, let's put some space into life, right around this. And I think really that's what we did. We were like, we're putting space around IVF, right. We were done with IVF. We're done. And then that opened up this huge other space, right, that just was more receptive, like it was more, I don't know, my time, my way to do it. Not to say IVF works for like so many people. And I love IVF and everything like that, but my story ended this way. Yeah. And when you say space, we're gonna, I want to go, I want to do a deep dive into that actually a bit more. Okay. And like you just said, the beingness that we were talking earlier of you no longer do an IVF, you can see naturally somebody can have that sense of spaciousness. I call it presence on space and time actually when you're presence, when you're fully receptive and you're doing IVF, like some people will find it. It's right. It's, again, I, I've become fairly clear that it's not so much the action. Right action must follow right thinking or right action must follow right beingness. And that means your beingness here is, is taking you through an IVF process or your case beingness was this is not my journey, this baby's coming through this way. So like you said, it's not like should I do IVF or not, it's about getting to what you call spaciousness. So let's talk about the surrender because you speak of surrender and you speak of surrender, not as giving up, but as creating space. I use it for my listeners. This is what I call the, the present moment when you get into that presence beyond space and time. So curious now that you've lived this experience and you've been practicing for, you know, for well over 20 years at the time of this recording, how do you help someone surrender without abandoning the desire for a baby? Because I believe you can have both at the same time. Yeah. The render is still on the baby. Curious what's your process or how do you help someone surrender without abandoning their desire or how can they have both at the same, hold both at the same time? How can both be true? Yeah, well, both can be true. And I think first we need to realize that, right? Like that is it's not a if or this or that and or zero some game or any of that. So I think I mean with yoga, I mean yoga is all traditionally, right? The 5,000 year old yoga system is about presence and connecting to the universe, the higher self or Brahma or whatever we want to call it, right? So yoga in itself is that practice. It's been changed and developed differently in the Western world, but I think that there's still this underlying pulse of what yoga is in it. So like you said, like yoga doesn't have to be always this powerful, hot yoga experience that it's exercise based to get our yoga bombs and our whatever and our fancy pants on. But really, when we go back into like the traditional text, like yoga was just moving our bodies in a way so that we could sit in meditation and connect to being. And when I look at the fertility yoga that I teach, yes, we go through Asana or poses and shapes with our bodies. But what I'm really trying to do as we move through is to connect the mind and the body on the energetic level. So when we talk about mind body all the time, which is buzzword of this last 20 years, mind body, mind body, mind body, which is very important. And from the yoga perspective, what connects the mind and the body is the energy, our energetics are connecting the two. So often we leave that piece out. And when we're there, that's when, and like you said, surrender is not, I don't wanna have, like, I don't wanna have a baby anymore, I surrender to this. It's the surrendering to this. Ah, there is so much more to this than just my want and my push. And then you can fall into that. You can let that support you that like, you're being carried, kind of let go the noise a little bit so that there is space. Did that make sense? I was going off on tangents. - No, it does. And you know, I have this process that I call notice except choose again. And it's a process that I think, when I look at people that are doing this kind of conscious work, I can see NAC on top of what they're doing. And the key is the accepting part, accepting is letting go, accepting is surrender. That doesn't mean you're resigned to it. That doesn't mean you've given up. It means you're just no longer fighting with reality. And you described it. Let's round this though into for our listeners in this materialistic world. And I will share that. I was recently at a conference where the speaker, one of the speaker's psychologists, PhD, psychologist, well known, well written, said that our reality actually has two dimensions. There is the Newtonian and the quantum. Like this is they actually both exist, right? So we're living it. There's a living experience here. So I don't want to deny the materialistic side of it. So let's talk a bit about that. And bring what I, I often find what you described as a softening and surrendering less noise is a form of nervous system regulation. Because when you get into this spiritual aspect of presence, this sense of peace sometimes will come over you. If we were to measure it, we would see changes from sympathetic to parasympathetic. So there's so much talk about when you're in survival mode. So when you're in sympathetic, energy is mobilized for survival. Therefore, less resources are available for healing creativity and reproduction. And when your body feels safe, when you go into the parasympathetic nervous system, when the body can really heal, the rest and digest, also known as the brie and feed nervous system. Now you free up resources for healing creativity and reproduction. So how does the nervous system regulation shift fertility in ways people don't usually consider? Yeah, so when I think about nervous system regulation, which I think is also a bit of a buzzy thing right now, like we need to regulate our nervous systems, right? I like to think of it as a dance between the sympathetic and the parasympathetic, right? We can't be in both at the same time. We're in one or the other, right? And when we think about the chronic stress that comes along so much with this fertility journey and being kind of stuck in this-- who's leading the dance? Often the lead in the dance will be our stress response, right? And then our parasympathetic is sort of following along, kind of waiting to cut in and be like, I need some rest. I need some rest, right? So I like to think of it as a sort of dance between the two and that we share the lead, right? We need to share the lead sometimes. And so this is where yoga can really be so beneficial for that dance is that we know in yoga all these little-- I don't necessarily call them triggers-- but like things that we could do to help us go parasympathetic to get the vagus nerve engaged, right? So when I teach yoga, I think about the specifics, right? So sometimes like a little bit of darkness. So I tell my students, practice in the dark. Like if you feel safe, turn your lights off, right? So like a darkness, we don't want bright lights in our face. We want quietude, right? But ambient music is fine, but something relaxing that will help trigger that parasympathetic. And then we have support. So lying flat on the floor is huge. It is so amazing. You know this in acupuncture. You have people lie down flat on the table, right? You know, I'm sitting up doing acupuncture. There's a reason for that. So support, because then our bodies-- we always have to be a little bit alert when we're standing, so we don't fall over, right? So we need to be lying down. And weight can be another thing that can feel good for people who aren't claustrophobic. So we're just into-- You mean like weighted blankets? I don't-- Yeah, weighted blankets. I mean, I just use just blanket blankets that are like put a blanket on your pelvis, and these sorts of things, right? So once we start to understand, oh, I need to-- it's a practice. I need to kind of work at taking the lead-- my parasympathetic-- taking the lead in the dance, because our sympathetic will always win. That's just the way we're hardwired, right? To like bright light, loud noises, lots of movement. Like, we just-- that's what we have to survive. So those triggers are fast and easy. The parasympathetics are slow, right? They're slow, and they're purposeful, and they're meaningful. So when we come to the yoga mat, we can integrate all those things. And I went off track, what was your actual question? Is there research or from your experience, the practice of yoga, is it a way to kind of quiet the noise? Because when I think people are stressed-- I call it noise in the system as well. Yeah, me too. So how do you calm the noise? How do you regulate the nervous system? So yes, you can have challenges in life, but you're not turning on survival mechanism 24/7. Yeah. So I think there's a sense-- like, when we come to the yoga mat, right? When I teach fertility yoga, it is very much about that nervous system dance, right? Coming down. So using restorative yoga, using those triggers I talked about earlier, really, I think, slow down the system enough to create some space and perspective for people. Because we're just running around all the time in fertility. Doing this, doing that, going there, going here, going here. And-- And were you this person? And yoga is one of those ways to slow down by the way, because you have to stop and do yoga. So there's-- Yeah, you have to show up. Yeah. That's simple, right? But were you like, I think, as some of the people that have the noise or their systems tense, so they're inhaling, not exhaling? First of all, fertility journey does that, right? We know now for research-- hence the Alistair Domar program we talked about, how important the mind body and stress reduction is. But were you the people pleaser? Were you the perfectionist? Because so many of the fertility people have done everything they had challenges for. They just pushed through. They just worked a little bit harder, pushed through, found a way, and got what they needed or wanted. And this is one of the first things that they don't have the control to change it, or to guarantee to change it. Oh, yes. Were you that person? Were you the people pleaser, perfect? Well, like that. I think-- Yeah. Because I think yoga softens that. That's why I ask. Yeah. So yeah. And I talk about people pleasing. I call it the three P's, the patriarchy, people pleasing and perfectionism. And how does that interact with fertility? And you're right coming to the yoga mat. I think puts all of that into perspective. Slows us down enough. Gives us that the space to surrender, let go, release, like nourish ourselves, restore ourselves, which we're just craving. Because we're so busy. Because we're running around doing everything. And the way that it shows up really with the perfectionism and the people pleasing, I did this. I'm married. I have a husband. I took everything on myself. I said, OK, we're going to do this diet. Here's some supplements to take, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then I also ran around and did all the extra things as well, because I didn't want to upset my husband's balance of what he had going on. So I was pleasing him by just giving him all the information saying, just do this. So I was that person. And I don't think I saw it, necessarily in the moment. And I don't think most people do. And it stems from the patriarchy, which is what-- and we live in a patriarchy. There's no way around it. And I'm not saying it as a big bad word. It's just being aware. of this, right? That, especially like for women, we growing up, we were told to just be seeing, be quiet, smile pretty, be pretty, be kind, be the perfect hostess, do things for other people, put yourself sort of at the end of the line, right? So when we see that pop up in the fertility journey, we're, what do we love of things? And we're still not taking care of ourselves, we think we are by like running to the appointments and doing all the things, right? But really, we're not, we need to slow down, we need to embrace the feminine, right? We need to embrace the inside of things. So yes, I was a little bit of that, definitely a perfectionist. I think we see this, like a lot with the people that I work with who come to yoga because they're like, I want to get pregnant, yoga might help, I'm going to show up, I'm going to do it. And then they do the yoga practice and they're like, Oh, I get it. This has nothing to do with like the positive pregnancy test. This is like what's going to help carry me through this whole thing. And by default, that increases your fertility because you're more in your parasympathetic. So it's a little like backdoor way to get into the boosting fertility. But it's, there's no secret poses. There's no, you know, algorithm of yoga poses that you do that will guarantee pregnancy, right? Yeah. Our wake up calls bring us to the healing, right? And so infertility diagnosis and unsuccessful cycles that suffering, unfortunately, it's the suffering that is often required, but leads us to go within and wake up. And there's many ways to do this. And yoga is one of those ways. So like you said, they're coming to you because maybe the yoga is going to be on the get pregnant. So that's their motivation. And then through that backdoor, as you describe it, they come in. And then they're like, Okay, I'm going to be okay. I still want the baby to have the process. Sure. Here's the highlight highlight. I want to assure this that knowing is not enough. Like you said, I think you said it early, but we didn't like jump on it. You can't fake it, right? You can't fake letting go. No, you can't. You could try. People say, Carrie, what do I do? What do I do? I stopped doing everything. I've got to get smoked drugs and I got a drink and I got to do this. I'm, you know, that's what we mean by letting go. No, no. Again, the letting go is something that's happening inside of you. Not so much you can judge from the actions. Often they are congruent, but it's inside of you, right? That'll go. So two, three hundred years ago, we probably need a lot of yang energy to cultivate a world and but like everything gets into extreme. And now we need the end like you can't only lead the end so badly. By the way, you can't always being in. If we're always in yet, still be living in huts, just so you know, like it's not one that's bad at the other, but at certain times of it, that circadian rhythm, that rhythm is on an hourly clock. It's on a day clock. It's on a weekly monthly. It's on centric. So you got to look at it through like, you know, on a 24 hour cycle, when you get up, there's yang time during the day, there's yang time with some yang, yang within yang yang, yang there's times you relax. And then at night time is yin time, right? If we see those cycles in our what you're describing today, because people in the west, we get on something, say, you know, called the patriarch or yang energy, yang energy, bad. No, it's just an energy, but you can just look at our world today and go, oh, you know what's lacking here? You know what we don't have enough of. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yin yoga, restored. So by the way, everybody yoga hot yoga would be very young still. We're talking about restorative yoga, yin yoga. I've heard you say carry slowing down. Yeah. This will lower the noise, right? This will this will bring you back to your true self, which there goes the people pleasing and perfectionism when you really tap into that energy is Mike. Yeah. Going in like going inward. So even when we're doing like a faster yoga practice, like a, you know, you go to the gym and you sign up for your vignessa flow class. I mean, we're still, you know, you're looking at your instructor, your energy is still going outwards. You know, you might be peaking at the person next to you. What are they doing? And then there's a sense of competition that comes in. Even though we say keep it on your own mat, it's just human nature, right? We're like, Oh, what are they doing? Oh, maybe I can do that. And we're heating the body more and we're running around in a hot world right now. There's so much masculine and young energy, um, ugly. We would say like I, I do Ayurveda as well, right? So this is all like thoughts. So we're so similar that the Chinese medicine and Ayurveda, like they grew up next to each other. So there's so many overlapping concepts and I mean, when I think even about IVF, IVF is so masculine, young, right? It's like control, rational, like let's take this out and do this and do this and then put it back in as very scientific and logical within its realm, right? So we need to balance that. We need to balance that with a softer feminine or inside the Soma, we would say, and Ayurveda, the nectar, right? Instead of burning all the time, we need the nectar so that we can continue to burn and we have lost our Soma, right? Or your Chi or what or not lost it, but like depleted, right? So like how do we bring all of that back in and you know acupuncture, of course, is wonderful for this and so is the softer sides of yoga is what I call it like restorative, yin, like slow flow yoga. So the way I teach it's very experiential, let's say like it's like, okay, you're in tabletop, you're going to move around, you're going to get into like where your body wants to lead you, not where you think you should be going, not where you've been told you should be going, you know, but like where your body is like naturally taking you, of course within IVF, we need to be a little bit careful with, you know, where we take our bodies, but in the for the most part, your body won't take you there. If it had the choice, it wouldn't take you there to where it would hurt you anyway. So yeah. Talking about yoga then, I want to kind of summarize what we've discussed today. Tell me if I understand your process and jump in at any time. But basically you've had this lived experience and what you shared is there's a place to make, you want to have this place where you have space, room, you know, this presence or yin aspect of yourself nurturing and the magic happens in the space. That was your experience and what you see for the clients you help. So receptivity, which fertility, according to Chinese medicine is a form of receptivity. By the way, we have a great episode with Randy and Lewis all about Chinese medicine receptivity and yin. Oh cool. Yeah. Yoga. I read her book. I read her book. Julie, yeah. So, so this is what you're talking about this race, captivity. And when you're in this receptive mode, when you've created this space or presence, all of a sudden you are able to see the opportunities because you're not so near focused anymore, you, you get you have greater vision and I'm just talking visual. You see these opportunities and you share that you can hold both at the same time. You can want a baby and still let go and not be over attached. I call it the resistance can drop, right? So you have a desire for it. I mean, you can accept your desire, but you're not overly attached, desperately needing this baby to be okay. Yes, that's key. I think that's really key is that I remember saying to myself at one time, like, I will not be happy until I have a baby. Like that was, and I remember saying that, and then I remember and I said that to my husband and he's like, really? Really? I was like, oh, like it was like a it was a check for me. It was a reset. I was like, you know what? Well, that's like that is a crazy thing for me to say. And I know other people are saying it too, because I said it. I'm sure almost everyone of my patients says that. So they come in. So no judgment. Most of them say, I'm not going to be okay if I don't have this baby. And I get that. That's where they're at. Yeah. And then through the work that we do, and I'm saying like what you're doing with yoga, because it fits in the notice except part to me. And what I do is they don't need to change that. And I think I was going down this path and I not completed it. Oh, sorry. Not enough is not enough. Like knowing the concepts, you actually have to do the practice. Oh, yeah. Be like, okay, I'm gonna tend letting go. I want to let go. And so when people, when I work with people, and I imagine it's with with your yoga. So let's talk about the yoga here. You actually just got to do the practice. Like if I was going to advise somebody and they're looking at yoga, and we'll talk about, could you have online yoga classes? I'm like, just have, you got to trust the process. Just do it. You know, just do it. You got to show up. You are not going to think your way into this baby. You're not going to think your way through the bad relationship, the work, whatever's going on, it's your thinking to meaningly give it that's causing the issues usually anyhow. So great. Have a bit of understanding. Learn like here we are talking about yoga. We're saying that there's benefits here. We're telling you yoga can help you find that space, that presence, to allow receptivity. And it's just one of those things that has to be experienced. So just trust the process. So the invitation to our list resists. Go check out carries. - Go, go. - Go just do it for a while. Like I just say, - Yeah. - When I see people in my practice, I go, "Let's just do five sessions." I go, "What, I go five sessions." I got people have been trying for years, months, and had anxiety, depression. I go, "Can I have five weeks, five sessions?" And we do the acupuncture, the sound table with the conscious work. And I go, "You be the judge of it." See, I feel pretty close. They're gonna see a shift. So I go, "I can't tell you how it's gonna work." Like I mean, I can, but you gotta experience it. - Oh, it does the same thing. We can talk about it. - Totally. - Yeah. - I can sit and watch yoga. I am not going to benefit unless I experience the practice of yoga. Is that not, I don't know if it's fair to say. - Yeah. And it's an embodied practice, right? So like we are, we're taking concepts or whatever, and we're embodying them. And it's so true. I'm glad you said that, because I have had people show up the day before they're transferred. Like, "Oh, I heard yoga might help. I'm gonna come to yoga the day before transfer," right? And I mean, I get it. I'm glad people are coming to yoga and found it. But like when we're doing this work, it's like deep. I just think it's like deep change and deep change takes time, right? - Translational. - Translational. You have to, come to class. You sign up for a six week series, carve out that time in your schedule and come every single week. And you will see things, right? Just kind of add on to each other. And by the end, you're like, "Ah, I get it." But if, like you said, you can watch me do a fertility yoga class. I'm guilty of that. Like I've been like, "Will I like this teacher?" And I like skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, and like look at their flow and like, boring, boring, boring, boring, no, not gonna do it or whatever, right? But when you're in the moment doing it, it's such a different experience than watching or just doing five minutes or, you know, like there really is, you have to show up for yourself. - Show up for yourself. That's the key. You gotta show that you're worthy, that you value yourself. So take the time, slow down. Like you said, slow down. And by sitting down and you're gonna do 20 minutes or an hour of yoga, whatever it is, just do that in small actions, done regularly, lead to big results. - Oh. - So, you know, that first yoga class, or whatever, second yoga class, I don't know if anybody's having third yoga class. Three months later, six months later, you will look back and go, okay, something's changed. I can see it. - And I think what you were talking about, cutting out the noise and things like that, I think that yoga can be physical, emotional, mental, energetic, spiritual. And that's what I love about it. It's like a package, right? So, you don't have to run to five different appointments, necessarily, right? Like, still go see your acupuncturist, of course. - So your acupuncturist. - What I'm highlighting from your work, Gary, is that the yoga gets you into place of this space, this presence, this letting go, which changes the flavor or the essence behind the action, because of that beingness, that impacts the doingness. - Yeah, there's this like, this fear that I think we, and having done it, like we make choices based from fear when it comes to fertility so much, especially when it comes around the noisy things, the small things, like you see that add on Instagram for tea. It's like, ooh, I need that tea, 'cause if I don't take that tea, maybe I won't get pregnant, right? So then there's this pressure to try everything. And I've heard people say this to me all the time, like I'm throwing everything at it, I'm trying everything, I'm doing everything, right? And I'm like, okay, but, what, like, where's the intentionality behind it? Are you choosing to do these things for fear of never having a child? Or are you taking a step back and going, okay, I think I talk about this and like my minimalist fertility thing that I like to talk about, but it's like, when you start, or wherever you are in your journey right now, you can just stop, take a moment, and choose a word or phrase that is important to you to carry through this journey. And some people, it's like trust or balance, whatever, grace and gratitude, but, and most, a lot of the time it has to do with, when I talk to people, they choose something that's like, I don't wanna lose myself, or I wanna stay true to who I am, right? And of course, this is transformational work. So you're going to sort of like, transform as you go, but you don't wanna lose yourself in the journey. And I think that happens so easily, especially right now, 'cause there's so much noise, and there's so much information now coming at us all the time that we really are overwhelmed and we think we need to do all the things. So if we can take this one phrase with us, and every time something comes up, a stressful moment, a choice to be made, like, should I go and buy this $200 tea or whatever, right? We have, wait, I have something to come to all the time. Be like, is this, is this, you know, am I losing myself here? Or if I'm at the doctor's office, are they telling me to doke straight into another IVF treatment, but I don't want to, I wanted to be gentle with my body through this process and give it time, then, right? Oh, I'm gonna come back to that and recognize that. And that will really just help all the noise kind of disappear. And then there's more space that we can make intentional choices, not based in fear, which is sadly, it's hard, but it takes time. And on that note, yoga, like, let's talk about what you have to offer them. Yeah. So, how do they find you? And I think sometimes you have, like, little free testers classes. Can you tell us? Oh, the fertilebodyyoga.com for the fertility yoga. Yes. So for, okay, so we'll go to the show notes. You said fertile, yoga body, fertile, fertile body yoga, fertile body yoga. Okay, for bodyyoga.com is where you'll find some classes. And is there anywhere you want them to go to do a class? Sure. So, I've got a lot on the website. So, first, I'll just say, I don't know when you're airing this, but I do offer live stream. Everything is online six week series or longer sometimes. They're always going on. So if you want to come and you want to create community around this, so what I love about the live stream classes, well, when you're at home and you're creating sanctuary in your own space to remind you that you are capable of relaxing and renewing and doing these things. You don't have to travel. So it's really easy to get to. And then we do, like, sort of a check-in when we start the yoga practice. And this really helps with the community piece. So it's like, you got 20 other people, little screen squares on Zoom, like nodding and understanding and like, yes, and giving information back and forth. And that's one of my favorite parts of the yoga piece, the community piece. That's great. Yeah. So those are live streams. And just check out our website because we're guys when this airs, people come to these and find these. This could be years later. So, yeah. And there's lots of on-demand stuff. So if you can't make it live, there's a frozen embryo transfer program, a pregnancy loss program, an early pregnancy after IVF and loss. Because as you probably know, and experience, this is a really, it can be a highly stressful time. You finally got the pregnancy that you've been wanting. But then you've had a loss in your past or like, there's trauma that we're carrying with us into it. So how do we, how do we soften around that and like be where we are right now without being stuck in the future of the past? So, yeah, there's so much on there. There's free videos. There's, I don't know right now, I think there's like a manifestation bowl, which is not like, this is what I want and whatever, but it's like, it's a really beautiful way to tie everything in. So there's lots of things on there. Lots of yoga. It would just reach out to me, just email me and be like, I don't know where to start. Help me. I can help you. And we'll put your other social media links in the show as well. Yeah. Thank you. Carrie, thank you so much for taking time to chat today. I really appreciate it. And thanks for offering the yoga online. So and the community yoga live and on demand all online. So people have access to this. I invite our listeners to do the process. Like go forward and see what happens. Give yourself that gift and the links are down below. And Carrie, thank you very much for today. Oh, thank you so much for having me. It was a pleasure. How was that? Good. So my friend, she swears you were her acupuncturist for her son. I was like, hey, what was that? Where did you go with all because she had multiple miscarriages? And she couldn't hold the pregnancies. And she said that you are the only reason why her son is born. Well, you know, like you and I, the work that we do with respect to fertility, it's so nice to share those stories, right? Thank you for spending this time with us on the coherence code podcast. I'm Dr. Lauren Brown. and I will see you next time. see you next week for another conversation on coherence and healing. If this conversation resonated with you, please like, subscribe, or follow the show, and also share it with someone who might benefit from it as well. Remember to take a moment to breathe, reflect, and stay connected. Welcome to the Coherence Code Podcast.