EP 175: Exploring the Mystique of Childbirth with Nathan Riley

Dr. Nathan Riley is a board-certified OB-GYN and fellow of ACOG who left the medical industrial complex due to his disillusionment with the “standard of care” within the conventional maternity care model. This was hard because “going with the flow” of hospital-based practice was providing him financial security. On the other hand, standing in his truth from having sat with over 1000 births and connecting with women and their families has provided him a lifestyle more in alignment with fatherhood, deepening his connection with his wife, and caring for people in the way that he had anticipated long before stepping into practice.

Dr. Riley now focuses his time on upholding the traditional practice of midwifery. He supports midwives as a collaborative physician for midwives of all varieties in over twenty states. He is an advocate for home birth and still attends births for those in need. He boasts a C-section rate of <5% even while he was practicing within hospitals and higher-risk patients.

His mission is to uphold midwifery as the art that it is and to honor birth as a sacred process and the transition to parenthood as spiritual transformation. Dr. Riley empowers women to have babies on their own terms, using nature as our guide. He helps fathers embrace the opportunity to connect with birth and their partners through pregnancy and birth, encouraging them to go deeper versus distancing themselves from this stigmatized but magical rite of passage.

Dr. Riley is the father of two, the second of whom was born at home, and he is proudly married to his highschool sweetheart. In his spare time, he walks in the woods, makes Dad jokes, paints, and drinks coffee with amazing people.

About this episode:
Our journey takes us into the world of obstetrics and gynecology with our esteemed guest, Nathan Riley. Together, we peel back the layers of the birthing process, revealing insights into biogeometry, herbalism, and anthroposophic medicine. Nathan's holistic approach to maternal care highlights the imperative of understanding the complexities of human experiences and preserving the sanctity of childbirth.

Between the realms of birth and death, we find intriguing parallels and profound wisdom. Listen in as we explore the sacredness of these transitions, delving deep into the energetic components of childbirth, the influence of repressed trauma on the birthing experience, and the importance of intuition. We also discuss the responsibilities and joys of fatherhood, the significance of role-modeling for children, and the balance between understanding, compassion, and

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:18

Your life is your greatest work of art and it all relates back to the synchronicities. Welcome to Integrate Yourself, everybody. I'm your host, alison Palau. You can find me at FinallyThrivingBookcom. You can find my book there. You can find my audio book there, as well as amazing resources from the book like meditations and vocal toning sessions and movements that I refer to in the book that you can refer to through the website and integrate into your life by practicing it. That's why I put them on the website, so that you would have some really good resources for being able to practice that in your life. If you want to order my book or the audio book, you can go there to do that and find out more information about the book as well. If you're interested in my coaching services, you can go to AlisonPalaucom and find my services there.

Speaker 1: 1:19

I am currently getting ready to start a new Finally Thriving program class, which begins August 21st. It's going to be pretty amazing. This is class three and the first two classes were incredible. I'm really excited to start this next one. It's going to be so much fun. One thing I do with all my groups before I start is I set the energy tone for the group as people start to come in and I get a feel for what everybody needs and the energy of the group. I will gift everybody with a little gift. I'm not going to tell you what it is, it's a surprise. I will pull a card for the group as well. This one, I'm feeling like the energy is going to be more about creative abundance.

Speaker 1: 2:09

I've been getting so many people come to me lately about really learning how to tap into their authentic self and express themselves, express their truth really through their creative expression. Some of us it's really interesting because we tend to it's not that we don't create things, and sometimes people create amazing things from past trauma or suffering in the world. They've had some really traumatic experience and they make art out of that and that's beautiful. That's not the only way we have to create. That's not our only option. I had someone the other day ask me this question on a podcast that I was on and they were really confused because they're like, well, wait, don't we? You know we were talking about working on our subconscious stories and our belief systems and as we lift those stories in those programs within ourselves, then we have this unbridled ability to just create from the heart and it comes really easy and it's really joyful. And he did not understand that. He was like but wait, don't people create, mostly in the world, from a place of suffering, from past experiences they've had that they've learned from? Yeah, of course they do. This has been our world and there's nothing wrong with that. I think creative expression is a great way to move through some of that for ourselves and to express that trauma or that experience so that we're not holding it in ourselves absolutely.

Speaker 1: 3:59

The other part of this is that we don't always have to come from that place. It doesn't always have to be from a place of suffering. It can actually be from a place of joy. It can be from a place of gratitude, a place where you are receiving all the goodness in your life. You're receiving all those beautiful creative downloads and you have this vivid imagination that really helps you create anything from art in your life or just your life, which is a creative endeavor.

Speaker 1: 4:30

You look at your life and that's what you see that you created. It's the life that you're living now. Some people look at that life and they're like oh my God, I don't like this life, I don't want this life. That's when we know there is a time to make a change. That's when we start reflecting on our life. We start reflecting on really what we want, what we deeply desire, which is not always a material thing. We reflect on that and then we think about what can we focus on that would give us more of what we want and what can we let go of in our life?

Speaker 1: 5:12

As far as stories or old programming goes, things we learned or things that were projected onto us Mainly things that you learned when you were a child. You bring those into your adulthood and that's in your subconscious. You're not always aware of these things, but it is good to clean that up and get rid of the things, the reactions or responses in your life that you really don't need anymore and start to live from more of your authentic truth. That's how we become really creative. That's how we bring that pure creativity through that's not distorted because we're trying to get.

Speaker 1: 5:52

When I say distorted, I mean really. It could be anything from something that's totally terrible to do to other people to. It could even be just you wanting to get attention or needing that attention that you didn't get when you were a kid. It could be needing to be affirmed as an adult something you may have not gotten. We start giving ourselves these things that we didn't get when we were kids. It could just be as simple as that Then. Now you've brought in that part of yourself into the whole and then you can create from a very pure place where you're not really needing anything from it and you can just do it out of the joy of doing it. Now, if you get, if the outcome or the result is that you get a lot of attention from it or you get a lot of money from it, that's fantastic. That's kind of like what I consider icing on the cake. But really, for someone to be able to receive something like that and that much in that greater capacity, we really need to make space in our own consciousness to be able to accept that unconditionally, without needing anything or feeling like we're just already enough and we're already abundant coming from that place. So that's what I'm saying, and, yes, it may take us some steps to get there, but that's what we work on in my class.

Speaker 1: 7:19

We not only work on that, but we also work on, you know, our self-care. Really self-care and this is the backbone of the program is your wellness practice. How well are you taking care of yourself? And that could mean anything from what you're thinking 90% of the day to how you're eating, to how you're moving, to what you think about yourself, what you think about other people all of this goes into the mix. You know how much are you dimming yourself to fit in, how much are you making yourself small throughout the day. That's not doing anybody else any favors. It's only hurting the people who are gonna benefit from you shining your light.

Speaker 1: 8:04

So when we start to realize these things, we can show up as ourselves, and we don't have to apologize for that right, because we're doing it in a respectful, loving way. So we move into more of a love energy and less of a fear energy like motivation through fear, right, and so I, you know. I just wanted to share that with you all because these are things that have been coming into my awareness lately and what people are working on and needing right now, and so I thought that, my goodness, you know, working on your wellness practice will get you closer to your creative expression, which is really pure creativity is really how you express yourself. That's what creativity is all about, and so if we come, come from a place where we're taking care of our self, we're taking care of our wellness, then we can do that right. And so that's what we do in the finally thriving program, and we have lots of fun doing it, because I think that fun is a big part of it too.

Speaker 1: 9:08

We tend to take everything so seriously, especially as it relates to spiritual wellness. It really isn't that complicated. Is there a lot of crazy things going in the world that are complicated and hard to understand? Yes, but there's a reason for that. It's set up that way for you to be confused. So we're going to make it simple, we're going to make it fun, and it's going to be easy for you to get to know yourself being your own energy, learn about your own energy signature, experience yourself this way, and then when you go out into the world and you want to help other people, you can do that and it won't be overwhelming, right, and our bodies can handle that too when we're in that space.

Speaker 1: 9:55

So this is, you know, a holistic program, and that what that's what I wanted to offer people. It's based on my book, finally thriving. I wanted to offer an opportunity for people to be able to dive deeper into some of these principles that I talk about in the book aligning the mind, connecting with the body and learning how to listen to their spirit, listening to their inner knowing, trusting their body and focusing the energy of the mind, expanding the imagination. These are all keys to really living an abundant, beautiful life, and so I want to help everybody do that. So if you want to be a part of that next group I'm starting this next group August 21st if you want to do that, set up a free call with me so we can talk about what your needs are specifically and I'll get you signed up and I'll tell you more about the class and what you can expect from it. It's in a 12 week course in coaching programs. So you get a course with the coaching program, which will be a module every week that you can use and practice. You can integrate your practice with that module and then we're going to follow up with that with a live coaching session every week. So it's a live group coaching session. I've got now four guest speakers scheduled for that and then you have coaching with me on the other weeks as well, and this has just been pretty amazing.

Speaker 1: 11:25

We also we do story work, we do journal prompting as well, which really helps integrate the subconscious into the logical as well, and I'm a sure more about that in the class. We get clear in our intention, our values. Those are all the foundations of a healthy life, and then from there, we learn how to connect with our body, we learn how to care for our body, we learn how to trust our body and then learn how to really tap into your intuition. You know, like everybody's talking about these psychic gifts that are coming online. I'm going to teach you how to get closer to that, how to hone into that, how to practice that. Basically, you know, just for your own benefit, so that it makes your life easier. So set up that call with me if you want to sign up. I'd love to have you there. I invite all of you to be there today.

Speaker 1: 12:26

My guest is Nathan Riley. He's a holistic OBGYN and he is incredible. I had so much fun talking to him today. He is really an incredible speaker. He has so much amazing information to share about the birthing process. Today we talk about transformation through birth, what it is about birth that makes it so sacred, that the process of it and we forget that in our daily lives. But the birthing process is everything it's. It's all about creation, you know, and it's an amazing, magical kind of thing. You know. It's just like incredible, but we, you know, we don't think about it like that as much. We do when we're in the moment. I remember when my kids were born, exactly, I was in the moment. I was like wow.

Speaker 1: 13:16

And this year my story on today's show too about also my own personal experience of being a little bit traumatized in the birthing experience, of having my, my son, my first son, especially. But then I share that. You know, that is part of the learning experience and I was very naive back then too. So if I were to do it all over again, I would totally hire a midwife and I would definitely hire Nathan as well. He would be the number one person on my list, but unfortunately I did not have that option when I was that age. So that's okay. But if you now he's available and if you are looking for somebody who can teach you about all this stuff, about the holistic perspective on birth, and it's quite amazing. You know what he shares and I love his perception on the birthing process, the transformation, that transformation that the parents go through as well and how it changes your life, what our kids can teach us, and we also get into the opposite in the that spectrum and the death about death and how sacred that process is to, and and how they just both things just really cause you to slow down in your life and really reflect and get to the heart of what really matters. That's more of that. We talk about that, but so much more. This was an incredible conversation, so I hope you enjoy this as much as I did.

Speaker 1: 14:59

Without further ado, it is my honor and my pleasure to introduce you to Nathan Riley. Everybody, enjoy your life is your greatest work of art. Today I'm here with a very special guest, dr Nathan Riley. He is an MD and fellow of ACOG, thank you. Has a truly holistic OBGYN practice, upholding natural healing and the midwife free care model of birth. He brings a fresh perspective to natural fertility awareness, natural birth, family planning and what mothers and fathers can do to have a sacred birth. Thank you so much, nathan, for coming on. We've been connected for some time now and it's so nice to get to just talk with you one on one about all this stuff it is very it is a huge honor.

Speaker 2: 16:14

I feel like if you're invited on to Allison's podcast, you're doing something right. The one sort of one of the threads that kind of binds us is the, the Czech Institute, the Czech family. A lot of the people that you and I engage with regularly are either they've trained with the Czech Institute or they have some experience working with Paul or Angie as clients or whatever else, and I want to give them a shout out, because I would never have been able to do what I'm doing now without their support, and I was there sort of impromptu doctor for their second birth, and we got to know each other and have become dear friends ever since and I've met outstanding people through that world and you're just another example of that. So thank you, thank you for having me and letting me share my story a little bit today oh, thank you, nathan.

Speaker 1: 19:24

Yes, same here. I feel the same. You're wonderful and I'm so, so grateful to be connected with you. Before we get into what we're going to talk about today, can you share a little bit more, expand on your story, how you got into this sacred work around the birthing process, because that's really what you're doing, and you're doing it very differently than a standard obgyn would do it. So I would love for you to share more about that with my audience yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 19:55

You know, I think most people, when they hear the term obgyn, images of white coats and blood work and ultrasounds and hospitals and sterility and all that stuff comes to mind. Because for many women nowadays they're still having babies under the care of an obgyn and that care looks in a certain way it has a sort of there's a motif there and that's a lot of controlling aspects of nature. You know, in a clinical or hospital setting that doesn't necessarily feel great, but it's kind of what we've got. That's what people say, don't you know it's safe there, it's, it's all these things. Well, my story as an obstetrician so obgyn joins do two things. We do women's health through the gynecology lens and we do birth care, pregnancy and postpartum care and we attend childbirth for roughly 99 point. 99% of babies are under that care.

Speaker 2: 20:54

And when I was in medical school, everybody has that moment where they get to, you know, deliver a baby. It's not a pizza. You don't deliver a baby. You're there to catch the baby, to make sure the baby doesn't hit the ground. But when you're paying attention you're like, oh my gosh, what a vulnerable space to be in. This woman has her legs open in stirrups, flab on her back. A baby is emerging from what previous to that was a sexual organ. You know it's a vagina, which is the inside guys, the vulva's on the outside. There's this opening, a baby is emerging, and then the opening closes and now there's this living thing on her chest, hopefully and I mean hopefully on her chest, not on like a beauty warmer across the room.

Speaker 2: 21:37

Right when you're there with that, you're like whoa, there's like a mystique around us. This is really really compelling stuff, whereas elsewhere in medicine you always have like the answer you know, the kidneys show that they're dysfunctional in this way and the images show this, or the biopsy shows this there's no answer to birth. And that mystique is really what propelled me into the field. And the story I tell time and time again is that then that mystique starts to like kind of dissipate and now you're kind of the person controlling nature, just like farmers were forced to accept controlling how their yields and their cornrows were going by adding fertilizer and trying to implement these various technologies with tilling and whatever you know, pesticides, whatever it is. And I wasn't okay with that. I kind of felt like there's a mystery here, like where's the mystery? Can't we be curious? And that was never really incentivized for me and it's not to the discredit, necessarily of the medical industrial complex. It was maybe me just being extra curious and really being thoughtful and in compassionate around this thing that I still would never have an answer to as a man.

Speaker 2: 22:48

And fast forward, I've done. I did my residency, I did my fellowship which is an end of, you know, hospice and palliative medicine and I maintained that little kernel of like Nathan Riley-ness. There was something about this that I was going to hold near and dear and I was going to explore and investigate and be thoughtful and contemplative about this process for the rest of my life and so, fortunately, I preserved that kernel and it wasn't until, you know, fast forward, I've done all the check training. I've done biogeometry training. I've done all these herbalism training. I've done all this stuff. I've met so many great people like you in the field who've given me different language to talk about divinity around the human experience and Steiner's work, from the physical, etheric, astral to spiritual. I have all this language now. I actually recently started studying anthroposophic medicine, which made me optimistic again, because what anthroposophic medicine does is it starts with the question of what is life.

Speaker 1: 23:45

Oh yeah.

Speaker 2: 23:47

We're not talking about abortion, we're talking about, like, what is different between a plant and a rock. That's actually where you start your training in this extension of allopathic medicine, which is, you know from Steiner's work, anthroposophic medicine. And if you can't answer the question as to what makes the plant alive and the rock not alive, how are we supposed to attend to something way more complex than rocks or plants, which is the human organism? We've jumped over animals altogether. We are human beings. We have so much breath in how we interact with our environment that to simplify birth to a medical procedure never sat well.

Speaker 2: 24:27

Finding anthroposophic medicine now gave me new language and new insights into how I could sort of show up in a maybe a more well-rounded way as a human being caring for another human being. Contrast that study of what is life with medical training where you start. Day one my day one was opening up a cadaver and looking at her internal organs. She happened to have died from her varian cancer and she had gotten all this chemo and her insides were completely plastered, all this sort of sticky sort of former living tumor growth in her belly. And we're now trying to understand the human body from a dead rock, essentially. And then images, the spatial imaging. It's not a living thing you're looking at, you're not looking at a system, Blood work.

Speaker 2: 25:21

It would be like trying to do surgery on a stream. Everything is changing moment to moment, nanosecond by nanosecond Biopsies. It's a piece of dead tissue. We can't understand the human experience looking at dead tissue. We have to look at it as a bio-dynamic organism. And so that's really kind of brought me full circle, to be given permission to be more curious again and to go back to the very fundamentals of why are you alive and why is this person not alive? What the hell is the difference there? And that really means so much in attending to birth and I know you've had a couple of kids. Maybe you can share some reflections on your own births and we can start there.

Speaker 1: 26:12

Oh, wow. Yeah, there's so much that you said right there that I want to touch upon, and I will say that I had the unique experience of working on a cadaver in college as well, and I went to a school called Radford University and it used to be a nursing school and then they got these cadavers that were donated to them and, being in the pre-physical therapy program, I got to I don't know why we got to work on cadavers, but for some reason we did in our anatomy class and, yeah, I was like an older woman who had passed and her uterus was tiny. It was like that. It was like that big. I was like that does like what?

Speaker 1: 26:54

And so, yes, like you're saying, I agree with you. It's like you're seeing things in a static state and they're not really there. Isn't that life force, energy there? And that's what we need to be looking at more from that perspective instead of the static state, which I think the medical industry does so much. It's like they're studying something and that's not. That doesn't have any life in it. That doesn't make sense. So there's that, that's one thing I wanted to point out.

Speaker 2: 27:24

And then the other thing was yeah, go ahead. Organs that expands and contracts expands and contracts on a regular basis, not rhythmically throughout the whole, your whole lifetime, but periods of time. There's this expansion and contraction, just like the human heart, but we treat it as this, like a part of the car, you know, like this is your womb space. This is a valuable organ and it only looked that big when you look at a woman, but in pregnancy it's like this big. How is that possible?

Speaker 1: 27:55

I know that's what I thought. I was like whoa, it can expand that much. Oh my God, you know that was really really interesting to see. So from that, that was, I think, it. You know it was valuable for me to see what it, what everything looked like from the inside. You know, like that was a unique experience.

Speaker 1: 28:16

And then you brought up the early on. You were saying that you had experience with palliative care, you had training there, and it just reminds me of when my, when my dad passed away a couple of years ago it'll be I think the 22nd is actually February 22nd 2020 is when he passed away. So I don't know what today is, but it worked close for somewhere in that realm. So, yeah, so it's really interesting that we're talking about this today, because I think what came to me when I was there for him and helped him pass it felt like a birth, like the birthing process, you know. So it was like the same side, or the two different sides of the same coin and I was like, wow, okay, this is a sacred moment, just as birthing is a sacred moment. We're helping someone transition into the next dimension of reality, right, and so that makes sense, that you would have that kind of training as well, as you were sharing that.

Speaker 1: 29:20

I was like, yeah, that makes sense, but to most people it might not, because birth and death seem like so opposite to each other. But I feel like they're very similar, you know, but we don't get to, you know, we it's kind of it is kind of normal to be around a birth, you know, like you can be, you witness it. Now it's very accessible to do that. Death not so much. You know, we don't get the opportunity to have that sacred moment around somebody who's dying. So I just thought I'd bring that up because that was really interesting that you said that.

Speaker 2: 29:56

Yeah, yeah, I mean, I obviously feel the same way. There was something compelling about having lost my own father. I was in medical school when he passed away. He was being treated for multiple myeloma, which is a type of bone marrow originating cancer, and it just riddles the body with all sorts of tumors and the bones and I mean it's a nightmare. And I remember my dad. He was this big. We grew up and I grew up in Pittsburgh. He was this big rust belt kind of blue collar worker. He was always this towering giant to me and as I saw him dying over years he became big enough for me to carry him like a baby into the bathroom and put him on the toilet. This big guy with all this muscle and big bones and big sausage fingers, and I think that that imprinted on me something as well.

Speaker 2: 30:47

You know, when you're with a person in their final moments of dying, I actually think you can do quite a bit of harm by interfering in that process. You know we may not have the language for it, but there is a sense that if I get in the way of the hard work that my loved one is doing right now in the dying process, I could potentially set them up for some harm in whatever comes after that. The Buddhists would say you know, they can't live out their dharma if you interfere with that process of suffering, and suffering has a broad scope of meaning. But in that regard you don't give opioids to a practicing Buddhist at the end of life, because the opioids, like morphine or whatever, detaches them from the process of dying. I mean literally it discursives you from it.

Speaker 2: 31:34

So what if we looked at birth the same way? What if we intervene, you know, through the lens of Stan Groff? He has this perinatal matrices theory and Stan Groff was really famous for his work, his collaborative work with Joan Halifax, who later became a Tibetan Buddhist monk. They were using LSD for end of life and they collected all this data. But it was right in the 60s when suddenly there was this kabash on LSD and the other psychedelics. So his work was really really pivotal for me at the end of life. But then I started investigating further and he actually was also thinking about birth. So this guy was doing both and I think he was a psychiatrist, if I recall. I can't recall completely, but it doesn't really matter what your specialty is.

Speaker 2: 32:16

You can download things as I have, but in birth Stan Groff had this theory that, okay, you're inside this amniotic inverse, everything's fine. And then stuff starts closing in on you because you're getting bigger and the space is only so big and there's no way out. Like, how traumatizing is that? You know to be trapped. And then suddenly a little light opens up at the end of the tunnel and those cosmic oppressive forces you start to grapple with. If I don't get to that light, I'm gonna die. And so you do die, but you're reemerged as a human being. That's not to say you're not a human inside the womb, but this is a thought experiment.

Speaker 2: 32:56

After that those cosmic oppressive forces are resolved and you go through this death rebirth cycle. You emerge now in the Earth's school and you've got 90 years or so to do whatever you're here to do. Not that that's like your life purpose. It could mean that, but it's actually far greater than that. Why are you here? Why are you alive? Why are you different from the plants?

Speaker 2: 33:16

It goes back into that what I was saying before. If we think about that in the reverse direction, in death. And then actually you emerge, you see the light and you go towards the light. It's kind of this repeated cycle. Why wouldn't we overlap birth and death? These are two incredibly important points in our life. I have the privilege of being able to sit and perhaps contemplate and maybe eventually write something about it in the future. I think everybody's a little too quick to write their books Before I can actually say anything. That's super profound, but there is definitely the essence of birth in death and vice versa. I don't know if death is the beginning or death is the end. You'd have to say of what.

Speaker 2: 34:03

The next question is what happens when we die? Where did we come from when we were born? Just so many great questions come out of that. The exercise through these curious questions, I think, is what makes this work so interesting for anybody in the wellness space. This is really where it's at. It's not your carbs and your calories and all of that. What the hell? Why am I alive? What am I doing here? How am I going to stay alive? At some point I'm not going to be alive anymore. Why does that happen?

Speaker 1: 34:32

Right. No, those are the big questions. I know that's what's been driving me for so long. I don't understand sometimes why people aren't curious about that. It's like, why wouldn't you be? Yeah, like you said, they're very similar. If we really think about it, they're very similar in sacred and much alike birth and death process.

Speaker 1: 34:59

I want to talk because your specialty is the birth process. You're there for people and you hold space and you explain it. When I heard you talking about this on Amy Fournier's show Awakening Aphrodite, you were saying we were having a discussion, we were on a panel together and talking about how you're doing less actually as an OBGYN and practitioner Letting the birthing process happen the way it needs to happen for that person, for the baby. I love that because my own birthing process with my two kids the first time I was really young, like we were talking before the show you had mentioned I was primed for that. I was perfect age.

Speaker 1: 35:53

I did feel like that, but I also felt like I was so naive about what was about to happen. I just didn't, and times were different. It just was when we didn't. I didn't have access to the things that are available now for women that are just amazing. I just felt like a little bit in the dark and I thought I was an athlete, a gymnast. For a long time I thought this would be easy. My mom had an easy time with her births, although she says that, but she was actually put to sleep for her births. That's a little different. That's the way they did it back then. Yeah, she's like oh, it was great. I'm like I'm sure it was. But so in my mind I was like this would be easy.

Speaker 2: 36:41

What's that? I'll add something to that when you're finished.

Speaker 1: 36:44

Okay, yeah, we could talk about that too. That's a whole nother can of worms there. So for me, it took me a really it was a very stress. I'll say my first pregnancy was extremely stressful. I had, you know, from being a gymnast, real tight hips, and it was.

Speaker 1: 37:03

It took me a really long time to dilate and I was in a lot of pain and I was in labor for about 24 hours and they kept sending I would go to the hospital and they'd send me home. They did that three times and finally I was like I'm not going home, I'm having this baby, and I started to scream because I was in so much pain. It really felt like I was being pulled from both directions, you know. And later I'm realizing that I was having back spasms. So that was, you know, not only was I in labor, I was also having back spasms, debilitating back spasms, so, but I'd never felt like I'd never felt a back spasm before that. So I didn't know what was happening. I thought, oh, this is just part of labor and this is horrible. So there was all this stress and then I was in the hospital and I started screaming and the nurse told me to shut up and I was like what? And yeah, and it really and this relates to what my journey is now with voice, because I was really, you know, in that moment where I should have had every right to scream as loud as I wanted to or make any noise that I needed to, because noises are part of birth. Now that I've learned down the road, like those are actually, you know, a portal in a way. The sounds that you make through birthing as well, in order to help the facilitate it, because we've been using these kind, you know, sounds, certain sounds, forever with women, and so, to be to have my voice just like censored, like that, it just felt like, of course, I was young, I didn't know what to do, and then I just felt like so, so suppressed, and that made the birthing much worse, and so it just kind of kept going downhill from there and then my water broke and I was in so much pain. They were like I was like, please give me it. I didn't know any much about chemicals and stuff back then, so I was, please give me an epidural. I'm in so much pain and I'm like I'm not sure we can do that, but then they decided the last minute to do it and it, you know, of course, created a lot of issues for my lower spine later on too.

Speaker 1: 39:18

So my son, my first son, came out with a mercant. He had inhaled merconium and of course, you know, there was so much stress going on. It makes sense that that would have happened so, right away the the respiratory therapist, which did a wonderful job, and I'm very grateful for them they took him away and cleaned him out and saved his life, because he wasn't breathing when he came out, and then he had to be in the, in the, in the Nick unit, for three days, and so it was quite a stressful event and part of me was very disconnected because I'd just gone through all of this with my body and I was like, oh my gosh. You know, it was hard for me to connect with my son right then because I had gone through so much trauma and I just felt hollow, you know. And then I would say, about a week later it kicked in that, oh my God, okay, I can do this. You know I'm doing this. Yes, I feel connected to my baby, but it took a good week and I, just because I just didn't, I just was like, oh, I don't know if I can do this, you know.

Speaker 1: 40:31

So that was my first birthing experience and you know I had taken LeMau's classes and all those things, but I didn't have a midwife, which if I were to do it all again, I would have hired a midwife for sure and done it differently. But again, we go through these things because we're supposed to, you know, and so I honored that and I learned from it, and so you know that was, that was my experience. But I will say that the way you describe a lot of the people that you work with, it sounds like so much more joyful. When you talk about ox, is it oxytocin that gets produced is what creates that love and that joy in the moment. Yeah, yeah. So I would love to for you to share more about that as well and how that makes the experience different than like a very stressful experience which is more of a medical procedure experience. Right, is what it felt like for me.

Speaker 2: 41:27

Yeah, I'm taking notes here because you brought up so many great points. I mean, in just that story alone there's so much to talk about and for anybody listening. I don't want anybody ever to hear stories and then feel bad about how their birth went. You know, one of the most important things that you said is hey, it all happened to me. For that, in that way, for some reason, I really believe that. I really believe that, despite every one of your efforts, sometimes things just aren't going to go the way that you thought or hoped or dreamt that they would.

Speaker 2: 42:00

That doesn't mean it was a bad birth. It's just like a psychedelic journey. If you've ever done a dose of mushrooms or LSD or even in some really deep, certain breath work practices, it may be hard but it wasn't like that sucked or what a bad trip it was or whatever else. You were taken through that experience for all of the right reasons, and so that's not diminishing how hard it was for you, allison, or anybody out there listening. Even Angie Czech, who we were both familiar with and I was her doctor she ended up with a repeat C-section after desiring a home birth, vaginal birth after a prior C-section had a midwife, had it all done, right. She was in labor for like 36 hours and it just didn't happen. The baby was like I'm not doing it, yeah.

Speaker 1: 42:52

That's what I feel like is going on. You said that perfectly. The baby is deciding how they want to come out right.

Speaker 2: 43:01

Yeah, I had this really interesting experience with a client one time who had gone into a regression therapy with her therapist and she was struggling with having had a C-section and she was beating herself up over it. And how did this happen? I did all the right things, blah, blah, blah. There's a lot that's not in your control. So in this therapy session she actually managed to somehow go into the womb with her baby, which had already been born. So she was back in there. The baby was indicating into the pelvis I didn't want to go through there and she looks down into her own pelvis, sitting next to her fetus inside the womb, and sees what she described as cobwebs and a dark, damp cellar. It just didn't look like a safe place to go through. So the baby said I had to come out the other way. Oh, wow, and it turns out, yeah, from this regression therapy session.

Speaker 2: 43:56

She apparently had a whole bunch of sexual abuse in her childhood that had never been opened up. It was repressed and it was stored. I don't know what we say. We can use all this funny language that says we've read fancy books and nobody really fucking knows. Sorry for cursing, no, it's okay.

Speaker 2: 44:14

It's like something stored in her body and the baby knew that. And the baby was saying, mama, I'm not going through there, I got to come out the other way. So if you ended up with a C-section, it has nothing to do with you. Now, if you maybe aren't working with a check coach or a holistic lifestyle coach or a doctor like me who has some understanding of how we can dial in your diet, your movement, your breathing, your hydration, your mindset, your sleep, those are all things that are in your control. And if you haven't done any of those and you develop gestational diabetes and your babies haven't heard time or whatever, maybe we could have done something better. But it's also water under the bridge. There's no shame. It's the birth that you had and hopefully there is some silver lining. There's a lesson to be taken from that.

Speaker 2: 45:02

That story that I told you about the baby that didn't want to go through, that pelvis that had all this whatever you want to call it, the energetic bad juju, whatever you want to call it that story is actually like a medicine story for so many people that come into my practice because it wasn't your fault it probably is never anybody's fault when they have a C-section.

Speaker 2: 45:24

We also have a medical industrial complex that is probably too low of a threshold to do surgery. But all of that aside, even when women go full in on healthy lifestyle, they have all the money in the world and they want to have the best doctor, best midwife. Sometimes things just don't go the way that you want it to, and there is always a story, there's always a unknown reason that maybe you won't even know until you're on your deathbed and something comes to you, this epiphany. You get a signal from afar, and that's okay too. But there is where this curiosity comes from. It's not just doctors are bad and they do C-sections. Sometimes babies have actually the say in this, and that's that yeah.

Speaker 1: 46:05

I love that you said that. That makes so much sense to me. Yeah, because there's so many other energetic components. I mean, why wouldn't it be? This is birth. This is huge deal.

Speaker 2: 46:19

We don't know what causes labor Allison. We don't even know what starts labor, let alone why. A baby would decide I'm not going out through the vagina. And for those women out there, sometimes babies die in childbirth as well, and it could be that the baby was unfit for the process. I think that that actually is a part of being mortal and that's not a popular opinion. But furthermore, for women who are abjectly refusing C-section, their baby might say okay, I'm going to leave and come back when we can do this a different way, because I'm not going through there for whatever reason. So the baby died in the childbirth process.

Speaker 2: 46:52

We blame it on the woman for making a bad decision or the doctors for not doing the right surgery or whatever else, when it could have just been the baby had this plan all along. I'm not going through there and I'll just come back when you're ready, when you're ready to do this right, because I'm not going through that pelvis. Who knows, who knows. This is why this is cool. I don't want to say it's fun to think about, because nobody wants to have to honor a passing baby Like God. What a traumatic, horrible thing to go through Sometimes. It's not. You don't have that say, we like to think that you're in charge, through a reductive lens, of childbirth, but there's a lot we don't know, and that does make this a little bit more interesting and fun to kind of pontificate.

Speaker 1: 47:35

Absolutely. Yeah, we don't think of babies as being pure energy, pure consciousness coming in. They know already what's going on, probably better than we do, and I have worked with clients before who've lost babies during childbirth or before, and then they have another soul that wants to come in, and very successfully. So that does happen. I see what you're saying there. Yeah, I've seen that happen and through. I mean, my practice is different than yours, of course, but the people that I work with are. You know, there was a stretch of time where I was working with a lot of women that were trying to get pregnant, and then that happened to a few of them and it was really heartbreaking, but also it allowed them to create the space to grow during that span of time, and then they, then another soul, hopped in and presented themselves. So that was really beautiful too.

Speaker 2: 48:42

Yeah, totally, and I think a lot of women more so than men because they're growing a baby, like they're starting to get little inklings, their intuition starts kicking in again when they get pregnant. And all of that conditioning that they've been told. You know, we know best, we know the images show this and the labs show this and the ultrasound or whatever shows this. A lot of women are pushing back on that because their intuition is telling them I don't know if that's the right way to do it they're baby, they're in communication with their baby at all times and it's not going to come to you like a text message necessarily. It's going to be a feeling in your solar plexus, in your gut. Something's not right about this. When that intuition is dismissed, let's say a doctor comes in and says I'm sorry, I have to check your baby, and the woman says no, I don't want your hands in there. And they say we have to do it for the baby and they have forced your legs open, pull your legs up to your shoulder.

Speaker 2: 49:37

The partners asked to be complicit in this process. That also can lead to a lot of trauma. So there's a lot of trauma happening in this space, not just in how we give birth, but also the way that the system I'm using air quotes on my end treats this as a medical procedure. So there's a lot of women you may be able to pet them. A lot of my friends, even my wife, wasn't really thrilled with her first birth, which was an undisturbed, so to speak, unmedicated, natural birth in the hospital. The second was at home and it was actually very healing. But there was something about the experience I got the sense hearing her tell her birth story and sort of finding some closure to that that she didn't really feel witnessed in that process. Her intuition wasn't necessarily treated as authoritative knowledge and something about. I'm putting words in her mouth, but I've heard this from so many other women.

Speaker 1: 50:33

No, I felt that way as well.

Speaker 2: 50:35

Yeah, definitely, and I mean I got a little hint of that from your story. When we aren't treating women as the sacred power spots that they are, they're about to bring a baby into the world, when we're not treating that as more of a sacred unfolding, as opposed to treating it like a medical procedure, a lot of trauma is happening there. So we have generations of women now who are having babies in the hands of well, good intentioned midwives and doctors, but they're not really being present and bearing witness to what this person that they're there to care for they took an oath to care for. They're not really bearing witness to that. They're just focused on the physical reality of babies coming out heart rates, blood work, blah, blah, blah, all that stuff and they lose the big picture. And when we lose that big picture, I think women leave the experience feeling like something wasn't right. So what I do in my practice actually a big part of my work in Beloved Holistics is helping people to reclaim their power.

Speaker 2: 51:31

There's a lot of responsibility that comes with being pregnant, but if you take responsibility for your actions what is controllable you also have to accept the outcomes. If you've done everything in your power, then the outcomes actually aren't important. You can just do your very best, and that is a deconditioning process when women find themselves pregnant In your case, at age 28,. You find yourself pregnant and suddenly now you have to make decisions that are going to last this entire lifetime for this child and perhaps the lifetime of their children, through genetic imprinting or epigenetics, transgenerational trauma being passed down, all of that stuff. So there's a lot more to this than what does the ultrasound show and what does your doctor have to say. What do you feel inside? And whatever you feel you have to be prepared to act on, because nobody's going to take care of this baby later. So let's start practicing saying no. Let's start practicing saying fuck yes when things just feel right or wrong.

Speaker 1: 52:29

I love that. That's something I've just now started doing in my life and I'm 50.

Speaker 2: 52:35

Me too. Just the other day I was like this doesn't feel right, I'm going to not do this thing anymore. But is that okay? You have to get permission from somebody out there, I guess, to do the thing, that we need.

Speaker 2: 52:48

It's a journey, everything is ceremony, this whole thing. We're all just trying to figure it out. There's nobody out there with the answer. You have the answer as much as anybody else. We're just here as doctors and midwives to provide you with additional information so that you can be sure about your decision and you can feel like you've turned over every rock possible, from fertility all the way through parenting.

Speaker 1: 53:12

Yeah, what are your thoughts, nathan on? Because I believe that even if we have these experiences and some of it we have no control over like you said, with the outcome, making peace with that and then healing the parts that need to be healed from that can actually help our kids that we've had and the trauma they may have experienced. I feel like by healing myself and going through taking these opportunities for self-growth, the energy with them changes. They feel that too. Even if you have made mistakes as a parent or you feel like you've messed up, you can always rectify that by changing the energy around it. What do you think about that?

Speaker 2: 54:09

Yeah, I was so deeply present with your words that I kind of lost the question, but I think I get the question because I live it every day. We've got a three-year-old and a one-year-old and we had a home birth in our second, 50 feet from where I'm sitting, from the moment that that baby emerges. I'm going to just speak from the lens of a father. Not very many men are modeled what fatherhood actually means.

Speaker 2: 54:39

You're not just the person in your household. Perhaps if it's a let's say, it's a traditional household. You've got the white picket fence, you've got a portion, then you've got an SUV, whatever, and you're the breadwinner, you're the man. You're big and strong, you've taken care of your physique, you have, you're, a crossfit, whatever, I don't know whatever. You've got it all dialed in. Nobody ever tells you what it really means to be a dad, because all of that stuff is great being a provider for the family and being strong and not crying at every sad point in the movie, whatever you've been trained to do by your dad, your grandfather, all the men in your life fine. But when you are a dad, like now, you are holding your baby and you're looking at them and they are screaming in your face and you have nothing to offer them except presence and grounding. What the fuck is actually there for the dads Like? Who is actually helping us go through that?

Speaker 1: 55:37

Not many people yeah.

Speaker 2: 55:40

I'm going to be launching a course in the coming months. I don't know when this episode is going to air, but it's called the Born Free Method and there's a whole unit for the dads or the partners, because not every relationship is a man and a woman necessarily, but the person who's not carrying the baby has an extra diligence there, or there's an extra level of self-development and self-identification, because you're going to have to give a piece of you to this little baby who's going to call you dad literally for the rest of their life. It doesn't matter if you're an absentee or you're the most involved father in the world. You are their father and they're going to treat you like that. What does that mean? It means learning how to slow down and be present with your kids and love them through the darkest times so that they know how to relate to other people when those other people are going through dark things. It's not stoicism I don't care what Seneca and all those Ryan Holiday's book and Tim Ferriss and all that's like stoicism is bullshit. It is a part of what is to be a father being stoic while a baby is screaming at you and feeling okay, to be vulnerable with them and to cry when it's hard to your partner, to be able to be angry and frustrated and to actually emote, showing this child that you have the full range of emotions. You're not a statue out there lifting weights. You are a human being who's just doing your best.

Speaker 2: 57:06

That modeling comes through and there's a couple people in my life that I think have done it really well. I think Kyle Kingsbury is a dear friend of mine. He and I talk about parenting on a daily basis and we're still both trying to figure out. But when I leave his house I know that that guy has been through some really hard things and he shows up with his kids in the most loving, kind, soft way. The guy's 6'4". He's built like a Greek god, but he can be so vulnerable and give you the best hugs and kisses that you've ever had.

Speaker 2: 57:37

That's the type of work in the modeling that I'm trying to also provide dads in the space, because your woman is going to have a baby. This is way more than that. You are going through a spiritual transformation and archetypal transformation through and through. If you're only worried about the moment of birth, which goes by like that, you're solely going to be sorely unprepared for having to give a piece of yourself for the first time to this little baby. To answer your question now that I've given this 4-hour diatribe, I will say that your kids are going to learn how to know themselves.

Speaker 2: 58:27

They're going to better understand how to know other people, how to treat other people and how to show up, taking responsibility for themselves, their feelings, what they say, and the integrity that we're lacking in the world, the compassion that we're lacking in the world. Being happy and confident in who you are that is really, I think, at the forefront of my mind every time I have any interaction with my kids, because they're going to learn everything from me, including when it's okay to cry, when it's not okay to cry, when it's okay to smile, when it's okay to be unhappy, whenever we need to be able to show up as our authentic selves and not give them some facade as to what a man or a woman, for that matter is supposed to be. We are still sexual beings. We are still desperately in love with the person who gave birth to you.

Speaker 2: 59:16

If you're looking from the lens of a father we are going to, somebody like Kyle Kingsbury could walk in through the door. He will have to rip my fucking head off before he gets to my kids. That is okay to also be very productive, but we need to give them the. We have to encourage them to be who they are, to explore and to continue to be curious and to see the world through a child's eyes. I actually think that's what we desperately need in the world.

Speaker 1: 59:42

Yeah, I agree with that so much. Yeah, it's being the role model for our kids that we're just being ourselves, we're showing them how to be themselves, but they don't know. If we have put up a facade, it becomes very confusing for kids. They don't know. It's very hard for them to decipher between what's real and what's not. Then when they get out into the world, it gets even more confusing. It's better to be honest with your kids and put it out there, but also be apparent too and find the balance there.

Speaker 1: 1:00:17

Yeah, I mean, my husband has been. He's like the best dad and I just really am so grateful for him and the energy he brings to our two sons and just has. Have there been some crazy moments? Have there been some bad moments? For sure, but that's part of life and he teaches them that and he's honest with them about things and he's very understanding and compassionate. He's helping them with all that he's. For me, having two sons, it was uncomfortable as a woman sometimes with some of the conflict that men have getting used to that. Then I realized, oh, it's a part of being a man. They need to go through this and that's okay. The father role is so important and a lot of men don't think it's important early on, but it is like you said. I love how you put the presence and just being there is important. It's really important yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:01:31

I'll also add, just because I think your listeners will appreciate this I was at a breaking point at about six months. We have two little girls, by the way, so it's the same. I had this experience with the feminine energy and trying to figure out dial in my yin and yang balance in order to show them that I'm not just a man, I also have a lot of feminine energy. You know vice versa for you. But at about the six-month mark, I was struggling with the idea that this kid is screaming it in my face and I can't do anything. I don't have breasts, I don't have mom's smell. I wasn't connected to this kid for 10 months in the uterus. What am I going to do? Well, that holding space thing was really hard because my monkey mind was going and I was tired. I was sleep deprived, but I was also just exhausted from not being able to help. From what I the way I would conceive of helping somebody who's having a hard time. I had to do a really deep medicine ceremony and came out of that. It was a very large dose of mushrooms, if you're curious. It was by myself and I was just going through it. I had this image of being in a void where I had all of the knowledge that I could ever know, all the stuff I ever wanted to achieve. But I was alone in this space. It was my ego just banging my head off of the wall. I had to reconcile that I was unwilling to give a piece of me to this child.

Speaker 2: 1:02:58

Things change when you become a parent Again. Everybody's like they just fit into your life or whatever else and people think you're doing great because you have a podcast and your Instagram looks great. It is really hard and it's okay for you to have to do some deep inner reflective work. Ideally before. That's the work I do with my clients. I actually work as much with men as I do with their pregnant partners.

Speaker 2: 1:03:24

But in this journey I came out of it and the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes and my dog had eight eyeballs. I mean I was really in deep the bassinet in our bedroom and I just cried for four hours. How badly did I want to be a father to this little girl. I can't give her any of my presence. So I always say my greatest currency with children is not time, it's not my job or the money, it's actually my presence with them. They want to be looking into you. They're not seeing your blue eyes, they're seeing you and all of your glory. What part of that do you want them to see? You need them to see all of it. And it required that medicine journey for me to really understand what fatherhood meant to me. And it was like four hours. And then I remember getting a load of laundry after I was coming down and I was folding her little underwear, her reusable diapers, and I was just like, oh, it's such an honor to be able to fold these little diapers.

Speaker 2: 1:04:27

Even my wife something has changed in you ever since that journey, but it doesn't get like I have it all figured out. It was just the initiation. You said you were ready. Well, let's fucking go, man.

Speaker 1: 1:04:39

That happens instantaneously.

Speaker 2: 1:04:41

Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah that's amazing.

Speaker 1: 1:04:44

I love that. Thank you so much for sharing that, nathan. Yes, that is it. That is all there is. That is the most important aspect of being a parent. I've learned over the years too, and it was really hard for me early on, because I was tired too and I was like stressed, but then I was like I'm not working anymore. I got to be present for them, and even then it was hard. So for me, my life is just preparing that presence, and I still sometimes have a hard time with it, and I got to get out of my own thing and then be with them. That's all they want. They just want us to be present with them in the moment. I remind myself of that constantly because I remember not getting that as much when I was a kid, too, and how that felt, and so you know I do the best I can to do that for them, absolutely, yeah, yeah, well, thank you, nathan.

Speaker 1: 1:05:38

This has been an incredible conversation. We talked about a lot of different things, but I feel like this is going to give everybody so much value and insight, both on what you do, what you offer, and more on the birthing process and even the death process, you know for people Would you want to share? You did mention your course, which you're doing. Is it through the check Institute? Is that where you're offering it, or no? I thought maybe they were helping you promote it or something, or you were affiliated there somehow.

Speaker 2: 1:06:11

I have a course at the check Institute. It's my natural fertility course that is up and available as we speak. It really it comes with a 150 page course manual and the course is only like 130 bucks. But anybody out there who's struggling with fertility, that's the. That's where I send them first, because I don't have time to go through everything I've learned over all of these years. But most of it is actually incorporated there. Okay, cool. I also have a PRP. My PRP fertility program is way more comprehensive. You meet with me and seven other practitioners. It's a higher price point, but it's a fraction of the cost of IVF. So if you're oh yeah, with that is the only option, let's at least dial in your health so that, a, maybe you can conceive naturally likely, or B, if you end up going the IVF route, it's going to actually work and you've dialed in all of the causes of your fertility challenges, from the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual levels. The check fertility course is actually included in that price. You get access to it, and then there's so many other things. People can go to my website to learn more about that. It's belovedholisticscom.

Speaker 2: 1:07:17

The course that is going to be coming out is called the Born Free Method, which really You've scratched the surface, maybe 1.50 of what's covered in that course, but it really. It starts with the deconditioning that you don't have any power or say in your life. And let's apply that new reclaimed power to what you have the ability to control in pregnancy, through childbirth, into postpartum. But it goes through everything many, many, many scenarios that you could arise at within pregnancy and childbirth. Again, because I'm not available to counsel every single person through every pregnancy. I'm super busy. So this course will be available. It'll be at bornfreemethodcom. Both websites will be combined at bornfreemethodcom, but neither here nor there.

Speaker 1: 1:08:01

Wonderful. Yeah, I heard you have some good music with that too.

Speaker 2: 1:08:06

Yeah, we've got a so much. Who's a buddy of yours, Ian Morris, actually are collaborating on the soundtrack. What I've told people is it's kind of like if you were to blend Kendrick Lamar with Yonsei with the black keys, you would have our soundtrack. It's pretty dope.

Speaker 2: 1:08:27

Oh that's awesome. So, yeah, so everything is available at my website. I also do work one-on-one with people people who want pregnancy support. They just buy a package at my website. I also have health coaches that I work with. For some people, I just say go and see Kirstie Pratt or whoever who's another check practitioner. She's actually helps a lot with Paul and Angie's Instagram and all of that. I only work with people that I really trust their work. So if you go to my website, you'll see the types of people who are your people as well, but they're the best at what they do in the biz and their various specialties. So I'm not messing around. We're only doing works here. We're not fluffing this up. We're not going to say I took a weekend workshop and here's the five steps to doing whatever. We're going to get to the heart of your issues and we're going to at least try to nudge you onto the right path. Everything's a journey. Yeah, and that's that.

Speaker 1: 1:09:23

Fertility is a big one and we didn't really get into that today, but we'll have to have to have you back on the show later to talk about that. Yeah, because that's a big one. Thank you so much, nathan. I really appreciate you and it was so nice to connect today and talk about some amazing things. Thank you, my pleasure.

Speaker 2: 1:09:41

Allison, thank you, and to all of your audience out there, thank you for listening to Good Podcast. There's a lot of junk out there. Allison's podcast is not junk and it's a real honor in being invited here to speak with you today.

Speaker 1: 1:09:54

Thank you, nathan, you're amazing, you're the best. Can't wait to connect in person.

Speaker 2: 1:09:59

Yeah, likewise. Likewise, all right.

Speaker 1: 1:10:07

I believe bliss is a spiritual experience and you can't find this without first learning how to play, make mistakes and have fun, fun, fun, fun. But it's hard to experience bliss until you've learned how to surrender to what you cannot control, control, control, control. It's more fun to roll with life most times and, of course, control what you can, but let go of what you cannot and hand that over to the universe or your higher self, your self. Your joy lies in the idea that many times, life does not unfold the way we always expect or plan, but it does unfold the way that is right for each of us, giving us exactly what we need without losing anything. Oftentimes, the result is even better than what we could have ever imagined, ever imagined, ever imagined Because we opened ourselves up to infinite possibility, possibility, possibility. Embracing the unknown in your life is like watching a good movie and waiting for the next clue as to what could come next, with curiosity and excitement, curiosity and excitement, curiosity and excitement, curiosity and excitement, curiosity and excitement.

Speaker 1: 1:11:48

What you discover along the way in your life is important and it all relates back to you being able to see the beauty and bringing awareness to the synchronicities. Your life is your greatest work of art. We are all artists in that way and you get to create your life anywhere you like. That's the fun part. And having fun, I believe, is a spiritual experience, experience, experience Experience, and it all relates back to the synchronicities. And having fun, I believe, is a spiritual experience, experience, experience, and it all relates back to the synchronicities. Your life is your greatest work of art and it all relates back to the synchronicity of the synchronicity.